Now is a moment to see what I say
Why have I felt compelled to pay such attention to the failure, thus far at least, to find the weapons of mass destruction? Two months have passed since the declared end to the war. We have found no evidence of weapons, biological, chemical or nuclear. We have have found no evidence even of active programs or precursors to produce such weapons. If weapons or programs existed, it will be very difficult to believe that the Iraqis were poised and ready to use them.
One of my fundamental premises for this weblog is that truth matters. It can be elusive and certainly consists of much more than simple facts. But truth about facts matters especially when alleged facts are the causus belli for an attack on Iraq or any other country for that matter.
The moral justification for the war hinged largely on the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein as a real and immediate threat to the United States. Indeed, the threat extended to the world at large and thus the United Nations resolution 1441 played a prominent role in the justification of the use of force. The UN was viewed by most countries as a 'higher authority'. By refusing to explicitly sanction an attack, the UN Security Council withheld its approval as that higher authority.
In considering moral authority it is hard to ignore the the underlying religious element and parallels to the crusades that began a thousand years ago. Jonathan Riley-Smith, in his The Crusades: A Short History, points out in his introduction that the standard Christian criteria for justifiable war developed during the 4th century and consisted of three key elements:
- "right intention which should always be expressed through love of God and neighbor";
- "just cause";
- "legitimate proclamation by a qualified authority".
America has certainly inherited the Christian ethos and most Americans probably easily accepted the expression of our intent to help the Iraqi people by liberating them from the devil of Saddam Hussein. Weapons of mass destruction provided the just cause. And finally we appealed to the UN as the qualified authority to legitimize the attack.
Without the weapons we are now left with the 'right intention'. Unfortunately, this too is suspect in much of the world. (Maybe its all about oil.) We may be militarily strong, but now we have a morally weak position that undermines our leadership.
4:38:51 PM 
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