I’ve nominated Ari Fleischer for Slate’s Whopper of the Week feature. His latest big lie is even bigger than the one that won him last week’s award. In referring to Iraq’s Al-Samoud missiles, Fleischer says

Well, here’s the Catch-22 that Saddam Hussein has put himself in: he denied he had these weapons, and then he destroys things he says he never had. If he lies about never having them, how can you trust him when he says he has destroyed them? … It also contradicts the fact that he said he doesn’t have any weapons in violation of the United Nations resolutions.

Every part of this is untrue. Saddam openly admitted having the missiles and has consistently maintained that they don’t violate the resolutions and that, in destroyng them, he is simply deferring to the judgement of the UN inspectors that they do. This is all on the public record, as Hans Blix observed (quote from NYT)

In another sign of the poisoning of relations between the inspectors and the United States, Mr. Blix directly contradicted the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, who said on Monday that Mr. Hussein had earlier denied he had “these weapons,” meaning the missiles. Mr. Blix said the missiles “were declared” and that “they were not clandestine.”

He was referring to Iraq’s original arms declaration in December. “

And from Fleischer’s own mouth in response to Saddam’s interview with Dan Rather

Fleischer said Saddam’s comments about the Al Samouds represented “open defiance” of the United Nations. “He refuses even to acknowledge that the weapons are prohibited,” Fleischer said.

The fact that Fleischer is a blatant liar is not surprising and does not mean that Saddam is truthful. But how can anybody advocate following people like Fleischer (and Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney) to war. And regrettably, the only credible person in the Administration, Colin Powell, now seems to have signed on to the Fleischer line that whatever is convenient to the demands of the day is true.