This is really starting to bug me now.

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, says Iraq may have destroyed its weapons of mass destruction before the war. Rumsfeld says that: "It is also possible that they [the Iraqis] decided that they would destroy them [weapons of mass destruction] prior to a conflict." (Source: BBC News Online)

Analysts are reading Rumsfeld's comments as the closest the Bush administration has yet come to an admission that it may never find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now cast your mind back to the 5th February, when the US Defence Secretary Colin Powell addressed the UN Security Council. Powell said that: "The facts on Iraqis' behaviour - Iraq's behaviour - demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort - no effort - to disarm as required by the international community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behaviour show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction." (Source: BBC News Online)

Spot any contradiction? If the reason for going to war was to rid Saddam Hussein of his WMDs, but the weapons were destroyed before the war, then where's the justification for the war?

It's all getting very messy.

Discuss "Beyond Northern Iraq"