"The Bush administration is relying on a slender thread to justify its disastrous war in Iraq: Saddam Hussein is now in jail," writes Thomas.

"'The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power,' President Bush insists, because 'he was a clear threat,'" notes Thomas.

But "Bush's rationalization comes up lame, given the administration's reluctant and deferred acknowledgement that Saddam had nothing to do with the 9-11 terrorist attacks and especially in view of the mounting casualty tolls of American service members and Iraqi civilians," Thomas' column continues.

Excerpts from Thomas' column:

U.N. inspectors and two U.S. task forces spent months and millions of dollars searching Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction -- the centerpiece of Bush's rationale for going to war -- but found nothing.

Reminded of this inconvenient truth during his appearance on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" last Sunday, Cheney had to fall back on the pathetic excuse that, even though Saddam didn't have such weapons, Iraq had the capability of obtaining them. Against that yardstick, most of the world is a potential target for invasion and occupation.

The never-give-an-inch vice president concluded: The invasion was "the right thing to do" and "if we had it to do all over again, we'd do exactly the same thing."

That statement is outrageous, given the reality that none of the stated reasons for the U.S. invasion turned out to be accurate.