About those WMD's.

I just left another blog where some self appointed sage suggested we'd have been better off putting all our efforts into pacifying Afghanistan instead of going after Iraq's Hussein. Seems there isn't a day that goes by where you won't hear someone with similar statements, inevitably any further conversation brings up the lack of WMD's found since our invasion.

FWIW, my thinking goes this way. Tip O'Neil once stated all politics are local. I've always liked that idea since it breaks seemingly complex questions down to bite size for John Q. Public. In that vein lets say a schoolyard bully has classmates that tell the yard monitor he has a gun in his locker. The monitor asks and he denies it. The tales keep pouring in so the monitor asks again. He denies it.

This goes on till the monitor promises to come to his locker in two weeks time to get the gun. During that two weeks nothing else is done. The fateful day arrives and whaddayaknow, there's no gun. Big suprise.

Every intelligence service that mattered agreed Hussein had WMD's, especially the Israeli's Mossad (get back to them in a bit). The Russians, French, Germans, Brits all agreed on their existence.

Bush warned of the coming invasion well in advance, we went into Iraq and whaddayaknow, no WMD's.

Where'd they go? Who knows, Iraq is a big country they could have been covered with sand. They and all the technicians that tended them could have been sent to Syria or some other country. That last is my favorite theory; there have been so many people who dropped out of sight during the reign of Saddam that a few hundred more would never be missed. You can bet if they were somewhere else they wouldn't be allowed out much either. With any conspiracy theory I think the stink test is an availability of corroborating witnesses. This scenario answers the test neatly.

Maybe I'm the last guy in America who believes the stinking things did exist. Call me stupid I guess.

About the Mossad. I remember reading an evaluation of various national intelligence agencies years ago. Our CIA scored really low, thanks to the work done by the Church Commission in the 70's. The Mossad was scored very high in the area of anything directly related to the survival of Israel. They were excellent within a narrowly focused area. Given the proximity of Iraq (remember the Scuds launched into Israel during the first Gulf War?), I think any shenanigans being performed there would fall under that heading.

Like I say, call me stupid but I still believe going after the WMD's was valid. I just think we were incredibly dumb to buy off on their nonexistence.

Just the opinion of a retired turd chaser, not some international espionage wonk.