Pointing to an AP story on the results of a recent poll, Half of U.S. still believes Iraq had WMD, Cathartidae comments that, “In light of what half of all Americans believe, perhaps it’s time to go easy on Koreans for believing the fan death myth.” However I believe that comment is rather unfair as the poll results are due to the very poorly worded question - an amateurish mistake by the pollsters:
Do you believe in Iraqi “WMD”? Did Saddam Hussein’s government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
According to the Washing Post, with information from U.S. Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), technically there were WMD in Iraq in 2003, so the informed answer is, “yes.”
The classified overview of chemical munitions says that U.S. forces have found about 500 shells, canisters or other munitions containing the chemical weapons. Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the committee the shells were produced in the 1980s for the Iran-Iraq war but were not used. (emphasis added)
Some Democrats argues that the munitions did not constitute WMD:
Do the 20-year-old Iraqi chemical munitions found by U.S. and coalition forces support the prewar contention that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and justify the invasion of Iraq?
[. . .]
But Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), the senior Democrat on the committee, countered that the NGIC report did not address Baghdad’s prewar chemical weapons program. Rather, he said, it was “written to address the force protection concerns of our service members in Iraq.”
“Yes, these certainly are munitions,” Skelton added, “but they are not the evidence of prewar assertions made by the administration.”
Skelton apparently took the untenable position that because the found munitions, which contained “degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent,” were not part of an active Iraqi WMD program, they should not be considered WMD. All the common definitions of WMD, however, contradict such a position.
This is clearly a case of a imprecise question in the poll. But the AP story does not make the differentiation between the actual presence of some WMD, and the pre-war assessments of an active WMD program.
Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
People tend to become “independent of reality” in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq. (emphasis added)
The question posed in the poll did not ask about programs, but he existence of WMD in Iraq prior to 2003; those are two different things. But those on the left are ignoring this reality:
“I’m flabbergasted,” said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration’s shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
[…]
“For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan.” The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show. Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.
“As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with,” said the Harris Poll’s David Krane.
The reality is that the 500 rounds found were indeed WMD, and were in Iraq in 2003. More precisely worded questions will yield better results. One thing that the poll inadvertently got correct is that half of Americans are wrong about the issue, but they highlighted the wrong half.
Although the AP article does mention that the report of munitions with WMD may have altered the report, the opinion “analysts” seem to totally disregard that and tend to view those with this knowledge as somewhat delusional; the bias is evident.
The unclassified version of the NGIC report is available in PDF, as is an excellent article on the entire WMD debacle, Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong, by Kenneth Pollack.
i see a ‘i did not have sexual relations…’ type debate coming on.
is fellatio a sexual relation? then how about just kissing?
is mustard gas a WMD? how about tear gas? how about a large 16 wheeler with grain in it that can be combustible and take down a building?
debate can go on and on.
And yet 30% of Americans don’t know what year 9/11 happened.
The definition of mustard gas and sarin as WMD is not debatable; per the Chemical Weapons Convention, mustard gas is recognized as a “schedule 1” (few, or no uses outside of chemical weapons) chemical weapon. In the case of Sarin, it’s “production and stockpiling was outlawed by the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993.” Both are recognized WMD.
Accordingly, if one argues that Iraq did not have WMD in 2003 they would be in fact wrong.
However, if one tried to assert that Iraq had an active WMD program in 2003, they would be wrong according to the various official reports based on what we know now.
On the 30 percent, from the same article;
Still, 55-64 is a little young for the onset of dementia… Perhaps they have a bad case of “perspective” instead.
That leaves only 5 percent under 55 who got it wrong, unless my math is wrong (I\’m American after all). And 2000 was a few years back (kidding).