Steve (as 41oo) wrote:You are right. Weapons on their own, unless they accidentally explode, never hurt anyone. It needs someone to pull the trigger. The threat comes from a combination of the weapon's power AND the intent to use it.
And there's the rub. Blair sold the war on the argument that they still had the weapons, period. Bush empathically added the argument that there was a real danger of intent, too - that Iraq would attack - or help terrorists attack - neighbours or the US itself in a 9/11 manner.
Now the US and UK forces are having a near-impossible time proving that Saddam's Iraq still
had the weapons, period. Let alone argument no. 2 - that it had the intent to use them.
The intent argument was crucial in the final stages of UN-US negotiations. A coalition of Security Council member states suggested a compromise that would involve a delay of intervention. The US rejected all such delays with an impassioned reference to the imminent danger to the US of more "9/11"s and the need to act decisively to "save America from another such day of horror".
Today or yesterday in the British newspapers: news from the Hutton inquiry that Blair's cabinet
did intervene to scrap certain phrases from the intelligence reports that were to be used to persuade the country's MPs. What was the matter? The intelligence agencies had written that not only did Iraq have WMD, it would be ready / likely to use them
if there was a threat of attack.
The Blair cabinet acted to scrap that last bit, so that the report would simply read that Iraq would be ready / likely to use them - period.
They concocted their case. Even their own intelligence agencies told them there was no danger of Iraq striking first with its supposed WMD - which kinda makes the argument for the need of pre-emptive action crash apart - and they chose not just to neglect it, but to hide it.
Lies, lies, lies.
