Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Again, one year's data doesn't disprove the whole global warming scenario, but it's important to keep looking at all the evidence and resist the sky-is-falling mentality.

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
Michael Asher (Blog) - February 26, 2008 12:55 PM

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

...

The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Global warming: real science vs. hype

As suggested below, there is no "consensus" on global warming. The debate is not over, despite what Al Gore says.

While most of the media has been content to simply echo the junk science Gore and his cohorts have been pushing, there have been signs lately that some in the media have started doing some fact checking:

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Lorne Gunter, National Post
Published: Monday, February 25, 2008

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[R]emember the Artic Ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

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According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

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Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

No, this doesn't mean we are heading for another ice age--despite the article's headline. But it's an important reminder that global climate is a complex system. No one understands it. No one can predict what things will be like next century (or next week, as far as New England goes).

It's entirely irresponsible for Al Gore and his "warmers" to be whipping the whole world into a doomsday frenzy that would have us destroying our economies and causing calamities in its own right. What is needed is that we continue to collect, analyze, share, and discuss data in a calm, rational way. That will allow us to react appropriately once we've determined what it is we are reacting to.

All else is propaganda, meant to shift power and sell newspapers.

Brain drain

Just yesterday, I suggested to a friend that the U.S. could be looking at a large influx of immigrants from Great Britain and other western European nations over the next couple of decades.

I keep reading reports about how poorly the nationalized health care systems are performing in these countries, how individual freedoms are being eroded, and how increasing Muslim populations are overwhelming their native cultures. As these trends continue, it's predictable that natives of these countries will begin to relocate to places that offer a culture and lifestyle that resembles their own. It's also predictable that those who have the means to relocate will be the most productive members of their nations.

And so it is: (via The Other Side)

Biggest brain drain from UK in 50 years

By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 4:06am GMT 21/02/2008

Britain is experiencing the worst "brain drain" of any country as highly qualified professionals settle abroad, an authoritative international study showed yesterday.

Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years.

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No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate.

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The most popular destinations are English-speaking countries such as Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand and holiday areas including France and Spain.

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The OECD found that 27.3 per cent of those emigrating had health or education qualifications, 37.7 per cent had humanities or social science degrees and 28.5 per cent were scientists or engineers.

This definitely seems like something we need to be keeping an eye on. While adding more professionals to our ranks is a good thing for the U.S., major problems will be emerging in western Europe.

The war against science

John Fund reports on a gathering of experts that will meet in New York next week to discuss and debate the science behind global warming.

Unfortunately, however, there is a good chance that the conference will be ignored by the media, as "global warmers" are not only refusing to attend, but are actively attempting to discredit the convention and its attendees before the fact.

Seeking effective education reform

There is some debate among education reformers over whether we should be focusing on free market reforms or on improving the curriculum in existing government schools. Key to this debate is the consideration of whether said reforms would be imposed at the state or national level.

The thing to understand is that national solutions do not work. Demographics, culture, and economics vary drastically from region to region, and one-size-fits-all approaches simply can't accommodate these complex differences. As attractive as "universal" (as in universal health care) programs may sound, they rarely deliver on their promises and usually make things worse. Indeed, one large step toward improving education (and most things) in America would be to place it completely beyond the influence of Washington.

So the real consideration is whether the reforms being sought -- either a free market approach or an overhauling of the existing government school curriculum -- can practically be implemented at the state level. In the case of free market reform, it's reasonable to expect so. States are already moving down this path, experimenting with various forms of school choice, while the federal government hasn't done much in this area.

Curriculum reform, on the other hand, is more apt to play out at the national level. After all, states have been in control of their curricula for years, with little to show for it. There has been an increasing call to "try something else." Unfortunately, that something else has taken the form of increased federal control, and that trend seems likely to continue.

Here's what Andrew J. Coulson, Director of Cato's Center for Educational Freedom has to say on the matter:

More central planning is not better than less central planning. . . The instructionists who seek to homogenize American education are detached from reality, imagining that new national standards, testing, or curricula would invariably be better — and remain better — than their counterparts adopted at the state level today. There is no reason to believe this. The same dysfunctional incentive structure that has produced the faddism and quackery in state curricula. . . would apply at the national level.

