May 30, 2003

'The more the White House spins, the angrier the allies get'
'Since the Iraq war began and no evidence was immediately found to back up Dick Cheney's Aug. 26 pronouncement that "simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," the administration has been back-pedaling.

'This has sufficed for those like Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, of the alleged opposition party, who told NBC on May 11 that he doesn't think the failure to find WMD would be damaging to U.S. credibility. "I think we've got to recognize that there were more than one goal here," Daschle said, as if reading from White House talking points.

'But throughout the corridors of power among the leading "Coalition of the Willing" nations - where opposition to the war was much stronger - such back-pedaling has been received with less than open arms. Former Blair Cabinet Secretary Robin Cook, who resigned in opposition to the war, erupted upon hearing the defense secretary's remarks. Rumsfeld's remarks also set off some heated rhetoric in Denmark and Ireland. According to the Danmarks Radio website on Thursday, opposition forces like the Radical Liberals and the Unity List have issued demands that the government reassess the quality of the intelligence information given to the parliament about Iraq's WMD. Irish politicians took the moment to slam Rumsfeld, one calling him a "war criminal," another saying that "if there were no weapons of mass destruction then the war was fought on a lie."

- Snipped from Jake Tapper's article in Salon.



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