No WMD's.... GOOD!

Nick of Time
Thursday, October 07, 2004
By John Gibson

For months I've been saying, Oh geez, Saddam didn't have any weapons of mass destruction? (search) Well, then we got there just in time.
It makes sense to me. Based on the notion he would love to have WMD, he wanted to get WMD, he tried to get WMD, he wanted to hide WMD from us and he wanted to use WMD on us, then we got there just in the nick of time if we didn't find any actual stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
I thought it was one big phew! And an illustration of the rule, I'd rather be lucky than good.
Well, silly me.
The Bush opponents are making a huge noise about no WMD proves we did the wrong thing: There never should have been a war since there was no reason for war.
Well, Mr. Duelfer's report (search) makes a few important points:
No. 1: Saddam was bribing the United Nations Security Council (search) members with a billion dollars.
No. 2: Saddam wanted the sanctions lifted and was close to getting it done.
No. 3: When those sanctions were lifted, he was going to get WMD again.
No. 4: I guess, the simple point that diplomacy is tough — shall we say, impossible — when the other side is buying off the United Nations.
So once again, after you get past the headline, No WMD and we have no idea why Saddam wanted the world to think he did have WMD, then you get into areas where the threat is laid out in a real way which justifies action against Saddam Hussein.
If our friends the French, the Russians and the Chinese — U.N. Security Council members with a veto — weren't taking billions of dollars in bribes, maybe we could have counted on diplomacy and the rule of international law.
But since they were all corrupt and greedy thieves, we couldn't count on diplomacy and the rule of international law.
I ask again: What is the logic behind the argument that Saddam posed no danger and we should have left him on his throne?
That's My Word.