Before The War, *Everybody* Thought Hussein Had WMD

[stopbush]

Oh, really?

[Cat Atomic]

1. What knocks me out is that when they say "everybody thought

he had WMD's", they're just ignoring the fact that THE REASON so many assumed Hussein must have something is because the PRESIDENT was claiming it.

Shame on them for believing their government! Shame on them for assuming no administration would be so corrupt as to lie to the public to start a war for their personal enrichment! Shame on you gullible fools!

I thought the Bush administration's argument was solid bullshit. I thought Powell's presentation to the UN was a joke. BUT- I assumed Hussein must have SOMETHING hidden in Iraq. I assumed our administration wouldn't be stupid enough to invade without even covering the pretext.

[TexasSissy]

5. No. I saw congressional hearings with experts BEFORE * said

anything. I only saw a few (3?) of the experts testify. It was a hearing on WMD in Iraq. ALL the experts thought Saddam had them. They presented the reasons they thought so. They weren't government people. They were scientists.

It was a logical assumption that Saddam still had them, since he had, in fact, had them previously. And no proof had been offered that they'd been destroyed. So it was a logical assumption.

But there's a big difference between THINKING or ASSUMING it, and representing that you KNOW it for a fact to such a degree that you need to bomb the country. The scientists didn't say THAT. They were asked for their opinions.

[Caution]

2. Anyone who listened to Scott Ritter

certainly didn't think Hussein had WMD

[yardwork]

7. Right. I knew it was bullroar.

I also thought at the time:

Even if SH had had weapons of mass destruction - so what? Lots of countries have WMD and we don't attack them.

Plenty of Americans knew that this was nonsense right at the time.

Media whores can't seem to take responsibility for their own failure to do basic research, and their shameful culpability in spreading these lies.

[frylock]

15. lots of countries have wmd and we don't attack them

cough*israel*cough

[Beam Me Up]

3. That * admin didn't covertly PLANT WMD in Iraq is a sign

that they are:

1) Unbelievably STUPID
2) Unbelievably ARROGANT
3) Incredibly Vulnerable

[Lex]

4. Yeah, but Bush is the one who sent ground troops in

and flatly refused to let the UN inspectors do their jobs!

He actually pulled the UN inspectors out of Iraq so he could bomb the life out of the place.

Someone said to me "Clinton thought there were WMDs too!" And I said "Did Clinton start a war over it?"

That's the difference, Bush launched an invasion of Iraq, and Clinton was still of the mind that Iraq's WMDs were not an imminent threat to us here in the US and that Saddam had been contained as a major threat.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. The real question was the "imminent threat".

Even if had had WMD (which I never believed) what "imminent threat" did Iraq pose to the U.S.? Zip, nada, nienco, zero.

Even if the members of the congress and senate believed the BS, who could have possibly believed that a prostrate 3rd world country with wrecked military could possibly pose a threat to the U.S.?

Further, if possession of WMD's in the Middle East poses a threat to the region, as is so often stated, why aren't we bombing Israel?

[gulliver]

8. Right.

That is the real question.

We had Saddam cowed and cornered. We had inspectors on the ground. Bush went off half-cocked. We are pursuing a utopian nation-engineering scheme. This bit about "everyone thought there were WMDs" is just a red herring.

We need to put the rhetoric aside and ask ourselves what Bush bought us with nearly 900 military lives and nearly $200 billion.

Doesn't look like much to me.

[Poiuyt]

9. Even if Saddam did have WMD

and I'm not saying he did, but even if he did, he wasn't bothering anyone. He hadn't caused trouble for 10 years.The weapons inspectors and enforcement of the no-fly zone were keeping Saddam Hussein well contained. There was no reason for Bush to start a war except for political reasons.

[Redleg]

10. None of us really knew one way or the other.

And any of us that says he/she did know is a liar.

Many of us suspected that Bush was making a bogus case. Did we know for sure he was misleading us? No, but since we didn't trust him, we believed he was dishonest with us. Of course, it turned out we were right- but not because we really knew.

[AndyTiedye]

11. By The Time The UN Weapons Inspectors had Been All Over Iraq

it was pretty clear that there weren't any weapons.

[JHBowden]

12. #2 -- Gave them the benefit of the doubt.

However, no evidence of an imminent threat = no pulling out inspectors to start a war.

[LearnedHand]

13. Not even for one nanosecond!

I actually believed Scott Ritter, UNSCOM, and others -- who actually were in Iraq and LOOKING -- who said Iraq had NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. And given that the Axis of Evil bullshit went on record early on, and given that PNAC outlined a strategic war against Iraq, I never EVER thought it was ANYTHING other than a preemptive strike against Iraq, one that had been planned for years.

[Manix]

14. I'll second that.

[bvar22]

16. I believed that he had some chem and bio weapons,

but that they were buried somewhere deep and not deployable, and that what he had was old and degraded.

I did not believe that he had developed any viable delivery system since the destruction of the SCUDS during GW1. This type of activity would be easily detected from satellite surveillance.

If Saddam had the potential to threaten his neighbors, believe me when I tell you that Israel would have taken out these weapons.

So yes, I believed that he had some old, degraded bio and chem weapons left over from the 80's, but I did not believe that he could use them.