Anti-war activists couldn’t have scripted it any better. Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are still on the lamb and the Bush administration is clambering for excuses.

Despite the US military tearing Iraq apart, leaving no trailer or bunker unturned, and few un-bombed, all that’s been uncovered are a couple of possible bio-weapons labs that could supposedly be used to mix an anthrax cocktail strong enough to intoxicate a city. But there’s no actual proof of that allegation, either.

Hide and Seek
The whole reason the US and Britain went to war with Iraq was because, we were assured, Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was poised to use them on us any second. And, Bush warned, if Saddam wasn’t stopped he would have fully developed nukes within a year. He also claimed that intelligence tied Saddam to Al-Qaeda and the September 11 attacks.

However, what Dubya neglected to reveal was the evidence he was relying on to rally support for the war was as flimsy as an old nightgown. Several top-level intelligence agents, including Colin Powell and recently retired agent Greg Thielmann, have since disproved the notion that Saddam was secretly buying uranium from Niger, a major selling factoid, along with several other assertions, including Saddam’s links to Al-Qaeda and 9/11. In fact, the Bush administration’s case to go to war was so weak that, according to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in a Vanity Fair article, they pulled the WMD card as a “bureaucratic” move to get the public rallied around the war effort.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld maintains the weapons exist – they’re just hiding really well. But six months and counting of searching and coming up empty-nuked isn’t boding well for the Bushites. While the hunt continues, US integrity wanes. Kansas Democratic Senator Pat Roberts told “Meet the Press” on May 25 that unless weapons of mass destruction are found, the US will suffer a worldwide credibility problem. For a president who’s already unpopular abroad, Bush has outdone himself with this “my bad.” Though he has yet to admit responsibility.