Destroying the "But Everyone Thought Saddam Had WMDs, So the War Was Justified" Argument
By Sick of arguments to the effect that anyone claiming that Bush was less than fully candid in making the case for a disastrous war must be arguing in bad faith? It’s your lucky day, because Matthew Bargainer has the antidote:
A recap of the antiwar basics regarding WMD:
1. The whole WMD construct was a fraud. It allowed the War Party to conflate WWI-era battlefield weapons (e.g., mustard gas) and high-tech bioweapons of thus-far-limited destruction (e.g., anthrax) with nuclear weapons of transatlantic range. Moreover, the supplementary “dual use” construct meant that, in the absence of actual WMD, the War Party planned to hold up virtually any factory (see Khartoum, 1998) or laboratory as “evidence” of WMD production. It’s not hard to slam dunk when you lower the rim to five feet and expand it to encompass the entire court.
2. After years of inspections, the notion that Iraq possessed or was anywhere near possessing nukes, or the means to hit the U.S. with them, had been rendered unreasonable. (Andrew can post some of these if he’d like.)
3. Insofar as any war opponents made the WMD argument Sullivan describes, they were (a) talking about the use of battlefield weapons on invading U.S. troops (not U.S. territory) and/or (b) pointing out a suspicious recklessness in the warmongers’ approach to Iraq. If the hysterics sincerely believed their own claims about Saddam’s arsenal, then they sure seemed weirdly eager to thrust hundreds of thousands of young Americans (and millions of innocent bystanders) into the open jaws of Hell.
4. A lie is not a mistake, and there can be no doubt that the administration and its amplifiers lied when they repeatedly said they knew Iraq had WMD. If I say, “I believe Salma Hayek is in love with me,” I might be making an honest mistake, albeit one that reveals my ignorance of Ms. Hayek, my excessive self-regard, and ultimately, my lousy grasp of reality. But if I say, “I know Salma Hayek is in love with me,” and buttress that claim with half-truths, forgeries, and the suppression of evidence to the contrary, then I am lying. Period. The hair has been split to an irreducible point.
Point 1 is particularly important. Sure, I thought that Saddam probably had what are classified as “WMD,” but there was no reason whatsoever to believe that he has WMDs that were more potent than conventional weapons or posed any danger to American civilians, which is the only thing that actually, you know, matters.
(Via Jim Henley.)