Do you feel safer?

The Guardian reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted for the first time yesterday that weapons of mass destruction [WMDs] may never be found in Iraq, but he refused to apologise for the invasion and would not admit that the absence of stockpiles undermined his case for war.

"I have to accept that we have not found them and that we may not find them," the paper quoted him as saying.

"[Saddam Hussein] may have removed, hidden or even destroyed those weapons - we do not know and we have to wait for the Iraq Survey Group to complete its findings - but what I would not accept is that he was not a threat, and a threat in WMD terms".

So this means that either one of two equally unpalatable options are possible

a) That Iraq's WMD program was either dead or ineffective at the time of the invasion and the Iraqi regime was clearly no threat to anyone other than Iraqi civilians. If so, then the fundamental justification for the invasion was, at best, erroneous.

or

b) The WMDs were hidden, moved, given to someone else or destroyed. If they were destroyed, then no problem. But if they were hidden, moved or given to someone else, then it means that they are still out there.

So either

a) We launched a "pre-emptive" war and pour gasoline on anti-American flames throughout the world, all on the basis of incorrect information. Forget the fancy post-modernist names, ladies and gentlemen. This would constitute old-fashioned aggression.

or

b) The WMDs are still out there posing a threat to whomever their owners wish to threaten.

I'm hardly reassured.