Defence Minister Robert Hill says the longer the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq goes on, the less chance there is of finding them.

An independent US report says it has found no evidence Saddam Hussein had stockpiled any weapons of mass destruction.

Senator Hill says it is easy to be wise in hindsight and a team of 15 Australians continues to search for the weapons in Iraq.

But he admits they have had little success.

“We haven’t… found weapons of mass destruction and the longer the search goes on without finding them, the more reasonable it is to doubt that they will be found,” he said.

Senator Hill says no-one wants to say there are no weapons of mass destruction in case some turn up.

But he acknowledges the Federal Government cannot say there are such weapons, even though their supposed existence was promoted as one of the reasons for invading Iraq.

“We have no definitive position now because the Iraq Survey Group has not responded definitively, and we will await the results of their further work,” he said.

One of the reasons? Oh no you don’t, you lying sack of shit. I quote:

“I’ve called this news conference to announce that the Government has authorised the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, General Cosgrove, to place the Australian forces already deployed in the Gulf region as part of any US-led coalition operation that may take place in the future directed in accordance with existing authority under United Nations resolutions to disarm Iraq.

This decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting this morning following a further telephone discussion between myself and President Bush. He indicated that the final diplomatic attempts in New York to obtain strong support for the 18th resolution dealing with the disarmament of Iraq had come to an end.

The Government strongly believes that the decision it’s taken is right, it is legal, it is directed towards the protection of the Australian national interest and I ask the Australian community to support it.

Iraq has a long history of acting in defiance of Untied Nations resolutions. Iraq has chemical and biological weapons and an aspiration to acquire nuclear weapons.If Iraq does not have taken from it those chemical and biological weapons, other rogue states will think they can imitate Iraq and as more rogue states acquire chemical and biological weapons, so the danger of those weapons falling into the hands of terrorists will multiply. If terrorists acquire weapons of that kind, that would represent a clear, undeniable and lethal threat to a western nation such as Australia.

The action that might be taken as a result of this decision has a sound legal basis in the resolutions of the Security Council that have already been passed. If you go back to resolution 678, 687 and 1441, you find ample legal authority. That is not only the legal advice that has been tendered to us but it is also almost identically the published view of the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom Government. It also corresponds with legal advice that has been tendered to the United States Government. It is my intention to table in the Parliament this afternoon the text of the legal advice that has been provided to the Australian Government.”

Prime Minister John Howard, March 18 2003. Full transcript available.

Again, one of the reasons? I don’t see any other reasons in there, do you?

Apparently, the lies come so thick and fast these days that merely throwing another one on the teetering stack is really no big deal. As long as the small ones drown out the huge ones, you’re on political easy street.

BTW, don’t you think it’s a rather large coincidence that the official 500 millionth customer through the gates of Disneyland and the recipient of lifetime free-entry just happens to belong to a family who lives halfway around the world? I mean, what are the odds? What’s that? Pessimistic? Hey, I’m just sayin’…