---

NO WEAPONS. You may have heard that the Great Iraq WMD Hunt has been officially abandoned. But what can one really say about this? Let me just reiterate for about the millionth time that, contrary to the ex post rationalizations from the right, it's simply not the case that "everyone" -- or even almost everyone -- thought Saddam Hussein had WMD at the time the war started. That was a period when this really was the consensus judgment of the international intelligence community, and that's one of the reasons it was possible to gain UN support for a resolution demanding the re-introduction of inspectors.

Then the inspectors came back to Iraq and went searching around. They didn't find any WMD stockpiles or evidence of advanced WMD programs. They did find some banned missiles with ranges beyond what was permitted by the Gulf War cease-fire. Those missiles were duly destroyed. At that point, rational people began to think that the intelligence consensus was, perhaps, mistaken. It already became clear that several of the specific charges the Bush administration had raised were false, and that despite repeated statements from administration officials that they were sure Saddam had WMD, they couldn't provide the inspectors with any useful clues to their whereabouts. But the United States wasn't being governered by rational people, so they, along with their cheerleaders in the press, proclaimed that if inspections weren't finding the weapons, that wasn't because the weapons weren't there but because the inspectors were corrupt, incompetent, or something like that. Therefore, an invasion was necessary. ...