This morning on NPR, Juan Williams interviewed Dick Cheney. You can listen to part of the interview HERE. On the audio clip, it sounds as if they're coming in after the interview has already started.

They were talking about elections in Iraq, and Cheney made it pretty plain that they weren't about to allow the Iraqis to run it their own way; they were going to need supervision (which raises the question that Washington State Representative Jim McDermott raised in a speech a couple of weeks ago: "Can we accept the idea that the government the Iraqi people want may not be the government we want them to have?").

About a minute and a half into the interview, Cheney talks about knowing that the Iraqis had "programs designed to produce weapons of mass destruction." Not the weapons themselves, but programs designed to produce them. I read an article just a few days ago that said that they found a fair amount of papers and notebooks containing drawings and formulae for all kinds of stuff—BUT—Iraq lacked the industrial capacity to produce any of it, and it would take them at least six years to develop the capacity (provided the sanctions were lifted so they could buy the equipment they would need) before they could go into even limited production. (I designed a space ship once—still have the drawings and specifications—but I kinda doubt that it will ever get built.)

Then he talked about finding "mobile biological weapons labs—a couple of semi-trailers that we believe were part of that program." [i.e., chemical/biological weapons] These have long since been established as mobile labs for producing gas for launching weather balloons. They were connected with military operations because they wanted the weather data for more accurately targeting artillery. But chemical/biological weapons labs? No.

Then came the lulu:— Regarding plans to attack Iraq, Cheney mentioned that "even Bill Clinton" talked about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, and as far as alleged plans to attack Iraq even before 9/11 (which also allowed him to dodge making any connection between Saddam and 9/11), "We inherited the policy of the Clinton administration."

So it's official, folks! Bill Clinton started the war on Iraq!

Don Firth