WASHINGTON -- Is it important that weapons of mass destruction be found in Iraq now that we have won the war and taken out the Saddam Hussein regime?

You bet.

President George W. Bush's credibility is on the line because he sold -- or was it scared? -- the American public about the need to attack Iraq to eliminate a dangerous arsenal of biological and chemical weapons.

Now the president and his hardline advisers are scrambling to explain why those elusive weapons have not been found.

It's mystifying that the massive U.S. military force in Iraq hasn't found what the administration's dead-certain pre-war rhetoric described as huge arsenals of banned weapons.

Who could forget Secretary of State Colin Powell's precise laundry list at the U.N. Security Council last Feb. 5?

In a stunning two-hour monologue -- which apparently convinced millions of wavering Americans -- Powell itemized the Iraqi arsenal: four tons of deadly nerve gas; a stockpile of 500 tons of chemical agents and 25,000 liters of anthrax as well as the means to deliver the horrific weapons.

Powell said his information came from a variety of sources -- "solid sources" -- and claimed that Iraqi government officials had deceived U.N. inspectors by hiding the prohibited weapons.

He spoke of the "gravity of the threat" that Iraq's weapons posed and declared they are "real and present dangers to the region and to the world."

Almost three months later, U.S. forces occupying Iraq haven't found that arsenal. You'd think that if the secretary of state knew the size of the anthrax arsenal down to the liter, that he'd also know where all that bad stuff was.

In the ever-evolving explanation by the defensive Bush administration, officials now report that captured top-ranking Iraqi officials say that the weapons were probably destroyed just before the March 19 attack or that they may have been shipped across the border to Syria.

Still, U.S. officials say they are confident something will turn up. That could happen, but such a discovery would beg the question of just how Saddam Hussein could have delivered those weapons to harm us.

Bush counsels patience, telling NBC last week: "We will find them, but it's going to take time to find them. And the best way to find them is to continue to collect information from the humans, Iraqis, who were involved in hiding them."

He acknowledged that "there's going to be skepticism until people find out there was, in fact, a weapons of mass destruction program."

In another hardball move against any role for the United Nations, Bush has barred Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, and his experienced team from returning to Iraq.

That is a colossal mistake because it creates the suspicion that the United States fears any independent observation of its claims and activities in occupied Iraq.

A New York Times-CBS news poll last week showed 57 percent of those who responded said the war in Iraq was worthwhile even if the coalition forces do not find the disputed weapons.

Thirty seven percent said the failure to find such weapons would mean the war was not worth it.

So what's the shouting all about? Well, it's a little matter called truth.

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair is in the same boat. Blair said Monday there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but that rebuilding Iraq should be "a bigger priority" than the hunt for illegal weapons.

Talk about changing the subject!

U.S. Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the commander of allied forces in the Persian Gulf, has amassed a 1,500-man weapons team to scour more than 1,000 sites in Iraq.

"We believe they are there," Franks said, "and we are going to continue to get through all the sites."

Interviewed on the telephone at his compound in Rancho Mirage, Calif., former President Gerald Ford said he fully supported Bush's action in Iraq.

"I'm confident those weapons at one point did exist," he added. "I think Saddam Hussein disposed of them before he left." But he also felt it behooved the White House to try to find out "what has happened to them."

Meantime, there may be a political price for Bush to pay if he doesn't produce the evidence.

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, one of the few Democratic presidential aspirants willing to stick his neck out and oppose the war, said Bush's "credibility will be seriously undermined" unless the illicit weapons are found.

Both Bush and Powell will owe the American people some answers if those weapons are not found. America's credibility in the world is riding on their explanation.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address helent@hearstdc.com)