People keep forgetting: we did not go to war because intelligence agencies claimed Iraq had WMD. We went to war because Saddam was not cooperating with the weapons inspectors. Why he did that when he apparently had no WMD is a mental health question, not a political one.

Yup.

Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't Hussein have gotten the sanctions lifted by fully cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors?

That being the case, his actions only make sense if his main goal was to get out from under UN sanctions SO HE COULD START UP HIS WMD PROGRAMS AGAIN.

This conclusion is bolstered by the recent reports that stated that there were no WMDs but that Hussein was maintaining and building up his ability to produce WMDs in the future.

The "top priority" for Hussein "was to escape the economic stranglehold of U.N. sanctions," Duelfer said. Although Duelfer did not make the judgment that sanctions were working to prevent Hussein from developing new weapons, he reports, "Sanctions limited his ambitions and took an enormous toll on Iraqi society."

Yeah ... and made Saddam pretty goddamn rich, along with some Russians and French and at least one member of the British Parliament. Why was Saddam so eagerto have the sanctions lifted again?

It is so sick what the political left is trying to do in this country, which is to give America this huge inferiority complex.

At this stage, all this second guessing is becoming tiresome and disgusting.

The point is that we liberated a land of 25 million people and got rid of a brutal dictator. In the process we sent a powerful message to rogue leaders who might sponsor terrorism, and instituted a transformation in the Middle East, the heart of the terrorist problem. That's pretty good in my book.

Oh, this foolish argument again. "Why didn't he just cooperate with the weapon inspectors?"

Let's see - he said, over and over again "We no longer have WMD." He gave out an enourmous pile of documents, 11000 pages of document dump, resolving the fates of 95% of their known stockpile. They allowed inspectors back into the country, including into the presidential palaces, with zero notification inspections. They allowed them to search vehicles for those stupid mobile biological labs, as if anyone in the world could run such a thing without infecting their country.

The whole administration argument was a lie. It depended on the fear of Americans to avoid being seriously challenged, and it paid off. They used spurious arguments like "well, they had chemicals that /could/ have been used to make 50,000 tons of mustard gas, so where is that mustard gas?! Why won't they tell us!", when those chemicals were some of the most basic components to chemical industries everywhere.

The bush argument was "We know he has WMD, so if he denies having WMD, he is lying and we can go to war."

In the end, Bush told the inspectors to get out, he was in a warrin' mood, while they were doing their jobs. throughout their tenure, he belittled their efforts, telling the world they were soft on saddam or incompetent and that the US could find those WMD any old day of the week we went in there. But the few times they actually gave such information to the inspectors, nothing was found, but they still kept making the same claim.

The truth is that the Bush administration cooperated far less with the weapon inspectors than Saddam did before the war.

It is stupid to imagine any world leader under crippling sanctions not making getting out from under them his top priority, no matter what his intentions.

And the ultimate truth is that even if the sanctions were lifted, the US and UN still could have monitored the imports and exports and scientists of Iraq, so that if they ever did try to start up, we would know. In fact, it would probably have been a lot easier with US businesses and consultants and embassies in the country.

"Retrospectively, the question of whether Saddam Hussein remained a threat is largely a waste of time - his regime was indeed a chronic menace"

What a silly comment. It is an enourmously important question, because we have lost credibility with the rest of the world by declaring him a "gathering" threat, and tying down the tip of the US military's spear in a country that could have waited decades without threatening us. We have an acute menace in Al Qaida and its fans, and the "chronic" menace could have waited. We have tied up the resources that should have been in central Asia; allowing Al Qaida to escape, reorganize and re-energize.

While our troops get shot by newly manufactured insurgents, we get pointless terror alerts about the real threat.

So, I'm sorry, this desperate attempt to blunt yet another attack from reality on this incompetent President again only demonstrates how much you are willing to twist your own thinking.

Tommy Pain: Your facts are wrong. Yes, Saddam gave the UN a pile of documents, but even by the UN's own admission he did not account for a large portion of his WMD stocks.

He had his people follow around the inspectors, bugged their rooms, and tried to keep them from having unfettered access to scientists as well as certain places such as Saddam's palaces.

