Turns Out, Iraq did have WMD capability. Who Knew?
Since this post has a link to a Hitch article, I figure that I can go all Orwell without being too pretentious. In 1984, doublethink is the ability to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them. As such, I don't think that it's unreasonable to point out that there's at least a little tension between the idea that Bush lied about WMDs and that Iraqi WMD-ready weapons plants were looted. Hitch has the takedown:
It was eye-rubbing to read of the scale of this potential new nightmare. There in cold print was the Al Hatteen "munitions production plant that international inspectors called a complete potential nuclear weapons laboratory." And what of the Al Adwan facility, which "produced equipment used for uranium enrichment, necessary to make some kinds of nuclear weapons"?...
My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction?... My second question is: What's all this about "looting"?... what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation...
Thus... Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.
It was eye-rubbing to read of the scale of this potential new nightmare. There in cold print was the Al Hatteen "munitions production plant that international inspectors called a complete potential nuclear weapons laboratory." And what of the Al Adwan facility, which "produced equipment used for uranium enrichment, necessary to make some kinds of nuclear weapons"?...
My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction?... My second question is: What's all this about "looting"?... what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation...
Thus... Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.
