Maybe we’ve forgotten. Or perhaps we just weren’t paying attention in the first place.

But, before 9/11, the Bush administration itself denied the existence of WMD in Iraq:

"He (Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." --Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Cairo, Feb. 24, 2001

"We're working toward what will be a significant change in our approach to Iraq in the United Nations . . . The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq." --State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, May 17, 2001

The first quote categorically confirms that no WMD threat, or even a conventional one, existed. The second underscores that fact, by declaring Saddam would have to “rebuild” a capability he didn’t have at the time.

Just weeks before 9/11, Bush himself said the following, with his typically choppy syntax:

"He's been a menace forever, and we will do -- he needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction." --Aug. 7, 2001

Well, Hussein did in fact allow such inspections, and they were ongoing until the immediate lead-up to war. As former inspectors have themselves since said, they’d have found nothing if Bush’s unprovoked aggression hadn’t cut short their task.

Just after 9/11 -- as neocon friends of Big Oil saw a golden opportunity to make their avaricious pipedreams come true -- weapons of mass destruction suddenly became a categorical certainty. No question about it, the evil dictator was about to murder us all, with devices and agents truly horrifying to contemplate!

At first they were alluded to in general yet definite terms:

"He has weapons of mass destruction. The lesser risk is in preemption. We've got to stop wishing away the problem." --Pentagon official Richard Perle, Nov, 2001

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." --Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002

As time went on, contrived specificity fleshed out the bugbear:

"(Saddam) has amassed large clandestine stocks of biological weapons . . . including anthrax and botulism toxin and possibly smallpox. His regime has amassed large clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX and sarin and mustard gas . . . (he) has at this moment stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons." --Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, before the House Armed Services Committee, Sept.18, 2002.

In his infamous show and tell before the United Nations, Secretary of State Powell used bogus pictures of unrelated military equipment (trucks that generated hydrogen gas for barrage balloons, for example) to whip up hysteria that left gullible Americans believing they’d soon die -- gasping for breath, with poison coursing through their veins -- if we didn’t go to war and immediately put a stop to it all!

By the time Bush gave his 2003 State of the Union Address, just two months before the invasion began, the fraudulent rationale that the Downing Street Memo would ultimately reveal to be a complete, cynical falsehood was fully in place, in minute detail.

Saddam Hussein supposedly had “biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax," "materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin," "as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent" and "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.”

More than 2,200 dead U.S. troops and $250 billion later, either incredibly stupid or surpassingly dishonest souls still tell us that there was no lie involved, just “intelligence failure.” If we actually believe that, then the true intelligence failure is between our own ears.

Think about high-tech spying carried out in the NSA’s warrantless wiretap affair. Consider camera-equipped Predator drones that crisscross Middle Eastern/Central Asian airspace. Remember both the manned surveillance aircraft and sharp-eyed, orbiting satellites that the U.S. utilizes on a regular basis.

If small groups of U.S. Quakers who oppose Bush’s policy, meeting within four enclosed walls, can have everything they say secretly recorded without their knowledge . . . don’t think all of America’s sophisticated snooping prowess was unable to verify that no huge stockpiles of WMD were lying around, or being moved about, in the mostly open terrain of Iraq.

Such a failure, were it genuine, would constitute the greatest espionage blunder in history. If someone actually got it that wrong, they’d be disqualified from just getting out of bed to face the day, let alone going on to gather information relating to the conduct of the resulting war.

But, of course, it was all a cruel, malicious ruse. An outrageous scam on an unprecedented scale. (An intensely convoluted twisting of recently released “Saddam tapes” attempts to extend that fraudulence.)

Ever since the WMD claim dried up and blew away with the wind, Bush backers have resorted to an endlessly shifting array of fallback justifications.

None of them, however, have any moral weight or intellectual substance. Who says so? Sean Huze, for one. He was a Marine corporal with the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion as it attacked Iraq in March 2003.

“For many of us it all goes back to WMD, the president’s primary -- or sole -- justification for the invasion. When they weren't found -- hard to find something that is nonexistent -- the ever-morphing rationale for the war is disheartening for those fighting it. With an ever-increasing number of KIA and WIA, along with the heavy toll on the Iraqi civilian population, more and more vets are asking, ‘Is our sacrifice worth it?’’’ -- AlterNet interview, January 20, 2006

Like many other former and current U.S. military personnel, Huze isn’t buying the bull any longer:

“The war in Iraq has been a total failure and an abuse of power. Whether it’s the world’s second-largest oil reserve, a strategic location for a U.S. presence to intimidate that region of the world or a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, none of these justify the loss of life and the billions of dollars that the U.S. taxpayer is paying. Bush and the rest of this administration must be held accountable for their colossal failures following 9/11, chiefly focusing on Iraq while Osama bin Laden is still at large, and for manipulating intelligence, lying to the U.N., and for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and U.S. service members.” (Ibid)

Disabusing ourselves of any “mistake” notions regarding Iraq is imperative. It’s all a matter of totally witting wrongfulness by the Bush gang.

The invasion was absolutely illegal and immoral, and the occupation’s attempt to indefinitely control 18 Iraqi provinces is as categorically wrong as King George trying to “keep” the 13 original colonies. Somebody should have told the British to pull their troops out of America -- all of them -- well before our revolutionary war began

Wait. Someone did. Our history books call them “patriots.”

The Iraq war’s 3rd anniversary is coming up in March. Internationally coordinated street demonstrations are being planned. As Vietnam proved, such protests are how the tide is turned . . . toward sanity. Keep an eye out for information about rallies scheduled in your area.

Be there or be prepared to have this debacle keep claiming lives and dollars for years or decades to come, as both America and Iraq are torn to pieces by extreme discontent and the quiet violence of diverted money not spent on crying social needs.