Yes, said President Bush earlier today, war with Iraq was the answer to Saddam Hussein's activities and the security of a post-9/11 America.
Now bloggers on all sides are combing Inspector Charles Deulfer's report. Here's a sampling of their opinions about the war in Iraq:
War? Yes
- Powerline - The Big Trunk reads and excerpts the Washington Post, the Washington Times and the NY Times in his opinion. Be sure to read to the bottom.
- Backcountry Conservative - Bryon Scott examines "the whole report, not just the parts that look bad for the Bush administration," with juicy excerpts, including corruption charges. Scott also links to June reports of corruption charges from Slings and Arrows.
- GlennReynolds.com - "It's hard to pass the "Global Test" when the people grading it are being bribed to administer a failing grade." The Instapundit thinks press treatment is biased and believes "the Iraq Survey Group's report makes clear that Saddam wanted to outwait sanctions and then start making the weapons again..."
War? No
- Talking Points Memo - "It is only thanks Mr. Bush's decision to invade that we can now have the certainty we do about how wrong he was about Iraqi WMD."
- The Left Coaster - "Unfortunately for over a thousand dead US soldiers, and thousands of dead Iraqis and thousands more maimed Iraqis and Americans, none of this justifies a war..."
- Liberal Oasis quotes a contradictory May, 2003 White House press release in which President Bush tells a TVP Poland interviewer, "We found the weapons of mass destruction" and invokes the Secretary of State's UN speech:
Q But, still, those countries who didn't support the Iraqi Freedom operation use the same argument, weapons of mass destruction haven't been found. So what argument will you use now to justify this war?
THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.
The net-net from the Oasis is "...this new ISG report tries to throw Bush a bone by stressing that Saddam still was interested in WMD and retained some intellectual capability."
Tell Surfette: Who do you agree with?
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