It has nothing to do with hope
It has everything to do with what the facts are. And the facts are we've yet to find the weapons of mass destruction George Bush claimed that the Iraqis had. The administration is now clearly scaling back expectations that they will find much of anything.
Our premise for going to war was that the Iraqis had hundreds of tones of chemical and biological weapons. We rushed to war because we didn't believe the U.N. isnpectors couldn't find the stuff. Now we can't find the stuff.