In case you haven't heard, there are no WMD in Iraq.
Surprise.
From the London Mirror:
GEORGE Bush yesterday admitted the hunt for Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction had been finally called off - with nothing found.
The announcement came nearly two years after the president used the existence of an illegal arsenal as an excuse to invade Iraq.
At the time, Mr Bush said Saddam 'retained the knowledge, the materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction, and he could have passed that knowledge on to our terrorist enemies.'
A probe has been launched into why intelligence on Saddam's weapons was so wrong.
In order to bring a marginal amount of context, the Mirror has kindly provided a brief history leading up to this moment. Observe.
HISTORY OF HOPELESS HUNT
SEPTEMBER 24, 2002: Government publishes 'dodgy' dossier claiming Iraq could deploy WMD in 45 minutes.
NOV 8, 2002: Bush threatens military action if Saddam does not give up WMD.
MARCH 20, 2003: War starts.
MAY 2, 2003: Victory declared. Bush says WMD will be found.
MAY 29, 2003: Andrew Gilligan's BBC report claiming dossier was 'sexed- up' leading to suicide of Dr David Kelly.
JUNE 5, 2003: 1,400 experts led by David Kay form Iraq Survey Group to hunt for WMD.
JAN 23, 2004: Ex-CIA spy Kay resigns and says of WMD: 'I don't think they ever existed.'
JULY 14, 2004: Butler Report says 45-minute claim should not have been in dossier.
SEP 28, 2004: Blair admits WMD evidence was wrong.
OCT 6, 2004: Iraq Survey Group says no WMD found.
JAN 12, 2005: Emerges US search for WMD was formally called off in December 2004.
Well, this is what we've all been waiting for. How does it feel? After almost two years, they're finally fessing up. We were right and they were wrong. Of course, no one's saying so.
Its a fact of life that the only way to get the satisfaction of saying I told you so, is to say I told you so. No one is going to give you that sort of credit if you don't. And as we all know, life simply doesn't allow enough in the way of piggy pleasures.
Therefore, I present to you this. It just doesn't get any better than watching Scott McClellan squirm.
MR. McCLELLAN: Good afternoon, everybody. I have nothing to begin with today, so I will go straight to your questions. Seeing only Mark --
Q Only Mark.
MR. McCLELLAN: This will be the only question of the briefing. Go ahead.
Q The fact that the Iraq Survey Group has now folded up its field operations, can you explain to us if there is any sense of embarrassment or lack of comfort about the fact that after two years of looking, these people found nothing that the President and others assured us they would find?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President already talked about this last October in response to the comprehensive report that was released by Charles Duelfer at that point. Charles Duelfer came to the White House in December; the President took that opportunity to thank him for all the work that he had done. The two discussed how Saddam Hussein's regime retained the intent and capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, and they also discussed how he was systematically gaming the system to undermine the sanctions that were in place, so that once those sanctions were eliminated -- which was something he was trying to do through the U.N. oil-for-food program -- then he could begin his weapons programs once again. And I think the President talked about the other issues back in October. Nothing has changed from that time period.
So you are telling me you honestly believe that if you had gone to Congress and said Saddam Hussein's regime retained the intent and capability to produce weapons of mass destruction and was "undermining the sanctions via the oil for food program" Congress and a majority of Americans would have supported it? You've got to be kidding.
Well, Senator Kennedy doesn't think so anyway.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, ANCHOR, "HARDBALL WITH CHRIS MATTHEWS": You were tough today on the issue of Iraq, as you have been before. Today it is clear now there no weapons of mass destruction. The report has come in. It is in the papers, this morning, in Washington. There are no weapons of mass destruction. That was the reason for our war with Iraq, according to the U.S. Congress.
If the Congress, that you know so well, had known there were no WMD before we went in, would we have gone in?
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: No.
MATTHEWS: Would they have voted to go in?
KENNEDY: No. There were two justifications. One, there was an imminent security threat to the United States.
And secondly, that they had nuclear weapons, besides other weapons of mass destruction. That case was never, I thought, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, every military witness that we had, that appeared before the Armed Services Committee, predicted what was going to happen. And I think they made a credible case. I voted no.
But every civilian leader made the case to go into Iraq, rather than pursue Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is still loose today. Al Qaeda is still the threat to the United States' security.
And this is just turned into a quagmire. This is George Bush's Vietnam. This is a quagmire. The idea that you are going to have a military solution to a political problem.
Oh Man. I love that line.
Anyway.
See, this would be why the President said this two days after the election.
"BUSH AT FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE AFTER WINNING ELECTION: "Now that I have the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one question rule - that was three questions."
BUSH RESPONDING TO A REPORTER'S FOLLOW-UP QUESTION: "Again, you violated the one question rule right off the bat. Obviously, you didn't listen to the will of the people."
The fact is that the Bush administration has waged a sustained war against the the truth. Allowing a reporter to respond to one of President Bush's absurdly weak assertions, would give reality just a bit too much play, and that can't happen. Period.
The peanut gallery already is chiming in.
On the January 11 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked Haig if he "would have supported [the war in Iraq] had you known there was no WMD." He responded:
No, I don't think the weapons of mass destruction was the key issue from the beginning. It became that when we brought it to the United Nations and the British made -- insisted that they had to have something besides just getting rid of [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam. And so we brought that in and it distorted the whole thing, as going to the U.N. did. We should have acted first with NATO and a consensus of our European alliance and then turned to the United Nations.
What the hell is he talking about? As always, Matthews' show is incomprehensible. Here's Brock's response to this.
But the Bush administration's insistence that Iraq possessed and was prepared to use WMD was the "key issue" in the case for war -- prior to their seeking U.N. approval. Bush began laying out his case for invading Iraq more than a year before Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation to the U.N. (which was riddled with dubious and false information). In his January 29, 2002, State of the Union address, Bush highlighted WMD as the primary argument for action against Iraq, labeling the country as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and North Korea:
"Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
"We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction.
"We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack.
"And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.
"We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
As The Washington Post reported on January 30, 2002, Bush's speech "sharply increase[d] both the immediacy and the gravity of the threat they [Iraq, Iran, and North Korea] pose, along with his own determination to do something about it sooner rather than later."
Finally, there's a little reported story today, that no at all seems to be paying attention to. Indeed, of all the words Bush has spoken recently, this truly seems the most profound.
Just hours after confirming that the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was over, President George W. Bush leveled his harshest charge ever at Saddam Hussein, accusing the former Iraqi dictator of "knowingly telling the truth" about not possessing WMD in the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"After years of lying about his weapons, Saddam Hussein willfully decided to tell the truth about them," Mr. Bush said. "His treachery knows no bounds."
After Mr. Bush excoriated Saddam for his "wanton truth-telling," he added that "thanks to the work of our coalition, Mr. Saddam Hussein will never be free to tell the truth again."
Burn in hell you treacherous son-of-a-bitch.
Simply put, when you take the skin and meat off this thing, it gets pretty ugly.
Bush sent US forces to war without making certain there was adequate cause. Now, it turns out there wasn't. You can't invade because they someday might try to get WMD. That's absurd, but its the line the administration has been trying to sell to this day. Its bull shit, plain and simple.
Bush was too eager to pull the trigger. It was a failure in judgment that caused American and Iraqi lives. That's called negligent manslaughter, and if the ruleof law prevailed in America today, he would be impeached and prosecuted as a war criminal. Instead, he'll probably go down in history as the second coming of Reagan.
Happy inauguration day, everybody.
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