Truth Is the First Casualty. Is Credibility the Second?
There is a saying here that wars tend to be fought three times. First comes the battle over whether to go to war. Second is the war itself. Third is the battle over the war's meaning once it is over.

Two months after the fall of Baghdad, the third fight is well underway, now that the principal rationale cited by President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell for war with Iraq — that Saddam Hussein's possession of chemical and biological weapons posed an imminent threat — remains clouded by doubt. No chemical and biological weapons have been found, and some experts say they will never be found.

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Before the war, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, ranking Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the administration was exaggerating its case for war — a war he supported. He cited administration statements that Iraq was "on the verge" of getting nuclear weapons, when in fact it was not close. Also overstated, he said, were the existence of actual chemical and biological weapons and Iraq's links to terrorism.…

Truth Is the First Casualty. Is Credibility the Second?