To say that Saddam cooperated with the inspectors is ludicrous, and gives Saddam way too much credit. The world knew what cooperation looked like, and Saddam never gave it. No one disputed that.

Let's also face it...he only let the inspectors in because we had our military forces parked and ready to go on his borders. Without that threat, nothing would have happened. How long could we have realistically tied up our military while the inspectors finished their job in a country the size of Iraq? And let's not forget, at that point we had many more soldiers tied up than now, along with a good contingent of our Navy and Air Force, which are now freed up.

Let's also remember Saddam's ultimate goal: to get rid of sanctions and then resume his WMD program.

So the approach advocated by you and apparently by Kerry ultimately leaves Saddam in power, declared clean by the UN and then he makes his move.

So the disaster we prevented may have been years into the future; it is no less justified. In 1981 the Israelis took out Saddam's nuke reactor in a daring air strike, and the world condemned it. It wasn't until over 10 years later, after the first Persian Gulf War, that people realized the wisdom of that action.

Preemption is just that: it prevents future negatives. But short of having a time machine, the case for such action will always be based on imperfect information. And even then we may never know the good that we have done.

If I exercise and eat right, I have done the right thing, but I will never be able to prove definitively what health problems I have avoided. That doesn't make it less right.

"We have tied up the resources that should have been in central Asia; allowing Al Qaida to escape, reorganize and re-energize."

NATO is in central Asia (OK, stop laughing - it's how Kerry would do it).

That aside, Al Qaida has escaped, reorganized and re-engergized? Huh? 75% of known Al Qaida members are dead.

Anytime we get rid of a dictator and advance the cause of freedom that is good for the world and the cause of world peace.

Who cares if Saddam had WMD? It's great to know he's in a prison cell.

So if Saddam was so interested in emerging from the sanctions, why did he try to game the system so much? Why did it take the 17 resolutions? How can you say that he "cooperated" when he was clearly dragged kicking and screaming through every escalation of the process?
Did Saddam get enough $ from the oil for food program that the sanctions didn't matter?
And, please tell me again what we would gain if we pass the "global test"? 100 French troops and the love of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip?

"It is so sick what the political left is trying to do in this country, which is to give America this huge inferiority complex."

What are you talking about? America knows that this isn't their fault, this is due to the lies of the president.

Besides, which party keeps telling us, over and over again, how endangered we are by a pack of militant, anti-science zealots. They have a significant portion of their base believing America will collapse in the next attack, and the Taliban will be cancelling Christmas in Alabama. The real truth is that even /IF/ Osama could get his hands on a nuclear weapon, learn to use it without blowing it up prematurely, and smuggle it into a US city, it would not cripple America. We are so much stronger than that.

Bush tries to make us feel weak and vulnerable so we feel dependent on him, just like a bad husband does to a battered wife. Its a shame to see so many Republicans willing to be treated like that.

"That aside, Al Qaida has escaped, reorganized and re-engergized? Huh? 75% of known Al Qaida members are dead."

Don't whine at me! I'm just the messenger! Donald Rumsfeld is the one who said we have no metric to even know if we are winning the war on Terror, and it was our own intelligence agencies that say Al Qaida is regrouping. Cheney himself says they could attack America at any time, and Tom Ridge says we better have duck tape and plastic sheeting ready! (you do still have your duck tape and plastic sheeting, don't you?)

That 75% number is meaningless, because it is already admitted we have no idea how many Al Qaida members there are or were. We could just as easily say "75% of known drug dealers are in jail", because obviously when we figure out who they are, they are a lot easier to catch. Yet, all of those ones we haven't identified are still out there, selling drugs.

Besides, Donald Rumsfeld told us that tens of thousands of Al Qaida trained in Afgan camps. We have not killed or captured 15,000 Al Qaida members, so even if we were on the lowest side of "tens of thousands", we have not gotten 75% of Al Qaida.

Unless you think he was just making that up.

What a silly comment. It is an enourmously important question, because we have lost credibility with the rest of the world by declaring him a "gathering" threat, and tying down the tip of the US military's spear in a country that could have waited decades without threatening us. We have an acute menace in Al Qaida and its fans, and the "chronic" menace could have waited. We have tied up the resources that should have been in central Asia; allowing Al Qaida to escape, reorganize and re-energize.

