well, maybe not:
"The return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq is an urgent necessity; not to search for weapons of mass destruction, but to write the final report about the nonexistence of (such) weapons ... in Iraq, which will enable the lifting of sanctions," ElBaradei said in Cairo.
And here we get to the crux of the issue; the Iraqi people need sanctions lifted a lot more than Bush needs a confirmation of the existence of WMDs. If this were Clinton, the needs of Iraqis would be secondary if they were of import at all when it comes to getting reelected.
And the Democrats all along knew that the sanctions had to be lifted in order to insure Iraq got back on her feet and they knew what political as well as material and bloody sacrifice it would take to get this done. They knew very well- because they have been briefed all along- that the Bush admin couldn't protect itself from their political attacks of "no wmd" by presenting our real finds without screwing Iraqis's chances of getting the UN to officially lift sanctions. The rats took advantage of this necessity, knowing that success in Iraq depended on it, and knowing that Bush could not and would not waver and respond no matter the damage they did. The huge quantities of precursors stored in military bases had to be called mere pesticides, the shells had to be called old and dated pre-gulf war; the missile findings had to be ignored, the findings of the Poles had to be discounted, the Jordanian plot buried, the European ricin plot obscured, the anthrax/al Ani story had to go nowhere, the Niger story reduced to a mere attempt to acquire, the Libya/Qadeer Khan stories had to be scrubbed of their references to the Iraq and left at best with a reference to a "fifth nation" ; the labs called mere hydrogen balloon factories though no one would put their name to that claim; Hatfill had to be followed around in circles, and Kay's talk of Iraq's innovative anthrax production pretty much buried. It's all been out there in whizzing in our faces though the press keeps telling us it's just raining.
What a brilliant mind you have!
The surreal nature of the political battles since last year has raised suspicions that they have been in part just for show.
After reading more of this thread,I want to rescind my previous post to you and go back to my original position.