BUSH GOT IT WRONG AND THOUSANDS DIED WHILE CREATING A NEW ARMY OF TERRORISTS

There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The President LIED to invade a country that didn't attack us. That dangerously cuts our legitimacy for authority in dealing with real threats in the future. It also means no other countries will step in to help in Iraq because it was entirely a colossal blunder by Bush. That cuts our growing need for allies in a world made more threatening by Bush's actions. Our government is spending billions of our tax dollars to support a war that is sinking into a quagmire while CUTTING TAXES for the rich. Our poor and middle class supplies the troops that fight and die in America's name while our wealthiest aren't asked to share even the financial burden. Bush has taken a nation with historic budget surpluses (under a Democrat) to historic debt. The economy is the worst it's been in over 80 years with no new job creation under Bush (No president has ever presided over an economy that did NOT create new jobs). Now Bush wants to do to Social Security what he's done in Iraq.

U.S. Ends Fruitless Iraq Weapons Hunt

WASHINGTON - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites) has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush (news - web sites) cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday.

AP Photo Latest headlines: · U.S. Wraps Up Search for Banned Weapons in Iraq Reuters - 5 minutes ago · Top Democrat slams Bush after inspectors find no WMD in Iraq AFP - 23 minutes ago · Car bombs rock Mosul, White House says Iraqi elections far from perfect AFP - 32 minutes ago Special Coverage

Democrats said Bush owes the country an explanation of why he was so wrong.

The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons and the administration does not hold out hopes that any weapons will be found. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Bush should explain what happened.

"Now that the search is finished, President Bush needs to explain to the American people why he was so wrong, for so long, about the reasons for war," she said.

"After a war that has consumed nearly two years and millions of dollars, and a war that has cost thousands of lives, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, nor has any evidence been uncovered that such weapons were moved to another country," Pelosi said in a written statement. "Not only was there not an imminent threat to the United States, the threat described in such alarmist tones by President Bush and the most senior members of his administration did not exist at all."

Chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer is to deliver his final report on the search next month. "It's not going to fundamentally alter the findings of his earlier report," McClellan said, referring to preliminary findings from last September. Duelfer reported then that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either. Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"Nothing's changed in terms of his views when it comes to Iraq, what he has previously stated and what you have previously heard," McClellan said. "The president knows that by advancing freedom in a dangerous region we are making the world a safer place."

Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong.

McClellan said the Iraq experience would not make Bush hesitant to raise alarms when he deems it necessary.

"But we're also going to continue taking steps to make sure that that intelligence is the best possible," he said.

"Our friends and allies had the same intelligence that we had when it came to Saddam Hussein," McClellan said. "And now we need to continue to move forward to find out what went wrong and to correct those flaws."

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday about 120 Iraqi scientists who had been working in weapons programs were being paid by the U.S. government to work in other fields.