John Hughes claims in his article that "...people must decide whether Bush, in the face of all this opinion, was lying and really knew Hussein did not have these weapons, or whether he believed, on the basis of overwhelming opinion at the time (which ultimately proved to be wrong), that the threat was real."
It certainly was a popular position at the time (and now) that "overwhelming opinion" said that Iraq had WMDs, but this most certainly not the case outside the USA, then or now.
I work as a pediatric audiologist in North Carolina, and I used my six year old notebook computer and an AOL connection to determine that there were no nuclear WMDs in Iraq by October 2002. Furthermore, if there were chemical or biological weapons there (which was plausible) there was certainly no means for Saddam to deliver them to the USA, hence no threat. I reached these conclusions by reading widely from around the world, and researching available evidence.
If I could do this, so could the White House and the US Congress. My conclusion is that they are either liars or amazingly gullible fools.
Here is some memorable evidence I uncovered:
Rice and Powell both publicly stated in early 2001 that Saddam was contained and not a threat.
Many on the UN Security Council did not believe that Iraq was a threat.
There had been no WMDs uncovered in Iraq since 1991.
All prior WMDs uncovered in Iraq were done so with the assistance of Iraqi weapons and intelligence experts.
In 1998, the UN weapons inspectors left because Clinton was going to start bombing Iraq, not because Saddam kicked them out. The UN weapons inspections had been compromised by political agendas back here in the USA which Clinton signed on to.
There was no concrete evidence that Saddam had restarted his nuclear weapons program since 1998, and there was no nuclear weapons program in 1998.
There were credible former UN weapons inspectors (notable Ritter) claiming that Iraq had no nuclear weapons.
A working connection between Saddam and bin Laden defied common sense.
After October 2002, more evidence emerged:
UN weapons inspectors numbered in the hundreds were on the ground and were finding nothing of significance.
With the exception of Kuwait and Israel, Iraq's neighboring countries did not feel Iraq was a threat and did not want a war started there in Iraq. If Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and several other middle eastern countries did not feel a threat, how could there possibly be a threat to the USA or Europe? Again, it defied common sense.
Powell's presentation at the UN was based on circumstantial evidence. Almost no one at the UN bought it. Many sources outside the USA discredited what he had to say immediately afterwards. This mainly went unreported in the US media.
Saddam publicly stated on British TV that he had no WMDs and no connections to bin Laden. He said if he did have a connection, he would be proud to announce it. This went unreported in the US media.
Tens of millions of people around the world demonstrated against this war, which was unprecedented in history. With a few minor exceptions, this was mainly ignored in the US media. I saw no real attempt to have a discussion with these protestors as to why they were objecting to this war. There was no real attempt to bring in dissenting voices of some authority into the mainstream of discussion. Rather, they were often ridiculed and dismissed, both in the media and by US officials.
With these above mentioned events going on in the world, it was clear to me that mainstream media in the USA, particularly television, was not to be trusted.
There was growing and growing evidence in 2003 that there were no WMDs in Iraq. After the war started, I remember sending an emotional letter to one of my Senators, John Edwards, saying "I hope you find those WMDs in Iraq so you can justify this illegal and immoral war."
I knew he would not. I knew the nuclear WMDs were not there, and quite likely there were no biological or chemical ones either. I predicted, and I sincerely hope I am someday proven wrong, that Iraq would melt down into a civil war that will spread to a regional war engulfing the entire middle east. I would be very happy to be wrong about something concerning this war. I do not buy that "everyone thought" that Iraq had WMDs because that is simply not true, particularly in the world at large. I do not believe that this administration and the prior US Congress could not figure this out. If that premise is true, then they are fools. And if they did figure it out, then they are tools (liars).
Fools or tools.... you pick. Either way, we need to get them out of office and elect people who are both intelligent and honest. I do hope you publish this to counter the prevailing position that "overwhelming opinion" around the world said that Iraq had WMDs. That was delusional then, and now.
They did not publish my letter.
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