?So here is my thus-far unasked question: If there never were WMDs in Iraq then why didn't Saddam Hussein invite the U.N. inspectors into Iraq a month before, a week before, a day before hostilities broke out? Why didn't he tell the U.N. convincingly that he was opening up the country to show he had no WMDs?
"Had he made so compelling an offer to the U.N. weeks before war broke out, he would have stopped the American attack before it began because Saddam would then have been in compliance with the appropriate U.N. resolutions. And more importantly, Saddam would still be sitting on his throne. One can speculate about Saddam's mental balance but surely it makes no sense for Saddam to have given up WMDs and then allowed the inevitable invasion that led to his ignominious defeat. If we can't find WMDs then what happened to them? And when??
Rush
?Many of the critics suggesting that the Bush administration exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein to justify war in Iraq didn't raise those questions when they emerged from intelligence briefings.? Shazam! Did I not say this? These people all voted for this military use-of-force resolution. They saw the intelligence briefings. Not one of them expressed doubts about them.
More: ?Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who is running for president, suggested in a CNN interview on Sunday that the Bush administration might have willfully distributed erroneous information on the threat posed by Iraq ? a charge that CIA Director George J. Tenet denied vigorously in a rare public statement made Friday and released this week. ?If we don't find these weapons of mass destruction, it will represent a serious intelligence failure or the manipulation of that intelligence to keep the American people in the dark,? said Mr. Graham.?
Rush
And one from a liberal source:
TONY Blair crushed Labour rebels yesterday and rejected claims he lied over the war in Iraq.
He wiped the floor with critics who called for evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
And he dismissed opposition claims that he doctored security reports showing Saddam was 45 minutes away from using his WMDs.
He told MPs: ?There have been many claims made about the Iraq conflict: That hundreds of thousands of people were going to die in it, that it was going to be my Vietnam.
?That the Middle East was going to be in flames and this latest one, that WMD were a complete invention by the British Government.
The truth is some people resent the fact it was right to go to conflict and we won the conflict.
?Iraq is now free and we should be proud of that.?
He added: ?The people of Iraq are delighted that a brutal dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of their people is gone.
?The British Army and the British people should be proud of the role this country played in removing him.?
Labour rebels planning to attack the PM over claims that he doctored intelligence reports to ?dupe? voters into backing the war were silenced after Cabinet bruiser John Prescott read them the riot act over disloyalty.
Mr Prescott stormed into their weekly meeting and told them: ?This is all about the integrity of the party. The Prime Minister does not lie.?
Mr Blair yesterday summoned Joint Intelligence Committee chief Sir John Scarlett to discuss claims that ?rogue? intelligence officers were
briefing against Labour.
But in the Commons he hailed the ?superb job? done by Britain?s security and intelligence services.
And he rejected calls from Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith for an independent judicial inquiry into the allegations of doctoring evidence.
He said: ?All these allegations that have been made are completely without substance. If these people have any evidence they should produce it.?
He added: ?There was no attempt at any time by any official or minister or member of 10 Downing Street staff to override the intelligence judgments of the JIC.?
But he offered full co-operation to a Commons Intelligence and Security Committee probe.
And he promised he would give evidence if asked ? and publish its findings.
The Sun