Story On WMD Screwup Provokes Left Wing Mirth

Melanie Phillips claims that
Saddam's WMDs were located
(and then lost) in Iraq.There is quite a story published in the U.K. magazine, The Spectator, by Melanie Phillips which is simply burning up the internet. It states, in summary, that Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that those weapons were discovered by Western inspectors after the American invasion, and that through sheer ineptitude, those weapons were lost by the Americans when Iraqis — with the help of terrorists, Syrians, and Russians — smuggled the weapons out of their hiding places, and moved then to Syria.

In addition, Ms. Phillips asserts, the Americans know in general where the WMDs are, and that those weapons — along with a nuclear program — are being maintained in Syria. In additional addition, she avers that American Republicans in the government are too embarrassed to admit that The Pentagon / Executive Branch lost the WMDs, and American Democrats are too embarrassed to admit that they were wrong about the fact that Saddam actually had WMDs... justifying the original reason for the American invasion of Iraq.

There is a witness to all of this: A man called Dave Gaubatz, who apparently was part of a special investigation unit which he claims found the WMDs. He says that all the inspection reports which he filed have disappeared. The story goes on from there... with China and North Korea showing up as bit players in a grand Annihilate-The-West secret nuclear scheme. A bit of a tale... but I recommend reading the article first before making your mind up.


Glenn Greenwald insists the
story is baloney, but really
doesn't explain how or why.Glen Greenwald (one of my favorite writers/bloggers) puts forward a completely vacant, inane, and uninspired post here on the issue, the substance of which is essentially, "Look at these paranoid right-wing conspiracy nuts. Aren't they crazy? Aren't they gullible?" He doesn't offer any single refutation as to why the story might be untrue... other than his own incredulity. (A surprising omission from a fellow like Glenn, who rarely offers an opinion without a half dozen articles, quotes, and facts to back himself up.)

To me, the story of the lost WMDs seems quite feasible. My only refutation — which Greenwald fails to consider — is I believe that the Democrats would choose to expose the most exceptional failure of the Bush-led Iraq invasion: A failure to not only achieve it's primary goal, but by sheer grand incompetence, actually accomplish the opposite... namely put the WMDs into the hands of the terrorists (which is the main reason why I was always against the Iraq war). I believe that they would do this rather than choosing to conceal some "evidence of having guessed wrong" (not that any of them did, since they all originally believed) that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

So, like Glenn, I'm dubious about this story. However, I'm not treating it with the utter disdain and derision that Glenn (and the rest of the left-leaning blogosphere) is treating it with. But, unlike Glenn... I won't be the least bit surprised if it turns out to be true.