11 Years Ago: Where Were All Those Iraqi WMDs?

If the results of the war were not so tragic, one could also grin and bear this editorial from the NYT eleven years ago this week, which first raised concerns about the so far missing WMDs in Iraq.   You'll see as you read on that the Times--one of the prime movers for the war due to its many false alarms about the certain existence of such weapons--still seems to feel that surely they must exist, although possibly in smaller quantities than it once trumpeted.

But near the start you'll see that it raises the essential "mystery"--if Saddam does have the dreaded weapons why hasn't he used them against us?  Unfortunately, the media and Democrats did not raise this question--which a few  people (such as myself) had emphasized: If Saddam had the WMDs as charged why were we so confident about a grund invasion that could have taken tens of thousands of American lives?  Unless Bush and his team felt  from the start that Saddam likely had little or nothing for us to fear.

Here's the opening of that editorial:

As allied forces seize control of more Iraqi real estate every day, one of the great questions still to be answered is whether Saddam Hussein has the unconventional weapons that were cited as the prime reason for launching the invasion. Most Western analysts believe that Mr. Hussein has at least some chemical and biological arms. Otherwise, they reason, he could have headed off the invasion by showing that he had destroyed his previously known chemical and biological stocks. Yet if Iraq does have chemical weapons, Mr. Hussein has shown remarkable restraint by not using them even as his government heads for certain destruction. Solving this mystery requires urgent, neutral investigation once the allies gain full control of Iraq and can mount a sustained search. 

Greg Mitchell's new book on Iraq and media malpractice is "So Wrong for So Long."