Weapons of Mass Distraction

So far, US investigators have found no weapons of mass distruction in Iraq and none of the captured Iraqi officials will admit to their existance, much less point the way to them. There may or may not be any and I say, "So what?"

The focus on WMDs is becoming a weapon of mass distraction. Too many people are suggesting that if we don't find WMDs the war will have been in vain. WRONG! The war was not about finding WMDs, it was about removing the threat of WMDs.

Saddam Hussein may have had WMds or he may have destroyed them long ago. The point is, the possibility that he had them or had the capability to produce and deliver them now or in the future made him and his regime a threat. And he would remain a threat until he could demonstrate that he did indeed not have any WMDs or WMD programs. This is what he refused to do for 11 years.

UN inspectors were not sent to Iraq to play an elaborate game of hide and seek. They were there to verify the evidence presented by the Iraqi government that programs known to exist had been dismantled and components known to exist had been destroyed. Most of the evidence presented amounted to someone saying "We don't have any." A lot of times they said that at the front gate while they were trucking the stuff out the back gate. At no time did Saddam Hussein's government ever fully cooperate with UN weapon's inspectors as required by the UN resolutions. Whenever Hans Blix said that progress was being made, he was generally talking about progress toward getting someone to agree that they needed to cooperate, not that they actually were cooperating and certainly not that they were actually verifying anything. Except that Blix did verify that Iraq was not cooperating.

Saddam had his chance but he blew it. Instead of voluntary cooperation with UN inspectors he chose to invite a war which drove him from power if not cost him his life. So now, whether we find them or not, we no longer have the threat. And that alone is enough to justify the war.