After Tuesday’s debate, CNN analyst Paul Begala was all over Mitt Romney for this statement (emphasis mine):

Governor Romney, I wanted to start by asking you a question on which every American has formed an opinion. We’ve lost 3,400 troops; civilian casualties are even higher, and the Iraqi government does not appear ready to provide for the security of its own country. Knowing everything you know right now, was it a mistake for us to invade Iraq? MR. ROMNEY: Well, the question is kind of a non sequitur, if you will, and what I mean by that — or a null set. And that is that if you’re saying let’s turn back the clock, and Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein, therefore, not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn’t be in the conflict we’re in. But he didn’t do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in. I supported the president’s decision based on what we knew at that time. I think we were underprepared and underplanned for what came after we knocked down Saddam Hussein.

And here’s Begala’s commentary on Mitt’s answer:

BEGALA: A huge mistake, a gaffe that — that’s, if this were a general election debate, would be a disqualifier. He said — we just heard the bite — he said that, if Saddam Hussein had allowed IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors into his country to ascertain whether he’d had weapons, we wouldn’t have had this war. He did.
On September 17 of 2002, the Iraqi government, under Saddam Hussein, allowed IAEA weapons inspectors into their country. Over 250 of them went, led by Hans Blix. They searched the whole countryside and found nothing. While they were still searching, on March 17 of 2003, George W. Bush told them to get out ‘cause he was starting a war. And, on March 20th, we started the war.
You can’t get something like that wrong. I mean, that’s like — that’s like saying the Mexicans bombed Pearl Harbor.

Now, a reasonable person could obviously interpret Romney’s statement to mean if Hussein had allowed inspectors in prior to 2002, but since Begala is insisting on absolute clarity, let’s fact-check Begala’s dates…

Sept. 17th is actually the date that inspectors were authorized to return to Iraq by Iraq. Inspectors, however, did not start inspections until November 27th. And why was there a delay? Because, yes, Iraq agreed to allow inspectors in, but under conditions not acceptable to the United Nations. Oh, and not acceptable to Hans Blix either:

The chief United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, endorsed the key American demand that Iraq make a full declaration of its weapons programs before any inspections resume. Dr. Blix also said there was ‘’very broad support’’ in the Security Council for a new resolution setting tough terms for inspections. In addition, he endorsed the threat of consequences if Iraq fails to disarm. Iraq had hoped for inspections under less stringent conditions.