Snipe Hunt! Via Jim Henley, this piece by the Cogent Provocateur is a witty and readable summary of the WMD situation:

The Snipe Hunt is an American folk tradition, a rite of passage for the novice outdoorsman ... an elaborate practical joke which ends with the initiate crouching alone in the woods, in the dark, literally "holding the bag", waiting for the nonexistent Snipe.

What if we sift through all the sand in Iraq without finding WMDs? (That means hundreds of tons, as advertised ... not lab samples, training rounds or inventory strays.) We're alone in the woods, in the dark, holding the bag.

I love the image of the snipe hunt. It's perfect: the American people as the innocent but gullible rube, blundering in the dark, while the soft hoot of the elusive snipe calls in the distance... "whooo! whooo!!". Ask not for whom the snipe whoos.... it whoos for thee.