As a prelude to war in 2003, the administration of George W. Bush did its utmost to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed a threat to American security from the secret development of weapons of mass destruction. Within a year of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, it became clear that no such weapons existed. Sadly, this was not the first time the American public was urged to support a war for reasons that turned out later to be scarcely credible...