going to war to free up our troops(?!)

sound paradoxical? check this out

IN AN INTERVIEW in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is quoted as saying a “huge” reason for the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia.

“For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.(full text)

The implications of this, if proven true, are huge. US credibility and European ties which are currently healing, will shatter. Even our greatest ally, Tony Blair, is facing immense pressure from Parlaiment to prove that there really was evidence of Iraqi WMDs prior to attacking Iraq.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, meanwhile, was fighting his own battle against allegations that he fabricated evidence against Saddam after the BBC reported that an intelligence dossier had been altered at the request of his office to make it “sexier” by claiming that Saddam’s weapons could be readied for use within 45 minutes.

[...]

More than 70 disgruntled members of Parliament have signed a motion urging the government to give evidence to Parliament on Saddam’s weapons and Britain’s motives for going to war.

This uncertainty about the true reason for attacking Iraq comes at a time when after more than a month of control in Iraq, the US is still struggling to find any conclusive evidence of the existence of Iraqi WMDs.

If the US-led coalition had evidence of Iraqi WMDs and followed up on that intelligence but found no WMDs, why can't the US declassify that evidence now? The Baath Party has been abolished. There is no significant resistence to coalition occupation. What's going on here?

Oh, I forgot. Bush is too busy trying to garner Middle East Peace to release intelligence reports.