Clarifying the WMD Hype

Let's be very clear about something: The outdated, obsolete, and useless stockpiles of mustard or sarin gas recently found in Iraq, all manufactured before the 1991 gulf war (probably manufactured or procured from the United States and other western countries for use in the Iran-Iraq war), do not constitute the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" Bush and company listed as their primary reason to preemptively invade Iraq.

As Jane Harmon put it:

"There is nothing new here... Nothing in this report, classified or otherwise, contradicts the Duelfer Report, which assessed that we would find degraded pre-1991 weaponry in Iraq."

Even the Department of Defense and Fox News is taking the honest side of this question:

Mere hours after Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) announced breathlessly at a press conference that “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” a FOX news reporter found out that Santorum was hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions already acknowledged and dismissed by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group.
...
Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

Remember, Bush administration officials said Saddam was manufacturing WMDs, and that he was building a nuclear weapons program. They used false intelligence to claim that Iraq could attack western targets in 45 minutes. They claimed Saddam was in danger of sharing this updated, currently-manufactured technology with Al Qaeda. And they didn't just say "there's a pretty decent chance of this..." they spoke with utter confidence, using "we know beyond the shadow of a doubt" rhetoric.

It's simply pathetic to see apologists for the war claim that these old tin cans full of old materials constitute the very same WMD program that Bush and company said existed. It's very important to let everyone know that this is not the case. Tell your pro-war friends about this farce. Make sure they know that Fox News and the Department of Defense are on record as debunking the claim.

Regardless of current positions on the war, the fact that the Bush administration deployed false information to win both Congressional and public support for the war must never fade from our collective memory. It is an indictment of means that the ends will not and cannot justify. It is an indictment of the process of decisionmaking and public justification. Condemnation of the administration for that transgression can be shared by critical-minded people from those who demand immediate pullout to those who believe we should "stay the course" and everyone in between.

PS--CNN has debunked the claim that the intelligence community was responsible for the administration's misinformation on Iraqi WMD, and the Congressional Research Service has debunked the right wing claim that Congress had the same intelligence as the administration. The Bush administration claim of an active, potent WMD manufacturing and distribution scheme was the "central pillar" of their case for preemptive war, as CNN correspondent David Ensor accurately called it.