Where's WMD? - Don Lambro

Where's WMD? - Don Lambro in the Washington TImes discusses the most important point about the WMD chase; to most Americans, it's irrelevant:

I think we will find further evidence of weapons buried in the sands of Iraq. But the news media's obsession with such weapons overlooks one important and overriding reality: Most Americans think the quest for illegal weapons at this juncture is irrelevant.
Last month a national Gallup poll for CNN and USA Today found that 79 percent of Americans said the U.S. was fully justified in toppling the Iraqi regime without any evidence of such weapons.
An April poll by The Washington Post showed that 72 percent supported the war's objectives, even if no chemical or biological weapons were found. The Post quoted Pew Research Center pollster Andrew Kohut saying, "If I were a Democratic candidate, I don't think I would be pushing this issue." Mr. Kohut noted that at the start of the war, nearly 40 percent said that even if weapons of mass destruction were not found, the war was still the right thing to do. That number leaped to nearly 60 percent by the war's end.
"Inasmuch as we've already done the deed, the need for that as a rationale is less," Mr. Kohut said.

Powerline has an excellent post on this article this morning:

Oddly this kind of calculus seems lost on supposedly sophisticated liberals, especially those in the media. Ever since the Vietnamese War, liberals have demanded that the government present a simple, single rationale for military action. Whenever multiple reasons are presented, they accuse the government of equivocating. Fortunately, the public understands that decisions over war and peace are more complicated than this, and they are capable of performing a cost-benefit analysis involving multiple considerations.

I'm sure you'll see the Democrat that survives the primaries and comes through the convention figuring that out.

But first, expect a media blitz about the missing WMDs and angry Shi'ites - and a drought of stories about mass graves and Iraqis growing into democracy.

Posted by Mitch at June 13, 2003 08:17 AM