Another One

I wasn't even looking for this one. But it's difficult to read very much anti-war rhetoric from before the Iraq invasion without discovering how many people who opposed the war did so assuming that Saddam had WMD. The level of belief in that seems to have been as widespread among the anti-war crowd as among the pro-invasion voices. I can't blame them for believing it; I did, too. But I note the number of such folk who now insist only a neo-con or a Republican myrmidion could have fallen for the "lies" about WMD. And also to note that if you thought the other side had such destructive power, and still opposed eliminating him, that position ought to be better explained than it has been.

Here's one. A mostly honest and reasonable opposition to going to war. Down in the text is this:

Does Saddam still possess chemical or biological weapons? Weapons inspections to date have been inconclusive. Since Saddam possessed them in the past, in the absence of evidence that he has destroyed them, I would assume that he still has them. Saddam also denied he had chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s, after the Gulf War, until U.N. inspectors turned up conclusive evidence refuting those claims. His willingness to endure a decade of sanctions suggests there is something there worth hiding. Does that make the case for the U.S. starting a war? Not necessarily. Chemical and biological weapons are nasty things, but so are Napalm, cluster bombs and all other weapons. War is Hell. In war really horrible things happen to combatants and non-combatants alike, using all manner of weapons. Which is why the real crime is starting a war, not possessing a particular kind of weapon.