Andrew Sullivan is soliciting any real examples of those who proclaimed before the war that Saddam definitely did not have weapons of mass destruction.
I'm aware of one person who clearly stated before the war that he believed that Saddam had no WMDs. That was Scott Ritter...I remember being told by many who were against getting rid of Saddam that we shouldn't invade precisely because he had WMDs and our invasion would be the only occasion in which he'd use them. But I don't recall anyone saying flat out that there were no WMDs in Iraq. But I may have missed someone. I'll happily post such pre-war statements if you send them to me.
I'd note that there was, first of all, this August 2002 Slate column by Tim Noah boldly titled "Saddam Does Not Have 'Weapons of Mass Destruction'," but intellectual honesty forces me to concede that the title is misleading. Noah's main contention in the article is that it is folly to place chemical weapons under the same heading as nuclear weapons, and that there was no evidence to suggest Saddam had the latter. An important point, but not quite the same contention as what Sullivan is looking for.
But there was another voice in the wilderness, and it was one I took seriously, even if Sullivan and others had completely written him off. That would be the case of the late supply-side-guru- cum -Farrakhan-apologist Jude Wanniski, who had been claiming even before 9/11 that Iraq had no WMDs. It takes only a brief search of his Polyconomics archives to get a few examples, such as this February 2003 letter to the New York Times.
Then there's the transcript of Wanniski's appearance on the O’Reilly Factor, from July 9, 2002.
WANNISKI: The press corps is totally broken down on this issue. The press corps is supporting two political parties...
O'REILLY: Yes.
WANNISKI: ...that want to go to war with Iraq. And Minister Farrakhan is there, trying to prevent...
O'REILLY: And the reason they want to go is because he has weapons of mass destruction.
WANNISKI: He has no weapons of mass destruction.
O'REILLY: No, the Scud missiles, they were just what? What was that?
WANNISKI: Their scud missiles are not weapons of mass destruction.
O'REILLY: OK, but you know for a fact that he doesn't have biological weapons or anything like that? You know for a fact that he doesn't have them?
WANNISKI: He has -- would agree to inspections.
O'REILLY: No, he would. But he has -- but all the U.N. inspectors that I've interviewed here on THE FACTOR say he doesn't agree. But you say he does.
WANNISKI: The U.N. inspectors went back in in 1998...
O'REILLY: Butler and all his guys, right?
WANNISKI: Butler is a fraud.
O'REILLY: Oh, he's a fraud too.
WANNISKI: Butler went in...
O'REILLY: So, he's a fraud. The Kurds weren't gassed. It was OK for us that he invaded Kuwait, go along with that?
WANNISKI: I didn't say it was OK that he invaded Kuwait. But I'm saying that the reasons that he did it...
O'REILLY: You're coming off as a nut. You're coming off as a nut. Is that the way you want to come off?
WANNISKI: OK, you want me to say exactly the opposite of what I believe.
I've emailed the text to Sullivan but, his promises to the contrary, he's yet to acknowledge it on his site. To be fair, he just may not have gotten around to it yet.
If he doesn't acknowledge it, then I suspect his solicitation is somewhat disingenuous, as what he's really looking for are not examples of people who said before the war that Saddam had no WMDs, but examples of people whom he, Andrew Sullivan, would have believed when they said before the war that Saddam had no WMDs.
O'Reilly is such a stupid jackass.
- Josh
Posted by: Wild Pegasus | March 13, 2006 at 12:18 AM
The only other person that I can think of besides Ritter and Wanniski who even expressed doubt about Saddam having WMDs was Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030303/acockburn
I'm not sure what any of this proves however since Wanniski and Cockburn both exist on the furthest fringes of the political spectrum. Cockburn once wrote a column calling for Paul Wellstone's defeat because he deemed the senator too conservative.
Cockburn has been described as a "liar" and a "skunk" and a "discredited Stalinist" for whom "Facts, truths and principles be damned." And those are just his fellow writers at the Nation ... http://www.thenation.com/doc/20021223/exchange
Posted by: Inkstained Wretch | March 13, 2006 at 12:56 PM
I don't buy Sullivan.
And there were plenty of people who believed that even if Saddam was developing WMD's Iraq did not constitute a threat to the United States. In fact The American Conservative was founded by conservatives who said so.
Sullivan and others simply called them names and derationalized their objections (their crazies, Anti-Semities, or defeatists).
Posted by: Michael Brendan Dougherty | March 18, 2006 at 01:18 PM