Democratic officials, with few exceptions, seem unconcerned with the fact that the U.S. government has not yet been able to locate any direct evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- the declared reason for the war. But that fact is not going unnoticed by opposition parties to leaders allied with President Bush, especially in light of comments made Tuesday night by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld allowing that WMD may never be found, which is an apparent contradiction to previous administration remarks on the subject.

Polls indicate that the American people care little that such discoveries have not been made. Bush administration officials thus continue to act as if none of this is an issue, while moving on to focus on other conflicts, like Iran and the Israel-Palestine peace process. But in nations allied with the U.S. -- from Australia to Denmark to Ireland to the U.K. -- opponents of the war are using Rumsfeld's remarks about the MIA WMD as evidence of duplicity by the Bush Administration. It all creates a sort of parallel-universe feel, where other men in far-off lands suffer recriminations because of remarks made here.

You could support this war for many reasons -- grand geopolitics, the demonstration effect, weapons of mass destruction, democracy, human rights, helping get our troops out of Saudi Arabia, etc. But the real proponents of war knew that WMD and terrorism was the only way to sell it to the American people. And that's just what they did. The fact that they also said democracy and human rights would be a good thing doesn't change that fact.

A free ride. That's what Republicans get. I'm not referring to the fact that President Bush didn't have to pay anything for landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in an S-3B Viking to announce that the war against Iraq had been won. He didn't. The taxpayers footed the bill. I'm referring to the reaction Mr. Bush's landing generated compared with what a similar landing by former President Bill Clinton would have generated. The images would have been quite similar — the reactions completely different. ...

Mr. Bush got a free ride and lots of glory even though he was a bigger coward than Mr. Clinton and a scofflaw to boot. He did not simply avoid the draft by enlisting in the Texas Air National Guard. According to a report by Peabody Award-winning reporter Bill Gallagher, Mr. Bush learned to fly in the National Guard at a taxpayer expense of $1 million, then proceeded to become absent without leave — also known as AWOL — for which many service personnel have received jail sentences. ...

In response to another questioner he said: "I miss flying. I can tell you that." He would have missed it a lot less if he'd spent the missing year flying instead of politicking. No one cares. He is, after all, the president. His lying doesn't seem to matter since he's a Republican president. It only matters when a Democratic president does it.

SOON, VERY soon, we all will ask, "Is anything real?"

Let's review.

American POW Jessica Lynch, who was, then wasn't, shot and stabbed, who had or didn't have amnesia, is back in the news.

Reports from the BBC and the Associated Press suggest her dramatic April 1 helicopter rescue from an Iraqi hospital in Nasiriyah wasn't as dramatic as reported at the time. ...

All I can is stay tuned.

But do so on several channels. This joins a list of items to ponder: where's Osama, where's Saddam, where are the weapons of mass destruction?

At yesterday's White House briefing, press secretary Ari Fleischer was pressed on U.S. intelligence and WMDs in Iraq. He noted finding two mobile labs (which were empty), prompting the irascible Helen Thomas to ask, "We go to war for two trucks?"

The unspoken truth is that either as a people we were misled, or we were lied to, about the real reason for this war. Either we made a huge — and unforgivable — mistake, an arrogant or ignorant mistake, or we are swaggering around the world like a blind giant, flailing in all directions while the rest of the world watches in horror or in ridicule.

If Bill Clinton's definition of "is" matters, surely this matters. If a president's sex life matters, surely a president's use of global force against some of the weakest people in the world matters. If a president's word in a court of law about a private indiscretion matters, surely a president's word to the community of nations and the security of millions of people matters.

And if not, why not? If not, surely there is something as wrong with us as citizens, as thinkers, as Christians as there must be with some facet of the government. If wars that the public says are wrong yesterday — as over 70% of U.S. citizens did before the attack on Iraq — suddenly become "right" the minute the first bombs drop, what kind of national morality is that?

Of what are we really capable as a nation if the considered judgment of politicians and people around the world means nothing to us as a people?

What is the depth of the American soul if we can allow destruction to be done in our name and the name of "liberation" and never even demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public, when it is over?

Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned.

Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5.

A British soldier was arrested today after he left a roll of film at a photo store that appeared to show an Iraqi prisoner being tortured, the Defense Ministry said today.

Jake Tapper has a story in Salon today about the missing WMD. Apparently in other countries where people care whether or not their leaders lie to them about the most important matters possible, people are somewhat furious that we have not yet found WMDs, and that the administration is now distancing itself from the idea that we will ever find the sorts of weapons we claimed were so threatening.

The Baghdad bunker which the United States said it bombed on the opening night of the Iraq war in a bid to kill Saddam Hussein never existed, CBS Evening News reported on Wednesday.

MSNBC: With big media back on its heels, the CIA fired its own broadside this week, publishing an “unclassified” memorandum that recommends using espionage laws to prosecute media outlets that publish or broadcast leaked information from government officials if that information turns out to be classified.

The CIA memorandum, written by James B. Bruce, a senior official on the agency’s “foreign denial and deception committee,” surprisingly has received no national media attention so far, even though it goes straight to the heart of the current government-media relationship.

These memoranda, generally written by active CIA staff or recent retirees, do not represent official CIA policy. But they have in the past been used as a way for the intelligence agency, which technically is not supposed to tamper in domestic politics, to get on the record with Congress and with the public on issues that it regards of critical importance.