Thursday, October 07, 2004

On weapons that aren't there

Okay, so the conclusive report has finally come out stating that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when the US came in with shock and awe and bombs bursting in air. Obviously, this comes as a huge shock to me, as I was totally convinced that Saddam was sitting on stockpiles of nuclear weapons that he was just waiting to send our way and that he cleverly flushed down the toilet when he heard SWAT breaking down the door. I mean, the Bush administration said so, they said that's why they invaded Iraq in the first place, and they wouldn't, like, lie, right?

Yeah, I know, we're all shocked, but it looks like, per the report, Saddam Hussein hasn't had the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction, or even weapons of mass destruction-related program activities, nor was he making any "concerted efforts to restart the program," since Gulf War the First in 1991. No stockpiles. No stocks. No materials. Charles A. Duefler, personally chosen by the Bush administration to come up with something to support the invasion, came out and told a Senate panel that "we were almost all wrong" on Iraq.

Nice.

Of course, Bush and Cheney immediately apologized to the nation for sending their sons and daughters to war over weapons of mass destruction that most of us knew never existed in the first place. Facing the nation with a tear in his eye, Bush took a deep breath and said, ""There was a risk -- a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks. In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take." Yes, heaven forbid that Saddam Hussein should pass on weapons that didn't exist and information that he didn't have. That would be tragic.

But how did the rest of the world respond to the news? Sadly, No! points us to a comment by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh "pointing to evidence that Saddam was diverting money from the U.N. food-for-oil humanitarian program to buy new weapons." Thus, per Sadly, "There's evidence that Saddam was diverting money to buy weapons of which there is no evidence."

Mr. President, feel free to leave your apologies and excuses in the comment section below. I'll just wait here until I hear from you.

Update: German intelligence services tell us that Osama bin Laden is still alive, kicking, and leading al Qaeda with an iron fist. News just gets better and better.

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