Hold the elections, then get out (Guardian)

[kentuck]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1390309,00.html

<snip>
The biggest surprise of the White House announcement calling off the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is that there was anyone still out there looking for them. The rest of the planet has known for over a year that there are no WMD to be found in Iraq, and that hunting for them is just as eccentric - and even less interesting - as poring over arcane codes in the hope of unearthing the holy grail.
Nevertheless, we cannot allow the Bush administration to conduct the last rites on the weapons search without reminding Downing Street that this also buries their claim that Iraq was, in the words of the September dossier, "a current and serious threat". A two-year search by 1,000 personnel with a budget of $1bn has found zero threat: no weapons stockpiles; no chemical or biological agents; no nuclear plants; no delivery systems. When Tony Blair was obliged to admit last summer that he could find no weapons, he promised to produce weapons programmes. Now the search has been closed down by Washington without uncovering any such programmes either.

Revealingly, Washington never thought to warn the British of this week's statement. Despite Britain committing a third of its army to the invasion of Iraq, it did not occur to anyone in the White House to pick up the phone and warn the British government in advance of their unilateral decision. Perhaps this latest twist of the knife might finally cure Tony Blair of his delusion that the Bush administration will ever listen to him in return for his loyalty to them.

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