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That Hell-Bound Train
Why didn’t the administration simply turn back?

What a difference a year–and the truth–makes, huh? A measly 365 days ago, if you believed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you were a nut-job, a dangerous leftist ideologue and/or on Osama bin Laden’s or Saddam Hussein’s payroll. Perhaps you were one of Andrew Sullivan’s "fifth column" of pundits trying to undermine the president. Or maybe you were one of those traitors who should have been bombed yourself, as Ann Coulter opined back in August of 2002 regarding the supposedly liberal editors and reporters at the New York Times. Much of the rabid right, including the Wall Street Journal editorial page, looked on, snickering and defending Annie on that one. They probably agreed with her when she accused liberals of treason for questioning the war and the weapons claims.

But now, here we have none other than George W. Bush’s own weapons monitor in Iraq, David Kay, stepping down and confirming what experts from former U.N. chief inspector Hans Blix (accused of conspiring with the dreaded French) to Scott Ritter (the former U.N. weapons inspector whom conservatives portrayed as a kook via an all-too-willing media) had said: Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction prior to the war and that the Bushies were "almost all wrong."

It was only last year when Kay was goring Blix and insinuating there were plenty of WMDs to find....

...In addition to the "faulty intelligence" ruse, conservatives are also defending Bush by pulling out their old standby argument: "But Bill Clinton…" (Actually, blaming the CIA is blaming Clinton as well, since CIA director George Tenet is a Clinton holdover, and a lot of Republicans in Congress want to get rid of him.) The supposedly faulty intelligence on WMDs in Iraq was the same intelligence used under the Clinton administration, they’re claiming, and foreign governments believed it too. But if you follow the time line in Kay’s remarks, Saddam likely did have stockpiles of WMDs during the early part of the Clinton presidency. Sanctions, U.N. inspections, internal corruption and Saddam’s overall lunacy, however, contributed to Iraq’s dismantling, and/or not proceeding with, nuclear programs by decade’s end. Another thing happened as well: In the mid-90s, according to Kay, a targeted bombing campaign by the U.S. destroyed most or all of Saddam’s chemical weapons.

"The large chemical overhang of existing stockpiles was eliminated," Kay said.

In other words, Bill Clinton, scourge of the right and one of those soft-on-terrorism Democrats, actually can take credit for ending Saddam’s illicit weapons programs....