The Saddam tapes weren’t all we were looking for, but they did add a lot of weight to the argument for invading Iraq. This story has largely been ignored by the mainstream press, after ABC’s initial report. The NYT has had only one short piece dated February 16th. The Washington Post has had none.

On Friday, the Investor’s Business Daily had this editorial about the Saddam tapes with the bold headline, “Saddam Had WMD.” (h/t Powerline)

Some notable excerpts:

On [the tapes], Saddam talks openly of programs involving biological, chemical and, yes, nuclear weapons.
War foes have long asserted that Saddam halted his WMD programs in the wake of his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991. Saddam’s abandonment of WMD programs was confirmed by subsequent U.N. inspections.
Again, not true. In a tape dating to April 1995, Saddam and several aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had found traces of Iraq’s biological weapons program. On the tape, Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law, is heard gloating about fooling the inspectors.

And:

Perhaps most chillingly, the tapes record Iraq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz talking about how easy it would be to set off a WMD in Washington. The comments come shortly after Saddam muses about using “proxies” in a terror attack.
9-11, anyone?
In short, let us repeat: President Bush was right. We had to invade to disarm Saddam — otherwise, he would have completely reconstituted his chemical, nuclear and bio-weapons programs when inspectors left.

It’s good to see a large media outlet not only following up on this story, but also drawing the necessary conclusion: Saddam really was a threat to the United States.