No you blinkered ass, a silly comment is misunderstanding my statement. My point was that a rational person can still make a case for delaying action on Iraq or taking an alternate course of action, only after they acknowledge that Iraq was a threat. Whether Iraq was a "threat" that required immediate action or not is what I admit is up for debate.

My conclusion is that the situation was unsustainable without confrontation, because the choices were crushing sanctions or letting him return to full stature.

Your scorn is starting to piss me off. Anyone that comments with such hubris about the definitive answer for Iraq shows little respect for the legion of people, many that are vastly smarter than you, that saw a legitimate case for action, and it also shows great disrespect for your host.

Make your argument without the condescension or beat it.

I've personally thought that your judgment on this issue (and others)shows weakness, annoying hyperbole and tremendous naivete, especially your continued use of the word "lied," but at least I'm giving you respect.

The bush argument was "We know he has WMD, so if he denies having WMD, he is lying and we can go to war."

It was about cooperation and sbmitting to the will of the United States after more than a decade of playing games. Nothing challenged the prestige of the US and UN more than flouting our will for so long. Saddam could have avoided war if he rolled over, but his pride and mental insatbility refused complete caopitulation - this is what led to war.

If we don't make it work, then yes, our prestige suffers - but not trying also carried a price. Once again, you pick what you want to challenge to buttress your assertions, without addressing the entire picture.

It's interesting how the left tries to make the war like the wrong thing to do by pointing out that Saddam didn't have WMD (even though everyone thought he did until George W. Bush took us in there, and then suddenly no one believed it), he complied with the UN, the UN Security Council didn't let us go in, et. al. You see, the war wasn't right because certain rules weren't followed.

I believe it was Dennis Prager who said that liberals are more concerned about the legality of the war. It wasn't sanctioned by the UN or the WMDs weren't there even though there was evidence he did have them, so it is an "illegal" war. Conservatives argue that the war was morally justified. Saddam was a cruel dictator who used chemical weapons on the kurds and oppressed his people. Women had virtually no rights and (according to Iraqi estimates) something like a million people died under his reign (remember the mass graves). All of this is irrelevant to the liberals, however, 'cause we haven't found WMDs so far (which they seem to think that means he never had them - absolute silliness). According to liberals, saving those people from a tyrant is not important. Either that or they'll say "It's important, but he didn't have WMDs so the war is wrong and Bush is evil."

That's probably the real crux of it all - Bush is in power therefore anything he does is wrong. It's this mentality that is going to cause the Dems to lose this time around.

America knows that this isn't their fault, this is due to the lies of the president.

The President did not lie. You may think that he was wrong, you may think that he's an idiot, you may think that he's disingenuous about certain matters, but this is annoying and counterproductive hyperbole.

You are living in an ideological cocoon, my friend. Get some oxygen.

Some great observations from the report (courtesy of The Corner):

**It probably would have been safe for Saddam to get back to WMD production soon. UN sanctions were eroding and increasingly ineffective.

**The onus was not on the US or even the inspectors to prove that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD. The onus was on Saddam to account for the anthrax and VX and other weapons he had in the past -- and had used in the past, against the Kurds, among others.

**The onus was on Saddam to account for his WMD and the equipment used to make them, and to destroy them in a verifiable manner. Saddam refused to do so.

From Truth Laid Bare:
And lastly, we're sorry that the murder of 3,000 of our fellow citizens led us, in moments of weakness, to err on the side of caution, and to not take the the word of a madman that he could do us no harm. That we implemented a policy of replacing tyrannies with democracies, in the foolish hope that spreading freedom around the world would not just make us safer, but make the world safer. That it would bring us thanks, rather than scorn.

For all this, we are sorry.

So, World, we hope you'll accept this apology, and the one coming on November 2nd. Because all around America, the battle cry is being declared:

Vote John Kerry: Because We're Sorry

That's probably the real crux of it all - Bush is in power therefore anything he does is wrong.

Bingo.

"And, please tell me again what we would gain if we pass the "global test"? 100 French troops and the love of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip?"

