Until now, most of the big questions in the debate about Iraq have remained unanswered. The decision to go to war has answered a few, and I’ve been proved wrong on at least one. I thought Blair would refuse to go without at least majority support from the UNSC, and was wrong. The next big question relates to the main casus belli for the war, that Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction” represent a threat justifying war. Unless Saddam accepts Bush’s demand that he go into exile, he will, if the argument for war is valid, certainly attempt to use his weapons, either against the invading armies or against Israel. The question of whether he is “deterrable” is now moot, since by staying on he is accepting almost certain death.

It follows that, if no WMDs are used during the war, but such weapons are “discovered” afterwards, the discovery must be presumed fraudulent. Frequent commentator, Derrida Derider, has been predicting such a discovery for some time.

In terms of hoping for the best, namely a short war with as few casualties as possible, I obviously hope no WMDs will be used.

Update A pro-war Op-Ed piece is of interest. Writing in the NYT, the unfortunately-named Anne-Marie Slaughter says

Soldiers would go into Iraq. They would find irrefutable evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime possesses weapons of mass destruction. Even without such evidence, the United States and its allies can justify their intervention if the Iraqi people welcome their coming and if they turn immediately back to the United Nations to help rebuild the country (emphasis added).

As I’ve already pointed out, the second part of this is complete nonsense. Saddam has shown his ability to turn out cheering crowds, and so will the practitioners of “shock and awe”. In the absence of free and fair elections (clearly not contemplated for the foreseeable future) the views of the Iraqi people will be a matter of conjecture. And despite what was said (obviously to keep Blair on-side) in the Azores, the idea of “turning immediately back to the UN” is equally nonsensical. Does anybody suppose that the victorious Americans are going to let someone of Kofi Annan’s choosing administer Iraq? If not, why should anyone outside the “coalition of the willing” do Bush’s dirty work for him?

Further update 19/3 On the WMDs, the analysis in today’s Fin points out that, in military terms’, the “best” time for Saddam to use them is before the US attack commences, which means almost immediately. This is obvious enough – as Ken Parish points out, a massive US attack in the opening days will greatly reduce Saddam’s capacity for counterattack. And I’ll restate the basic point. If, in the face of an invasion aimed at killing him or seizing him for a war crimes trial, Saddam still refrains from using WMDs, only two conclusions are possible:
(a) there were no weapons; or
(b) they were not, even in the most drastic circumstances, a threat to the US

On the capacity to turn out cheering crowds, I’ve pointed out in the comments thread that Bush’s PR teams are capable of spinning an upsurge of grassroots support out of nothing in domestic US politics – it’s called Astroturf. With vastly greater resources at their disposal, they won’t need threats of terror to do the same thing in Baghdad. If the supporters of war believe their own case, why aren’t they advocating an Iraqi provisional government and free and fair elections?