Saddam was a WMD

Power Line Blog discusses the Iraq Survey Group's report. The headline was that Saddam had no WMD, but he had assembled the means to make them on short notice once he was able to defeat U.N. sanctions through bribery of nations positioned to do so. This report from April notes that searchers did find huge stockpiles of chemicals that could be converted to WMD quickly. Whether he had actual WMD or only the components is not enough of a difference to conclude that Bush lied. In fact, the ISG report explains that Saddam had told his own generals conflicting stories. It was from these that our intelligence agencies concluded that he could have them.

What I find most troubling about all this is that the American people are still so evenly split on the war. The arguments from the Democrats are incredibly naive, particularly the view that the French and Germans are the sine qua non of foreign policy. Anybody else would look at the picture and say they were the ones out of step. The worst kind of dishonesty is to believe and espouse arguments that attempt to rewrite reality. Kerry would have us believe that Iraq is not part of the global war on terrorism, and that America is the most serious source of nuclear proliferation. His vow to kill the program for better bunker busters, without any more explanation than that the term "nuclear" is involved, is pure fearmongering. How cancelling this program would limit proliferation is the point he doesn't make, because it isn't there to be made.