by Jim Rose in economics

The renegade left does go on about how the Iraq war was launched on a false premise: that Iraq had chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Weapons of mass destruction are chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Source: The Secret Casualties of Iraq’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons – The New York Times.



All that was found after the 2003 Iraq war were several thousand biological and chemical weapons warheads as the New York Times explained in 2014:

From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.

The New York Times found 17 American service members and seven Iraqi police officers who were exposed to nerve or mustard agents after 2003.

The Iraq war cannot be condemned on the grounds that there were no chemical, biological and nuclear weapons – weapons of mass destruction – if America soldiers were exposed to nerve and mustard agents after the war.

These nerve and mustard agents were manufactured prior to 1991. That does not make them any less deadly or any less of a chemical or biological weapon. Clearly, they were not discovered and destroyed by the UN weapons inspection program. One reason for that American soldiers stumbled onto them and in some cases are exposed to them rather than using maps of dangerous sites from the UN inspectors.

To the main point of my blog which is firstly, I do not know why the renegade left did not instead simply accept that Saddam had biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and point out the obvious. Attacking a country with biological, chemical and nuclear weapons is foolhardy – they make war unthinkable.

The reason why the renegade left could not possibly make that obvious argument against the war in Iraq, which was it could be a massive disaster if these weapons were used in desperation because they would have to admit nuclear deterrence works.

That admission that nuclear deterrence works would invalidate their entire political activism in the peace movements in the Cold War undermining the one factor preventing a nuclear war, which was nuclear deterrence.

Since 1945, at least seven or eight wars have occurred where one side had nuclear weapons. In 1973, Israel had nuclear weapons it could have used. The reason for the non-use of nuclear weapons in those seven or eight wars including the 1973 Yom Kippur War was none of those wars were wars of annihilation. Nuclear weapons were more likely to be used intention was to invade or occupy a country.

The Yom Kippur war was launched with a plan by President Sadat to reclaim the Sinai then after a few days agreed to an internationally brokered ceasefire. He was intending on reclaiming lost territory, not invading Israel proper continue and risk nuclear retaliation.

Secondly, as I recall, Saddam destroyed his nuclear, biological, and weapons but not his weapons development capability soon after he lost the first Iraq war. Saddam played a double strategy: make sure he was not caught with contraband but play a fine game of bluff making everybody think Iraq still has them so he remains a regional strongman.

Thirdly, the Iraq war started because Saddam fooled his enemies into thinking he had, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. It is not a war crime to be deceived.

Fourthly, what was the point of the UN inspections and the left calling for the inspections to continue as an alternative to invading in 2003 unless they expected to find more evidence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons? Why was 14 years of UN inspections necessary unless they were finding contraband chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development capabilities and technologies? Why were the inspections resumed in 2003 if there is nothing to find?

You cannot have it both ways even if you are the renegade left. UN inspections were working in disarming Iraq and Iraq had no chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to be disarmed.