The ‘No WMD’ Lie: NY Times Adds More Icing to Already-Baked Cake

BizzyBlog readers know the argument over whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction ended long ago (see Previous Posts list below).

Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of the BizzyBlog post that got so many people riled up but that no one has been able to shoot down.

That Thursday evening also marked the day that yet another boomeranging “November Surprise” was unleashed, this time by the New York Times. It has backfired terribly on its supposed beneficiaries, because in the course of supposedly revealing that usable nuke secrets not available anywhere else were inadvertently disclosed at “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal” web site (what Captain Ed refers to as “the FMSO documents”), the Times noted that:

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

So not only did Iraq have WMDs, as documented extensively at this blog, but Iraq was close to building a nuke.

Money quote from Captain Ed (who also notes that doubts about the authenticity of the documents have been implicitly erased by the Times):

That appears to indicate that by invading in 2003, we followed the best intelligence of the UN inspectors to head off the development of an Iraqi nuke. This intelligence put Saddam far ahead of Iran in the nuclear pursuit, and made it much more urgent to take some definitive action against Saddam before he could build and deploy it. And bear in mind that this intelligence came from the UN, and not from the United States. The inspectors themselves developed it, and they meant to keep it secret.

Next thing you know, someone in the press is going to say that the threat was “imminent” (something neither George Bush nor anyone in his cabinet ever said, though it was often accused of it).

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UPDATE: I have to wonder what the “no weapons of mass destruction” crowd, including the hordes of duped politicians, will have to say about the Times flushing their precious 3-1/2 year-old meme down the tubes on the eve of the election. I have one word for them: Surprise!

UPDATE 2: Also can’t wait for someone to argue that a pre-emptive strike was wrong in the circumstances. I guess we should have waited until Saddam’s nukes were in the air, or until he had given some of them away to Al Qaeda. Zheesh.

UPDATE 3: Pete Hoekstra’s exclamation point (WSJ link requires subscription; also covered at this Michelle Malkin post):

“If the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) believes that the documents that were released were in the safe 40%, imagine what the 60% being withheld must contain,” Mr. Hoekstra says, adding that this latest twist “only reinforces the value of these documents in understanding the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

UPDATE 4: If the Times (or “The Timestantic,” as Anchoress has taken to calliing it)is really worried about Iran’s acquisition of nuclear knowhow and technology, it ought to dig really deep into this.

UPDATE 5: Boring Made Dull points out that Joe “Plamegate” Wilson is a big, big loser in this. The cake that is already baked in the post title must be a “yellowcake” (haha).

UPDATE 6, Nov. 12: A couple of other choice comments –

• Charles at LGF: “I’d just like to say ‘thank you’ to President Bush and to the men and women of the US military, who—by the New York Times’ own admission—took out a terror-sponsoring regime in Iraq that could have constructed a nuclear weapon within months, as soon as sanctions were lifted enough for them to obtain sufficient fissile material.”
• Ted Rall, 2 years ago: “72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs. 75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true.” Yo, Ted — I’ll give you the last one, but on the other two: How does it feel to be made a complete fool by the favorite newspaper of the Left?

Suddenly Sunday trackback participant.
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Previous Posts:

• Aug. 14 — The “No WMD” Lie (with Linked Proof): The Sequel
• July 31 — The Iraq “No WMD” Lie: Game, Set, Match
• June 22 — MORE WMD Findings Revealed (Adding to Richard Miniter’s October 2005 List)
• June 13 — The “No WMD” Lie: An Addendum
• March 18 — Weekend Question 1: When Will We Hear the “Never Mind” on the “No WMD” Claim?
• March 3 — Why Isn’t There a Groundswell of Media and Other Protest about This “Coverup”?
• Feb. 15 — The Saddam Tapes, If They Prove WMDs, Will Be Icing on an Already-Baked Cake
• Feb. 8, 2006 — The “No WMD” Lie (Yet Again) at Coretta Scott King’s Funeral — And a Challenge
• Nov. 2, 2005 — The “No WMD” Lie (with LINKED Proof)
• Oct. 27 — The “No WMD” Lie