Furthermore, national standards/curricula would raise the stakes for the school wars that have been dividing communities in this country since the inception of state schooling. What history should we teach? Should math be fuzzy or traditional? Should reading instruction be phonetic or wholistic? Add to all this the fact that the U.S. Constitution grants the federal government no mandate [I would say no authority] to meddle in matters instructional, and there is every reason to oppose calls for national standards/curriculum/testing.

Coulson goes on to point out that without free market pressures, any progress made within the current system (even at the state level) are likely to be meager and temporary.

Trying to “fix” the education being provided by a monopoly school system is like trying to “fix” a command economy. While occasional improvements will certainly be possible, ultimately, the effort is doomed. Even when excellent, proven methods or curricula are adopted in state schools, the incentive structure of the system provides no support for retaining them.

Hence the doubly ill-advised No Child Left Behind act, which has always struck me as a positive step in the wrong direction. Introducing accountability into a system where none exists can't help but yield improvements, as we see with NCLB. But such a system -- monopolistic and administered at the national level -- is too easy to game. Improvements become increasingly difficult to retain and build upon as loopholes are found and relaxing standards go unenforced.

Global cooling in the '70s

Doyle Rice of USAToday:

The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era.

...

The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age.

I was only in my teens in the '70s, but I remember the reports that we might be entering a new ice age. I never got the impression that there was a "consensus" on the issue, but rather that some scientists were tossing the idea around and had begun to look into it.

I generally take a look at any global warming related articles I come across, and have gone so far as to dig around for more information on several occasions. I haven't paid close attention to this particular argument, but I can't say I've "frequently" come across skeptics claiming there was a "consensus" on global cooling back in the '70s. And I certainly don't recall any skeptic claiming that scientists of the '70s said that an ice age was "imminent."

I'm sure the "consensus" claim has been made by some; people say a lot of things. But to set this up as some type of huge "myth" that needs "debunking" (as the article's headline reads) is a stretch. Even if the claim has been made far more often than I've noticed, skeptics would then only be guilty of the same transgression as their counterparts: claiming a consensus where none exists. It's not as if skeptics have made this the underpinning of their case (as have the "warmers.")

Do imports cost American's jobs?

Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute passes along this graph, which suggests that increased exports do not lead to higher unemployment, as is often claimed.

The "Fair Tax"

The idea of replacing our current tax collection system with a consumption tax (i.e. a sales tax) first caught my interest over 30 years ago.

Like most states, California already had a state sales tax; I recall it being a little over 8% at the time. Why not, I reasoned, eliminate the chore (and cost) of filing convoluted tax forms and, instead, simply add a federal sales tax on top of the existing state sales tax -- bringing the total sales tax up to 25% or 30%, or whatever would be revenue neutral?

The idea still appeals to me. Most of the IRS could go away. A pay-as-you-go system would be created, where workers bring home more of the money they earn, and the tax burden would be visible in the real cost of each item purchased. Consumers could then make more informed decisions about the best use of their money. The increased visibility of the tax rate would also encourage more accountability in Washington, as consumers would be forced to consider the real cost of government each time they made a purchase. Allowances could be made for poor folks, perhaps by exempting essentials like food and clothing from the tax.

So, when the "Fair Tax" began to be discussed this election cycle, I was understandably interested.

However, my interest waned quickly, and I never did take the time to look at the details of the proposal. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, it was Mike Huckabee who adopted the "Fair Tax" plan, and I just never considered him a serious candidate. Even when he surged, and echoes of the great "Huckaboom" were being heard across the nation, I didn't consider him a viable candidate. I assumed he would fade as quickly as he emerged amidst the strong Republican field. As it turned out, circumstances conspired in his favor, and Huckabee faded much more slowly than I imagined. It looks like he'll emerge as more of a presence in the Republican party than I would have guessed; nevertheless, he never was a viable candidate in my opinion.

