>
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2003, Brian Siano wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> I think you're falling into a trap here, Brian. No one argued that there
> was none because it is impossible to prove a negative. But the entire
> world, starting with Hans Blix and Mohamed El-Baradei, argued that there
> was no firm evidence that any existed which is as close a reasonable
> person can get to that assertion.
I would like to refer people back to what I was replying to. Someone had wondered why the media was only now questioning the claims of WMDs because the claims were "all made up to begin with." I pointed out that, until the actual invasion, very few people even among the Left took this stance, since it was far more likely that Saddam had _something_. The only people who could take this stance with anything like evidence were the actual weapons inspectors-- and even then, they had a whole country to search. Given what was known then, believing that WMDs were fantasy would have been pretty far-fetched. So, it was a bit disingenuous to fault the media for not suspecting that it was "all made up to begin with."