Ann, remember when I said that when the first WMD were first found, only Fox News bothered to report it? I had checked every other major news source, including most of the ones you listed that you listen to/read.
Pete Hoekstra and Rick Santorum, at the time members of their respective Intelligence Committees tried to get this report coverage. They were basically ignored. Santorum even went to the White House asking why they weren't touting the report. The answer that came back was that they had fought that fight earlier and had lost. It was time to move on. Essentially the Bush Administration had lost the fight and weren't willing to stir up the controversy again. It was an incredulous statement, especially since it went straight towards the president's credibility. Instead the administration left people with the impression that there were no WMD's and there never were any to find.
The only reason I can figure that nobody wanted to report it was that it didn't constitute evidence of an ongoing weapons program. But the ISG report did state that they were ready to begin again once sanctions were removed as I've stated twice before.
Reporters are people. If a story doesn't fit into their world view, it's not news. And their world view was that there were no WMD's.
When you heard administration officials talk about WMD, they were always careful with their words. They never stated there were no WMD found in Iraq. They only said there were no "stockpiles" found. That's the difference that always confuses everyone.
I mentioned in an earlier post that the Poles had gotten wind of some rockets containing cyclosarin that were about to be sold and bought them out from under the terrorists. Here's a link to that story:
Here's another link pertaining to the reports of chemical weapons precursors found. This story also tries to guess at why reporters weren't interested or why the government wasn't terribly eager to tout the findings.
Here's a summary of the Iraq Survey Group's report. Note one of the highlights:
Quote
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability, after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
