Spending a few moments link-hunting just now, I happened on a prelaw student's weblog. In the course of making somewhat questionable, pro-tort statements about frivolous lawsuits, she made an offhand remark about the "Bush administration that claimed [weapons of mass destruction] were in Iraq." It's a sorry day when baseless rhetoric of the unapologetic left on WMDs - the last toehold in discourse to which they cling - has become, for some, conventional wisdom. Several months ago I wrote a lengthy challenge against claims of American and British perjury, including an explanation of the wholesale farce one must accept to believe Saddam Hussein, rather than the rest of the civilized world, was in fact telling the truth. The essay is still very relevant - but after thousands of memes thrown across print, radio, television and the internet our memories may need refreshing. In 2002 and 2003, conventional wisdom was vastly different:

Under [United Nations Special Commission] supervision 38,537 filled and unfilled munitions, 690 ton of agents, 3,000 ton of precursor chemicals to manufacture CW agents, and thousands of pieces of production equipment and analytical instruments were destroyed.

Despite these achievements, no complete accounting of the CW program has been possible, for three reasons:

1. Iraq removed CW, equipment and materials from the main site of the al-Muthanna State Establishment before the first UNSCOM inspection team arrived, and no full accounting of these materials has been forthcoming.

2. Iraq claims that it has destroyed 15,620 chemical munitions unilaterally, a fact and total that are so far unverified. Similarly, it provided no supporting documentation for 16,038 chemical munitions it claims to have discarded.

3. UNSCOM inspectors were reportedly closing in on a program for the production of VX, when the stand-off between Iraq and the UN Security Council began in the autumn of 1997. In November 1997, UNSCOM found new evidence that Iraq had developed a production capability for VX: Iraq had obtained at least 750 tons of VX precursor chemicals. (Evidence of VX production was first revealed in 1995.)

Bombshell that David Kay's pessimistic January report was, the weapons inspector was highly suspicious of Syrian involvement in the absence of WMD-related material in Iraq. He had already shown us destroyed offices and immolated documents in his October report. Said Kay in his January testimony before the U.S. Senate:

Certainly proliferation is a hard thing to track, particularly in countries that deny easy and free access and don't have free and open societies.

In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of [U.N.] Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities - one last chance to come clean about what it had.

We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material.

What does it mean? Take a look at the revelations Moammar Ghadafi has made as Libya begins surrendering its WMD stockpiles and facilities: some of the most incriminating contraband had gone completely undetected by intelligence agencies. And if, time and again, only willing disclosure can define or confirm the extent of a dictatorship's weapons research, what about the lack of red-handed discoveries in Iraq disproves the mountain of evidence weighed against Iraq for years? Very little, in fact. At the very least, the burden of proof never left Saddam Hussein.