By Rich Lewis June 5, 2003

Last updated: Thursday, June 5, 2003 12:15 PM EDT

We now know the American people were tricked into supporting war in Iraq.

The president and his top advisers shamelessly manipulated the public's fear of terrorism to gain support for an invasion they desired long before the Twin Towers fell.

They exaggerated or misrepresented "intelligence" to "prove" Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was an immediate threat to the United States.

After months of intense searching, no such weapons have been found. None. Not fewer than we expected, or fewer kinds than we expected, or less lethal kinds than we expected. None. No chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

As Lt. Gen James Conway of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said on May 30, "It remains a surprise to me now )- that we have not uncovered weapons. ... Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

Simply not there. But what was the government telling us before the war? Here is a small sample:

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." — Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002.

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." — George W. Bush, Sept. 12, 2002.

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." — presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer, Jan. 9, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." — George W. Bush, March 17, 2003.

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction." — Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003.

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003.

"We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about." — Ari Fleischer, press briefing, April 10, 2003.

"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now." Colin Powell, May 4, 2003.

Were these men lying or simply incompetent? Were they deliberately deceiving us or were they themselves being duped by their own intelligence agents?

Does it really matter?

The president's attempt to save face this past weekend was laughable. He said we have "found the weapons of mass destruction." His "evidence" was a pair of suspected mobile biological labs, which the Pentagon and American weapons hunters have said do not constitute "arms."

Rumsfeld's recent musings that Saddam might have destroyed or dispersed the weapons before the war are lame. Why would Saddam throw away his best weapons just as a ferocious enemy was leaping at his throat?

Nor should we accept the claim that we fought the war because Saddam was a brutal dictator who was harming his own people. The American public would never have supported the war on those grounds. The reason for the war was weapons of mass destruction. And that reason was based on lies and misinformation.

Angry voices now are being raised here and in Britain, our only significant war partner, and while Prime Minister Tony Blair seems to be in serious trouble, there has been no widespread public outcry in the United States. George W. Bush's approval ratings remain high.

This is depressing, but not surprising.

The American public is always too preoccupied with today's problems to spend much time fretting over yesterday's outrages. What the heck — the war ended weeks ago and we crushed 'em. It's ancient history; let's move on.

And the members of the laughable "opposition" party, the Democrats, are too cowardly to press the point with vigor.

But the pressure is building and Bush may yet pay the price for his actions.

For example, Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," strongly supported the war. But he made his growing disgust clear in a May 25 opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"I supported this war because I believed Bush and Blair when they said Iraq was manufacturing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction... but it is beginning to look as though the skeptics in this case were right. If so, I was taken in by this administration, and America and Great Britain were led to war under false pretenses."

Bowden calls the failure to find weapons "critically important" because "I can imagine no greater breach of public trust than to mislead a country into war."

He acknowledges the president must engage in politics, "but when the President of the United States addresses the nation and the world, I expect the spinning to stop." He laments that he "trusted Bush."

As for the war, Bowden concludes that "what we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained."