I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated.

Who said it and when did they say it?

Give up?

Jay Rockefeller, as in Senator(D) from West Virginia, on the floor of the Senate on October 10, 2002. As documented by Stephen Hayes in this Weekly Standard piece, Rockefeller had much to say about Iraq prior to the war. Sadly, he's walked away from all of it since.

June 28, 2005: "It's sort of amazing that a president could stand up before hundreds of millions of Americans and say that and come back to 9/11--somehow figuring that it clicks a button, that everybody grows more patriotic and more patient. Well, maybe that's good p.r. work, which it isn't, but it's not the way that a commander in chief executes a war. And that's his responsibility in this case."

October 10, 2002: September 11 changed America. It made us realize we must deal differently with the very real threat of terrorism, whether it comes from shadowy groups operating in the mountains of Afghanistan or in 70 other countries around the world, including our own.

There has been some debate over how "imminent" a threat Iraq poses. I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated.

In case you're wondering, that's an argument you've heard before. In fact, I used to make it with the usual suspects: 9/11 changed the calculus when it came to tolerating threats. As subsequent "Downing Street" data dumps make clear, it appears that Allied leadership felt the same way: "The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programmes, but our tolerance of them post-11 September."

Now re-read the October 10 Rockefeller quote and tell me he wasn't making the same argument: ...I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated.

Why and how would the question be ‘outdated’ if you haven’t changed the way you think about it?

June 28, 2005: "[Iraq]...had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden, it had nothing to do with al-Qaida, it had nothing to do with September 11, which he managed to mention three or four times and infer three or four more times."

October 10, 2002: "Saddam's government has contact with many international terrorist organizations that likely have cells here in the United States." and"He could make those weapons [WMD] available to many terrorist groups which have contact with his government, and those groups could bring those weapons into the U.S. and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly."

If this week’s Rockefeller is to be believed, there is no linkage big or small, direct or otherwise between Iraq and Al-Queda terror. Yet as Hayes points out, in a February 5th, 2003 interview with Wolf Blitzer, the Senator said some very different things:

Odd then that Senator Rockefeller would have spoken of a "substantial connection between Saddam and al Qaeda" just one month before the Iraq War began. In some interviews Rockefeller did say that he hadn't seen evidence of close ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. But asked about an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on February 5, 2003, Rockefeller agreed with Republican Senator Pat Roberts that Abu Musab al Zarqawi's presence in Iraq before the war and his links to a poison camp in northern Iraq were troubling. Rockefeller continued: "The fact that Zarqawi certainly is related to the death of the U.S. aid officer and that he is very close to bin Laden puts at rest, in fairly dramatic terms, that there is at least a substantial connection between Saddam and al Qaeda."

So what changed? Hard to know really without the ability to read minds. The Senator went from believing one thing prior to the war to believing another afterwards. As to the how and why, political expediency has to be the leading contender but without any 'true confessions' we’re just left speculating.

I find it, personally, maddening that the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee (ask yourselves why that’s important) has gone from stating his understanding of the situation as framed by the Administration to denying every bit of that understanding with his more recent commentary.

Hayes puts it well in his close: "Unmistakable evidence. Existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities. We do know Saddam has the capability." Remember these things the next time you hear Rockefeller and his colleagues accuse the Bush Administration of exaggerating or fabricating the threat from Iraq.

Rockefeller ended his 2002 floor speech with yet another direct reference to September 11--his fifth.

"September 11 has forever changed the world. We may not like it, but that is the world in which we live. When there is a grave threat to Americans' lives, we have a responsibility to take action to prevent it."

Good point.