And people should realize one thing right away: Before the 2004 elections, Bush knew this. Kerry was lying right through his teeth. Hell, we knew it. The Dueffler report stated that we had found WMD's, but the conclusion was that there were none. Yeah, you figure that one out.
The whole "Bush Lied" mantra could have been stomped flat. Instead, the man put his presidency on the line to keep quiet and keep being viciously and untruthfully attacked when he could have made political hay with this. And for 2 years later he still refrained from destroying the democrats with it. Why?
This introduces what I call:
The calculus of death and media.
I saw it suggested that the "Bush Lied No WMD" crapola was sufficient for the terrorists - that they knew if they actually used WMDs then their pro-terrorist sympathizers in the Democratic party would no longer give them free propaganda. That, essentially, NOT USING the WMD's meant free anti-war spin and that was more useful for them than the few thousand deaths they could gain by using, say, a dozen sarin rounds in the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Or in a US base in Iraq.
Conversely, it seems Bush valued the safety of our troops in-country more than he did the ability to stop the constant personal and political attacks on himself. He refrained, and allowed us time to further solidify the hold of a non-insane government in Iraq, which would eventually allow recovery and destruction of the WMDs.
It follows - that to release the info now, the administration recognizes the fact that we need to slap the hell out of the faces of the lying sh*tbags that have done so much to denigrate and destroy our country. Their bullcrap "Bush Lied Goats Died!" mantra is now shown to be an utter insane farce, a deliberate and clearly self-serving, un-American LIE to the American people for over 2 years. And this will also force the MSM to review the stated and clear reasons which led us to attack Iraq. None of which, by the way, have EVER been "proven" wrong by the left, nor have EVER been realistically argued against.
Now, the idiots on the left are standing around, realizing they have been found out as deliberately lying about the war, about Iraq, and will be seen as obstructionist for the pure simple reason of lust for power and hate for America. They now have to return to the dozen or so other reasons we voted on back in 2003 and try to prove that one or more of them was false. Which, may I remind everyone, is impossible. (Hell, the whole "WMD Stockpile required to justify the war" garbage was false on its face - and they seem to have forgotten it)
They're going to be drinking heavily tonight, I think.
This is an election year. Now would be the best time to do a full court press on the Democrats.
Hopefully, this is the first step in that campaign.
Hopefully, we will campaign on the FACT that the Russians, French, and Chinese are really our enemies. They are very dangerous and you need to trust conservative America more than the liberals and the UN.
One reason I think you are right is that we had lots of reports in the news in the 6 months after the invasion about WMD's being found, and then they were ALWAYS discounted or retracted. I think it unlikely that every single report was wrong. We also heard from private sources that things were being found...Mike was it you that heard that from a relative?
And David Kay also did a switcheroo on what he said was found. I am almost sure that happened.
The only thing that makes sense is that the WMD finding was being kept quiet for security reasons.
A secondary reason may have been that we had evidence of the culpability of certain elements of the Russian or Chinese government (or, of course, the French).
I don't think President Bush's PR failures account for this. Most of the press seems to be puzzled about this and aren't sure why this news would have been held back.. which leads me back to Republicanus's explanation.
Thank you for posting your analysis.
"I saw it suggested that the "Bush Lied No WMD" crapola was sufficient for the terrorists - that they knew if they actually used WMDs then their pro-terrorist sympathizers in the Democratic party would no longer give them free propaganda. That, essentially, NOT USING the WMD's meant free anti-war spin and that was more useful for them than the few thousand deaths they could gain by using, say, a dozen sarin rounds in the Bay Area Rapid Transit system."