More on the Iraq war

The Archpundit sends us to the Keyes' collection of streaming video of his recent interviews. Of course, recently having gotten fired-up again about the Administration's lying about the weapons of mass destruction, I was struck by the applause that Keyes received when he said at Quentin Road Baptist Church (my transcription, so mistakes mine):

The U.N. had been kicked out of the country and had no eyes and ears to tell them what was happening to the weapons of mass destruction... since they [the U.N.] were blind and had no proper intelligence and since according to what the President had in his hands, we were not blind and neither were the British and others and we did have such intelligence, why on earth would you go to a blind body and ask them whether you need to do something about that which you clearly see? [APPALAUSE] I think the very suggestion is illogical, and so in this particular instance it was a mistake to ask them a question because they didn't have the means to answer the question and gave our friends, if we can still call them that, our friends in Europe [LAUGHTER] a chance to misbehave. . . . And we especially should not go to the U.N. with a question that we know the Europeans never want to know the answer to . . . We have to provide leadership. We have to provide leadership. And thatm by the way, is especially true when we have been heinously attacked. And when we must live with the knowledge that they will die by the tens of thousands or hunderds of thousands once again if we are not able to just respond to danger, but to anticipate and preempt that danger. Terrorism can not be defeated after the fact, it must be defeated before it strikes. And that's why we are looking to improve our intelligence capabilities. And that's why the President would have been irresponsible not to look at the intelligence in his hands and move against the potential danger in Iraq. [applause] (and an "Amen" from the minister.)

Except of course, that's just not the truth. There was no connection to al-Qaeda in Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There was bad U.S. and British intelligence, and the U.N. weapons inspectors were right. (See, among other articles, The Economist, U.S. edition, July 17, 2004, p. 23). So, why is Keyes still saying there was? And why are people still applauding? Why does anyone still believe there were WMD's? Why does anyone still believe there was an Iraqi connection to al Qaeda? Update: a link to a New Yorker story about the faulty intelligence.