Yes, We Have No WMDs

The chief U.S. weapons-hunter in occupied Iraq, David Kay, now says that "we are very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons. I don't think they exist." Ex-Iraq Arms Hunter Blames Data for Failure [LATimes.com]. So White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan announced in reaction that "Saddam Hussein's regime was a gathering threat, and in a post-Sept. 11 world, we must confront gathering threats before it is too late."

That's well and true. But is it necessary to lie to your own people, and the world, in order to do so? The sad part is that the Bushies would have had the same overwhelming support of Americans -- and the same opposition from the goodie-goodies and pacificsts at the UN and the EU -- had they come straight and not manufactured stories about Saddam's WMD stockpiles. Now, in hindsight, the whole thing is looking very much silly.

It's way too late to argue that imminent threat of WMDs was not the principal justification for the war. That the Bush Administration's continued efforts to try to deny and deflect reality shows only their disdain for real democracy or their underlying hubris -- or maybe both.

 Posted by glenn