Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
You've illustrated the crux of the administration's flawed argument: that the Hussein regime would or could provide WMD to terrorists.
Could is easy to answer. Within days of 19 March 2003, only knowledge and precursors could be disseminated. Within months of the collapse of sanctions, as it concerns actual weapons, then yes. A single nuclear device outside of IAEA scrutiny would take minimum five years or more from the collapse of sanctions to complete if Iraq started standing up P1 aluminum centrifuge cascades from day one.

In other words, the argument pivoted on the probability of a regime which had never shown evidence of suicidal tendencies becoming suicidal.
That begs the question of whether or not a state that delivers the means or even a finished product to terrorists who then go on to use it against the US or her allies is necessarily committing suicide--particularly with WMD other than nuclear.

Cogent strategy entails assuming some degree of risk when the anticipated costs of addressing the threat are greater than the probability of the threat coming to pass, or of the damage if the threat did come to pass.
And in a perfect world, you'd have two clearly separated means enveloped by narrow variances. The question is what do you do when the variance is extremely wide or even unknown and there's not much obvious time for you to dig up more intel to thin it?

The administration skewed this logic by grossly overestimating the likelihood of a threat to the United States from Hussein, and grossly underestimating the expected costs of removing him by force.
I'd agree with you except for the adjective "gross" and for two reasons:

1. Iraq did not have expected stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, but according to the Survey Group final report the will to reacquire its capability and the industry and know-how to do so in a matter of months. This might have translated into increased breathing room for the United States to build a coalition. It also may have translated into increased breathing room for Iraq to isolate the US through declarations of compliance by UNMOVIC and the IAEA in much the same manner Iran is doing by standing up centrifuge cascades while making hay out of last year's NIE. To date, I've seen no one stand up and try to calculate the likelihood of either scenario beyond mutual appeals to incredulity.

2. A rogue state filling the vessel with fissile material traceable to its mines, breeders or known centrifuges, handing it to terrorists and sending them to the US to blow it up is definitely suicidal. It's also not the only means at her disposal.

I find the assertion that Feith "was allowed to muck around in" post-regime planning bizarre. If OSD wasn't who was? Do you seriously intend to make an argument that State somehow messed it up?
I'm speaking of the post-war itself, and pointing out that even Bremer characterizes Feith and his clique lost the argument on whether the US should assume the mantle of the occupying authority. It might've been a stupid position for him to take, but it disqualifies him as the father of what followed. This isn't to say that Feith, Policy and OSD don't bear responsibility. No one's out and out said it yet, but the more I read into the bickering and recriminations between ex-OSD and State officials, the more it jives with all the data and reporting on CPA's problems in staffing and budget accountability. Despite having its own line item in the supplementals, historians would do better to start with this question: "was CPA an interagency orphan?"

I don't know the answer to that question. I'm hoping you might.