[personZ]

The common narrative is that the US contrived the whole thing to justify an attack. This is how that unfortunate situation gets used to explain all sorts of nefarious conspiracies.

But they really, honestly had reason to believe that Iraq had WMDs (yes there were doubters and skeptics, and of course they get the bulk of the attention after the fact, but many actually believed it).

Aside from defectors and people trying to lie their way to something, add that Saddam himself wanted the world (particularly Iran) to think that the Iraq government had WMDs. Iraq believed that having WMDs was a good defense (a good example since then is North Korea), so they tried to play the middle ground where they could seem to have WMDs hidden away, and could act as if they had that ace in the hole, but they would play along with UN inspectors just enough to try to avoid an attack, adding just enough mystery to the whole thing that there were open doubts. Intelligence is tough when the person you're trying to prove is doing something is also trying to convince you that they're doing something.

The game of chicken didn't turn out well. But the recurring narrative that innocent Iraq was all along say no no no look where you want and the US invented the situation is historical revisionism.

[isaacremuant]

I don't want to get into an argument here but calling it "historical revisionism" is absolutely disrespectful to the rest of the world.

Historical revisionism is polls showing a huge percentage of Americans still think Saddam was involved in 911.

USA had no business invading Iraq (nor practically any other country, for that matter) and using the excuse that "Saddam claimed he had them to look tough" in order to justify so many tragedies (mostly foreign but also American) is egregious.

When someone performs threat assessment they do it based on facts and not on posturing or they'd prosecute every internet troll out there.

ugh. I'm going to stop now because I'm pissed but I'm going to let you know that you're basically apologizing for crimes against humanity with what sounds like kinder garden excuses.

[personZ]

This isn't some lowbrow conspiracy site, and I don't expect the participants to have the sort of superficial, facile understanding of world events that you've so evidently demonstrated. If reality makes you "pissed", you should stick to gentler pastures that conform with your worldview.

I don't think the US should have invaded Iraq for purely pragmatic and financial reasons. That does nothing to change the actual complex, convoluted reality that led to the decisions that were made, and then the long and fruitless, but very intense, search for WMDs after the attack.

[lotsofmangos]

You know, we found WMDs after the attack. They were just the wrong ones.

President George W Bush led the US into war in Iraq on the back of assertions that Saddam Hussein had recently-built weapons of mass destruction, supplies that had only increased in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Yet all the chemical weapons found by soldiers were manufactured before 1991, the Times reported. They consisted largely of 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets – not designed for mass destruction, and produced in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.

According to the Times, the reports were embarrassing for the Pentagon because, in five of the six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been “designed in the US, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraqs-hidde...

[corin_]

> we found WMDs after the attack

The text you quote confirms chemical weapons but not weapons on mass destruction

[lotsofmangos]

They are WMDs by certain standards of international law on the technicality of belonging to a certain class of chemical munitions. The shells they were packaged in were not designed for mass dispersal, however the classification is on the stuff inside the shells.

[lotsofmangos]

You should read up on it more.

In his evidence, the former Downing Street communications director rejected suggestions that he had been asked to "beef up" the dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and said its purpose had not been "to make a case for war".

But Major General Michael Laurie, who was the Ministry of Defence’s director general, intelligence collection, from 2002 to 2003, told the inquiry that making a case for war was “exactly its purpose”.

Maj Gen Laurie added that he and his colleagues were told that a previous intelligence dossier “did not make a strong enough case” and for months he was “under pressure to find intelligence that could reinforce the case” for war.

His evidence, which is the first time such a senior intelligence officer has directly contradicted the Blair government’s official line on the dossier, will restart the row over whether Downing Street “sexed up” the September 2002 document to persuade the public and MPs that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was necessary.

Maj Gen Laurie’s comments were made in private last year and have only now been published by the inquiry chairman, Sir John Chilcot, along with newly-declassified government memos and other evidence heard behind closed doors.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/85...

edit - also note that this is from The Telegraph. Whatever else they are, they are definitely not conspiracy minded anti-establishment types.

[personZ]

You should read up on it more.

Firstly, what the British government did or didn't do is not really relevant to conversations about the US government.

