No Rational for Iraq War?

U.S. Report Finds Iraq Was Minimal Weapons Threat in ‘03 (NY Times):

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — Iraq now appears to have destroyed its stockpiles of illicit weapons within months of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and by the time of the American invasion in spring 2003, its capacity to produce such weapons was continuing to erode, the top American inspector in Iraq said in a report made public today.

At the time of the American invasion, Mr. Duelfer concluded, Iraq had not possessed military-scale stockpiles of illicit weapons for a dozen years and was not actively seeking to produce them.

The Bush administration could dismiss this as hindsight, except that it knew many of these facts before the ok to invade was given. It knew that the now-famous nuclear smoking gun – the aluminum tubes – were deemed wholly inappropriate for use in nuclear weapons production. The best experts in the world – US experts – concluded this and reported this to the very people who would authorize war against Iraq. And the Whitehouse knew this before 9/11.

It isn’t possible for a thinking person to come to any conclusion but that the Bush administration purposely deceived the world and its own people to cover its single track ambition to put troops in Iraq.

Colin Powell was seen as a reluctant supporter of going to war with Iraq and no doubt a great many Americans and others around the world were willing to support the action because of his personal credibility. We don’t know whether he was kept in the dark or not, but regardless – the credibiity of the rationale for going in is now shot, and the only rational course is for people to punish the politicians that foisted this poor policy on us all.