Time to admit the obvious: there are no WMD

By Steve Gilliard

Ok, let's go through this simply:

No units have found any stores of shells, rockets or any production facilities that could be used to convert them into chemical weapons. Despite months of scouring Iraq during and after the war, despite special operators running around Iraq, not one chemical shell has been found. Not one chemical rocket has been found.

Now in a report from Capital Hill Blue, if true, shows exactly how George Bush made his decisions on Iraq:

An intelligence consultant who was present at two White House briefings where the uranium report was discussed confirmed that the President was told the intelligence was questionable and that his national security advisors urged him not to include the claim in his State of the Union address.

"The report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings."

Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said.

"He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."

He didn't want to hear the truth, he knew Saddam was guilty, regardless of the facts, which were murky at best.

And now an increasingly pressed Tony Blair is admitting as such:

He went on: "I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes."

Excuse me, but I was under the clear impression that Saddam had weapons poised to launch at our allies within 45 minutes of an order being given. That their arsenals were poised to be launched at the US and that the use of chemical weapons were part of their doctrine.

Ooops.

Now, we're talking about rusty centrifuges and programs. I thought we were talking about land mines, 122mm shells and short range rockets? Not development programs.

There are no production facilities, no one in Iraq can tell us of depots where these weapons are and they try to convince the world that two beaten canvas sided trailers are bioweapons labs. The fact that match two weather balloon trucks sold by Marconi to the Iraqi Army in the mid-1980's is ignored in the most desperate and obvious ways. I don't think sane people would use canvas to protect their bioweapon experiments.

The lack of production facilities are also telling. Where are the raw chemical stores and empty shells? They don't exist. None of it does. There is no evidence of it.

They keep promising some evidence. Well, did Iraq have so much excess industrial capacity that they could have fully stocked secret factories? A Dora (Nazi V2 slave labor production camp) under the Iraqi sand? In the most photographed country on earth?

So can anyone explain why Syria and Iran would take Iraqi chemical weapons when they have their own, unhampered by sanctions and perfected by their own scientists? Why would they need Iraq's excess? To draw a US attack? And the US didn't notice the truckloads crossing the border? Did they execute the drivers and their families after they finished the deliveries?

Now we're talking about programs.

This may not cost Bush his job before the election, but Blair's days are numbered. If all that can be found are rusty centrifuges and a few dumps with rusted bits, nothing can save Blair from the wraith of the British people and little can save Bush, "popular President" or not.

Posted July 08, 2003 06:12 PM