As Chris points out when he talks about Rockefeller, some Democrats are starting to walk back from their vote for the war resolution, using the manipulation of intelligence as the excuse. In response, the GOP talking point is similar to Chait's passage above: everyone thought that Saddam had WMD. But this is such a distortion, and is designed to deflect attention from Niger, aluminum tubes, and stovepiping.

First, let's have a little definition: a weapon of mass destruction is designed to inflict mass casualties indiscriminately with a single "application." Certain chemical weapons can be a weapon of mass destruction, but only with highly evolved delivery systems. For example, mustard gas can be used to wipe out entire cities (and was by Saddam), but only through the use of a large military infrastructure to deliver large quantities of it. Mustard gas in the hands of a terrorist is not a weapon of mass destruction. The same distinction holds for the large majority of the chemical weapons and most of the available biological ones, too.

However, there is one weapon that stands out from all others, both in practical terms and in perceptual terms. That is, of course, a nuclear weapon. The idea of any amount of radioactive fuel in the hands of a terrorist is truly frightening, and the thought of an actual nuclear weapon ... well, it's enough to make people positively terrified.

Which is what the Bush Administration did. They made people terrified.

My point in this is not to point out why there were no chemical weapons (Seeing the Forest does a nice job on that, also this diary from last week on dKos). My point is that the entire formulation of "WMD" was designed to scare people with dire warnings of nuclear bombs, while trying to insulate the Bush White House from the potential (or likelihood, or certainty) that there would never be any nuclear program found.

You see, the Bush Admistration pulled a basic bait-n-switch kind of operation rhetorically. They used ominous language ("we don't want smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud") and outright statements to associate Saddam with nuclear weapons, but put it in a WMD context. Then they just switched to WMD, as if chemical weapons were the problem all along. I'm sure what they expected was that at the very least they would go into Iraq, find some old canisters of mustard gas, act completely vindicated, and they'd be home free (of course, Iraq screwed up the plan by having no unconventional weapons of any kind).

The effects of this campaign of fear can be seen in a January article of 2003 by Wolf Blitzer:

"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon," [Rice] told me. "And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device."

Dr. Rice then said something that was ominous and made headlines around the world.

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

I thought of those comments this week following the statement from the chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, acknowledging that no "smoking gun" has been found yet since the resumption of the weapons inspections. Still, Blix did not offer Iraq a clean bill of health.

"The absence of smoking guns and the prompt access which we have had so far, and which is most welcome, is no guarantee that prohibited stocks or activities could not exist at other sites, whether above ground, underground or in mobile units" Blix said, insisting they need more time to continue their inspections.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer offered this assessment: "The problem with guns that are hidden is you can't see their smoke."

You see there the rhetorical tricks the Bush Administration used around the nuclear issue. It's all vague hints, incendiary imagery, and the insistence that their detractors prove a negative. This article was written around the time of the famous 16 words SOTU speech, but the date that's important here was Condi Rice's statement: September 8th, 2002. While Congress was considering the authorization of the use of force.

The key point, the fulcrum of all of this, is President Bush's Cincinnati speech on October 7th, 2002. In it, he said:

Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.

{long section: 9/11 ... Saddam's past use of chemical weapons ... 9/11 ... scary talk about the current stockpiles, etc, etc}

 Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem. Before the Gulf War, the best intelligence indicated that Iraq was eight to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon. After the war, international inspectors learned that the regime has been much closer -- the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993. The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium enrichment sites. That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue.

The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.

{more 9/11 talk}

Now, remember the date of the speech? October 7th. The House of Representatives voted on the resolution authorizing force in Iraq on October 10th.

That's why the back story of how the nuclear "evidence" ended up in the official American intelligence is so important. This is not about "WMDs" in the way the GOP is trying to spin it. A few caches of decaying mustard gas, even if they existed, would not have been enough to go to war, and it wouldn't have had the political weight the nuclear question had.

But the administration spent a lot of time and energy in September and early October 2002 hyping that nuclear threat. They tied in pictures of mushroom clouds with an overall theme that Saddam had "used weapons of mass destruction on his own people." And all of this was to scare the Congress (and their constituents) to pave the way for the invasion of Iraq.

We also know, for example, that Stephen Hadley met with Italian Security Chief Nicolo Pallari on September 9th, 2002. The Niger documents, of course, came from Italy, somehow.

So, no, the issue is not over the "WMDs" "everyone thought" Saddam still possessed. The issue is whether the Bush Administration deliberately manipulated intelligence on the nuclear question (and, also, on other Iraq questions) to frighten the American public into supporting a war that has turned disastrous. Where did the Niger forgery come from and how did it gain so prominent a role? Did the Bush Administration then engage in a concerted effort to cover-up this initial deception?

And what's up with the Italian SISMI?