Having the "Fair Tax" attached to an "also ran," and given the unlikelihood that such a plan would get through Congress in any event, meant that it was DOA from the start. The details simply don't matter, and so I never bothered to scope them out.

The second thing that soured me on delving deeper into the "Fair Tax" is the dishonest way it is being marketed. For example, Neil Boortz, coauthor of a pair of books on the "Fair Tax," and one of its chief proponents, insists that the proposal would levy only a 23% tax on items purchased.

Yet it's clear that the 23% figure can only be arrived at through trickery: Under the plan, an item that would otherwise cost $1, will be taxed 30-cents, meaning you will pay $1.30 at the register.

It's easy to see that this is a 30% tax, 30-cents being 30% of $1. If it were really a 23% tax, the final cost would be $1.23. Pretty straight forward stuff.

But a 30% tax is a lot harder to sell than a 23% tax, so Boortz cheats. He gets his 23% by adding the amount of the tax (30-cents) to the cost of the item ($1) before calculating his tax rate. It's true that 30-cents is 23% of $1.30. But the 30-cents is being taxed on an item that costs $1, not $1.30.

This is clever. It's also dishonest. Yet Boortz, Huckabee, et al keep claiming the 23% figure is correct. Boortz typically responds to those who try to set the record straight on this issue by calling them idiots, or worse.

So, that's why I haven't bothered to take the "Fair Tax" seriously. Tax and economic systems are complex things. I can't imagine that such sweeping changes as those proposed didn't involve a lot of guesswork on the part of a lot of people. I'm no expert on these matters, so I'd ultimately have to rely on the statements of others to form an opinion.

If I can't trust the backers of the "Fair Tax" to be honest about something as simple as the proposed tax rate, how could I possibly rely on anything else they have to say about it?

I hope that something like the "Fair Tax" gets a serious debate at some point, but given the players and their tactics, I'm glad it didn't happen this time around.

They let these people vote?

Obama supporter Susan Sarandon is the very embodiment of the whole Obama phenomenon:

So I think he definitely has convinced people that he stands for change and for hope, and I can't wait to see what he stands for.

[via RWN, NewsBusters]

Universal health care; Don't go there

Socialized health care is probably inevitable in the United States, as public opinion is pulling even Republicans down that insidious path -- another bad idea whose time has come. Never mind that we already have the best health care in the world, or that empirical evidence shows that socialized health care doesn't work.

The latest evidence is reported in the Daily Mail of London, where patients are left "waiting for days in casualty [what American's call "emergency," I assume] or being kept on trolleys in corridors."

Does this sound like something we want to model our health care system after?

But not to worry, the English government has found a . . . well . . . government solution to the problem: a simple decree that no patient shall be made to wait more than four hours before receiving treatment.

As "solutions" go, I'd say this isn't one. How would you feel about rushing your son or daughter to the emergency ward only to have to wait around for four hours before getting the care they need?

But wait, there's more. How do English hospitals manage to comply with the four-hour-maximum-wait decree?

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

Problem solved!

Except for the fact that patients are waiting just as long for treatment, and now the ambulances are not available to respond to other emergencies.

When will we acknowledge that government is inherently inept? With little incentive to do things well or efficiently, why should we expect anything but poor performance?

How many things can you name that government is really good at? Now ask yourself why you'd want to put something as important as your family's health in the hands of that government.

[via QandO]

Rare praise for President Bush

Bob Geldof, Irish rockstar and longtime social activist, has spent over a decade raising money for and awareness of Africa's social needs. He recently caught up with President Bush in Rwanda to interview him for a Time magazine article. While there, Geldof made some impromptu remarks to the press, praising Bush for his efforts in Africa, and chiding the press for failing to report on them.

Via the Washington Times:

Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement.

Mr. Bush, said Mr. Geldof, "has done more than any other president so far."

"This is the triumph of American policy really," he said. "It was probably unexpected of the man. It was expected of the nation, but not of the man, but both rose to the occasion."

