No Weapons of Mass Destruction

Today it was announced that the U.S. had recently abandoned its efforts to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The failure of the United States to find these weapons or programs for their development troubles me not nearly such much as the post war revelation that differences between CIA and Department of Energy analysts over the possible uses for the aluminum tubes that became the basis for the administration charge that a nuclear weapons program was being reestablished by the Iraqi government were not shared with the Congress. This is especially damning as all of the key players in the administration were aware of the withholding of this information while the Congress was being asked to back the attack.

For months after the war was instigated and prior to the revelation, Members of Congress were repeatedly castigated by the president and other key officials for complaining about the war after authorizing it based on the same information the administration had used to seek Congressional authority for the venture.

Based on everything I’ve read and heard, the President, the CIA, the Department of Defense and most of our allies believed that weapons of mass destruction were in the hands of the Iraqi military. Based on the limited public information, I held these same beliefs about Iraq’s weapons, and I see no reason to condemn the administration on this one point even though it is the most important item of intelligence failure by the government during the prewar period.

My complaint before the attack had little to do with weapons intelligence. Rather, it was based on our failure to permit U.N. weapons inspectors to complete their program prior to going to war. I also did not believe that the administration had made its case that Iraq was an immediate threat to us or to our allies in the region. And our naked bullying of the Security Council members and our clear intent to attack Iraq without such inspection program and without a grand coalition summed up my problems.

It was also my deeply held belief that that the prattle that our military would be welcomed as liberators and that we could deliver Western style democracy and freedom to the people of Iraq was incorrect – at least in anything resembling a reasonable time frame.

That I believe I was right on these points gives me no comfort. But I do not believe that we can castigate the president about our inability to find evidence of weapons or programs to develop them.

Wild Bill