News & Politics - Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD

Lexis · 08-06-2006, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"?

Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?

Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.

People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.

The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.

Despite this, a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents — up from 36 percent last year — said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD. Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.

"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.

"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.

Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record) and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record), released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.

But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.

"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."

Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved." But in some quarters it was headlined.

"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.

Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD - Yahoo! News

This is a little worrying. Although as the article points out, there could be confusion from Santorum's annoucement.

Emzmit · 08-06-2006, 02:03 PM

This is more than a little worrying imo, no wondering the US government is able to get away what it is.

AlexEvans · 08-06-2006, 04:56 PM

Useful or not, what has been found clearly shows Iraq to have been in violation of the ceasefire. Of course, the repeated roadblocks thrown in the way of the inspectors had already shown that.

(Of course, fighting inspections at the cost of prolonged sanctions and eventually war doesn't mean anything. Just their way of having fun.)

Maggie aka Sarah · 08-06-2006, 05:21 PM

I tend to think that Iraq did have WMD.... and that they probably got moved to someplace like Syria during the build-up to the war.

And as AlexEvans pointed out... Iraq was in violation of the ceasefire and via the various roadblocks and games that were being played with the inspectors... was behaving like they did have WMD.

But who knows... perhaps it was all a ruse with the purpose of making the Americans look silly.

Do think though that it's pretty clear that the Americans and the British were probably deliberately fed information in order to make them believe like Iraq did have WMD.

Maggie

ceilirose · 08-06-2006, 05:45 PM

That Santorum report came out the week the Senate was voting on whether to pull troops out of Iraq. Right then and there the story should have raised red flags among the MSM..but of course it didn't.

It was also about mustard gas I believe and not WMD. I don't think (but who knows) that Bush would have led us into a war over that. We were definitely told it was WMD again and again.

What's troubling is the the Department of Defense came out immediately with a statement that the find meant nothing. Still it didn't stop people from speculating.

There were doubts about whether they're were WMD but in the rush to the war they were never really investigated or discussed to any great extent. It wasn't really a surprise to some of us that they're weren't any WMD.

**TheAngel** · 08-06-2006, 05:59 PM

The majority of Americans are uninformed, it's simple fact.

elisheva · 08-06-2006, 06:35 PM

Well, AFAIK, Iraq did have chemical weapons which count as WMD, even if not what people imagined. I'd have to check that up though, because I only vageuly remember it from Instapundit.

**sum1** · 08-06-2006, 11:03 PM

Yeah, Iraq had various chemical and missle WMDs so yeah Iraq DID have WMDs. Plus even Iraq's military commanders were taken in by Saddam's pretence of having more major WMDs.

indium · 08-07-2006, 02:34 AM

it's probable that most of Iraq'a top brass actually thought they did have WMD. hence the stance they took. Also one can never prove a negative, there's a lot of desert there and the collation forces haven't been everywhere. Could still be hiding somewhere, not that that justifies the war or anything that's happend since. most of the world has WMD in some form or another

**TheAngel** · 08-07-2006, 05:33 AM

Of course Iraq had WMDs. We gave them to them during the war with Russia in like the 60s or 70s I think. But I still stand that most of the American public are misinformed, because they sure don't have them now.

ceilirose · 08-07-2006, 08:21 AM

One point of the article is that the number of people who thought that there were WMD in Iraq went up 36% from 2005. Was it the fall out after the Santorum/Hoekstra announcement? Is the public manipulated that easily?

Was enough attention given to the DOD/Pentagon announcement that the findings were basically rubbish? No..the initial report was proof for the long time believers and that's what has stuck in their minds.

It's confusing because the rationale for the war has changed so many times. WMD in Iraq that could be made into nuclear weapons equaling the "smoking gun mushroom cloud" is a a lot clearer than the central front of the war on terrorism.

indium · 08-07-2006, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ceilirose

It's confusing because the rationale for the war has changed so many times. WMD in Iraq that could be made into nuclear weapons equaling the "smoking gun mushroom cloud" is a a lot clearer than the central front of the war on terrorism.

Which in itself was a smokescreen for trying to gain stability of a major oil source. Which was the best theory for why Bush was so insistent about taking down Sadamm.

AlexEvans · 08-07-2006, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheAngel

Of course Iraq had WMDs. We gave them to them during the war with Russia in like the 60s or 70s I think. But I still stand that most of the American public are misinformed, because they sure don't have them now.

No. Iraq bought chemicals from US companies before the Iran-Iraq War (I think that's what you mean by 'war with Russia' right?), and bought biological agents from US companies as well. After Iraq used the chemicals to construct and use WMDs, it had to find other suppliers.

Indium, can you explain to me how "most of Saddam's top brass actually thought they did have WMD" (certainly true, whether they were correct in thinking they had as much as they thought they did or not) and "in itself was a smokescreen" can be reconciled?

Are you arguing that Bush mislead not only President Clinton and other senior Democrats, Russia, France, Germany and the UK, but also the Iraqi army?

He must be pretty damn good.

As for "stability of an oil source" Saddam was always willing to sell oil. The problem is what he did with the money he got from it, and I'm not talking about the massive collections of luxury automobiles.

There are questions that that remain. Maggie mentioned the theory that WMDs were moved to Syria, and I think that theory is by far the most probable explanation for what happened to the best of Iraq's WMDs. Still, we don't know. Maybe Saddam was deceived, and his own people didn't want him to have WMDs anymore. Maybe Iraq got rid of most of its WMDs while retaining manufacturing capability, but Saddam decided to bluff.

There are also things that are perfectly clear. One is that Iraq was in violation of the ceasefire terms regarding WMDs.

AlexEvans · 08-07-2006, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ceilirose

It's confusing because the rationale for the war has changed so many times. WMD in Iraq that could be made into nuclear weapons equaling the "smoking gun mushroom cloud" is a a lot clearer than the central front of the war on terrorism.

While we disagree on a lot, you're right that the case was not well made.

First, what I disagree on: the case did not simply change. The arguments for the war are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually supporting.

What I agree with you on: the focus on WMDs was stupid. WMDs aren't unique to Iraq. Iraq's use of them is unusual, but that wasn't really focused on.

What should have been focused on from the start was Iraq's support for terrorism. Iraq openly and publicly sponsored terrorism, with a record second only to Iran's. And Iran we did not have a base for action against (no longer true) and in Iran there was hope for reform from within (in abeyance, but still true).

Lexis · 08-07-2006, 11:02 AM

I think the most likely explanation is that Bush, Blair and other members of the coalition were told that there were WMD's by people who had an interest in the fall of Saddam and as another poster has pointed out, it was hard to fully check out.

Maybe they didn't chase it up as much as they should because they too had their own agendas.


Fan Forum > General Discussion > News & Politics > Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD