Well, thanks to @besttrousers for dropping the Iraq WMD grenade in my lap - you shall pay, Matt - but one thing to remember is that Saddam could have screwed over Bush and Blair by complying with UN demands at the last minute. In fact, U.S. was worried he'd do that. /1
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Saddam's own generals later were debriefed and said stuff like "Well, my unit didn't have them, but the units near me did." When you're so good at this your own generals think they exist, you can imagine that foreign intel agencies aren't betting on the under. /2
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No major intel agency anywhere dissented from the basic view that Iraq was hiding WMD. Weapons inspectors wanted more time to prove a negative, that Iraq *didn't* have them. Duelfer later found none, but intent to preserve the WMD programs for quick restart. /3
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You can argue that invading Iraq was a bad idea, badly executed, or badly premised on WMD as the major reason. But "experts were stupid and everyone knew there was no WMD" is just 20-years-later retconning for a war that went bad for a lot of reasons. /4x
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Replying to @RadioFreeTom
Absolutely not. A lot of us doubted it at the time. Plenty of evidence that experts were mixed on it, yet politicians went with what they wanted to do regardless.

Apr 11, 2021 · 11:35 PM UTC

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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
The Leftist is RIGHT. Anyone with half a brain could see this Iraq sham coming a mile away. The stupid idea that the secular tyrant Saddam would give WMD to Islamist Al Qaeda came from a neocon globalist cabal whispering Churchillian sweet nothings into the empty vessel, GWB.
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All Congresspeople had to do was walk down the hall to read the classified documents. Agency officials were totally mixed about it, but most Congresspeople who voted on the issue didn’t even read the material.
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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
"A lot of people had doubts," while true, is VERY different from, "Everyone knew there was no WMD." I believe his is more a defense of the analyst community that had to make a tough call than of the policymakers who took that data and yelled, "WAR!" from the mountain-tops.
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Williamson blocks me, but without even seeing it, I can guess what her comment sounded like. And you are correct, analysts had to make a hard call about an adversary who was trying to prevent the world from thinking he *didn't* have WMD.
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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
Marianne I’m pretty sure you have no idea what you’re talking about. Perhaps stick to life coaching and guruing
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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
No one was "mixed up". Bush & his neocons knew that Iraq didn't have WMD's. 9/11 was planned by neocon ziofascists to be the excuse to destroy several Muslin countries that opposed Israel hegemony in the M.E. Iraq was just the first one. See the video of Gen. Clark's interview.
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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
Agreed. Just applying a little common sense to a history of unjustified military intervention carried out by this county should have resulted in at the very least a healthy level of skepticism. And this is coming from someone who felt that at the time, not in hindsight.
Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
Weapons inspector and UNSCOM intelligence head Scott Ritter was shouting the facts to anyone who would listen. He was labelled as having drunk Saddam’s Kool-Aid and ignored. The truth was out there for those without an an agenda or political/financial considerations.
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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
It's the PETRO DOLLAR! Saddam divested from US currency\bond exchanges for Iraqi oil. Essentially, cutting off the propping up of the US Empire's fiat currency nearly a year before the invasion. The rest of the world knows and MSM lies for the establishment regarding why.
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Replying to @marwilliamson @RadioFreeTom
Not to mention, there’s absolutely no reason why both the things he said can’t be true. Many may have been duped but in hindsight they still get to call it out.
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