Where are those weapons?

I am not one of those who think it’s unimportant whether we find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or at least find out what happened to them. Their existence – and the possibility of their use by Saddam – was, and still is, the only real justification for the war. Saddam was a truly evil man, and liberating the Iraqis from his grip was noble. But dashing around the world like some latter-day Don Quixote, liberating damsels (or even whole populations) in distress doesn’t measure up to my notion of an American “vital interest” – the test by which we can justify putting the lives of our fighting men and women at risk.

Our failure to find any such weapons to date (save for two mobile biowarfare laboratories) has struck some of Bush’s critics in the Democratic Party and the media as a splendid opportunity to make a little political hay. “Bush used allegations about weapons of mass destruction as his justification for attacking Iraq,” goes the syllogism. “But no such weapons have been found. Therefore, Bush lied.” There has been a spirited contest to see who could use the words “Bush” and “lied” (or “misled” “deceived” or “tricked”) most often in the same paragraph. So far, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida seems to have a narrow lead.

But the trouble is that such simplistic formulations soon fall afoul of one massive fact: They will work only if Saddam never had any weapons of mass destruction. And yet, his possession of huge quantities of chemical and biological toxins, as well as his persistent efforts to acquire a nuclear capability, has been widely acknowledged. Indeed, they have been insisted upon by everyone who has seriously addressed the matter for at least the past 12 years: two entire generations of U.N. weapons inspectors, the whole Clinton administration and even the government of France.

The basic facts are not in doubt. Saddam long ago publicly admitted having tons of sarin (the toxin that killed 12 people in a Tokyo subway in 1995) and VX nerve gas, and significantly failed to explain what had happened to them in his infamous response, late last year, to the United Nations’ demand. What was Bush supposed to think, if not that Hussein still had them?

Faced with this minor embarrassment, the Bush critics have displayed a certain understandable amount of confusion. Some of them have tried to minimize what Saddam is universally agreed to have possessed: OK, maybe he had a little sarin and VX, but nothing like the quantities Bush charged to justify the attack. The trouble is, there was nothing minimal about the quantities specified by the United Nations in the 1990s, and even admitted to by Saddam. We are talking about tons.

So another pack of Bush critics has played the minimization game in a slightly different way. Maybe Saddam did have the arsenal he was charged with, but was the threat to the United States “imminent”? Note that we are a long way, now, from the accusation that Bush “lied.” Instead, we have had planted on us the idea that war against Iraq was justifiable only if Saddam’s use of his weapons of mass destruction was “imminent.” Under the grim rules of modern warfare, however, how prudent would it have been to wait until Saddam had constructed, say, a nuclear weapon and his use of it was “imminent”?

That would be sheer madness.

Saddam had the means of waging chemical and biological warfare, and was on his way to nuclear capability. He probably held off using the first two because even France warned that doing so would justify his overthrow. But where, today, are these weapons?

In theory, he could have destroyed them. But if he was willing to do that, why not do it in full view of the U.N. inspectors and accept the accolades of a grateful world? Then again, he may have succeeded in spiriting them, or some of them, out of Iraq – though the difficulties of that course make it unlikely.

More probably, he simply hid them – as he has, thus far, hidden himself. But he, and they, will be found, as America’s grip on Iraq tightens, and deepens. These things take time.