Hitchens on Hutton

Christopher Hitchens has a few thoughts on David Kay, and then on Hutton:

If you want another free laugh, or another glimpse of the tiny-minded literalism of the neutralists and isolationists, take a look at the other "scandal" that has just been exploded by Lord Hutton's inquiry in London. One of Tony Blair's advisers, Jonathan Powell, changed the wording of a report in the following way. It had originally read: "Saddam Hussein is willing to use chemical and biological weapons if he believes his regime is under threat." The Blairite alteration removed the last eight words. Since everything was a threat in Saddam's disordered mind, and since he had used such weapons in the past as weapons of aggression inside and outside his own borders, the only "politicization of intelligence" would have occurred if the eight words had been left in, to give the impression that he would only fight in self-defense. The excised phrase lingers on, as a reminder that the opponents of regime change also believed in the existence of the weapons.

The British government's claim that such weaponry was deployable within "45" minutes is irrelevant from both sides, since if the weapons weren't there they couldn't be used at all, and if they were there they presumably existed in some condition of readiness. Many newspapers in London sold extra copies on the bannered "45 Minutes" headline and have been in a vengeful state ever since over their own credulity. That can't be helped. In this ontological argument, nobody claimed that there was no WMD problem to begin with. (German intelligence reported to Gerhard Schröder that Saddam was within measurable distance of getting a nuke: That didn't deter the chancellor in the least from adopting an utterly complacent approach.)