I don't understand how the failure to find weapons of mass destruction makes the war unjustified. It's not like Bush made up the idea of WMD. Saddam Hussein is the guy you ought to be mad at. Saddam Hussein acted as if he had or was working on nuclear capability. He's the guy who employed nuclear scientists. He's the guy who convinced the UN that he wanted nukes. He's the guy who resisted weapons inspections. He's the guy who said you can look over here but not over there. Why did he do all these things? Either because he actually had nuclear capability or was close to it, or because he wanted to fool people into thinking he was more important than he was. He managed to fool Bill Clinton, the United Nations, George Bush and Israel into thinking he had a desire for WMD. It appears now to have been something of a ruse. Probably. Should Bush have ignored the behavior of Saddam on the grounds that the whole thing was probably a hoax to enhance his self-image? I don't think so. That certainly turned out to be a mistake with Osama. His talk wasn't cheap.
We're still translating lots of documents and the Baathists who'd know about any weapons are still resisting so not likely to talk. We telegraphed our invasion and gave Saddam time to prepare. So I don't assume that this whole thing was a bluff. Not yet. To conclude that, we have to assume that every intelligence agency called this wrong. Every one of them.
But assuming this was a bluff, we have to remember that Saddam bluffed because he believed he needed those weapons to survive. And with all his material, money, and knowledge, does anybody believe that Saddam would not have converted his bluff into reality as soon as he could? Remember, Saddam thought he needed them to survive. He would not have been satisfied with a bluff for longer than he had to.
And does anybody really think that Saddam wouldn't have been free to build WMD had we not invaded? In the spring of 2001, we were already talking of "smart sanctions" to try and salvage the sanctions regime. This would have theoretically kept sanctions on just weapons imports while lifting sanctions generally. Sanctions were crumbling.
And we now know that the French and Russians were benefitting from oil-for-food and so know that they would have pushed for the end of sanctions. Better to preserve their profits if Saddam survives and keeps quiet about their roles. Further, the UN itself had reason to keep Saddam in power in order to hide their criminal enterprises in oil-for-food. Ah, the international community! Such a moral exemplar!
The bottom line is that we stopped a future in which Saddam or his psychopath sons had weapons of mass destruction. And that includes nukes.
We have brought freedom to Iraq.
We discredited the jihadis.
And have triggered reforms in the region.
Not a bad day's work if you ask me.
