This week the New York Times reported that Iraqi scientist Dr. Mahdi Obeidi has admitted burying plans and equipment to restart Iraq’s nuclear weapons program in his garden in 1991. Saddam Hussein ordered him to hide the stash so he could restart the program once the U.N. sanctions were lifted.

Today the International Atomic Energy Agency said the fact that the stash remained untouched was evidence that Iraq had not resumed its nuclear program since inspections began after the Persian Gulf War.

…[T]he White House took a distinctly different view. It said the information that Dr. Obeidi volunteered … was evidence that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were correct in saying that Mr. Hussein had never given up hope of building nuclear weapons.

Ari Fleishcer, the White House spokesman, said today of Iraq’s nuclear program: "Nobody said it was operative. We expressed concerns about the development of a nuclear program, but nobody ever maintained that Iraq had nuclear weapons.”

Nobody said it was operative? Stop beating this horse, boys. And while you’re at it, stop your own damn lying. You’re embarrassing yourselves and making the liberals giddy.