WMD in Iraq

Many of the leading right-leaning bloggers are covering the story on declassified material regarding the discovery of chemical weapons in Iraq. You can read Glenn, Captain's Quarters, or Michelle for the details.

Rather than duplicate links that they have already provided, I'll offer my 2 cents on the politics. Simply put, this is probably too little, too late, for the Bush administration to be helped by this in the near to medium term. People have already formed the clear opinion that we were wrong, wrong, wrong about WMD. They will be suspicious that the information must be bad, since it took so long to release it to the public. Unless there is MUCH more, there's not likely to be much effect. As to the question of how much more there is, Captain's Quarters offers this:

The next question will be why the White House did not release this information at the time of their discovery. Santorum's statement says, “The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq[.] It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.” That implies that a broader analysis of WMD in Iraq exists -- and that it differs significantly from the common understanding shown thus far.

With regard to Rick Santorum, he is in a very difficult re-election race - so difficult that some are already writing him off. He too, will need much more to turn the tide.

In the 'fullness of time,' history I think, is likely to judge Bush better. It's already clear that Saddam remained a problem and intended to reconstitute his program of WMD. That is likely to count for more in the eyes of history than it does today.

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