According to a brief segment on ABC News (2/3/03), Sec. of State Colin Powell has already acknowledged that he has "no smoking gun" vis-a-vis the alleged possession by Iraq of the so-called weapons of mass destruction. Additionally, in the same segment, the network reported that Asst. SoS Richard Armitage has acknowledged that Powell's speech will contain "nothing new."

Time will tell, of course, but stop and think about it: if the Bush administration had the mythical smoking gun against Iraq, it would have been trumpeted to the world long ago.

Furthermore, anything new and shocking coming from our vaunted intelligence agencies will be viewed with a highly skeptical eye, at least by this observer, coming as it will in the wake of the pathetic, almost surreally laughable attempts to certify as authentic the bogus OBL audio tape.

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