"Didn't Saddam send a 12 thousand page report to Bush and UN in December 2002 showing exactly that he had complied with destruction and no further development of WMD's?
Didn't the previous weapons inspector Ritter confirm the same, didn't the new one Blixx confirm the same? and ultimately Bush's own assigned inspector came back empty handed?
Didn't even Bush Rummy and Chenny finaly admit that Saddam didnot have any WMD's, ofc that was after we attacked them."
Saddam managed to convince 1) the UN security council (who believed he had WMD's) 2) his OWN generals (as those recently released tape recording revealed)
that he had WMD. we don't definitively know NOW that he did not have them when we chose to invade, but we know believe in hindsight that he probably did not. hindsight is easy.
if you take the conclusions of duelfer, the 911 commission, and a brit report or two, it's pretty clear that there was ample reason to believe he had WMD prior to invasion
also, your claim about SH showing he destroyed the WMD's is absurd. if you want a nation that clearly gave evidence of destruction of their WMD's/Program, just look at south africa.
"The only fear Bush had was lifting UN sanctions and Saddam being able to sell oil from 1 mill barrels a day to 5-9 mill a day thus depressing oil prices, meaning no huge profits for oil companies, not to mention the obscene profits from the war machine."
if you want to talk about oil, let's talk the UN. they are the one with the SH related oil scandal. not us
"Thus, rush rush to war, link link Saddam to 9/11 etc.. we all have seen the machinations."
Saddam was not linked to 9/11. he was linked to the war on terror. 9/11 was the incident that sparked the proactive bush doctrine (tm)
... that is not the same as "linking" him to 9/11
as for the other poster, with the silly quadraplegic analogy. SH status expost GWI is analogous to that of a parolee. diminished expectation of privacy and a DUTY to submit to police searches and be open and cooperative. a normal citizen has no such burden. SH, due to the ceasefire he signed had, what a lawyer would refer to as an "affirmative burden". iow, the burden was to provide proof to US of the destruction of his WMD's.
the best evidence in hindsight is :
whether or not (the bulk or entirety ) of his WMD's were destroyed, he did not provide clear evidence of same, and CONTINUALLY obstructed the inspection process.
protest to the invasion prior to same, and i read numerous examples from the left AND the right rarely even considered that he did NOT have WMD's. the argument was NOT that he did not have WMD's.
simply put, it appears he bluffed. he wanted to maintain the impression of power, and it is also clear, including evidence from tape recordings of HIS conversation (nixon redux) that he WANTED people, including his generals to THINK he had WMD's. That was the leverage/bargaining position he sought. he made the challenge. he lost the challenge. considering that all the biographies of SH that I am aware of make extensive note of SH's hero worship of Stalin, this is not surprising at all. partly an ego thing, frankly.
it is also clear that he was attempting to acquire WMD's (again, this evidence is clear ON AUDIO TAPE), and that he gave facilitation and aid to terrorists, primarily monetarily.
in retrospect, IF we knew then what we know NOW, we could have waited longer, and maybe even avoided invading at all. that's groovy. but it's irrelevant to the totalityof evidence gathered at the time of the invasion.
the bush doctrine was clear, that given the burden of proof being ON saddam (not on the world), and given the proactive stance towards regimes such as SH's, invasion was warranted
all groovy hindsight aside.
