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"President Bush made his case
for war by warning of a mushroom cloud. Clearly, Iraq didn't have anything like that"
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WASHINGTON,
April 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - More than four weeks
in the aftermath of war against Iraq, American pundits repeatedly
asked the question where are weapons of mass destruction the Bush
administration had touted as the trigger for the aggression.
"Among
the pundit class - the liberal pundit class, to be precise - the
weapons of mass destruction backlash is building," Washington
Post columnist Howard Kurtz said on Wednesday, April 30.
He
wondered if the U.S. forces did not find weapons of mass destruction,
"would there be outrage on the American street? Or nothing but
yawns"?
There
is no direct answer for the question, but it rather clear that this
part of the war "is no cakewalk".
"After
all, the notion that Saddam Hussein could threaten us - and the world
- with chemical, biological and perhaps even nuclear weapons was a
major part of the administration's sales job, repeated endlessly by
the president and his top lieutenants," he added.
"We've
Found Squat"
"That
was what the whole six-month dance with the U.N. and the Hans Blix
inspection adventure was about: finding what American officials
insisted the scurrilous Saddam was hiding."
But
so far, "we've found squat."
In
his New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman said that the
Bushies were rather dishonest about all this:
"We
were not lying," a Bush administration official told ABC News.
"But
it was just a matter of emphasis," the official said, referring
to the way the administration hyped the threat that Saddam Hussein
posed to the United States. According to the ABC report, the
real reason for the war was that the administration "wanted to
make a statement…".
"Sure
enough, we have yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. It's hard
to believe that we won't eventually find some poison gas or crude
biological weapons. But those aren't true WMDs, the sort of weapons
that can make a small, poor country a threat to the greatest power the
world has ever known."
Remember
that President Bush made his case "for war by warning of a
'mushroom cloud.' Clearly, Iraq didn't have anything like that - and
Bush must have known that it didn't."
But
does it matter that the Americans were misled into war?
"Some
people say that it doesn't: we won, and the Iraqi people have been
freed. But we ought to ask some hard questions - not just about Iraq,
but about ourselves," said Krugman.
"One
wonders whether most of the public will ever learn that the original
case for war has turned out to be false. In fact, my guess is that
most Americans believe that we have found WMDs. Each potential find
gets blaring coverage on TV; how many people catch the later
announcement - if it is ever announced - that it was a false alarm?
It's a pattern of misinformation that recapitulates the way the war
was sold in the first place."
"Americans
may or may not care whether we ever find chemical or biological
weapons (there are almost certainly no nukes in Iraq). Others around
the world care intensely - and are unlikely to be soothed by realizing
that the WMD issue was a pretext for preemptive war. What is to stop
India or Pakistan or China from concocting a pretext for launching a
strike against a perceived danger? If we did it, so can they."
"Doesn't
it matter at least as much whether the White House lied about weapons
of mass destruction?"
Where
Are They, College Boy
Washington
Post columnist
Richard Cohen consults an unimpeachable expert - his dead grandfather
- who said "The weapons from mass destruction. The chemical stuff
and the biological stuff that could make you sick and the atomic stuff
that could make you dead. Where are they, college boy? You wrote that
this is why you supported the war".
Those
celebrating the fall of Saddam might like to declare the Iraq war
over, but that's not the case, said the Post.
U.S.
troops shot
dead three anti-occupation Iraqi demonstrators and wound
several others, including two in life-threatening condition earlier in
the day, at the same time U.S. Defense Secretary arrived in the
capital.
The
incident came one day after 15
people were killed and up to 75 wounded by the U.S. gunfire
during a demonstration late Monday, April 28, the deadliest clash
between civilians and American forces since the fall of Saddam
Hussein's regime.
The
New Republic's Michelle
Cottle questions the mental health of one Senior Pentagon Official:
"The
war is over. The reconstruction has begun. And the main question on
everyone's mind now should be: Is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
losing it"? Cottle queried.
"Oh,
sure, the secretary looks happy enough, drifting from press conference
to chat show, grinning broadly, and tossing out pithy rejoinders to
anyone who dares question the intrinsic perfection of our nation's
Iraq strategy. But more and more, the grin looks a tad too large and
the quips sound a tad too flippant for comfort."
"If
Rumsfeld were only being high-handed with the media, it would hardly
be cause for concern. The defense secretary, however, seems to regard
his battlefield successes as proof that his long-held world
view--diplomacy is for losers--should now dominate administration
policy," said the American writer.
