I can't say I believed it.

When all the talk about biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs were put forth as the reason for immediate action against Iraq earlier this year, I didn't think they were being truthful. Not because I believed Saddam was a great guy, but because he's always been a tease. His regime has lied about tons of things, and some of those lies were about his country's resources for defending itself. The first Gulf War proved the military of Iraq was a pansy. Most gave up without a fight. No chemical weapons were deployed. A few rockets flew, but, for the most part, they weren't effective against the US and coalition forces.

So why did we have to go through this again? Why did we send 150,000 troops, tons of machinery and our own weapons of mass destruction into Iraq again?

Well, earlier this year, the answer was simple for Bush and his buddies. Iraq had tons of weapons of mass destruction (including biological and chemical weapons). Iraq was working on putting together nuclear capabilities. Iraq was working with al Qaeda (the new 21st century bogeyman, because we have no idea where that organization is either). We heard these claims over and over. In between all of this, Bush would give a bit of lip service to "regime change" and "liberation of Iraq."

But the focus was always the immediate threat to US interests. That is why we had to attack before being attacked by them. Or before Iraq did any hostile action on friends of ours in their region. Their hostility was imminent and the only way to stop it would be to go in and take out Saddam. Find those WMDs and show the world we knew what we were talking about.

I hate to say I told you so. I kept waiting for our troops to find the mother lode. Instead we got pictures of Saddam's sons's "pleasure domes." Pictures of naked women. Drugs. Rooms full of liquor and wine. Swimming pools and circus animals. We heard about a couple of trailers (about which the Prez proclaimed "We've found them!," even though everyone who has examined the vehicles say couldn't have had any kind of weapon capability--they were for weather balloons) in the desert. We heard about an old piece of equipment buried before the first Gulf War behind a bush (ironic huh? behind a bush...). And, more than two months after major hostilities were proclaimed over, we're losing troops at about the same rate as during the first month of the war.

No WMDs. No smoking gun. No ties to al Qaeda. No immediate threat. And no Saddam Hussein. He and his sons are still at large. And, today, Rumsfeld even said that finding him is much more necessary than it was to find Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Another place we're still fighting an open-ended battle.

So when the Bushies admitted the claim about "yellow cake" uranium from Africa (Niger and a few other countries) was false--and then quickly said it didn't matter if they were wrong about that because they were still right about going into Iraq when they did--I realized it was time to call the game.

No one seems to want to directly accuse this administration of lying or manipulating the public into going to war. To do this would be tantamount to starting impeachment proceedings. Using government agencies and government information or misinformation to mislead the public and congress is a capital offense. In other words, it's even worse to lie about the existence of WMDs so a war can get started than it is to lie about getting a hummer from an intern.

I'm not a high ranking anything, so I'm gonna go ahead and say this administration lied to us about those WMDs and all the other crap they shoved down our throats so they could take over Iraq. A preemptive strike is a huge policy change for this country. We have always said we would not be the country to start the war--and then we did just that. During the Cold War, this would be like launching nuclear missiles at the USSR because we thought they were going to do the same to us--and soon. Guess what? Neither side did. In the end, neither side wanted to destroy the world.

Going to war with Iraq isn't as drastic as blowing up the world. But we did blow up a country. And the Bush administration manipulated and lied about intelligence information so the public would support their aggression. The Bushies have generated a lot of bad blood, and most of it is still out there because they don't want to admit they're wrong.

And now, the Prez doesn't want to admit the claims about WMDs were the real reason we went to war. He wants to say it was really about liberating a repressed country. He wants to say it was because Saddam was a bad man and should have been taken out no matter what. He wants to use UN violations--even though he couldn't get the UN to agree to fight with us. If he really cared about what the UN thought, our country wouldn't be in this situation.

So I'm calling a liar a liar. And if I'm wrong, I'll apologize. Something Bush and his buddies haven't been able to do so far.

Matt Worley lies, but the lies don't kill anyone.