Irrelevant Inspections and Selective Enforcement

While the CS Monitor reports that Hans Blix's declaration of no "smoking guns" in Iraq "complicates" the path ahead for the US, another member of the Bush administration concedes, once again, that the findings of the weapons inspectors are irrelevant.

No "smoking gun" is required for the United States to attack Iraq, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said.

Responding to remarks by chief weapons inspector Hans Blix that his teams had not yet found a smoking gun in their six weeks of inspections in Iraq, Powell told NBC News on Thursday, "the lack of a smoking gun does not mean that there's not one there."

And even if one were not found, he said, "if the international community sees that Saddam Hussein is not cooperating in a way that would not allow you to determine the truth of the matter, then he is in violation of the UN resolution (1441)...You don't really have to have a smoking gun."

With D-Day rapidly approaching, I'm trying to figure out just how the Bushies are going to posture themselves for an attack. "Material breach" will be cited, but whether or not they lay their entire case on the violation of 1441 is hard to see at this point. If they do, gosh, that'll require a lot of chutzpah, what with the blatant hypocrisy and selective enforcement of such resolutions.