WMD Found In Iraq, But So What

Fox News is hyping this story as if it is a major breakthrough thus giving validation to the original reason we attacked Iraq.

The story is not news. Our troops have come across remnants of Iraq's old chemical arsenal since the first weeks of the war. Stray artillery shells filled with sarin and mustard gas were discovered almost immediately. And since Saddam had already used similar weapons on the Iranians and his own population in the past it should not have been a shock to find a few more floating about the desert. Everyone knew he had them. Everyone knew he was lying when he said his chemical stocks had been fully destroyed.

On the plus side the fact that 500 some odd weapons have been found since the invasion does show how much Saddam lied. I wouldn't be surprised if hundred more turn up. Saddam probably had them squirreled away all around the country. What would be nice to come across is a half-finished nuclear weapon or a mothballed underground nuclear assembly plant. That would give much more credence for our attack.

As it stands, and I've said this countless times, it was a mistake to remove Saddam from power based strictly on his WMD capability. He is a monster. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people, invaded two nations, and shown zero interest obeying the UN or ever behaving like a human being. And he created to monsters in training in his sons, who were ready to grab the reigns of power the minute their dad died or was murdered. Iraq and the region were doomed to another generation of genocide if the younger Hussein's every came to power.

The other pretext, which was brought up after the invasion,is that a firmly planted Islamic democracy in the Middle East could only bring us benefits down the road. If Iraq could be made stable then a case could be made that this would spread to its neighbors.

President Bush could then have thrown the possibility of finding WMD on top of his "reasons to go to war" pile.

But that is all water under the bridge. Now we have to see this through.