Armitage Vows to Find WMDs

In a speech in Sydney, Australia, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage vowed that “we are not going to leave until we find and destroy Iraq’s capability to produce biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.”
Armitage acknowledged that: “We have not yet found enough evidence of Saddam Hussein’s programs to develop weapons of mass destruction,” but added: “But we will. I am absolutely confident of that. The fact it has taken so long to find the evidence is a chilling reminder that these programs are far too easily moved and, I believe, far too easy to hide.”
And, like Secretary of State Powell, Armitage offered an optimistic assessment of what chief weapons hunter David Kay is finding: “He is making solid progress. He is also finding deception and concealment were an extensive and embedded part of the program, perfected over the course of two decades. It’s going to take some time to find not just the weapons, but the equipment, the people and the materials.”
The most common speculation is that the report of Kay’s WMD hunt will come out in mid-September. My guess is that most of the Democrats will stay relatively quiet on the issue until then; no one wants to be the guy who is quoted in the newspapers blasting Bush for not finding WMDs on the day when Kay reports that he’s found them.