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Editorial: IRAQ'S WEAPONS: Missing Logic.(weapons of mass destruction yet to be found)(Editorial)
The most vociferous critics of the president appear to be in the grip of a fairly obvious logical fallacy: Since we have not yet found weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq they must not have existed and the administration is guilty of having invented a bogeyman.
In truth, we had every reason to think that the Iraqi regime had such weapons. The regime itself admitted that it had produced anthrax and VX. In his January 27 report to the Security Council, Hans Blix said that there was "strong evidence" that Iraq had produced more anthrax than it had said, and suggested that it had higher-quality VX, too. We know that the regime used chemical weapons before. The Clinton administration believed that the regime was working to expand its WMD capabilities. The Bush administration's Democratic critics generally did not dispute this point before the war. Indeed, one of the antiwar arguments was that a military campaign would expose our troops to WMD. The hawks may have overestimated the dangers of inaction; the doves clearly overestimated the dangers of action. Prudence demanded that we assume, in the face of the regime's failure to account for its weapons, that it still had them.
Some of the evidence now used to indict the administration is suspect. Deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz's words to Vanity Fair have been twisted to suggest that the administration seized on the WMD issue "for bureaucratic reasons" but really had other motives for the war, such as gaining the ability to remove our troops from Saudi Arabia. All Wolfowitz really said was that there were several reasons to overthrow the Iraqi regime, of which its WMD program was the most broadly compelling.
Iraq covers a lot of territory, and Saddam was (is?) wily: For the same reasons we figured that the inspectors would never find his weapons, we should not be shocked that we have not found them yet. The president's counsel of patience should be heeded.
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