Jag har aldrig riktigt kunnat släppa tanken på att Saddam verkligen hade massförstörelsevapen gömda någonstans i öknen. Allt talade för att han hade dessa vapen: världens underrättelsetjänster var i stort sett överens, Saddam hade kastat ut FN:s vapeninspektörer 1998 och han lekte kurragömma med FN från Kuwaitkrigets slut till Irakkrigets början. Hans kärnvapenambitioner var välkända.

Men vapnen har aldrig påträffats. Och nu är det en utbredd uppfattning att allt var ett påhitt av USA, ett svepskäl för att äntligen få invadera Irak och, typ, lägga beslag på landets olja (vilken briljant plan!).

Nyligen dök det upp trovärdig information om vad som kan ha hänt med Saddams arsenaler: de påträffades av amerikansk personal men på grund av missar från CIA och militären tog det ett bra tag innan de var i stånd att bryta upp vapenbunkrarna. Och då hade redan någon annan varit framme. Melanie Phillips skriver om vittnesmålet från Dave Gaubatz, en specialagent från amerikanska flygvapnet:

Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq”” two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra ”” which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true.

This was in the first place because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20-30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.

Men någon annan hann som sagt före de amerikanska utgrävarna. Vilka då? Melanie Phillips igen, här citerandes John Loftus som är ordförande för en tankesmedja som sysslar med underrättelser:

It is not widely know, but open sources identify that the US Government has a satellite capable of detecting the unique frequencies generated by high speed uranium centrifuges. The satellite confirms that uranium centrifuges are operating in Syria. Syria has no known nuclear program, not even a power plant. Nor does it have a natural supply of uranium ore. Why then, are the Syrians running nuclear centrifuges?

It is reasonable to suspect that all of Saddam’s nuclear research, scientists and equipment have been relocated to his fellow Baath party members in the nation of Syria. Indeed there is no other explanation to explain the disappearance of what Saddam himself talked about on his tapes; a massive and robust program to make an atomic bomb.

Att Saddams massförstörelsevapen skall ha gått förlorade till Syrien är förstås en hemsk tanke. Dessvärre är den inte helt orealistisk.

Charles Krauthammer skriver idag om en av Irakkrigets myter: att kriget lurades på USA av ett litet gäng så kallade neokonservativa:

One of the major myths (or, more accurately, conspiracy theories) about the Iraq War — that it was foisted upon an unsuspecting country by a small band of neoconservatives — also lives blissfully detached from history.

The decision to go to war was made by a war Cabinet consisting of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. No one in that room could even remotely be considered a neoconservative. Nor could the most important non-American supporter of the war to this day — Tony Blair, father of new Labour.

The most powerful case for the war was made at the 2004 Republican convention by John McCain in a speech that was resolutely ”realist.” On the Democratic side, every presidential candidate running today who was in the Senate when the motion to authorize the use of force came up — Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd — voted yes.

Outside of government, the case for war was made not just by the neoconservative Weekly Standard, but — to select almost randomly — the traditionally conservative National Review, the liberal New Republic and the center-right Economist. Of course, most neoconservatives supported the war, the case for which was also being made by journalists and scholars from every point on the political spectrum — from the leftist Christopher Hitchens to the liberal Tom Friedman to the centrist Fareed Zakaria to the center-right Michael Kelly to the Tory Andrew Sullivan. And the most influential tome on behalf of war was written not by any conservative, let alone neoconservative, but by Kenneth Pollack, Clinton’s top Near East official on the National Security Council. The title: ”The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.”

Everyone has the right to renounce past views. But not to make up that past.

Läs ett av mina tidigare inlägg om den verkliga upprinnelsen till kriget.