News that an interim report by the administration's chief weapons-hunter in Iraq (news - web sites) will disclose that none of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s weapons of mass destruction have yet been found will doubtless embolden the Democrats charging that President Bush (news - web sites) "duped" America into war.


Even assuming for a moment - which we don't - that they have a case, what is it that the president's critics are suggesting?


That maybe America should apologize to the Butcher of Baghdad - and return him to power?


This surely would disappoint the 78 percent of Shi'ite Muslims in Baghdad who recently told Gallup pollsters that they support the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam.


Actually, most Democrats - at least those not driven by partisan hatred of the president and jealousy of his success in Iraq - will admit that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein running Iraq.


The entire region is more stable - and the terrorists and their supporters have been put on notice that America will no longer ignore them.


Ah, but what about those weapons of mass destruction?


For starters, this is but weapons-inspector David Kay's initial report.


His mission has been hampered by conflicts with the military, which has been arresting many scientists Kay wants to question - as well as by security concerns.


In short, he has a long way to go before making a conclusive report. After all, Saddam managed to stymie the United Nations (news - web sites)' own weapons inspectors for a dozen years.


Which is why it's important to remind those who have forgotten that almost no one questioned the fact that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of such weapons.


Not even those who now charge President Bush with "fraud" ever questioned the need to act:


* Not Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry (news - web sites), who said back in 1998 that "Saddam Hussein's objective is to maintain a program of weapons of mass destruction."


* Not Hans Blix - who, just days before the war broke out declared that Saddam still had not undertaken the "fundamental decision to disarm" demanded by the Security Council - but who is now writing a book declaring that Iraq's stockpiles were destroyed years ago.


Former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites), it should be noted, said last January that "we're still pretty sure [Saddam's] got botulism and the chemical agents VX and ricin," adding that "it's pretty clear there are still . . . substantial amounts of chemical and biological stocks unaccounted for."


Which is also why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites) declared just this week that national-security officials from her husband's administration agreed "to a person" with "the consensus of intelligence" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.




Moreover, it should be recalled that the decision to go to war was based primarily on Saddam's willful defiance of multiple U.N. resolutions demanding that he either disarm or prove that he'd done so.

Yes, it would be nice if someone could find a mound in the desert under which all of Saddam's unconventional weapons lie buried. But no one ever believed it would be that easy.

Ultimately, America moved against Saddam, as Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) has said, "to depose a bloody tyrant who had defied the world for 12 years."

Nothing that has been learned since challenges the essential wisdom of that decision.