QandO

January 27, 2004

Compliance?
Posted by Jon Henke

SKBubba and Brad DeLong criticize Pejman, comparing him to a "rube at a sideshow" for believing we'd find WMDs in Iraq.

Oddly, they have no similar criticism for President Clinton, who made the same assumption. I'm sure it's just an oversight. (I'll also await their criticism of most Democrats, France, Germany, The United Nations, Howard Dean, et al. I'll just be...waiting. Patiently.)

Pejman responds at great length, pointing out the reasons it was believed by virtually everybody. Yes, Virginia, there were reasons.

The essence of the DeLong and SKBubba's argument seems to be "ha ha! Saddam Hussein fooled you!"
Well, yeah, he may have. That's too bad....for him, anyway.

While it appears that Iraq had no large stockpiles of WMDs, that does not mean they actually complied with the UN resolutions - resolutions which required Iraq to "unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision" of their WMDs, WMD programs, program components, research and long range missiles.

So, my question is: Based on what we've found since entering Iraq, were there ANY resolutions - excepting those regarding Kuwaits border - with which Iraq complied? Any? I know of none.

It strikes me that DeLong and SKBubba's preening is akin to winning a Super Bowl bet that the point total would be 45.....because their team lost 42-3. Congratulations, guys.

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