"What's in it for [Mr. Bush]? Absolutely nothing," Mr. Geldof said.

Mr. Geldof said that the president has failed "to articulate this to Americans" but said he is also "pissed off" at the press for their failure to report on this good news story.

"You guys didn't pay attention," Geldof said to a group of reporters from all the major newspapers.

It's nice to see Bush get a bit of acknowledgment for the positive things he's done. These are all causes that the left champions and Bush has done more than anyone before him.

Here's some more good news which, to its credit, the AP does report:

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) - Speaking on soil once stained with the blood of Rwanda's genocide, President Bush called Tuesday on all nations to step up efforts to end "once and for all" the ethnic slaughter still continuing in Sudan's western Darfur region.

The president said the U.S. is using sanctions, pressure and money to help resolve the Darfur crisis that Bush calls a genocide. But the president, frustrated at the lack of willingness of some other countries to do the same, sought to give his campaign for their increased involvement added weight by making pointed remarks on it from the Rwandan capital.

"The Rwanda people know the horrors of genocide," Bush said after meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. "My message to other nations is: 'Join with the president and help us get this problem solved once and for all.' And we will help."

Rwanda was the first to deploy peacekeepers to the violent Darfur region in a joint African Union-U.N. mission. The United States has trained nearly 7,000 Rwandan troops and spent more than $17 million to equip and airlift them into the region. The U.S. has committed $100 million to train and provide equipment for peacekeepers from several African nations deploying to Darfur.

Much of the world has forgotten about the continuing genocide in Darfur. Kudos to Bush for his continuing efforts to fight the genocide and call others to action.

Kudos to him also for issues warnings about Kenya, which may be moving toward a similar fate:

Bush also drew a parallel to Kenya, where long-simmering ethnic grievances are playing a role in postelection bloodshed.

December presidential elections, which foreign and local observers say were rigged, returned President Mwai Kibaki to power and unleashed weeks of fighting. Much of the violence - shockingly brutal in a country once considered among Africa's most-stable - has pitted other ethnic groups against Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, resented for traditionally dominating politics and business.

"We've got to pay attention to the warning signs," Bush said. "I'm not suggesting that ... anything close to what happened here is going to happen in Kenya. But I am suggesting there some warning signs that the international community needs to pay attention to."

Perhaps the world will pay attention this time. And perhaps historians will one day give Bush his due credit on these issues.

Biofuels deemed a greenhouse threat

From the NY Times:

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

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“When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially,” said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. “Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis.”

These plant-based fuels were originally billed as better than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when the plants grew. But even that equation proved overly simplistic because the process of turning plants into fuels causes its own emissions — for refining and transport, for example.

Global cooling

I keep reading how the computer models that are cited to "prove" that global warming is man-made don't take sun activity into account. Indeed, one of the questions that "warmers" have the most trouble answering is why global warming has taken place on other planets as well.

Turns out that scientists that have been looking at sun activity are more worried about global cooling than global warming. From IBD, via InstaPundit:

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.

Can we afford to sit this one out?

Roger Clegg (via Betsy) calls attention to some pending legislation that should be kept in mind as we choose who will next sit in the oval office.

The first, a "comparable worth" law, "would push companies to set wages based not on supply and demand -- that is the free market -- but on some notion of social utility."

As Clegg correctly points out, "[a] great lesson of economic theory, not to mention historical experience, is that government-set wages and prices not only curtail freedom, but lead to shortages, surpluses and market disruptions.

Senators Clinton and Obama not only support this legislation, but are sponsoring it. John McCain opposes it.

The second bill, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, passed the House of Representatives last fall. It would prohibit discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation." In short, private-sector employers who have religious or other objections to homosexuality would be told their moral views lack legitimacy.

Once again Clinton and Obama support the bill; McCain opposes it.

The third bill, the Civil Rights Act of 2008, recently introduced by Senator Kennedy and co-sponsored by both Clinton and Obama, aids trial lawyers in a variety of ways. "It would also give authority to the National Labor Relations Board to award back pay to undocumented workers."

