Last week I read a New York Sun article saying that a House Select committee was reviewing evidence – taped conversations from the former Iraqi president-for-life – which might cast some light on the infamous weapons of mass destruction including answering the question: What the hell happened to them?
The committee has already confirmed through the intelligence community that the recordings of Saddam’s voice are authentic, according to its chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who would not go into detail about the nature of the conversations or their context. They were provided to his committee by a former federal prosecutor, John Loftus, who says he received them from a former American military intelligence analyst.
Didn’t post on it though, because we’ve all been down this road before. Still, a week has gone by, and as Jeff Goldstein points out (in his own, personal… idiom) this
would seem like good news for the administration and horrific news for many House and Senate Dems (not to mention several major media outlets) who have repositioned themselves on Iraq so often that, were Iraq a john, it would probably leave a huge tip on the nightstand.
Loftus is now predicting via CNS that ABC’s Nightline will have an “extensive report” on the issue two days hence. So while scepticsm is probably still in order (the New York Sun? CNS?) at least we won’t have very long to wait.
The WMD issue was always a loose end with me, although it’s also safe to say that our failure in the war’s immediate aftermath to find “stockpiles” of nastiness did not, in my mind, invalidate the effort. And if it does turn out that the received narrative of the anti-war left gets exploded by new revelations of filthy little chemical and biological devices gone west to some other Ba’athist regime in the region, there are going to be any number of folks here, there and everywhere with egg on their faces.
Or not.
See you in a cuppla.
Update: Well, guess I should have been more careful before I pulled the trigger on that one. More here at the American Thinker entitled “A Second Former Iraqi Commander Confirms WMDs.” See if you can guess what’s inside, though.
Meanwhile, ABC’s website runs a teaser on the Nightline tapes:
One of the most dramatic moments in the 12 hours of recordings comes when Saddam predicts
I guess this destroys the lefts meme about no imminent threat or no threat at all. If this stuff keeps getting revealed the DEMS prospects for NOV are going to go south in a hurry.
CAPT Lex,
I love the last line. John Wayne would be proud of you.
Subsunk
Y’all may have seen this but it is a high impact photo essay brief of same by Deroy Murdock:
Check out http://www.husseinandterror.com
“About a 5 Meg download but easy for those with hi-speed connections. Tells story wih copious photos of history of Hussein and Terror activity. Anyway, an easy review of a lot of info”
b2
Interesting how the Nightline segment from last nite hasn’t made any news in the old media or the daily kos.
I think the most succint part of this was Chemical Ali noting that the anti-war crowd wound up doing exactly what Saddam wanted them to – hoping no one would find the tapes. Good post Lex.