BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Searching for those WMDs.
The New Republic is back with another vital contribution
to the debate over the so-called imminent threat posed by Saddam
Hussein.
Last month, the magazine ran a
report by John
Judis and Spencer Ackerman
demonstrating how the White House and the Defense Department leaned
on the intelligence community to cook the books in favor of a US-led
invasion.
This week, it carries a dispatch by
Los Angeles Times reporter Bob
Drogin (subscription
required) that asks: what ever happened to those WMDs? Drogin's
well-researched guess is that Saddam's weapons program ceased in the
mid 1990s under pressure from UN inspectors and economic
sanctions.
Now, this gets a little
complicated. There's no question that Saddam lied repeatedly when
inspections started up again late last year. Even Hans Blix said it
appeared Saddam was holding out. Why didn't Saddam just come clean
and save himself?
The most likely explanation,
according to Drogin, is that even though Saddam was telling the truth
when he asserted that Iraq didn't have WMDs, he wanted to make it
look like he was lying in order not to appear weak.
Certainly US officials could have
been fooled by this stance. But combined with the earlier story,
showing that the administration was more concerned with building a
case than with finding the truth, Drogin's article is damning
indeed.
And remember, the New
Republic was prowar, vigorously so.
posted at 7:58 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