Well, George I got this by passing the "global test" of credibility"

"The cost of the war to the United States was calculated by Congress to be $61.1 billion. Other sources estimate up to $71 billion. About $53 billion of that amount was paid by different countries around the world: $36 billion by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States; $16 billion by Germany and Japan (who wasn't part of the coalition due to the treaties that ended WWII). About 25% of Saudi Arabia's contribution was paid in form of in-kind services to the troops, such as food and transportation.

US troops represented only about 74% of the combined force, and the global cost is therefore higher. UK, for instance, spent $4.1 billion during this war."

and

"consisting of soldiers from 34 countries: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States itself."

(thanks Wikipedia!)

Right now, most the countries supposedly "in" the coalition haven't contributed anything but their names on a list, and many have asked their names to be taken off of the list.

But, I won't forget Poland! They really stepped up to the plate (after the war), and are definitely making a difference in their small area. Just think if we had 25 more Polands involved, like George I got.

"global test"

Conservatives are dangerously myopic. Oblivious to anything meaningful in this world. Nearly autistic with hyper-misguided focus. I hope that someday you all figure out that YOU are the problem, not the rest of the world. It's obvious to the majority of people walking this planet (you know, all of those people who you don't care about) that you, the conservatives, are wrong and dancing on the cusp of evil. You never learn, you just rearrange your prejudices. I'm not really sure most of you are capable of learning.

The conservative defense consists of lies, distortions, bullying, denial, threats, and violence. You cannot defend yourselves without resorting of name calling and resurrecting Clinton's name.

The Dems must be getting desparate because the trolls are all coming out...part of their internet strategy no doubt...

It's so nice that Tommy Pain matches Kerry and denigrates our allies and their sacrifice in Iraq. I wish he could meet with some of the families who lost loved ones in Iraq and explain to them that their sacrifice, is in his mind in name only.

Also, I'm sure the Polish people respect his little dig at them.

Anon Sci: we "conservatives" have never said the problem is the rest of the world...the problem right now is global terrorism...

It is stupid to assume that the rest of the world is so much more enlightened or wise in their judgement, especially when the rest of the world has more problems than we do, and have a less impressive track record than we do. The rest of the world is run mostly by dictators, and lives in poverty by our standards. Do we really want to follow these people, instead of lead them? The US is the greatest country on the face of this earth, and we needn't follow the rest of the world in some silly "global test."

Also, let's remember the famous example of the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi nuke reactor in 1981. The rest of the world strongly condemned that, yet the Israelis were proven right by history. So the opinion of the rest of the world is not always correct.

What we know NOW:
1)The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support for Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons.(9-11 Commission Report)
2)We found mass graves of women and children killed by WMD.
3)There were 2 insane dictators in waiting in Saddam's sons.
4)We know Saddam's sons and Saddam participated in the torture of people in horrid and barbaric ways.
5)We know they also had "rape rooms."
6)We know that Iraq was a hotbed of infected hate for the U.S.
7)We know that Iraqi terrorists think nothing of beheading innocent civilians.
8)We know that Saddam used the 'food for oil" program to spend on his miltary ($350 million in the last year of his military)
9)The UN is up to its neck in this, giving credence to the argument of corruption and being in bed with Saddam at the expense of the Iraqi people. (also an obvious reason for being so against invading Iraq)And assuring Saddam that he could resume his weapons programs without worry from UN inspection.

Ignore this Tommy Pain guy. He's one of the glib/hip/left/unfettered-by-the truth set, and a waste of your keyboard strokes.

There is something very, very wrong with all of this "Saddam did not have any WMD" stuff. My instincts tell me that we'll look back on all of this cocksuredeness and find out someone was very wrong about these conclusory assertions. It simply defies logic that Saddam behaved the way he did and did not have ANY weapons OR capability. And for the president to have acted in any way other than what he did based upon these hackneyed ideas that we should have known that Saddam's actions actually meant the exact opposite of what any sane person would conclude is not monday morning quaterbacking, it is sycophantic rubbish.

Moreover, I find it appalling that a "weapons inspector" would make statements telling us what Saddam's top priority was (getting sanctions lifted) when we attacked or that the sanctions, in effect, were effective. With all due respect to Mr. Duelfer, I think he has overstepped his mission.

