WMD: THEY HAVEN'T TURNED UP BUT THEY WON'T GO AWAY.
Well, it's all coming unglued over here & fast. That youthful, modernising, new broom-wielding white hope who breathed new life into a moribund party five years ago is now looking hunted, haunted & increasingly politically hollow. It looks more & more likely that those weapons of mass destruction are going to defy physics & manage to blow up in Tony Blair's face as a direct function of their not being found.
Consider Blair since:
· "I do believe that there is a real danger with weapons of mass destruction". US NBC TV, April 4th 2002
· "The dossier…concludes that Iraq has chemical & biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing & active military plans for the use of chemical & biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes". House of Commons, September 24th, 2002.
· "I have got no doubt that either that the purpose of our challenge from the UN is disarmament of weapons of mass destruction; it is not regime change". Radio Monte Carlo, November 18th, 2002.
· "I don't think the British intelligence services would be advising me if they weren't doing it honestly & properly". Press Conference, January 13th, 2003.
· "Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a little bit. I remain confident that they will be found". Press Conference, April 28th, 2003.
· "Those people who are sitting there saying, 'Oh, it is all going to be proved to be a great big fib got out by the security services. There will be no weapons of mass destruction'. Just wait & have a little patience". Interview, May 31st 2003.
Consider:
· Donald Rumsfeld shifting ground with all the subtlety of a cornered steer, encouraging us to believe that all along what he actually meant was that Saddam Hussein was conducting a policy of WMD construction, not necessarily actually putting the things together.
· Andrew Marr, the senior political commentator for the BBC, standing before the evening news cameras, all cat-with-cream, informing us that 'at the highest levels in Whitehall' faith in the existence of WMD has all but faded away.
What is an appropriate period of time to wait, not for the emergence in Iraq of a few drums of chemicals, but for serious discussion of impeachment here at home?
12:59:58 AM 
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