Weapons Of Mass Destruction Revisited

(I posted this to the DailyKos the other day.)

On the heels of Bush's most recent pronouncement that "America is safer because Saddam Hussein is in a prison cell," comes stories in both The Telegraph:

Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction before the war, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's former special envoy to Iraq, conceded yesterday.

His admission that it had been "wrong" to claim that Saddam had large quantities of chemical and biological weapons came as the intelligence services braced themselves for serious criticism from the inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war.
[...]
Lord Butler's inquiry reports on July 14 on the eve of two parliamentary by-elections. It is expected to criticise John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee; MI6, the secret intelligence service; and the Defence Intelligence Staff, over their role in a claim that Saddam's WMD could be deployed at 45 minutes' notice.

and The Scotsman:

Tony Blair's credibility over weapons of mass destruction is set to face its sternest test after his special envoy to Iraq conceded yesterday Saddam Hussein had stockpiled none.
[...]
The 100-page draft of Lord Butler of Brockwell's report, according to the Sunday Times, will criticise MI6 after it admitted its intelligence on WMD - at one stage Mr Blair's basis for the conflict to remove Saddam - was wrong.
[...]
"We were wrong on the stockpiles, we were right about the intention," he told the BBC.
[...]
One source said of the report: "Butler's conclusion will be that the intelligence was wrong and the system for checking it didn't work."
[...]
MI6 agents are now said to believe Saddam may have been "bluffing" the international community when he let it be known he was developing and producing chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
[...]
Sir Jeremy suggested that the US administration had allowed itself to be misled, notably by a prominent Iraqi exile, about the size of the security challenge which the coalition would face after the invasion.

How long will they stick with their story? And how long will half this country continue to believe them?