Sorry Chuck, if your number one priority, to the exclusion of manufacturing WMD, was to get the sanctions lifted you DO NOT behave the way Saddam did pre-invassion. Doesn't wash. I have never seen this country so fooled and willing to be duped by such hollow pseudo-intellectualism.

Maybe Mr. Duelfer is right that there were no WMD (I still want to know where the anthrax is), but for him to say that he know's what Saddam's thinking and priorities were is utterly and categorically arrogant.

Anonymous Scientist: I read your first where you roll out the left's mantra, "Conservatives are dangerously myopic. Oblivious to anything meaningful in this world. Nearly autistic with hyper-misguided focus. I hope that someday you all figure out that YOU are the problem, not the rest of the world. It's obvious to the majority of people walking this planet (you know, all of those people who you don't care about) that you, the conservatives, are wrong and dancing on the cusp of evil. You never learn, you just rearrange your prejudices. I'm not really sure most of you are capable of learning." Then I read your second post where you state, "The conservative defense consists of lies, distortions, bullying, denial, threats, and violence. You cannot defend yourselves without resorting of name calling and resurrecting Clinton's name." Well, it seems to me you are calling us names and are the only post to bring up President Clinton. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Tommy Pain: I serve the nation to give you the freedom to have and state your own opinions, and will die to defend that freedom if need be, but if you pulled your head out of your ass you just might see alittle better.

Seems like we're forgetting about things like the thwarted chemical attack in Jordan in April (wonder where they got the components for their device), Illegal long range missiles, bio-outfitted aircraft, and let's not forget unmarked, sarin-filled binary shells which were used to make roadside mines. Do we need to unscrew every shell we find to determine its contents? Plow down every sand dune to see what kind of Russian aircraft the French sold to Saddam? And now, the re-introduction of mobile bio-labs.

People who say WMD's haven't been found are lying to themselves. Kerry's running mate says, "...if you vote for George Bush, you've lost your mind..."

Well, John Edwards is wrong about everything else he says, too.

Tommy Pain:

Among other violations, Saddam hid a vast network of clandestine WMD labs. That's hardly compliance. Even before we knew about them, NO ONE, not even the French, argued Iraq was cooperating with the inspections.

We know what cooperation looks like. There are models for cooperation: S Africa, or the Ukraine. Those countries fully and proactively complied.

Anonymous Scientist:

"I hope that someday you all figure out that YOU are the problem, not the rest of the world."

Yes, Republicans are the problem, not Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden.

I hope someday you seek psychiatric counseling.

If the media had any honesty, the story they portray about Iraq would be vastly different.

If Saint Bill Clinton had done the exact same thing as Bush, we would have stories about the good in Iraq, the mass graves and other instances of Saddam's inhumanity, the bravery of the soldiers, etc.

Instead, the media is trying to turn this victory into a defeat. We cannot and will not allow that to happen.

Furthermore, let's face it...for the sake of our national security, we must defeat the liberal media. They have far too much power to shape people's perceptions and they willingly abuse it.

Poor ole Anonymous Scientist. All het up and with only here to go. But then being a scientist is tough because they as a class have visited as much misery on the human race through their vacuity as Zhengis {sic} Khan while their more pragmatic engineering counterparts invented the washing machine, dryer and waste management. The first two liberated women and the last eliminated disease where it is in use. Both life savers in this woman's view.

Scientists. Love 'em or heave them. That is if you can actually locate an honest one with integrity anymore.

Actually you can, but you won't find them posting political nonsense like Anonymous's babble on the internet. They're too busy doing honest research.

I think he was a highschool nutcase, actually who needs watching.

Tommy the troll ... *sigh*

Saddam never, ever did anything close to full disclosure.

His WMD records were incomplete, which was amazing for a government which documented the number of its own people it killed. It strongly suggested he was hiding something.

He played cat 'n mouse with the inspectors every step of the way, contrary to any full disclosure. Contrary to your assertion, he did not provide complete & unfettered access for inspections - which strongly suggested he was hiding something.

He was bribing a variety of nations in an effort to end sanctions without making full disclosure - and there is plenty of evidence that once those sanctions were lifted, his intention was to get back into the WMD business.

