Iraq War Rationale Revisionism, Take 43

Tony Snow has survived his true initiation as White House Press Secretary... answering, and hastily deflecting, one of Helen Thomas' questions about why we really went to war with Iraq. Let's see what particular angle of bullshit Snow used on Thomas, with this transcript from yesterday's press gaggle, courtesy of Salon War Room-

Thomas: The new Italian prime minister says that the president's invasion of Iraq was a grave error. As the new kid on the block, can you give me the latest rationale the U.S. has for invading Iraq?

Snow: There has only been one rationale, as you know, Helen, and this that Saddam Hussein had resisted -- what is the proper number? -- 17 United Nations resolutions, and had refused repeatedly to permit weapons inspectors to do their work, and consistent with that. And also we had cited other concerns in terms of democracy and human rights. That case has never changed. Also the case laid out and voted by the United States Senate --

Thomas: He finds that as a justification to invade a country where we had choke-hold sanctions, satellite surveillance --

Snow: Helen, I'm not going to get in another argument about the -- this is a three-year-old argument and you're trying to reargue the case. The president made his case back then. The United States Senate voted overwhelmingly.

Thomas: He did not make the case.

Snow: Well, in your opinion he didn't make the case. He made the case. He laid out his reasons.

Thomas: He made the case, in your opinion?

Snow: Yes.

The UN resolutions? That's the top rationale this week? I thought we were still going with the 'spreading freedom and democracy' angle. Oh well, Tony's new so it's okay if he's confusing his talking points, and at least he didn't say 'tar baby' again.

Salon also reminds us of a 2004 study that showed how the Bush administration has used over two dozen rationales for the war since 2001. The study looked at "everything from the five front-runners – war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil, to the also-rans – Sen. Joe Lieberman’s 'because Saddam Hussein hates us,' Colin Powell’s 'because it’s a violation of international law' and Richard Perle’s 'because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.'"

Meanwhile, here's more news for Snow to spin, if he's ever asked about it-

A year after Bush administration claims about Iraqi "bioweapons trailers" were discredited by American experts, U.S. officials were still suppressing the findings, says a senior member of the CIA-led Iraq inspection team.

At one point, former U.N. arms inspector Rod Barton says, a CIA officer told him it was "politically not possible" to report that the White House claims were untrue. In the end, Barton says, he felt "complicit in deceit."...

...This story quickly fell apart behind the scenes, it has since emerged. Testing the equipment in early May 2003, U.S. experts found no traces of biological agents, and later that month the U.S. fact-finders filed their negative report from Baghdad.

But on May 29, Bush assured Polish television: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell later made similar statements. As late as January 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney called the trailers "conclusive evidence" of Iraqi WMD, one of the reasons given for invading Iraq...

WMD? But Tony said there was only one rationale for the war.

Gosh, it all does get confusing, doesn't it?