Bryan Preston (blogging at Michelle Malkin’s site) says “Google it.”

He goes on to elaborate in his TCS column today:

Google is not just a search engine; it’s also something of a wayback machine. It can take us back to the last time prior to 2003 that the United States waged a campaign against Saddam Hussein.

If you go to Google and run a search using “Clinton Iraq 1998,” you will find at the time of this writing 3,010,000 hits. Time stands still for no net surfer, so your mileage may vary slightly. But you won’t need all those three million hits anyway. You can just click on the very first one, which will take you to a CNN story dated December 16, 1998 about President Clinton warning Iraq that its failure to comply with UN weapons inspections left him no choice but to attack. And attack he did, launching Operation Desert Fox, which destroyed Iraq’s intelligence headquarters and a few other points of concern. President Clinton’s reasons for the operation:

“Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons,” Clinton said.

And:

“Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces,” Clinton said.

“Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,” said Clinton.

For the “Bush Lied” mantra to have any logical or factual force, one must believe that Desert Fox not only destroyed every single WMD Saddam had, but also cowed him sufficiently that he never built a single WMD or lab in the five years that remained of his rule. And that knowing all of this, Bush took us to war anyway. No serious person believes that.

UPDATE: Edited to correct the fact that I attributed this writing to Michelle, not noticing that Bryan Preston was guest blogging on her site.

UPDATE 2: Bryan has a new graphic up at MM and his own site.

UPDATE 3: If you’re going to be in DC tonight, you may want to stop by this meeting to see what it’s about. (Via DGITL)

UPDATE 4: JYB has added a new animated graphic. Here it is, for your enjoyment.