you know I hate to say "I told you so," but ....

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush has changed his public rationale for the increasingly costly American military effort in Iraq. The once-heralded search for weapons of mass destruction is now little more than a footnote as Bush recasts Iraq into Ground Zero in a broader war against terrorism.

So downgraded has the hunt for such weapons become that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he didn't even bring it up when he met in Baghdad on Saturday with David Kay, the CIA adviser heading the search.

"I'm assuming he'd tell me if he'd gotten something," Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him on Monday.

Rumsfeld says he "didn't even bring it up?" He assumed that "he'd tell me if he'd gotten something?" What are we paying this guy for? It's his job to ask these questions!

So Bush has changed his rationale for our Iraqi involvement. Surprise, surprise. I predicted this long ago. No WMDs found, so there is a new purpose. Fighting terrorism.

Never mind that until we invaded Iraq, there were few (if any) terrorists based in Iraq. If you recall bin Laden's words, Saddam was an "infidel." al-Qaeda had no dealings with him. However, with Saddam and the Republican Guard out of the picture, terrorists from all around the Muslim world are converging upon Iraq as a place to make mischief against Western powers, and potentially as a base from which to make international mischief.

The horrors of 9/11 were in no way connected with Iraq. This has been made abundantly clear. That hasn't prevented the Bush administration from making hay while, as they saw it, the sun shone.