Francis probably would have been better off keeping his powder dry on his thesus until after all the new documents about Saddam came out. Given the new information about both al Qaida and the Russian cooperation in the run-up to the war, the missing WMD info many not be far behind.

For me, it's already out. Some of his own Generals didn't know Saddam didn't have WMD.
What will be interesting is the revelation of what happened to them, when ... and who may have them now.

I guess the lesson for those still in power is: don't try to bluff a Texan. Not when the stakes are that high.

"If there's no internal demand then why did the Iraqis adopt a liberal constitution and why do they keep turning out for free elections?"

Because they felt that would rid them of American infidels? Or was that merely a rhetorical question?

There's more poor thinking about WMDs than any other issue I can think of this side of Social Security.

Down below, the left thinks it's found a smoking gun in a British memo that said that the US was determined to go to war even if the weapons inspectors didn't find WMDs. Of course we were, as Saddam was required to disclose what happened to his WMDs and didn't. We weren't going to live with uncertainty and, under the UN resolutions, we didn't have to. The hard part would have been if Saddam had delivered up tons of WMDs before the deadline, thrown open the country and invited rigorous inspections.

Fukuyama says, "the war was too preemptive considering the failure to actually find the weapons of mass destruction the world was led to believe he possessed." That's just incoherent. First, the war wasn't preemptive; we didn't go first thinking Iraq was just about to attack us. The war was preventative. We went to prevent a possible future attack. Second, the absence of WMDs after the war can't possibly be used as Fukuyama tries to use it; that is, to go back in time to the decision and say that it was "too preemptive."

The real effect, if any, is the opposite. Learning that we had no idea what was actually going on inside Iraq confirms the wisdom of going to war. The alternative is to bemoan the fact that a bloodthirsty expansionist tyrant didn't have WMDs. I'm happy Saddam didn't have WMDs, I'm happy he's out of power and my only regret about his being in jail is that he's not dead yet.

I just read most of the book during my kid's gymnastics class. Perhaps the most amusing unintended implication of his new theory is that had Hitler not invaded his neighbors it would have been illegitimate and unwise to use force to change the regime. He's actually saying that only if we knew Saddam to have an imminent intent to use WMD could we justify invasion. Though his intent is to break with the neocons he still sghares their fundamental failing; he doesn't get that a Christian country will have a moralist foreign policy as its default.

oj. Show off!!