“Journalists are taught never to ‘bury the lead,’” says an editorial in the February 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal. “Yet,” the editorial goes on to say, “it looks as if that’s precisely what CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ did in reporter Scott Pelley’s fascinating interview Sunday [January 27] with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.”

What’s the “lead” the editorial is accusing “60 Minutes” of burying? After complimenting a paleocon called Bruce Chapman for bringing it to its attention, the editorial says: “The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.” The suggestion here is that as long as Saddam had that intention, the invasion of his country by the United States was justified. And the title of the editorial, “Buried WMD Scoop,” suggests that, but for the burying of the lead, the story would have been a scoop.

It was not the intention Saddam had to resume his WMD program that President Bush was referring to when he talked about “a gathering threat” to the United States and what Condoleezza Rice, his National Security Adviser then and Secretary of State now, meant when she pointed to the looming “mushroom cloud” to intimidate Congress into authorizing the Iraq invasion. It was the stockpiles of WMD which they said Saddam had. George Tenet, the CIA director at the time, had told the president: it was a "slam dunk case" that Saddam had unconventional weapons.

Most of those who watched the “60 Minutes” piece saw in it a re-reaffirmation of what they had already known for quite some time: that, at the time the United States invaded Iraq, the latter did not have any WMD or active WMD program; and that Saddam Hussein considered Osama bin Laden to be a fanatic whom he didn’t want to associate with. Readers may recall that these were the two reasons the Bush administration gave for going to war with Iraq.

Thanks to the “60 Minutes” story, even the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which was in the forefront of the right-wing media that swallowed the administration canard hook, line and sinker, has now come around to accepting the truth, grudgingly, though. “Iraq’s active WMD program had been destroyed, mostly by U.N. weapons inspectors, sometime in the 1990s,” says the February 1 editorial, “but Saddam told Mr. Piro that he maintained a pretense of having those weapons mainly to keep Iran at bay.” The editorial leaves out an important part the FBI agent had said during the interview: that "those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq."

One wonders whether the editorialist was blushing when he wrote that Iraq's illicit weapons "had been destroyed, mostly by U.N. weapons inspectors." That would amount to saying that U.N. sanctions against Iraq, which the Journal editorial page had utter contempt for, did work. But then, to blush, one must have shame.

Again, only a shameless person can bring himself to writing that “The key point [of the ‘60 Minutes’ story] is Saddam’s admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.” Even a person with average intelligence could tell that the key point is that the Iraqi WMD program, even when it was active, did not pose a threat to the United State. The enemy Saddam feared the most was Iran, the FBI agent had clearly stated in his interview. Which means that the U.S. invaded a country, causing deaths to tens of thousands of innocent human beings and destruction to property worth billions of dollars, for nothing. Which also means that the reams of paper and tons of ink The Wall Street Journal used up to propagate the Bush administration lies about WMD were a total waste.

To repeat what I said above, to most viewers, what the FBI agent said on “60 Minutes” came as a re-reaffirmation of what they had already known. They had their knowledge reaffirmed first over three years ago – on October 6, 2007, to be exact. That was the day Charles A. Duelfer, chief weapons inspector for Iraq handpicked by President Bush himself, presented the long-awaited WMD report to U.S. Congress. The report, it may be added, was prepared after Mr. Duelfer and his 1,200 fellow inspectors combed the length and breadth of Iraq for months. The report said that Iraq, under the pressure of United Nations sanctions, had destroyed the stockpiles of illicit weapons it once had within months after the 1991 war the U.S. waged to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Mr. Hussein made a calculated decision to destroy those weapons and weapons-producing facilities with a view to winning an end to U.N. sanctions, according to the report. True, the report noted, he did fancy reviving the WMD programs, but the inspectors “found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts” toward that end.

The report also said that, until late 2002, Mr. Hussein managed to keep everyone, even his top deputies, uncertain about whether he had illicit weapons. The purpose behind it, the report said, was to prevent a possible new attack by Iran. (Now we have the FBI agent revalidating this point, when he told the CBS reporter: "It was very important for him [Saddam] to project that [uncertainty] because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq.") It was partly with the use of chemical weapons that Iraq was able to stop Iran’s further incursions during the 1980-88 war between the two countries.

It is important to mention here that, at several points in the report, Mr. Duelfer had made reference to an FBI agent as the main source of his information on the mysterious WMD. The report had also said that the FBI agent, in turn, got the information from Mr. Hussein himself during his prolonged interrogation of the dictator while in captivity. In fact, this FBI agent was the only American official with whom Saddam had spoken on a one-on-one basis from the time he was captured by American forces until he was handed over to the Iraqi authorities for trial. The trial resulted in his being executed on December 30, 2006.

Ever since the release of Duelfer’s report, those who have been following the story have been curious to know who the FBI agent was who managed to earn the trust of a megalomaniacal dictator and get him to disclose the most vital information about his most-feared weapons: that those weapons did not exist. The “60 Minutes” story gave its viewers a chance to see this person at least on their TV screens and hear him talk about how he managed to accomplish the feat. To that extent, they found the story fascinating.

But the Wall Street Journal editorial finds it fascinating for another reason -- for the reason that there is “WMD Scoop” buried in it. How can a story, which the editorial dismisses elsewhere as not “exactly news,” become a scoop?

Yes, we all agree with the editorial, journalists are taught not to bury the lead. They are also taught, the editorialist may note, not to present as a scoop something that is not even news. “60 Minutes” followed that basic journalistic principle and refrained from sensationalizing the story. It’s about time the Wall Street Journal editorial page learned to follow it, too.