Reply #19: Sullivan is playing a rhetorical game - look at how he dismisses Ritter

[bananas]

First, Sullivan is playing a game which conservatives do - he dismisses Ritter because Ritter "believed" there were no WMD, but "didn't know for sure" (exact Sullivan quote below). Well he can say nobody "knew for sure", so his whole argument is a rhetorical game.

But look back at what people did say:

Colin Powell said Iraq had no WMD a couple of years earlier, before the intelligence was "fixed".

The Pope said it was illegal and immoral whether or not there were WMD, because preventive wars were both immoral and violated international law. The war was illegitimate whether or not there WMD, Sullivan's entire justification for the war is invalid.

Bush Sr. said in his autobiography that invading would result in the chaos we see today - he was talking about Gulf War I, but it still applied in 2003. Again, Sullivan's entire reasoning process is invalid.

Here's Sullivan's challenge, and how he dismisses Ritter:

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/03/wmds_and_the_pr.html

Friday, March 10, 2006
WMDs and the Pre-War

10 Mar 2006 08:59 pm

Thanks for all your emails. I'm aware of one person who clearly stated before the war that he believed that Saddam had no WMDs. That was Scott Ritter. This is not the same as saying that we didn't know for sure, or should have waited some more; or that containment could have worked for a few months or years longer. I mean: an anti-war commentator, writer or speaker who clearly said that Saddam had no WMDs before we invaded and that therefore the war was illegitimate. I remember being told by many who were against getting rid of Saddam that we shouldn't invade precisely because he had WMDs and our invasion would be the only occasion in which he'd use them. But I don't recall anyone saying flat out that there were no WMDs in Iraq. But I may have missed someone. I'll happily post such pre-war statements if you send them to me.