My sense is that you defend yourself against political attacks. You especially defend yourself against political attacks when they are threatening to put in power a socialist nutcase with zero experience, a liberal agenda, and a list of accomplices that would make Joseph Stalin feel at home.
You especially defend yourself when a transformation of the Supreme Court is just one appointment away.
We could have new pro-life, pro-gun, pro-natural marriage rulings by now. Instead we have a gay army, the criminalization of traditional morality, and a nation without ammunition.
President Bush’s silence, whatever the reason, and especially NOW knowing that he KNEW there were WMDs, is an indication of SOMETHING political.
Of course it’s political: there’s ALWAYS a political angle.
From the Bush Administration’s perspective, probably, the stories of old stockpile remnants were already out there. The press wasn’t covering them. If the Admin started pushing for coverage the story would have been that the Bush Admin was exaggerating old and unusable, pretty much lost and forgotten weapons into an actual usable combat capability.
IOW trying to cover a “lie” with another “lie.”
So there was certainly a political calculation that playing up these things would do more harm than good. Which, given the political environment at the time was a fair argument.