New WikiLeaks documents validate the Bush/Cheney view

The editors of the military blog Strategy Page are reporting, HERE, on some new evidence revealed as a result of WikiLeaks, this time dealing with the extent of the Iraqi chemical weapons program (aka WMD) prior to the US invasion in 2003.

From the article:

… these documents deal with the evidence of chemical weapons U.S. troops found in Iraq after 2003.  This is all part of an ongoing, largely ideological, media battle over exactly what happened to Iraqi chemical weapons after 1991.  Up until early 2003, the conventional wisdom was that Saddam had chemical weapons, and just would not give them up.  Some thought Saddam’s strategy was dumb.  All he had to do was let the UN inspectors do their job and get Iraqi out from under the embargo.  All Saddam had to do was destroy all his chemical weapons …

What no one brought up was what Saddam was actually doing.  He was pretending to have chemical weapons in order to keep the Iranians at bay.  Horrendous casualties from Iraqi chemical weapons had forced the Iranians to end the 1980s war in an ignominious (for the Iranians) draw.  In 2003 the Iranians still wanted Saddam’s head on a pike, and Saddam saw his imaginary chemical weapons as a primary defense against Iranian attack.

This deception was not revealed until after Saddam was out of power and some of his key aides could talk.  Saddam kept the real situation (no real chemical weapons programs) secret even from most of his closest aides and military commanders.  Saddam trusted very few people.

and

Between the time of his capture (December 2003) and execution three years later Saddam was interrogated extensively about the 39 years he ruled Iraq and especially about his WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) programs.  He freely admitted his chemical weapons deception but by then many in the West were obsessed with the idea that the United States had invented the myth of an Iraqi chemical weapons program to justify the invasion of Iraq.  Actually, Saddam invented that myth and most intel analysts, journalists and just about everyone else believed it until 2003.  This is a matter of public record.  When the post 2003 search for the chemical weapons program came up empty many pundits and journalists seized on the idea that there was a secret conspiracy involved and that the CIA and other intelligence agencies must have known about the Saddam scam.  There has never been any proof of this conspiracy, but it has attracted many believers.

So there.  Now, everyone go apologize to Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.