Here, in the New York Times of all places, lies the answer to all of those who are using the failure to find WMDs in Iraq as a stick with which to beat the administration. The whole thing is worth reading, but here is the most essential paragraph:
"Even if you throw out all the tainted evidence, there was still what prosecutors call probable cause to believe that Saddam was harboring frightful weapons, and was bent on acquiring the most frightful weapons of all. The Clinton administration believed so. Two generations of U.N. inspectors believed so. It was not a Bush administration fabrication that Iraq had, and failed to account for, massive quantities of anthrax and VX nerve gas and other biological and chemical weapons. Saddam was under an international obligation to say where the poisons went, but did not."
Were there ANY pre-war objections from Chirac, Daschle, Blix - anyone - that Saddam did not possess WMDs?
There was, in fact, probable cause. But
Keller’s article about "crying Wolfowitz" also shows that some evidence
used by the President was fraudulent and
some contrary to his case was ignored.
The sooner this is plainly acknowledged
by the administration, the better. The truth is not particularly damning, but we can’t let our opponents make it so by denying it.