Iraqi WMDs

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Andrew H. Card, Jr. White House Chief of Staff The New York Times—September 7, 2002

So the President and his lackeys tweaked the message. They started promoting the idea that Saddam currently possessed significant weapons of mass destruction, poised to strike the United States and Britain. That certainly got people's attention. In fact, it scared the shit out of them. Public opinion quickly swayed in favor of military intervention, and the rest is history.

Since the war, however, millions of Americans have concluded that they are victims of false advertising. None of the fabled WMDs has actually shown up, despite months of intensive searching. Understandably, people feel they were lied to.

But let's start at the beginning. Prior to the 2001 al Qaeda attacks against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Bush and his administration were openly uncommitted as to whether there were any extant WMDs in Iraq:

Before 9-11

But shortly after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration (and Tony Blair, and several members of Congress) suddenly began telling everybody that Saddam Hussein definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that those things constituted a clear and present danger against the United States:

After 9-11

Then Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations for a Show 'N Tell presentation. He passed around recent surveillance photos taken of Iraqi WMD sites. According to Powell, the black-and-white pictures depicted a chemical weapons complex in Al-Musayyib, as well as 15 chemical weapons bunkers in Taji.

Although the briefing was vague on many details, Powell's exhibits were too specific and numerous to be ignored. Taken in total, they seemed to portray an ongoing biological and chemical weapons production effort under way in Iraq.

After the United States finally explained what the deal was, the general consensus became: someone is gonna have to disarm that sneaky motherfucker.

5 Feb 2003	During his U.N. presentation, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets."
8 Feb 2003	During a radio address, President George W Bush declares: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons—the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
8 Feb 2003	During a radio address, President George W Bush declares: "Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner. This network runs a poison and explosive training camp in northeast Iraq, and many of its leaders are known to be in Baghdad."
6 Mar 2003	During a press conference, President George W Bush declares: "Saddam Hussein and his weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free people.... I will not leave the American people at the mercy of the Iraqi dictator and his weapons."
7 Mar 2003	In a speech, Senate majority leader Bill Frist declares: "Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The President is right to say it's time has run out."
16 Mar 2003	In an op-ed piece published in the Washington Post, Senate majority leader Bill Frist declares: "Getting rid of Saddam Hussein's regime is our best inoculation. Destroying once and for all his weapons of disease and death is a vaccination for the world."
16 Mar 2003	Vice President Dick Cheney tells Meet the Press: "Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
17 Mar 2003	During an address to the nation, President George W Bush declares: "We cannot live under the threat of blackmail. The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed."
17 Mar 2003	During an address to the nation, President George W Bush declares: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
18 Mar 2003	British Prime Minister Tony Blair tells the House of Commons: "We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years—contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence—Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."
19 Mar 2003	During an address to the nation, President George W Bush declares: "The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."

Then, on March 20th, the war began.

During the War

And then, quietly at first, some doubts began to creep in.

24 Apr 2003	President George W Bush declares: "We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."
25 Apr 2003	ABC News journalist John Cochran reports: "Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say."
29 Apr 2003	In Moscow, British Prime Minister Tony Blair wonders openly: "Where is Saddam? Where are those arsenals of weapons of mass destruction, if they indeed were in existence? We don't know whether perhaps Saddam is still hiding somewhere underground in a bunker, sitting on cases containing weapons of mass destruction, and is preparing for blowing the whole thing up, bringing down with him the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. We simply do not know."

On May 1st, President Bush declared the end of combat operations from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier protecting the dangerous waters off San Diego harbor. By then, two mysterious developments had cast serious doubts on the WMD hunt (which began to resemble more and more Geraldo Rivera's 1986 live TV special The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault):

1. During the invasion, Iraqi defense forces had somehow restrained themselves from dipping into their stockpiles of chemical agents to use against the American aggressors.
2. In the aftermath of the fighting, none of Iraq's weapons caches were found to contain even slight traces of the offending materials. Not even the sites depicted in satellite photography presented by Colin Powell in his U.N. speech.

Perplexing. After a few more attempts at putting on a brave face, administration officials began to offer excuses why nothing had turned up yet. And the excuses would b