I will echo JD on this one.
JD,
Excellent post and I believe there was another thread where this very subject was brought up and the article posted. The amazing thing to me is that there are those detractors out there jumping up to say that beyond the shadow of a doubt the Bush Administration lied about WMD and everything else to sell this war to the American people. The sad part about that is that they have nothing to sunstantiate the claim that they did lie all the while the troops haven't even stopped looking and have a lot of territory to cover before they're done.
To me it's like telling someone you can put jigsaw puzzles together, having them give you one and after five minutes they walk back into the room, see that you only have a few pieces of a corner put together and declare you lied about being able to work a jigsaw puzzle. It's insane to say the least. It is however a loosing arguement in that those that believe they lied will always believe they lied even if the troops pull up billions of tons of everything imaginable. We will have to agree to disagree on the subject but it is humorous to listen to the other side of the issue. All of the arguements I've heard for this border on lunacy but that's just my opinion and I can't possibly know anything since I'm a believer in the administration and evidently a "sheeple" (SP?) according to those I believe to be a bit "touched" or "odd" if you know what I mean
To each his or her own. I'll stick to believing evidence in "support of" since there is some (although not large amounts) rather than believing in the "lied" hypothesis since there is no evidence to support the accusation (not yet anyway, and I do not believe there ever will be)
DRC
Edited:
I brought this over from the Mega WMD cluster...er... I mean thread. This posted by Mike Erwin from the Washington Post:
"Surprising editorial from the Washington Post on WMDs...
"WE ARE DETERMINED to discover the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes," President Bush said Saturday. That switch from his previous attempts to dismiss the issue was important, and so is the administration's deployment of a 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group that will restart the search for banned chemical, biological and nuclear materials. The debate in Washington over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the administration's prewar intelligence about them is becoming more overheated and uninformed -- and the best way to bring it back to earth will be the collection of fresh evidence about what happened to the illegal arms that Iraq was known to possess in the 1990s. If they are found, then much of the public discussion of the past few weeks will be rendered irrelevant. If they are not, then both the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence agencies will suffer a serious loss of credibility -- one that could compromise efforts to disarm or contain the rogue states with WMD that continue to threaten the world.
The absence of facts hasn't stopped critics of the war from rushing to the conclusion that no WMD exist, or that Mr. Bush and his top aides manufactured a case for war by strong-arming U.S. intelligence officials and distorting the evidence. Some of the claims made by Mr. Bush -- such as his assertion that Iraq sought to buy nuclear material from an African country -- indeed have proven false. The administration's argument that Saddam Hussein had a relationship with al Qaeda looks unconvincing to many independent observers, just as it did before the war. Reports that senior Pentagon and White House officials may have pressured intelligence analysts to reach certain conclusions are disturbing and merit the probes now being conducted by Congress. The results of those investigations, and as much of the evidence as possible, should be fully and publicly aired.
It nevertheless remains true that a wide range of governments, agencies and individuals outside the Bush administration looked at the same or their own evidence about Iraq and drew the same fundamental conclusion -- that Saddam Hussein was defying repeated U.N. disarmament orders. The Clinton administration, the governments of Britain, Germany and France, most of the senior U.N. weapons inspectors and most Democratic senators also were convinced that Iraq was hiding weapons and the means to produce them. While the Bush administration may have publicly exaggerated or distorted parts of its case, much of what it said reflected a broad international consensus. If it turns out that neither the weapons nor the programs existed, the failure will be not just that of the Bush administration but of most Western politicians and intelligence experts.
In that sense the failure to find Iraqi WMD so far ought to be less of a scandal than a genuine mystery. Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, no friend of the administration, frankly confessed his puzzlement the other day to The Post's Colum Lynch, pointing out that Saddam Hussein unquestionably tried for 12 years to obstruct and deceive inspectors. "Why deny access if you are not hiding something?" Mr. Blix asked. That's a good question. Until the facts are found, both the administration and its critics ought to avoid drawing conclusions about Saddam Hussein's weapons. Mr. Bush must meanwhile keep his promise to discover the full truth -- and commit to sharing what he learns with the world."
Give special attenion to the first sentence of the second paragraph and the third paragraph in it's entirety.
Take care,
