Iraq had essentially destroyed its illicit weapons capability within months after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, and its capacity to produce such weapons had eroded even further by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector in Iraq said in a report made public today. ...
The report did reverse an earlier judgment by the Central Intelligence Agency, saying the Mr. Duelfer's team had concluded that mysterious trailers found in Iraq after the American invasion in 2003 could not have been used as part of any biological warfare program. The trailers' manufacturers "almost certainly designed and built the equipment exclusively for the generation of hydrogen," upholding claims by Iraqi officials that linked the trailers to weather balloons used for artillery practice.
The top American (since we can't trust those shifty Europeans) inspector released a report slamming one more nail into the coffin of the claims that led to the war in Iraq. The NYT in a "better late than never" (I guess, though it's better than CBS deciding stories questioning the war are inappropriate at election time -- just give us another interview of Bill O'Reilly instead) piece last weekend targeted the aluminum tubes. The nuclear capability has been questioned for quite some time. Ditto the Al Qaida rationale. The human rights rationale is a bit hard to stomach since our inaction and support furthered the problem. So, I guess we are left with the democracy (more or less, as long as they are our people) rationale. Not really why we went to war, but hey, why quibble?
[We are now told about weapon potentialities and so forth as if any shred of threat was enough to bring us to war. No, war is a matter of degree ... and the lack of a true imminent threat gave us time to discover the things that are coming out over and over again. In fact, as well as the preparations ignored resulting in the problems discussed below being made worse, there were voices -- too often ignored or pushed aside -- raising warning flags. Given this, perhaps a bit more wishy-washiness would have been a good thing.]
Meanwhile, how we handled the unnecessary, unwise, and probably unconstitutional war is receiving loads of criticism from the likes of Paul Bremer, Sen. McCain (and other Senate Republicans, one of whom, Sen. Chafee apparently isn't voting for Bush), and others outside of the usual suspect class. And, the treatment of prisoners (just how many were needlessly held?), handling of locals, and so forth are but a few reasons why there is a good amount of evidence that it all is counterproductive.
Meanwhile, aside from the usual concerns about homeland security, we read this (thanks to Orin Kerr for the link):
The FBI overhaul, which enabled an intense campaign to locate potential terrorists, required a reduction in traditional efforts aimed at organized crime, drug trafficking, tracking of fugitives, and bank robbery investigations.
Interestingly, bank robbery investigations are currently on the rise as are porn investigations, apparently. As to drug trafficking, perhaps this might suggest that the feds going after medical marijuana users (important case on the docket this term on that very issue) and those who use drugs for euthanasia purposes (attack struck down by a lower court) is a bad use of resources. And, don't get me started on our lousy drug policy. But, I might be getting off topic.
Anyway, though changes of priorities makes sense, such costs should be kept in proper perspective. For instance, is the government resources going toward Iraq better applied elsewhere? Should more attention be placed on how we are handling the post-9/11 world at home? Or, will we have to have another commission spoonfeed them reforms that Congress gleefully latches on to because their inaction delayed things far longer than necessary?
Now, a former prosecutor might be a good person to deal with such things ...