What constituted the primary threat that was addressed by the Iraq enforcement?

Was it Iraq’s WMD. Or was it the noncompliant – ie, unreformed – dangerous nature of Saddam’s regime.

The answer is the primary threat of Iraq was the noncompliant nature of Saddam’s regime.

That’s why the resolutions covered such a broad range of issues. That’s why Saddam was held to such a high standard of compliance and accountability on those issues. That’s why the lack of demonstrable, affirmative intel-evidence of WMD in Iraq could not substitute for a resolution of the Iraq problem.

Saddam was only to be allowed to rejoin the international community in good standing once he reformed the nature of his regime. But as long as Saddam did not prove his rehabilitation to the mandated standard, he remained a threat.

As such, the status of Iraqi WMD was an indicator and a metric, but not the central issue. The anti-Bush, anti-American propagandists made the status of Iraqi WMD the central issue in the popular political discourse – true, with the assist of Bush’s error in the presentation of the intel.

But the Iraq enforcement procedure was designed to ensure that the whole threat of Saddam was conclusively solved, not limited to Iraq’s possession of WMD stocks and activities.

This fundamental mischaracterization of the Iraq enforcement, boosted by OIF supporters here, as primarily about Iraqi WMD, rather than the dangerous nature of Saddam, has warped the history of the Iraq enforcement as well as our foreign policy moving forward, such as Obama’s handling of Syria and Iran that focuses on WMD while ignoring the essential danger of the regimes.

That’s the thing. In most respects, certainly the substantive ones, Bush used the case components he inherited from Clinton. The 2002 US statute and UNSC resolution on Iraq rehashed the prior statutes and resolutions. Bush did not alter the procedure to make intel – in other words, demonstrable possession of WMD by Iraq – an element of the Iraq enforcement. So why Bush deviated from Clinton to emphasize intel in the public case is a mystery.

Clinton’s public case on Op Desert Fox properly explained that the enforcement was triggered by Saddam’s demonstrated behavior per compliance on weapons and non-weapons resolutions, not intel speculation on Iraq’s possession of weapons.

OIF was also triggered by Saddam’s demonstrated behavior, not intel speculation on possession.

Yet, as exemplified in this thread including by Neo, the popular discourse gets it backward and judges the Iraq enforcement according to speculation on possession, not Saddam’s demonstrated behavior.

Again, trying to justify OIF with an assertion of Iraqi possession of WMD only serves to reinforce the false premise in the Left and Democrats’ propaganda.

The better response is to counter the false premise and say intel speculation didn’t – and couldn’t by design – trigger OIF. Saddam’s demonstrated behavior triggered OIF just as it triggered Op Desert Fox.

Also, US soldiers found various materials in Iraq they considered WMDs, but the MSM covered it up and few to nobody knew about it. It wasn’t enough quantity or enough quality, even though Hollywood Leftist version of quality is ObamaCare and minimum wage for conservative businesses but not liberal ones.

“I am of the opinion Saddam used up many of his weapons of mass destruction, and sent the bit that was left to Syria. I am also of the opinion the U.S. sold most of those weapons, or the technology, to him, in the first place.”

In reverse order: the chemical weapons tech came from France and Germany. No ifs ands or buts.

Despite his pleadings, Saddam NEVER was able to get America on board with his ‘project.’ To think otherwise is entirely deluded.

Saddam’s No. 1 Western Supply was FRANCE. No-one else is even close in the standings. Saddam’s power grid is based entirely upon French-German technical standards.

This is why, after 2003, America found that she had to import FRENCH electrical gear to re-establish the Iraqi power grid.

(Square D is owned by the French, BTW. It’s a MAJOR supplier to the DoD/ Federal Government.)

Debriefed Iraqi technical experts ALL told the same story: that Saddam — at the last minute — destroyed his incriminating stocks of chemical munitions. He DIDN’T use them — certainly not on the coalition. We would’ve known.

I’ve heard rumors that Saddam called up chemical missile strikes on the coalition. His generals rebelled — passively. No missiles were launched.

We had the ability to phone directly to his critical generals — the price of using cell phones / sat phones — and warn them off. This capability was re-demonstrated during the Libyan campaign: Commando Solo.

Google the term.

I don’t know why Bush went off message. If Powell, Blair, and Rice instigated Bush to deviate from Clinton’s public case on Iraq regarding the presentation of the intel, then they’re responsible for a lot of damage.

It didn’t take a genius to get it right.

The unreliability of the intel on Iraq’s WMD was not a new phenomenon in 2002. In fact, from early in the Iraq enforcement, the unreliability of the intel and Saddam’s evolving ability to evade our intel were main, constant, interlocking themes of the Iraq problem, well covered by the media.

It was known from inception that the Iraq enforcement would not be effective if the burden of proof was on the enforcers. Therefore, the procedure was constructed with the presumption of guilt and burden of proof placed on Iraq.

The role of the intel agencies was assisting in the compliance verification, not investigation. It was not the CIA’s job to find WMD in Iraq.

As such, Clinton stayed within the lines of the procedure when he made his public case on Iraq. When Clinton supported Bush on Iraq, Clinton cited to his own public case on Iraq, not Bush’s public case.

Clinton handed to Bush a fully formed Iraq enforcement playbook with public case, laws, policies, and precedents. Bush followed the rest of the playbook faithfully. Bush did not need to, and should not have, deviated from Clinton’s public case on Iraq other than adding the urgency to resolve the Iraq problem expeditiously due to post-9/11 threat considerations.

Again, I don’t know why Bush made such an obvious error on the presentation of the intel when the unreliability of the intel had been a prominent theme of the Iraq enforcement from the beginning. And when the procedure had been programmed to de-emphasize the role of intel. And when Clinton had given Bush the way to work around the intel deficiency in the public case.

When’s the last time anyone heard the daily news talk about bombings and casualties in Afghanistan?