-- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&e=3&u=/usatoday/5107763
Pause the postwar glee to ask: Were supporters misled? Mon Apr 28, 7:26 AM ET
Don Campbell
The ''victory'' in Iraq (news - web sites) that evoked so much irrational exuberance in Washington is degenerating into a bit of a farce. Iraqi Shiite clerics are telling us to get out and take our notions of nation building with us. We can't find Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), the egomaniacal dictator we could tolerate for 25 years but not a day longer, though we're fairly certain he's not in control anymore.
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Problem is, some things don't spin very well. Exhibit A would be Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admonishing the media when they ask about the elusive weapons of mass destruction. Before the war, the administration insisted that Iraq had hundreds of tons of chemical weapons and thousands of gallons of biological weapons. Now Rumsfeld says we must be patient, that finding easily concealed weapons takes time. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary, but isn't that just the argument the U.N. Security Council was using when you and I and many others were ridiculing their Inspectors Clouseau?
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A threat to USA
Remember, the White House insisted repeatedly that Iraq was a threat to the United States -- not to Israel, not to Great Britain, not to Guinea-Bissau -- because a Hitler-in-the-making had weapons of mass destruction. I and a lot of people accepted that even while worrying that Iraq would be a costly diversion from the most important task ahead, which is to chase terrorists to the ends of the earth and destroy them.
That's why Bush had better hope that all those horrific chemical and biological weapons are found. Reports that the number of U.S. personnel searching for weapons will be tripled shows Bush apparently understands that.
Don Campbell, a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors, lives in
Atlanta.--