This is what we went to war over ...

too true, so true in fact that Republicans are thinking it's not.

They'll defend it on "It looks like he was planning to develop some."

New York Times

( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/politics/17intel.html?th for full article)

"Iraq Study Finds Desire for Arms, but Not Capacity
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: September 17, 2004


ASHINGTON, Sept. 16 - A new report on Iraq's illicit weapons program is expected to conclude that Saddam Hussein's government had a clear intent to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons if United Nations sanctions were lifted, government officials said Thursday. But, like earlier reports, it finds no evidence that Iraq had begun any large-scale program for weapons production by the time of the American invasion last year, the officials said.

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The most specific evidence of an illicit weapons program, the officials said, has been uncovered in clandestine labs operated by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which could have produced small quantities of lethal chemical and biological agents, though probably for use in assassinations, not to inflict mass casualties.

A draft report of nearly 1,500 pages that is circulating within the government essentially reaffirms the findings of an interim review completed 11 months ago, the officials said. But they said it added considerable detail, particularly on the question of Iraq's intention to produce weapons if United Nations penalties were weakened or lifted, a judgment they said was based on documents signed by senior leaders and the debriefings of former Iraqi scientists and top officials, as well as other records.

The officials said the report would portray a more complicated and detailed picture, based on a far more extensive examination of suspected Iraqi weapons sites and records, as well as the debriefings. They said new information in the draft report based on on-site inspections of clandestine labs described the possibility that they were intended to provide small quantities of poisons.

A final version of the report, by Charles A. Duelfer, the top American weapons inspector in Iraq, is expected to be made public within the next several weeks.

In its current form, the report reaffirms previous interim findings that there is no evidence that Iraq possessed stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the American invasion in March 2003, the officials said. Prewar intelligence estimates that said Iraq actually possessed chemical and biological arsenals and was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program were cited by the Bush administration as the major rationale for war......"


IF UN sanctions were lifted.....

where's osama ?

quiet you! The general public might see it!! Wouldn't want THAT to happen, would you?

oh, uh, sorry. what i meant was;

"weeer makin' goood pragruss in eyerack"

This won't matter now. The bizzarroworld administration of the USA keeps shifting both it's reasons and it's reasoning for the war. They have gone from "immediate threat" and "possesses weapons of mass destruction" to um..... really, bad man and er..... had evil intentions, we're pretty sure.

If you haven't seen a Bush rally, he stands up there and says "We thought we were right to take out Saddam and we think we're right today."
The listing of those two errors in fact and logic ought to engender boos but instead the crowds all cheer wildly.

Imagine. It's as if he says, "Well, we were wrong but we thought we had it right, and despite all evidence to the contrary we continue to deceive ourselves!!" Cue the crowd.

Kofi Anon's recent pronouncement on the illegality of the invasion won't help either. Redneck America doesn't want to be part of the world, it fears things foreign, so the opinion of the leader of the UN, which parenthetically makes both Bush and Cheney liable for accusations of war crimes, will be blasted as just another attempt by outsiders to mess with our business.

Joe

welcome to the '60s...

In Iran... with the weapons of mass destruction. I guess we know where we'll be going next.

This post is so good I wonder if you would mind if I send it to someone I know? I really like the following:

More bizzaroworld.

We should invade Pakistan and start bombing the tribe people who are hiding him, right?

That would seem to be the preferred method of the Shrub and his Forty Theives . . .

Other than that, I see no easy way to answer the continuous high-pitch whine of "Where's Osama? Where's Osama? Where's Osama?"

Well, I most devoutly hope they CAN prove the reports wrong..

..as well as the high pitched whine of "why didn't Clinton get him?"

Eh, that's old news. The past can't be changed, so why bother rehashing it? I am certain it will come up in 2008 why Hitlary makes her run for president.

It's not old news when it is consistently used by defenders of the current admin as an excuse.