I was going to write something about this really horribly argued New York Times piece on WMD in Iraq, but Gabriel Malor over at Ace of Spades beat me to it. In short, the Times highlights the suffering of American troops who were exposed to WMD during the Iraq War (which is a good journalistic thing to do!). But then, realizing that this whole story undermines the conventional liberal narrative—"There were no WMD in Iraq and Bush lied and people died and blood for oil, oh my!"—the Times ... well, the Times just makes stuff up. "The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program," the author writes.
Well, no. That's not right. And to see why it's not right, you should read Gabe's piece. He's a good man, and thorough. Here's the crux of his argument:
Let me emphasize what is not present, if that's possible, in either of these speeches: the claim that Hussein had an active weapons of mass destruction program. That is not in there and, please, click through and check my math. It simply wasn't the basis of the case for war that Bush made to the American public.
The next major speech in Bush 43's run-up to war would be his ultimatum speech on March 17, 2003. This was Hussein's last chance to alter course. Bush 43 put Hussein, our coalition partners, and the American public on notice that enough was enough.
But, and this is important, an active weapons program made up no part of Bush 43's ultimatum. It wasn't active development of WMD that drove the U.S. to war. Rather, it was the same problems Bush 43 had identified the previous year: old weapons, the demonstrated ambition to develop new ones as soon as our backs were turned, and the possibility that Hussein could pass them to terrorists with Western aims.
This is about a clear-cut case of media bias as you'll find: The facts do not fit the preferred narrative of the Times, so the Times just rejiggers the facts. Easy peasy! Or, as I noted last night:
"Yeah, but THOSE WMDs don't count." --All of MSNBC tomorrow
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) October 15, 2014