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I don't understand all the shock and upset about the evidence for WMD. Of course there wasn't any evidence. Had there actually been persuasive evidence of WMD then the US would have confidentially shared the evidence with France and Germany, and they would have joined the coalition. Since France and Germany did not join us, there must have been no convincing evidence of WMD, and we've known this since before the war began.
The war was ostensibly fought over the issue of WMD (remember Hans Blix?) - many observers imagined this was just a pretense at the time and so it has proved. The shock for me is the openness and the lack of shame by which the Governments seem to be saying "we deceived you". Whether the end justified the means is another matter entirely, but if any self respecting democratic Government fabricated the truth about say, the economy, heads would surely have rolled. And now, I hear, they'll be mortgaging Iraqi oil to pay for the war - are we still supposed to believe this wasn't about oil?
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There are two things about the WMD that I *do* find surprising. The first is that we not only haven't found any recent evidence of WMD, we can't even seem to find any old evidence. This seems very strange, since we absolutely know Saddam used to have them since he used chemical weapons against the Iranians and the Kurds. Where are the old factories, storage depots, training facilities, etc? Could they really have been eradicated so thoroughly? If so, maybe we should hire Saddam (I hear he's still alive) to do toxic waste cleanup here in the states, because he's apparently *really* good at it.
I guess finding any WMD in Iraq is a poisoned chalice. If we don't find any then we would have gone to war under false pretences. If we do find WMD, it of course means that the US / UK imposed sanctions, acknowledged to have been responsible for the deaths of in excess of 500,000 Iraqi children, were for nothing.
Sobering thought.
PE