i've had several false starts on a post this morning. each time i start, work intrudes (as it should. i am at work, after all). but each time that i come back to the post, i reread what i've written i decide to erase it. we shall see if i get farther with this one.
most of the aborted posts revolve around the possible discovery of sarin in an artillery shell in iraq. the thing i find so fascinating (and yet, somehow hard to write) about this story is how much the right seems to think this discovery somehow justifies the decision to invade iraq.
first, let's review. in early 2003, president bush ordered an invasion of iraq citing the following logic:
(1) iraq has stockpiles of W.M.D.s (i.e. chemical, biological and/or nuclear weapons)
(2) iraq's weapons posed an immediate threat to the u.s.
in the run-up to war, most of the criticism of the president's decision focused on #2. how could iraq, a poor diplomatically isolated sanction riddened country threaten the u.s. when it was periodically bombed by no-fly zone patrols above, was carefully watched by the international community, had a weak resource-starved military, and was located thousands of miles from the closest american shore? in short, wasn't iraq pretty well contained? as the invasion date approached, bush never seemed able to give a straight answer to those questions. instead, he and his handlers conflated hussein with al-qaeda to fudge the issue, after all al-qaeda managed to reach the u.s. on 9-11. but it was the second, not the first, issue that they fudged because that's where the debate was. regardless of what side you were on most people thought that iraq had W.M.D.s.
but then something unexpected happened. after the u.s. took control of iraq and non-could be found, the left started saying "wait, where are those W.M.D.s?" this put the hawks more on the defensive, insisting that the weapons would be found eventually in iraq, or, in the alternative, had been squirreled off to syria. as the months dragged on and there were still no signs of any W.M.D. stockpiles, actual stockpiles morphed into potential for weapons ("weapons of mass destruction-related program activities"). and then they morphed further such that any mention of W.M.D.s disappeared entirely. instead the focus was on bringing democracy to iraq. we had to invade iraq, after all, because it was undemocratic--unlike all those other democratic regimes throughout the mideast.
so now this week, a shell is found that may possibly contain two chemicals that when mixed together produce sarin, a chemical weapon. now despite the fact that the chemicals in the shell have not been confirmed to be sarin, or the fact that it was a single shell (not a stockpile) that probably pre-dated the first gulf war (and thus would not be evidence of any stockpile of weapons that were banned by the post-gulf war resolutions), the right is pointing to the discovery to declare victory. they also expresses puzzlement that the left has not yet admitted that it was wrong about everything. (see e.g. this piece or william safire's column this morning).
i think these guys are missing the forest for the trees. even if this shell contains sarin that's still a long way from establishing that hussein's regime posed any threat to the u.s. they've gotten so hung up on their surprise over the missing W.M.D.s that they have forgotten where the W.M.D.s fit into their argument. W.M.D.s were the first step, not the last. jumping off from ntodd's sarcastic post: how does an artillery shell with sarin justify all the death, destruction and torture?
at best, if everything is confirmed and this shell leads us to a huge cache of similar shells, this discovery brings us right back to where we were last year, still without an explanation of how these weapons posed an immediate threat to the u.s.
