Thursday, January 20, 2011

Stickin' to his story

Here's a remarkable statement from the retiring Joe Lieberman, on the Duelfer Report that was produced by the Iraq Survey Group after the U.S. invasion:
I want to be very clear: he didn't find big caches of weapons of mass destruction. But he found, and proved I think, that Saddam had every intention, and particularly to develop nuclear weapons, was developing chemical and biological weapons, and had a structure in place including nuclear scientists that he was prepared to support if he broke out of the sanctions, which he was inclined to do. So I think that the evidence is clear that if we did not do what we did that Saddam Hussein would today have at least chemical and biological weapons and have a nuclear program probably like Iran's beginning to move toward capabilities [emphasis added].
Oh, dear, this is the sort of doublespeak I thought we were done with. A few questions:

  • Saddam had a "structure in place... that he was prepared to support"? What does that mean? A bunch of nuclear physicists sitting in a room playing "Quake" just waiting for some uranium and money to show up? 
  • Saddam was inclined to break out of the sanctions? Is there anyone under sanctions who is not inclined to break out of them? What does that even mean?
  • How do we square these statements with the actual findings of the Duelfer Report, which stated that Iraq had no chemical weapons, had no biological weapons, and had made no efforts to restart its nuclear program?
  • Is this really how Lieberman wants to be remembered 10 or 20 years from now?

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