WMDs: the inevitable conclusion

No surprises here... except of course that people continue to believe the opposite.

U.S. Ends Fruitless Iraq Weapons Hunt

WASHINGTON (AP) - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday.

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The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons and the administration does not hold out hopes that any weapons will be found. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Bush should explain what happened.

"Now that the search is finished, President Bush needs to explain to the American people why he was so wrong, for so long, about the reasons for war," she said.

"After a war that has consumed nearly two years and millions of dollars, and a war that has cost thousands of lives, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, nor has any evidence been uncovered that such weapons were moved to another country," Pelosi said in a written statement. "Not only was there not an imminent threat to the United States, the threat described in such alarmist tones by President Bush and the most senior members of his administration did not exist at all."

Hang on... wait for the punchline...

"Nothing's changed in terms of his views when it comes to Iraq, what he has previously stated and what you have previously heard," McClellan said. "The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region we are making the world a safer place."