But Mr. Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, referring to his repeated suggestions that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons that posed a threat to the United States and other nations. "Listen, we thought there was going to be stockpiles of weapons," he said at an appearance in Kutztown, Pa. "I thought so. The Congress thought so. The U.N. thought so. I'll tell you what we do know. Saddam Hussein had the capacity to make weapons."
Later, in York, Pa., Mr. Bush said, "Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons, I believe we were right to go into Iraq. America is safer today because we did. We removed a declared enemy of America, who had the capability of producing weapons of mass destruction, and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."
bush's statement is nothing really new. he's being saying stuff like that over the past few months as the promised stockpiles of weapons have not turned up.
but this is what occurred to me: remember back before the u.s. invaded iraq, when the u.n. inspectors went in to find the stockpiles of weapons? at the time the anti-war types were saying that bush was just using u.n. inspections as an excuse to invade iraq--that he was planning to invade regardless of what the inspectors found there.
bush's recent statements standing by the decision to go to war despite the lack of any weapons stockpiles shows that the critics were right. bush confirmed their long-held suspicions. stockpiles of weapons did not matter, only the capacity to build those weapons (i.e. the underlying scientific knowledge necessary to build them--for no one has found the raw materials, like weapon-grade uranium, either). so why exactly did bush send the inspectors in back in early 2002? the weapons inspectors were not looking for scientific knowledge. and besides, scientific knowledge is such a low bar. i wouldn't be surprised if most countries have that the necessary knowledge to produce nuclear, biological or chemical weapons (the theoretical basis for nuclear weapons has been around for about 70 years. for chemical weapons its been over a century. such knowledge is not exactly cutting edge)
the funny thing is, arguing that bush was just "going through the motions" with the weapons inspection process was once considered to be practically treasonous. but now that bush has rewritten history about why we invaded, how many people will notice the change?
