6 in 10 Americans Say WMD Are Important

Does this make sense?

According to a new CBS News Poll, six in 10 Americans say it is important for the United States to find the illegal weapons. Two-thirds of those polled said they think the administration exaggerated the weapons threat. That sentiment appeared not to have harmed Bush politically, with his job approval still at 66 percent.

The poll of 841 adults was taken Thursday and Friday and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

I watched Gore Vidal on Book TV yesterday and he happened to make a comment on the phrasing of these poll questions and how easy it is to manipulate phrasing to get the answers you seek. We know this sure, but how in the same poll can people say they have a problem with the missing WMD but their opinion of George hasn't changed?

Apparently it's more difficult to rig a question on missing WMD or the public [finally] isn't falling for it.

I can't say I'm shocked when Senators, et. al. come out as being indifferent to whether or not there are WMD. What can you expect from a body of people who willingly relinquished their powers to declare war and granted that authority to a man with the moral compass of an insider trader?

Jerry Bowles over at Best of the Blogs has some questions for John McCain that deserve to be answered.

And Cursor links to this report from Iraq Body Count and this article in the Guardian explaining why the number of civilians killed in Iraq may have been 10,000.

Nothing to be indifferent about, is it.

Iraqi mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds

An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis have continued to insist.

The conclusion by biological weapons experts working for the British Government is an embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who has claimed that the discovery of the labs proved that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction and justified the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein.

Instead, a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week: 'They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.'

Australian Official To Tip Bucket On WMD Intelligence

Andrew Wilkie, formerly with the Office of National Assessments (ONA), will use his appearance this week to tip a bucket on the Government's use of the now-suspect intelligence to justify Australia's role in the war.

Mr Wilkie said he would expose the Government's "exaggeration" of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and "concoction" of links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists.

"Australia went to war with the US and UK, without international endorsement, on the basis of what our Prime Minister described as a massive weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq," he told the Sydney Morning Herald before leaving for London yesterday.

"That claim was obviously false. There is no doubt that Iraq did have weapons at one time and something will eventually be found and dressed up as justification, but it won't be anything of the magnitude we were led to believe existed."