How Did This Get Missed?

As I talk to people, I still hear that same tired line...There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and Bush lied, and blah blah blah.

And now we have more evidence that Iraq was a threat.

The Secret Tapes -- Inside Saddam's Palace

ABC News has obtained 12 hours of tape recordings of Saddam Hussein meeting with top aides during the 1990s, tapes apparently recorded in Baghdad's version of the Oval Office.

The tapes also reveal Iraq's persistent efforts to hide information about weapons of mass destruction programs from U.N. inspectors well into the 1990s. In one pivotal tape-recorded meeting, which occurred in late April or May of 1995, Saddam and his senior aides discuss the fact that U.N. inspectors had uncovered evidence of Iraq's biological weapons program--a program whose existence Iraq had previously denied.

At one point Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the man who was in charge of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction efforts can be heard on the tapes, speaking openly about hiding information from the U.N.

"We did not reveal all that we have," Kamel says in the meeting. "Not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct."

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says the tapes are authentic and show that "Saddam had a fixation on weapons of mass destruction and he had a fixation on hiding what he was doing from the U.N. inspectors."

This was an ABC News Exclusive, and how much play did it get?

Maybe it was this comment that made them downplay it.

Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the war, says the tapes show extensive deception but don't prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. "What they do is support the conclusion in the report, which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted."

So Chuck, they would have them if circumstances permitted?

Like what? If Saddam was not removed from power?

I guess the circumstance no longer permits, so you can go ahead and say you were right.

Feel free to tell yourself whatever you need to so you can sleep at night.

Either way, I'll sleep better knowing Iraq is no longer a threat.