February 09, 2004
Obvious Followup #0002
Having been caught with their pants down regarding Iraq's previously hyped (and hyped, and hyped, and hyped, and hyped...) banned weapons programmes, both the President and Vice President are now spinning (and spinning, and spinning, and spinning) the line that Saddam had both the capability to produce, and the intent to use, weapons of mass destruction.
The former is a lie, as even David Kay has acknowledged that Iraq had no extant programmes at the time of invasion. But even if the mainstream media were to throw the Administration this bone, it still leaves the obvious followups:
If Saddam's intent to use WMD represented a "grave and growing danger" necessitating "regime change", why was the invasion not undertaken until two years into the Administration's time in office (or, alternatively, why couldn't it have waited the few months that the UNMOVIC inspectors claimed to need before definitively determining the status of Iraq's WMD programmes)?
In October of 2002, the CIA advised Congress that "the probability of him initiating an attack -- let me put a time frame on it -- in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low." Does this jibe with "intent"?
Jafar Dhia Jafar, a coordinator of Iraq's 1980s-circa nuclear programme, fled the country in April of last year, and was subsequently debriefed by the CIA:
Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional.... But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. "No way we could escape the United States." Therefore, the W.M.D. warheads did Iraq little strategic good.
While the Administration didn't have access to this defector before the war, it is now making its "intent" justification several months after having received this testimony. How does this jibe with "intent"?
A question so obvious the mainstream media hasn't bothered to ask.
Posted by Eddie Tews at February 9, 2004 07:05 PM
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