On top of which, every intelligence service - not just that of the United States - believed Saddam was not being truthful or making full disclosure.

Blinded by your own partisanship, you conclude that believing what was universally believed makes you a liar if that universal belief proves unfounded.

You want to make the "liar" claim, offer the proof that Bush knew that what Clinton, Gore, Albright, Kerry, Edwards, et al. believed about Saddam during the period of 1998 - 2001 was false.

Re: Bill

Where does the term "blinkered ass" come from? I've never heard it before but that sounds so...descriptive. What exactly does it mean?

Don't you love it when you try to be as fair and unpartisan as you can be and they still treat you with contempt? It's like...oh I dunno, like they're more interested in winning than having a discussion. Although I'm sure you found people vastly more deferential in your moonbat studies.

Re: Tommy Pain

"The real truth is that even /IF/ Osama could get his hands on a nuclear weapon, learn to use it without blowing it up prematurely, and smuggle it into a US city, it would not cripple America."

Out of curiousity, do you believe your candidate feels the same way?

Re: Anon Sci

"I hope that someday you all figure out that YOU are the problem, not the rest of the world. It's obvious to the majority of people walking this planet (you know, all of those people who you don't care about) that you, the conservatives, are wrong and dancing on the cusp of evil."

Dancing? Only dancing?! Jeez, guys, we as part of the imperalistic hegemony need to get our acts together. I thought we passed the threshold into full blown evil like...years ago! Man I'm so disappointed in our movement at this moment.

Anyway, I've gotta go. A kid just passed by the house so I'm going to go see if the kid has any candy I can steal. I have to hurry or I'll miss the secret meeting where Glenn Reynolds discusses doing things to blacks and blending puppies.

Still small time evil though. Just "dancing". Terribly disappointed in my fellow fascist conservatives and will have to bring that up in tonight's Ceremony of Darkness. Probably right after activating the local Rovian mind ray machine, I think.

"The real truth is that even /IF/ Osama could get his hands on a nuclear weapon, learn to use it without blowing it up prematurely, and smuggle it into a US city, it would not cripple America."

Which city, Tommy? Pick one. Which city gets blasted into hellfire and ash because 'it would not cripple America'?

Please, don't come back with the 'of course I don't want it to happen' mantra - someone who argues against prosecuting the war with the 'one city won't cripple us' line demonstrably doesn't think that.

Keep on arguing for Hussein. Don't let those mass graves bother you. Never mind the Kurds, the Marsh Arabs, the Shia, the Iranians. Never mind that even if we fail to bring something better to Iraq, we tried.

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

What nutcase suggests a single city getting nuked is acceptable?

CNSNews.com reports documents found, evidence that Saddam documented ties to terror and WMD acquisition attempts.

Hey, Saddam is still in Iraq. Anyone who wants is more than welcome to go pitch the idea to the Iraqis that maybe he'd be better in power than the US "occupation" (Kerry term).

Wrong Democrat, Wrong Election, Wrong Message. Dems should have picked Lieberman.

If I may, I'd like to offer some analogies.

In CA (and I suspect elsewheres) if you march into the Qwiki-Mart and point at gun at Abu and demand all the money in the till and a chutney squishie, you're going to be charged with felony armed robbery (PC211) even if the gun is a toy. And if you have priors, it'll be a strike even if the gun was a toy.

Also, in CA, if you are on felony probation, one of the terms of that probation is "Bravo Search terms." That means you must fully and completely comply with any officer (police or parole) who has the power to search you...at any time, under any circumstance and any where. Mere non-compliance with this term can mean revocation of probation and being sentenced to more time.

Saddam already was on probation following the first Gulf War. He was violating the terms of that probation consistently and blatantly (because the UN cooperated in his violations).

It was finally revoked. It didn't matter whether or not he had WMD at the time of the revocation .. he had a history of them and of USING them; plus he actually threatened to further use them (and just like the toy gun above, it doesn't matter whether or not Saddam was bluffing.) Saddam had his own Bravo term which he refused to abide by. Billy Jeff filed the first petition to revoke his probation in 1998 with the Iraq Liberation Act.

