> I'd make a clarification here: most antiwar activists I know were
> skeptical over what _George Bush_ was claiming-- it wasn't based on
> anything more than a reflexive stance. With a few exceptions, I saw very
> little substantive argument from the Left that Saddam had no WMDs. (Noam
> Chomsky might've gone over the weapons inspectors' reports carefully,
> but Chomsky's exceptional in the best ways.) Most of the people I'd
> encountered understood that, while Bush was probably exaggerating how
> much weaponry Saddam had, and his willingness to use it, more likely
> than not Saddam probably had _something_. As I'd written before, to
> believe otherwise would have violated common sense; what dictator would
> give up such weapons?
>
> The point is that the belief that Saddam had WMDs was not unreasonable.
> And, at the time, if anyone on the Left was denying it entirely, it
> wasn't based on anything but suspicion of the U.S.'s motives. And up
> until the invasion, the only way to verify anything was to be there, on
> site, with the inspectors. So faulting the media for not adopting this
> particular view, from the vantage of 20/20 hindsight, is sort of
> disingenuous.
Either way, most anti-war activists were focused on other issues, such as the idea that this war was being fought for oil. I think many would have said that Saddam had the capacity to whip up some cheap WMDs, but that he didn't have the capability to create the fancy stuff, nor deliver any of it in a way that would be a threat to America. Just about any country has the labs and equipment to whip up some anthrax, but how would Iraq deliver that to the U.S.? Fed Ex? In an Ann Coulter book?
Many anti-war activists understood that Iraq simply didn't have the capabilities to create the WMDs that the Bush regime was screaming about. And the last time the inspectors were in Iraq in the late 90s, they said there wasn't much left to look for.
Chuck0