Those WMDs again

Via Arts & Letters Daily, a good article on WMDs…..and there’s not too many of those around. I was particularly interested in the theory that Saddam had effectively given up on his WMD program but refused to admit this, even to the extent of drawing on himself the wrath of the US and its allies…..well, even to the extent, as it turned out, of losing everything. This fits in with what I was thinking back in April when good old Baghdad Bob was a regular feature on our screens. Remember Baghdad Bob? Yes he was very funny in a way, but it was more than that; there was something almost incantatory about his pronouncements. It was as though, if you say something forcefully enough, it’ll come true. You could argue, I suppose, that the wretched man had no choice; that if he’d told the truth, said that US forces were advancing irrevocably into Baghdad, then if things had changed and Saddam had come out on top, next thing he knew he’d be watching his daughter being raped and tortured. But I have to say that watching the man pronounce with total conviction that the US forces were being annihilated, I got a distinct whiff of a completely different and (yes, I’m coming over all Kilroy-Silk) primitive culture, where all that really matters is the presentation, and truth doesn’t have the same meaning as it does for us in the West. The Word, whether written in the Koran, or pronounced by Imams or those in power, is all important, and the idea of a reality that can be tested independently is just, well, not there. Which is why I can believe that for Saddam the idea of himself as defying the West – the new Saladin – and continuing to pursue his dream of WMDs, was more important than the reality. And why the image of Saddam being dragged from his spider hole and being humiliated by the medical examination was such an effective and essential part of the US strategy in Iraq.