Mark,

This series of articles illustrate that both the U.S. and U.K. remain in trouble over having exaggerated claims to justify a pre-emptive war in Iraq. The Blair article merely reminds folks here he remains in deep political trouble.

As for the Bush administration on Iraq. Lets examine the record:

On March 16, 2003, Dick Cheney claimed: "We believe he (Hussein) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." On September 14, 2003, Dick Cheney said, "Yeah, I did misspeak .... We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon."

On September 11, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz claimed: "A great many of [Osama] bin Laden's key lieutenants are now trying to organize in cooperation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime to attack in Iraq." The very next day Wolfowitz admitted: "I misspoke."

On March 30, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld claimed this about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction: ""We know where they are." On September 14, 2003 he admitted: "In that instance, we had been in the country for about 15 seconds; sometimes I overstate for emphasis .... I should have said, 'I believe they're in that area."

In my book...three strikes and you're out. Of course you can add TOny Blair to the list. He claimed that Saddam could deploy his WMD's in 45 minutes. He now admits that claim was wrong. THree strikes and one more for good measure I guess.

Regards,
Donald