the egadminisration is officially dead. put todays date in your diary.

* the AP (bless their hearts) has done a major piece on the history of the 'mystery' of the iraqi WMDs:

"Hussein Kamel, son-in-law of President Saddam Hussein, had headed Iraq's advanced arms programs during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, when the Baathist regime unleashed chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Iraqi civilians in rebellious Kurdish areas.

What the U.N., American and other debriefers learned from Kamel led to headline-making successes for U.N. inspectors as they tracked down banned arms-making gear inside Iraq.

But an interrogation transcript shows he told them something else as well, something they questioned and kept to themselves: All Iraqi WMD were destroyed in 1991.

Hussein Kamel, soon to be killed by fellow clansmen as a traitor, was telling the truth."

if my memory serves, cheney came out touting Kamel as *the* source before the war - and, at the time, even i knew that he had said everything they were claiming, and i also knew the *other* part of the story that they werent telling - that was the point i switched from 'i cant believe they are doing this' to 'those murderous lying fucking assholes'. note that the AP still cant tell the whole truth - at the time, cheney et al claimed that kamel had been murdered by saddam because he had disclosed 'the truth' - ie that saddam had lots of wmd's. for some reason, the whole Kamel story really hasnt entered the collective consciousness - even on the lefty 'there were no WMDs' side of the argument.

"Around this time, U.S. satellite reconnaissance was doubled over suspected Iraqi WMD sites, and analysts soon reported stepped-up activity, suggesting renewed production, at possible chemical weapons factories. What they apparently didn't realize, however, was that activity was being photographed more frequently - not that there necessarily was more activity."

read that and weep. and again.

its actually a stunning article by the AP - the first time i think ive ever given them any kudos. they do leave out a few major points - for example, the fact that saddam had tried to sell the US all of their cobwebbed centrifuges - but ill live with it.

ftr, the other undercovered, egregious pre-war media crime was when cnn and others carried blix's 'rebuttal' to powell's set of lies to the UN. cnn claimed to carry a "transcript" of blix's speech - but they dropped off all of the paragraphs which refuted powell's speech. it was truly a thru-the-looking-glass moment for me.

i was about to bet $100 that this article doesnt appear anyway in the US media - lucky i checked before i offered that bet - it looks like everyone is carrying it - including the LAT and WaPo

the egadminisration is officially dead. put todays date in your diary.