Is it a 'Bush lie' if no WMD are found?

I've been following the comments over at CalPundit's post that I linked to earlier (and will link to again right here). As part of an interesting comment, one of his readers made the following statement:

Lastly, Kevin, everyone should hold Bush's feet to the fire on his promises and be prepared to criticize his most egregious shortcomings. That said, I fail to see how it constitutes a "Bush lie" that we've yet to uncover WMD thus far. Without a doubt, Saddam had a program to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he continued to fund this program throughout the sanctions period. Bush cannot be called a liar because Iraq failed to produce results.

I posted the following as my reply to him, and decided to post it here as well, since it's a bit long and has a number of references:

Over at Uggabugga, there is a table showing 14 times in October and November, while campaigning to start the war, that Bush said, flat out, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did NOT say that Saddam was attempting to acquire WMD, he said "He's got them". For example, on November 3rd, while speaking in Illinois, he said "I see the world the way it is. Saddam Hussein is a threat to America. He's a threat to our friends. He's a man who said he wouldn't have weapons of mass destruction, yet he has them," according to the official White House transcript of his speech there.

In addition, during his speech telling Saddam he had 48 hours left, he said "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

Since the main part of the fighting ended, the administration has said that it's possible Saddam destroyed the weapons prior to the start of the war, yet less than 48 hours before we started dropping bombs (we started the war early, after all, when the military thought they had a tip on where Saddam might be) Bush was saying that there was no doubt that Saddam "continued to possess" WMDs.

So, yeah, I'd say if no WMD turn up, we can call Bush a liar on that point, or should we prepare for a debate on what the meaning of "has" is?

Also, don't forget that administration officials have admitted that they only emphasized the WMD issue as a way of gaining legal justification for the war, but that it wasn't the true reason Bush wanted this war so badly. The real reason, they noted, was that Bush believed that there needed to be a "new start" in the Middle East following the 9/11 attacks, and that we had to show were weren't afraid to fight terrorism in the Middle East. Flexing muscle, as it were. So even administration officials are acknowledging that the WMD claims were more of a ploy than anything - and that counts as a lie in my book as well.

One thing that doesn't help matters much, in my opinion, is that from the way the "search" for WMD following the toppling of Saddam has been handled, it makes it appear that the administration wasn't that worried about getting to or finding the alleged WMD quickly - which I would think they would be, if they had truly believed that the WMD were there and were as much of a danger (especially if they fell into the wrong hands) as they had implied.

Instead, they refused help from the UN Inspectors who have training and experience in finding hidden weapons and who, presumably, would be better able to locate weapons now that neither Saddam nor any of his associates would be there to run interference. They also refued help from the IAEA in handling the known sites where nuclear materials (ostensibly for power generation) were being handled. The military teams that were to perform the weapons searches weren't immediately dispatched to the sites we considered to be the most likely to house WMDs, and there are now questions about whether any materials had actually been there, and if so, where they are now. There are also 7 nuclear sites that we know have been looted, some of which may have had radiation source material, as well as potential documents on how to use the materials to create nuclear or radiological weapons and equipment. These are sites that the IAEA had sealed prior to the start of the war, which are now open and emptied, largely because no one put guards around it or sent inspectors there in a timely manner, both of which they should have been prepared to do if they believed that there was a genuine threat.

These are clearly not the actions of an administration that is concerned about massive amounts of WMD being in the country and doing whatever they must to keep them from winding up in the hands of our enemies. These are the actions of an administration that is either totally incompetent in handling the aftermath of a war they wanted and created (on questionable grounds) or they're the actions of an administration that knows there are no WMD to be had and therefore aren't worried about it.