Many at fault for going to war without proof of WMD

A report released on Oct. 6 confirmed what many have believed
for years ““ there were no weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq.

The report, issued by the U.S. Iraq Survey Group, also said
there were hardly any serious Iraqi attempts to garner WMD’s
within the last decade.

Though it’s good that the CIA will finally bring closure
to this controversial issue, this thorough investigation should
have been done before the United States invaded and occupied
another country.

From the CIA to the politicians, to the media to the public,
everyone was duped. And there is plenty of blame to spread
around.

During the lead-up to war, the Bush administration exaggerated
several claims about Saddam Hussein’s weapon programs.

Administration officials often relied upon the reports of
foreign governments and Iraqi exiles ““ many of whom had a
personal interest in the fall of Saddam.

Intelligence experts debated whether or not Iraq was trying to
rebuild its programs, but the administration was always content
using only the most dire of predictions.

Often, it seemed as if officials were purely speculating as much
as anything ““ it seemed fanciful when Secretary of State
Colin Powell described theoretical Iraqi preparations to use remote
control airplanes to deliver weapons of mass destruction.

And the administration hardly ever named its sources.

But the American people and the media are also to blame in part
for failing to ask the right questions.

Politicians, including Sen. John Kerry and many Democrats, cared
only about political expediency.

War was in the air and they did little to slow the drum
beat.

Kerry can dance around his record, but the fact is he voted to
authorize a U.S. response along with 76 other senators.

Newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post
regurgitated claims without fully investigating their source and
validity.

Even when the evidence looked shaky, few publications had the
guts to editorialize about the seriousness of the matter.

The truth about the Iraq War is probably more complicated than
most Americans want to believe.

When nations go to war, abstract concepts called “vital
national interests” are measured and weighed.

The world may never know exactly why the Bush administration
decided to invade, but it undoubtedly involved calculations
involving everything from oil to uranium, to money to manpower.
This war was never just about WMD, oil or liberation.

Because of the different reasons the Bush administration has
given for going to war over time, some Americans still support the
basic decision to go to war.

But even those people must accept that there were colossal
mistakes made when it comes to the WMD part of the equation.

At this point, it does little good to know that Iraq had no WMD
over a year after the invasion.

Politicians should have listened more closely to experts and
avoided throwing WMDs into their spin machines.

Fudging the facts is one thing when it comes to taxes and
budgets.

It is another thing entirely when lives are at stake and when
lives have been lost: more than 1,000 U.S. lives and thousands of
more Iraqi lives and counting.