[Mb-hair] NYTimes.com Article: The Verdict Is In

[michael at intrafi.com]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by michael at intrafi.com.



/--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\

 I HEART HUCKABEES - OPENING IN SELECT CITIES OCTOBER 1

 From David O. Russell, writer and director of THREE KINGS
 and FLIRTING WITH DISASTER comes an existential comedy
 starring Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Hupert, Jude Law, Jason
 Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts.
 Watch the trailer now at:

 http://www.foxsearchlight.com/huckabees/index_nyt.html

\----------------------------------------------------------/


The Verdict Is In

October 7, 2004
 


 

Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the
bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, written by President Bush's handpicked
investigator. 

In the 18 months since President Bush ordered the invasion
of Iraq, justifying the decision by saying that Saddam
Hussein was "a gathering threat" to the United States,
Americans have come to realize that Iraq had no chemical,
nuclear or biological weapons. But the report issued
yesterday goes further. It says that Iraq had no factories
to produce illicit weapons and that its ability to resume
production was growing more feeble every year. While Mr.
Hussein retained dreams of someday getting back into the
chemical warfare business, his chosen target was Iran, not
the United States. 

The report shows that the international sanctions that Mr.
Bush dismissed and demeaned before the war - and still does
- were astonishingly effective. Mr. Hussein hoped to get
out from under the sanctions, and the report's author,
Charles Duelfer, loyally told Congress yesterday that he
thought that could have happened. But his report said the
Iraqis lacked even a formal strategy or a plan to
reconstitute their weapons programs if it did. 

For months, administration officials have tried to deflect
charges that they invaded Iraq under false pretenses and
have urged critics to wait for Mr. Duelfer's verdict on the
weapons search. The authoritative findings of his Iraq
Survey Group have now left the administration's rationale
for war more tattered than ever. It turns out that Iraq
destroyed all stockpiles of illicit weapons more than a
decade ago and had no large-scale production facilities
left after 1996, seven years before the invasion. This was
a matter of choice by Saddam Hussein, who desperately
wanted an end to sanctions and feared that any weapons
programs, if discovered by inspectors, would only keep them
in place. 

Even after U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, a period when
Western intelligence experts assumed the worst might be
happening, the Hussein regime made no active efforts to
produce new weapons of mass destruction. The much-feared
nuclear threat - that looming mushroom cloud conjured by
the administration to stampede Congress into authorizing an
invasion - was a phantom. Mr. Duelfer found that even if
Iraq had tried to restart its defunct nuclear program in
2003, it would have needed years to produce a nuclear
weapon. 

Since any objective observer should by now have digested
the idea that Iraq posed no imminent threat to anyone, let
alone the United States, it was disturbing to hear
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continue to
try to justify the invasion this week on the grounds that
after Sept. 11, 2001, Iraq was clearly the most likely
place for terrorists to get illicit weapons. Even if Mr.
Hussein had wanted to arm groups he could not control - a
very dubious notion- he had nothing to give them. 

Administration officials will no doubt point to sections of
the report citing evidence that front companies were
supplying Iraq with banned materials, and that Iraq had
money and expertise that could be used to make weapons.
They will also point to Mr. Duelfer's speculation that
support for the sanctions was eroding. But nothing in the
voluminous record provides Mr. Bush with the justification
he wanted for a preventive war because the weapons programs
did not exist. And as the war continues to bog down, the
power of nonviolent international sanctions looks more
muscular every day. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07thu1.html?ex=1098173572&ei=1&en=a139eabe56dda4bf


---------------------------------

Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine
reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like!
Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy
now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here:

http://homedelivery.nytimes.com/HDS/SubscriptionT1.do?mode=SubscriptionT1&ExternalMediaCode=W24AF



HOW TO ADVERTISE
---------------------------------
For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters 
or other creative advertising opportunities with The 
New York Times on the Web, please contact
onlinesales at nytimes.com or visit our online media 
kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help at nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company