Liars, damn liars....

This afternoon on PBS's The Charlie Rose Show Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett was defending her country's involvement in the on going Iraq war by making the usual false arguments about how Saddam posed a threat to the world and all that kinda BS.

That is not what bothered me about this interview, after all what can we expect from them? We can't expect them to come out saying that....Yes, we screwed up the whole thing. We went in for the oil and got stuck in a shit hole of our own making, right!? What bothered me is that they keep thinking that by blatantly lying time and time again, they can alter history. That they can change how people will view this after some years or generations.

For example, take this statement she made during the course of the interview, ".........Every country in the world believed that Saddam had WMDs........"

What!?

No we didn't. Not even the IAEA believed this. If you take the statement of that Agency's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's March 7, 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council on the progress of the inspection effort in Iraq, he had this to say.....

At this stage, the following can be stated:

One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.

Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.

Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuge out of the aluminum tubes in question.

Fourth, although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet-production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in centrifuge enrichment program.

As I stated above, the IAEA will naturally continue further to scrutinize and investigate all of the above issues.

After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.

We intend to continue our inspection activities, making use of all additional rights granted to us by Resolution 1441 and all additional tools that might be available to us, including reconnaissance platforms and all relevant technologies.

We also hope to continue to receive from states actionable information relevant to our mandate.

I should note that in the past three weeks, possibly as a result of ever-increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been forthcoming in its cooperation, particularly with regard to the conduct of private interviews and in making available evidence that could contribute to the resolution of matters of IAEA concern. I do hope that Iraq will continue to expand the scope and accelerate the pace of its cooperation.

The only skepticism he expressed was regarding the uncertainties related with Iraq's past record on cooperation for weapons inspection program. But he also added that the Iraqis have been cooperating well with the agency.

It's high time that the Bush and Blair Administrations should stop lying to the world about their historic screwup in Iraq.