The UN, through incompetence or perfidy or a sick combination of both refused to enforce the revocation. Indeed, it appears the UN was be bribed to terminate the probation and allow Saddam on his way, to commit more crimes.

It was the US that fulfilled the mission that should have been the UN, if it really were a body dedicated to the values it espouses. It was GW who fulfilled Billy Jeff's directive.

And it is the West that will benefit from the moral clarity of saying what we mean and meaning what we say.

Career criminals don't respect justice system because judges "show compassion" and allow them in and out of the system with "one more chance" to go straight. They learn a cynical manipulation in how to game it. And this cynical manipulation of the West is seen time and again by Saddam and Islamists worldwide.

Watched most of testimony on Cspan. Duelfur was not far from David Kay's opinion that Saddam was MORE dangerous by the time we invaded even tho only minor amounts of weapons have been found. Also they have just found MILLIONS (yes MILLIONS) more documents that they must go thru. Duelfur did not leave out the possibility that more weapons etc could be found. His answer to what was in all those trucks streaming into Syria was not conclusive at all. I am concerned that with all the docs yet to be examined, all the info destroyed on the run up to the war and after, the propensity for Iragiis to lie, the amount of "conclusions" drawn on incomplete data etc that we still don't have a good answer. It was interesting to hear the questions from the dems on the committee. Several would read quotes from someone in the Adm. and base their question on the quote to prove that the Adm lied. Often Mr. Duelfur was asked for his "opinion". He did seem to try to avoid the political slant. While he tried to be diplomatic it was obvious that France, Russia, and China were up to no good.

"So if Saddam was so interested in emerging from the sanctions, why did he try to game the system so much? Why did it take the 17 resolutions? "

Can't find a written link, but heard on Fox and Friends this morning, that Saddam was scared of Iran, he wanted the world to think he had them as insurance against attack.

The report also said that Saddam kept his generals in the dark, and didn't tell them there were no weapons until late 2002.

But I can actually see this as a motive for not cooperating.

For anyone who is interested, I have done a little digging and put together an extensive defense of the war in Iraq.
The URL is:
http://shrinkingshadows.ebloggy.com/142

I found the CW volume of the Duelfer report (downloaded and read last night) to be studded with caveats and qualifications. There's a ton (perhaps literally several tons) we don't know. An infinitesimal fraction of munitions tested, sourcing from detainees of questionable cooperativeness, sites remaining to be searched, rooms of documents burned (my own observation), etc.

I'll admit I expected stockpiles, because that's what the UN numbers as of '98 suggested, and (his tendency to irrational behavior notwithstanding) the balance of Hussein's incentives seemed to be to grow rather than shrink his programs in the interim.

But I focus on that (full, potent) mix-in-flight binary shell that was converted to an IED. Had some terrorist proxy been provided, and told what to do with, that munition (drillpress, 2 metal petrol cans), they could easily have killed (horribly) hundreds (if not thousands) of people in a mall, theatre, hospital, etc. We sent troops to Afghanistan to avenge the deaths of roughly 3,000 people. That one shell in the hands of a terrorist proxy could have caused comparable casualties and psychological damage. Think of the specific mechanics of a single act of terror employing CW, and the nature of what we had to prevent, and the necessity of a complete accounting for those weapons, will become more clear.

But I focus on that (full, potent) mix-in-flight binary shell that was converted to an IED.

I'll add that it's highly unlikely that there was just one or two of those laying around. Yes, there's a chance that these particular terrorists got a hold of the one prototype left...but to be effective, chem weapons must be employed on a large scale - hundreds, if not thousands, of shells.

IIRC the Aum cult in Japan had a smaller quantity of less pure Sarin than would have resulted from the proper mixing of the contents of that shell. You might need hundreds of munitions outdoors, on a battlefield, but not if you want to gas Penn Station or Parliament.

I agree in that I don't understand why nobody cares or talks about the roadside bombs with WMD. The newspaper says no WMD in Iraq; what am I missing?

So now two UN inspectors say Saddam destroyed everything in 1991.

I keep wondering about that. Scott Ritter said in 2002-2003 that the stockpiles would have degraded beyond use by 2002 - but also that he was still finding stockpiles in 1998.

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