Secondly, even if the UK government were at all relevant to this conversation, telling someone to "read up" when providing information that doesn't remotely contradict what they're replying to is terribly boorish behavior. Note that I didn't say that the government had compelling evidence -- I said that they read the tea leaves and got the impression that there were WMDs. Yes, this overriding belief will make intelligence that might be a collage of coincidental and second-hand things perhaps seem more consequential than they should have been. But regardless, the overarching belief was that Iraq legitimately had a WMD program and stockpiles, courtesy of the Saddam regime trying to convince everyone that such was exactly the case.

[lotsofmangos]

Firstly, what the British government did or didn't do is not really relevant to conversations about the US government.

If you actually think that regarding this subject, then you have not looked into the events leading up to the Iraq war at all, and you definitely should read up on it more.

[sbov]

Regarding the aluminum tubes: the DOE's analysis, which found that they probably weren't used to enrich uranium, was classified. However, the CIA's analysis that it probably was used to enrich uranium wasn't. The two findings were released within a day of each other, back in 2001.

Because the former was classified, when congress decided to go to war, they were not presented with the DOE's findings. Only the CIA's.

If not nefarious, what would you call this? Convenient?

[personZ]

This thread hilariously earned me a glorious slowban. Hacker News literally descends into yet another conspiracy site.

However why don't you contrast your comment with mine. Are you actually countering anything I've said?

No, you actually aren't. But somehow in these sorts of black/white discussions people think they can find one sort-of thing and then say "aha". Hardly.

[sbov]

Yes I am. You claimed there was no nefarious conspiracy. I claimed that hiding information from congress when they're deciding to go to war shows the opposite. I would label anyone doing the same when the consequences are so high (thousands of lives) as such.

Since you seem to disagree, I wanted to know how you classify the hiding and twisting of this, and other pieces, of information.

Also, you need to realize that not everyone viewed the administration in the same light as you apparently did back then. My peer group was split close to 25/25/50 on them being: lying bastards, well intentioned but full of shit, and justified. But we were only in our early 20s. Older people seemed to be more accepting of what they were saying.

[arjie]

I don't know what they were selling you in the US, but that's straight up untrue. UN Inspectors were repeatedly telling the Security Council that Iraq was complying with WMD regulations and that in a matter of months, they'd be able to verify if all claims were true.

As usual, incompetent American intelligence was used instead since it was convenient.

This is a neat turn-around. Historical revisionism. That's good.

[lotsofmangos]

As usual, incompetent American intelligence was used instead since it was convenient.

It was actually the finest in British confectionery, with lashings of custard.

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=niger_pl...

[personZ]

I'm starting to realize that quite a few on HN actually have no idea what happened during this period (too young?), and at this point they're just going by what they read on Reddit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council...

Iraq's cat and mouse game with the UN, which was a condition of the ceasefire from GW I, had been going on for years. The UN had passed resolution after resolution authorizing force, any of which gave the US -- if they even decided that they wanted its mandate -- the legal right to remove Saddam. Yes, when it was apparent the US had had enough, Iraq started complying, but it was too late for the US administration. Tough, but this notion that it was all cooperation and the US just wanted a fight is pure absurdity, and has absolutely no basis in actual reality.

But it does appear in the black/white simplified story that so many tell.

[arjie]

I actually remember this very clearly. In fact, I questioned my own memory of this when I read your comment (since it was so clearly the opposite of what I remember) until I went back and had a look and it looks like I was right.

For what it's worth, it's entirely possible that we were just exposed to different media narratives at the time. My parents remember it the same way too. The news about the reports from Hans Blix and Mohamed AlBaradei saying Iraq was complying with the requests of inspectors after Resolution 1441. Colin Powell's so-called evidence. These were front-and-center in The Hindu in India and there were editorials about it all the time.

Certainly the idea that the doubters were few is not particularly convincing in the face of that.

EDIT: Ah, you edited your comment to contain more than just the first line after I began replying. FWIW, I don't think it's US-Evil Saddam-Good. It's obvious to me that people were questioning the degree to which US military action was justified.

Quoting Resolution 1441 is a bit disingenuous since from the very day the US decided to attack Iraq there were people saying that it did not justify military action. In fact, I recall that they fell back on using it as justification after it became clear that any resolution asking for war would not pass.