A Silver Lining? – Perhaps there is an upside to the Bush administration’s failure to find any WMD in Iraq so far and any further delays. As long as the war appears to be unjustified by national security concerns, Bush will be forced to rationalize the war on humanitarian grounds. This greatly increases the incentives for the Bush administration to commit the money, forces, and political capital necessary to ensure the successful establishment of a free and democratic Iraqi government.

Even if Bush is sure that the weapons will show up sooner or later, if they don’t show up by November 2004, the humanitarian situation is all he has to fall back on. Hopefully, this administration realizes it and resists the temptation to try to cut corners in rebuilding Iraq.

Counterspeculation - I just read Gene Healy's column at FOX News arguing against Iraq posing a national security threat, even if WMD are found. I argued for the war on the basis of humanitarian intervention, not national security, and while the WMD are missing, the mass graves are not. However, the validity of the national security argument is worth looking at.

Healy's argument mainly relies on speculating on Saddam's likelyhood to transfer weapons to Al Qaeda, which he presents a pretty good argument as being pretty low. Here's the heart of it:

"Despite over 20 years of supporting terror against Israel, Saddam never turned over chemical or biological weapons to Palestinian terror groups, reasoning, correctly, that such action would provoke massive retaliation. Still less was he likely to hand over such weapons to Al Qaeda, a group that has long opposed his "socialist infidel" rule and could not be trusted to keep the deal secret."

However, there are a few points that could undermine this argument.

1) Palestinian terrorists and Al Qaeda are not the same - While Al Qaeda is known to be pursuing WMD, there does not seem to be similar efforts within the Palestinian groups, which have had more extensive state support than. Thus, it is conceivable that the reason Saddam never gave Palestinian terrorists weapons is that they never asked.

2) The Saddam/Al Qaeda relationship - Despite the fact that they don't see eye-to-eye on ideological issues, it is not inconceivable that they would work together against a common enemy. The suggestion that Al Qaeda would not keep the deal secret does not make sense at all, since in doing so, they would both tip their own hand and almost guarantee that Iraq would be invaded by the USA, which directly contradicts their goal of keeping Westerners out of the Middle East.

3) The assumption of retaliation - Deterrence relies on our ability to determine the source of the attack. Since Al Qaeda is trying to develop weapons independently, it would be more believable that they acted alone than other terrorist groups. If Saddam believed he could get away with it, he would have no reason not to do so. Further, Saddam’s has not hesitated to take actions whose risk might be the end of his regime and has repeatedly braved the possibility of regime change at American hands since invading Kuwait.

Healy may have been right that Iraq would not have given WMD to terrorists, but it is also conceivable that he may be wrong. However, the possibility alone is a threat, so it may not be said that "with or without chemical and biological weapons, Iraq was never a national security threat to the United States."

I'm back after a month and now I have a counter. Anyway, the article that brought me back was this piece in the Telegraph about British soldiers having to resort to providing their own medical care for their wartime injuries due to the long waiting times for treatment from the NHS.

Besides being a great example of the horrors of socialized healthcare in terms of ready access to medical treatment, it also shows an indirect, and probably quite substantial, cost of the British system. The delays in treatment are stagnating British soldiers careers, since they cannot participate in strenous training or actual fighting. Now consider the costs of disability payments, lost work, and lost work experience that would be occuring due to these delays, not just in the military, but in the private sector as well. Somebody with more time and economics background than me should try putting a precise figure on these costs; the results might be interesting.