Bush didn’t lie, and fewer people probably died
Scott Malensek, writing at Flopping Aces, revisits the question of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear abilities. After a scathing indictment of Congresspeople who had access to the full National Intelligence Estimate detailing all known information about Saddam’s nuclear capabilities and his access to other illegal weapons of war, but who still chose not to exercise that right, Malensek points out that information obtained since the Iraq War dovetails with the conclusions in the NIE: Saddam wanted to build WMDs, Saddam was capable of building WMDs, and Saddam would probably have acquired the last, most important ingredient (weapons grade nuclear material) by 2007 — facts that are worth remembering next time someone comes up to you and chants “Bush lied, people died.” As it happens, Bush didn’t lie, although one can still quarrel with his and Congress’ decision to take this nation to war with Iraq. (I don’t quarrel, but one still can.)
UPDATE: More on Hussein and WMDs, this time explaining that Hussein erected a Potemkin village to scare away Iran, a bit of political calculus that might have worked if 9/11 hadn’t suddenly changed the equation.
