Bending Facts Until They Break

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"The most obvious proof that Bush officials hyped and distorted evidence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the past is that they continue to hype and distort that evidence today, with a shamelessness that is stunning," writes Jay Bookman. "If you believe their version of the story, the fact that we have found no WMD in Iraq - and no WMD programs - is of little or no importance. ... To justify their bizarre claim, Bush officials have pounced upon a handful of minor finds by [David] Kay's group, in particular the discovery of a biological agent in the possession of an Iraqi scientist. What they found, of course, was not the tons of weaponry that [Colin] Powell so famously promised in his speech to the United Nations. It was not pounds or even ounces of the material. It was one small vial. That vial contained the B strain of botulinum, not the more deadly A strain. It did not contain botulinum toxin, the actual nerve agent known in this country as Botox, only the fairly common botulinum bacteria that can produce the toxin."