So we are currently three months into a post-war Iraq, and still no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been found. WMD was the crux of the administration’s argument that Iraq was a dangerous country, and was what put most Americans over the edge to support the move towards war with Iraq.
The NewsHour has a great lead in to this point, and how (rightfully so) the tune has changed in the administration:
TERENCE SMITH: Now, three months since Saddam Hussein fell from power — and pedestal — none of the Iraqi leader’s weapons of mass destruction has been found — and the certainty about Iraq’s weapons before and during the war…
DONALD RUMSFELD: We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
TERENCE SMITH: …Has been modified post-war.
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER CONDOLEEZZA RICE: No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were; where they were stored.
The real question here to me is not whether there were or weren’t WMD, but rather was the intelligence flawed, or did we just get out and out lied to? Almost just as disturbing is that the majority of Americans don’t seem to care, and how ill informed they are, again I’ll quote the NewsHour since i can’t seem to find the original poll:
The issue has had little resonance with an American public seemingly satisfied with the successful overthrow of the Iraqi regime. In one poll conducted by the University of Maryland, a third of poll respondents believed that banned weapons have been located; 22 percent believed – wrongly — that chemical or biological weapons were used against American troops. But the questions keep coming.
I’ll be curious to see how much of an issue this becomes in the upcoming presidential election.
