[Huck]

Then why has the White House been saying for a couple of years now that their WMD intel was botched? Why do they apparantly believe there were no WMD after all? They went from saying there was WMD stockpiles, to saying there were WMD programs, to saying there were WMD capabilities, to working on getting the capability, and finally, to democracy democracy democracy blah blah, the intel was wrong. If the WH doesn't even believe it, why should I? That's what I don't get.

[Wristpin]

As Robert Novak said last week..."President Bush is not a skilled politician."

[EQAndyBuzz]

"Then why has the White House been saying for a couple of years now that their WMD intel was botched? Why do they apparantly believe there were no WMD after all? They went from saying there was WMD stockpiles, to saying there were WMD programs, to saying there were WMD capabilities, to working on getting the capability, and finally, to democracy democracy democracy blah blah, the intel was wrong. If the WH doesn't even believe it, why should I? That's what I don't get."

Very simple answer. Be a RAT politician for a moment. If we found WMD you would run to the NY Times and say, "How do we know that we found them all? How do we know Al Queada also found WMD and are planning to move it through our porous borders and ports? George Bush allowed terrorists to have WMD and based on that he cannot protect us."

Ok, that's a stretch. However, if you were the President, would you want that on your head or, "There are no WMD in Iraq." Bush IMHO knows what the polls really say and isn't playing to public opinion like his predecessor. He is trying to protect us from terrorists.

Now we need to look at what Colin Powell did at the UN, the Duelfer reports and Intelligence from around the world. Did everyone lie? I don't think so. I think the Russians actually took the stuff out of there because that crap could very easily wind up in Chechens hands and it would be embarrassing to find out it was produced in Russia.

[JustDoItAlways]

I think this is the only rational explanation for the (lack of) WMD in Iraq.

Saddam was part delusional, part still wanting everyone to think he was still a bad ass with WMD. He did this to keep his own people in check, he did it to keep Iran and the Kurds at bay, he did it so that the US military would think twice about invading.

But he didn't want to get caught with actual WMD by the weapon's inspectors because he ultimate aim was to (first to stay in power as all dictators do) but also get the UN sanctions lifted so that could rebuild his military and WMD.

The Iraqi generals were shocked when told at a meeting just before the start of the war, that there wasn't any WMD to throw back at the US.

So maybe Saddam didn't have any WMD. But then who would let a complete nutjob dictator with 100 billion barrels of oil under his control have WMD in the first place. Last time he had it, he used it. He would have used it again if given the chance.

[LachlanMinnesota]

The administration has a vested interest in not finding WMD at this point, or at least not disclosing their existence. Why? Because if we are going to send our boys into harm's way again, can you imagine the public outcry against it if they might be met with biological weapons and chemical weapons, or even nuclear weapons? It was in the interest of the administration to tell everyone they were in the process of making them, but not to actually find them.

I think the first gulf war showed that there may have ben Chemical weapons released into the oil field fires. Of course, I have no proof of this, but it makes me wonder if this is the reason the administration was too quick to admit that they did not exist.

Also, if they were taken to Syria, then this creates another pressure point in which the public would demand that we go into Syria to get them, but I don't think we are ready for that. After all, they would say that if we needed to get them from Iraq, then we need to get them from Syria.

[NutCrackerBoy]

They went from saying there was WMD stockpiles, to saying there were WMD programs, to saying there were WMD capabilities, to working on getting the capability, and finally, to democracy democracy democracy blah blah, the intel was wrong.

The President has given consistent reasons for invading Iraq from beginning to end. In short, take out a dangerous regime and replace it with a state that upholds the rule of law as part of transforming the Middle East.

The legal and moral bases for regime change were always unassailable and nothing has changed. WMD were cited as what was assumed to be a slam-dunk to curry support. The world's elite with such tremendous unity that it cannot be ignored has behaved ever since (I would say tendentiously) as if WMD stockpiles had been the only justification, and they will move the goalposts as much as they can because they think damage to US credibility is a good thing.

For Saddam, there was available a transparent way of disarming which other countries such as South Africa have shown. But Saddam's Iraq wasn't capable of it, and now they are gone. Good riddance to one of the worst regimes on the planet. The world in each region needs to hold countries with emerging capabilities to standards. The heightened 21st century danger of weapons and terrorists will not be addressed until it becomes the norm for emerging countries to uphold the rule of law and govern in a reasonably non-oppressive way.

With all that as background, my response to your post is that the President can't force the elites to see the bigger picture. He could not ignore the drumbeating about lack of WMDs, and chose to concede ground. History will be the judge.

[LS]

I don't either and I asked Col. Tony "Able Danger" Shaffer about this when he was here and he doesn't get it either. He KNOWS they had WMDs. His---and my---best guess is that Bush thought a) explaining that they HAD been there, but moved, would have been too difficult and too sophisticated an argument; and b) by the time the Iraq Survey Group concluded there weren't any still there (having only looked at 5% of the potential sites), either the war would be over or his other arguments would have carried the day.

Shaffer also told me that there is a "shadow government" inside the CIA---Bush's fault for not totally cleaning house in 2000---that continued to obfuscate, obstruct, and resist, and that overcoming them would have been difficult.

But put this in another context: we KNOW now that the Soviets orchestrated the "Nuclear Freeze" movements of the 1980s, but PROVING it in the 1980s would have been very difficult and detracted from some of Reagan's bigger issues like defeating the USSR. So he ignored it and focused on the head, and not the tail. I think Bush blew it in this case, but he still got the head.

[tophat9000]

Then why has the White House been saying for a couple of years now that their WMD intel was botched?

Because that keep trying to go along to get along... The ironic thing about Bush is as much as Bush get attacked as a monster he's really way to nice.... he got "nice guy" syndrome ...

[Marine_Uncle]

"Then why has the White House been saying for a couple of years now that their WMD intel was botched?"
OK. How many Americans will sit through a few hour talk where GWB or someone in his administration read all the translated Iraqi documents we are finding in the Harmony Database that indicate much of what Powell and others said from day one.
And how many TV networks would give him the time to have someone present a full blown slide show showing all the details we now know as being factual. It would take well over an hour just to start to educated the American public, as to what we knew and now additionally know about his short/intermediate/long term goals to manufacture various type wmds.
Granted it is extremely frustrating for many of us who have been following this stuff since day one.

[MHGinTN]

"Why do they apparantly believe there were no WMD after all?" Because further intel reviews after the President's SUA told our intel community that Vlad Putin's henchghouls removed them to Russia ans Syria and the Baaka Valley. What was left in Iraq was kept even from the Ruskies and we still haven't found all of that.

[lugsoul]

Because someone with a PC and babelfish knows more about it than our entire intel apparatus - or so some would have you believe.

If documents proved the Admin's case for war, would the DOD simply toss those docs out to the public for translation and interpretation? Or would they present their own case forcefully and with proven backup?