It's clear that our next president will not only set the direction of the country on high-profile issues like the the war and the selection of Supreme Court justices, but also on many smaller issues that will affect our freedom, our economic well-being, and our way of life.

Something to think about for those who plan to boycott the November election.

Vocabulary: tergiversation

Via Betsy and thefreedictionary.com:

ter·giv·er·sate (tr-jvr-st, tûrj-vr-)

intr.v. ter·giv·er·sat·ed, ter·giv·er·sat·ing, ter·giv·er·sates

1. To use evasions or ambiguities; equivocate.

2. To change sides; apostatize.

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[Latin tergiversr, tergiverst- : tergum, the back + versre, to turn; see wer-² in Indo-European roots.]

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tergi·ver·sation n.

tergi·ver·sator (-str) n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Noun	1.	tergiversation - falsification by means of vague or ambiguous language equivocation falsification, misrepresentation - a willful perversion of facts
	2.	tergiversation - the act of abandoning a party for cause apostasy abandonment, desertion, forsaking - the act of giving something up

The Vanishing War

Engram, over at Back Talk, is great at providing perspective on evolving issues like the economy and the Iraq war. He gathers relevant data from reliable sources and presents it in a straight forward way, so that even a simpleton like me can understand it.

Below is a graph I swiped from his most recent update on the Iraq war. (I hope this works. I've never tried to display graphics on my blog before.)

Notice the clear decrease in casualties since August of '07 when "the surge" began. Obviously the surge is working, and working well. This is great news, and you would think the media would be eager to report on the progress we're making on the most important issue of our time.

But take a look at this graph (swiped from NewsBusters), tracking network news coverage of the Iraq war since the surge began:

"The Vanishing War" indeed.

Up until six months ago, when things were going badly and the war was "lost", the networks found plenty to report on. But as soon as things turned around and there was progress to report, the networks suddenly lost interest.

Not only is violence in Iraq down dramatically, but the Iraqi economy is "surging" as well. Yet we hear little of this on the evening news. It's not hard to see why many Americans remain sour on the war in Iraq, even as we are succeeding.

What Saddam Hussein said about WMD

From the Wall Street Journal:

Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.

The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.

Here's the relevant segment, which appears well down in the interview:

Mr. Piro: "The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there."

Mr. Pelley: "And that was his intention?"

Mr. Piro: "Yes."

Mr. Pelley: "What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?"

Mr. Piro: "He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program."

Mr. Pelley: "Chemical, biological, even nuclear."

Mr. Piro: "Yes."

Iraq's active WMD program had been destroyed, mostly by U.N. weapons inspectors, sometime in the 1990s, but Saddam told Mr. Piro that he maintained a pretense of having those weapons mainly to keep Iran at bay. This isn't exactly news. The key point is Saddam's admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.

Opponents of the war argue that none of this matters because Saddam and his ambitions were being "contained" by U.N. sanctions. Hardly. As the Los Angeles Times reported in December 2000, "sanctions are crumbling among U.S. allies, who have begun challenging them with dozens of unauthorized flights into [Iraq]."

Bowing to this reality, the Bush Administration came to office the following month promising to ease the sanctions regime, even as it spent billions patrolling the so-called "No-Fly Zones." And as we learned after the invasion, Saddam was well on his way to breaking free of the sanctions by bribing everyone from a British member of parliament to a former French cabinet minister, all through a U.N. convenience known as Oil for Food.

In another telling moment in the "60 Minutes" interview, Mr. Piro relates that when he asked Saddam about his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians, the dictator acknowledged that he had given the orders personally and explained himself in a word: "Necessary." The same still goes for getting rid of Saddam.

Though most now think or pretend otherwise, WMD was only one of many reasons we invaded Iraq. Over twenty justifications were clearly given both in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address and in Congress' Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.

That said, the WMD threat alone was ample justification for the invasion, especially given Saddam's ongoing charade to convince the world that he had WMD at the ready.