Focus on the Nukes!

In a post the other day, Marshall Whitman (a.k.a. the Bull Moose) had the following to say about the Iraq debate.

Congressional Democrats are settling on a
"narrative" and a "frame" for the Iraq War. In
essence, their argument is that the President
and his Administration practiced massive
deceit to lead the nation to war - that they
manufactured and manipulated intelligence. In
other words, the narrative goes, the President
knew there were no weapons of mass
destruction and deliberately lied to the
Congress and the American people on the road
to war. Or as the anti-war movement inelegantly
frames it, "Bush lied and Americans died."

He warns that "they are now headed for Michael Moore territory with the argument that a vast conspiracy concocted a war base on lies." He suggests that Democrats should instead focus on the Bush administration's negligence and all around mishandling of the war.

Whitman is both very right and very wrong. His characterization of the prevailing Democratic opinion about Iraq is, unfortunately, not all that far off the mark. Far too many liberals and Democrats lazily argue that the Bush administration lied about the existence of WMDs to make the case for war. When framed this way, the argument is easily rebutted by pointing to the widespread intelligence community consensus at the time that Iraq indeed had WMD. Moreover, Republicans can simply point out that many prominent Democrats (including President Clinton) genuinely believed that Iraq possessed stockpiles of WMD. David Brooks recently made this very point is his own uniquely condescending way, accusing Harry Reid of wearing a tinfoil hat and concocting wild conspiracy theories.

But Brooks and Marshall are being every bit as intellectually lazy as the conspiracy theorists they deride. As Franklin Foer asked the other day, "why isn't it possible to believe that Saddam posed a threat and the administration manipulated specific strands of the intelligence? (There are plenty of people on the left and right who can't comprehend that a mind could hold these positions simultaneously.)"

The problem with the standard WMD critique is that it is not specific enough. While it's certainly true that most people believed Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, the Bush administration's unique contribution to the debate was the claim that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons. This is the claim that gave the war argument its sense of urgency. Saddam had possessed chemical and biological weapons for over two decades. That fact alone was not a compelling basis for invasion. But the administration argued that if Iraq went nuclear, the window of opportunity for regime change might close forever. And not willing to stop there, the administration repeatedly drew a connection between Saddam's regime and the events of 9/11, warning that we didn't "want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." There is little doubt in my mind that it was the nuclear argument that won over the majority of fence-sitters.

Why is that important? Well, unlike their claims about chemical and biological weapons, the administration's nuclear claims were not well-supported by contemporaneous intelligence. There was no similar consensus among the intelligence community. And it wasn't just the Niger yellowcake claim. The claim regarding aluminum tubes, for instance, was widely ridiculed in the intelligence community even as Judith Miller was busy hyping it on the front page of the New York Times. On several important occasions, Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney made claims regarding Iraq's nuclear capabilities that went well beyond any intelligence the administration had, and without any caveats or qualifications. These statements were beyond reckless. They were a major breach of the public trust.

Liberals and Democrats need to focus their critique. There is plenty of evidence that the Bush administration misled the American people in the lead up to war, but they didn't mislead us about everything. So please, stop talking about WMD and focus on the nukes!