"Bush Lied" Story Dies; Few Take Notice

Via WSJ OpinionJournal's Buried WMD Scoop:

Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.

The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could...

Link to Online Video of 60 Minutes Invterview:

• Saddam's Confessions Part 1 (12:36)
• Saddam's Confessions Part 2 (10:33)

Related:

• Backgrounder on 'Did Bush Lie?'
• Chicago Tribune Editorial