Heh... are we surprised?

Actually, I'm shocked that they've finally closed the ruse. Around 1991, I would have argued that there undoubtedly were WMD's in Iraq. But around 2000? Not with the condition of the nation. The war in Iraq is a revenge war because Bush Daddy didn't get Saddam. Hopefully one of these days the conservative crowd will wake up and realize this, too.

And I stand by the fact that this is my generation's Vietnam. Anyone who thinks that
1) Bush's claim that this war is over, or
2) That we're getting out of there successfully any time soon

is smoking something. I might want some to avoid the realities of the situation myself...

(Source: CNN)
U.S. ends search for WMD in Iraq
Wednesday, January 12, 2005 Posted: 10:29 AM EST (1529 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. inspectors have ended their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in recent weeks, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN.

The search ended almost two years after President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, citing concerns that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction and may have hidden weapons stockpiles.

Members of the Iraq Survey Group were continuing to examine hundreds of documents and would investigate any new leads, the official said.

Charles A. Duelfer, who headed the Iraq Survey Group's search for WMD in Iraq, has returned to Iraq and is working on his final report, the official said.

In October, Duelfer released a preliminary report finding that in March 2003 -- the United States invaded Iraq on March 19 of that year -- Saddam did not have any WMD stockpiles and had not started any program to produce them.

The Iraq Survey Group report said that Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended the country's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.

The report found that Iraq worked hard to cheat on United Nations-imposed sanctions and retain the capability to resume production of weapons of mass destruction at some time in the future.

"[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted," a summary of the report said.

Many of the military and intelligence personnel, who had been assigned to the weapons search, are now working on counterinsurgency matters, the official said.

*sigh* You know, if the point was to get Saddam out of power-- if that had been the REASON we went to Iraq, I honestly would have probably supported it, even though I would have been wary. Although I did question the timing, considering that Bin Laden had not been found. Afghanistan was slowly turning into its own quagmire at the time, and it made no sense to be going into another nation when we weren't done with the work in Afghanistan-- a nation that was proven to be obnoxiously difficult (*cough* USSR) to really get under control.

But because the whole situation was one of smoke and mirrors, I'm just disgusted by it. *sigh*

I'll post a happier entry later-- good post-birthday goodness and all that. But I need to get to work for now...