The reason I’m posting this poll here is because it’s political and highly debatable. Still, if it’s in the wrong forum, my appolgies to the mods.
I’m not going to comment much myself, but I’m really curious as to where the SDMB community stands on the issue of not finding, as of yet, any weapons of mass distruction. OK, here’s the question.
Weapons of mass destruction haven’t been found yet. This means
They were hidden well and are very hard to find, but will be found eventually.
It may turn out they weren’t there and that Bush ( and I’ll include Tony Blair since he was our biggest allie ) and Blair were mistaken.
Bush (and Blair) lied about there being any weapons of mass distruction.
I’ll start (of course ) by picking number 1. However, if it turns out, that there aren’t any, then I’ll vote for 2 because I honestly don’t believe that Bush lied.
Why limit yourself? Go ahead, combine parts if you want, I don’t mind. I myself gave an answer, then an alternative.
I’ll be honest, lack of weapons so far is a little discouraging for me, and Bush’s blaming the CIA for a peice of faulty information doesn’t sit well with me. I still don’t think that he lied however.
Hehehe, guess I shouls have had
4) Other, please explain.
So, sold them all off. I didn’t think about that one, but I guess it’s possible, probably not very likely, but possible. Also another possibility, he hid most or all of them in neighboring countries, so no matter where we look in Iraq, we won’t find them. Again, not very likely, but possible.
2.875 or thereabouts. The intention was definitely to deceive even if many of the facts were factual such as they were.
I see what happened as having happened in this order:
a) Right wing thinktank decides US should take over Iraq for reasons other than safety from terrorism
b) Terrorists attack on 9/11, apparently Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda
c) US invades Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda with much international support.
d) Bush administration seizes opportunity to use terrorism as reason for acquiring Iraq. Screws up the PR badly, loses most international support & much domestic as well, does it anyway. WMD is part of this badly bungled rationale, along with claims that Hussein & his govt are in league with Al Qaeda and had something to do with 9/11. These are all lies in the sense that the conclusions drawn from the facts are flimsily supported by them, that (as SimonX says) a lot of cherry-picking of facts took place in order to support those conclusions, and, last but not least, they have nothing really to do with why we invaded Iraq in the first place, as the stated plan for doing so predated the events of 9/11.
e) The WMD part of the administration’s rationale is not forgotten by the media or other countries and starts to come back to bite the administration in the ass. Some people are genuinely angry because they believed in the necessity of invading for the protection of US interests, based on the administration’s claims re: WMD. Others saw the whole thing as the awkward stage show of a 3rd rate magician whose rabbit was never well-hidden by the hat and cheerfully hopped on as soon as it looked like there might be a call for some accountability here.
) by picking number 1. However, if it turns out, that there aren’t any, then I’ll vote for 2 because I honestly don’t believe that Bush lied.