Decius wrote:

Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the war, says the tapes show extensive deception but don't prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. "What they do is support the conclusion in the report, which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted."

I don't think that was ever in dispute. This is a non-story, but it gives the Conservative rags something to talk about while the second reel of Abu Ghraib photos goes around.

Agreed. This is a hack deflection. The issue around WMD's is subtle. Iraq may have had raw materials, or even active operations to refine those materials and build delivery systems, or even financial/logistical operations to deploy those materials. Until there was a credible tangible threat, the minimum bar to justify invasion and the deployment of $300B+ and thousands of lost lives, then its use is only meaningful in establishing a trend and risk index. Hell, the Israeli's are constantly inundated with the 'threat' of WMD's or other assaultive situations, but that doesn't justify them to go topple a regime in a major operation. They have assassins for that kind of work.

You know that the right's MO for some time is to find any shred of anything that could debunk the justification question. Considering that there appears to be no real pressure from either Congress or the American people to provoke the administration into explaining itself and holding them accountable, I'm surprised they've spent this much effort on it. But you just can't keep them NASCAR dads down.