Let's looks at Steve's "facts":
The CIA, the United Nations, UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, British, French, and German intelligence all thought Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.They all believed based only on a lack of accounting from 1991 and 1998 inspections. They had no other firm "proof" Iraq had any additional weapons. All they were doing was making an accounting assumption.
In the past year Democrats such as Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman thought Saddam had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.Yes, based on the same reasons as above, but one small problems, none of these guys order a full scale invasion of Iraq based on an accounting assumption. Red herrings are not going to wash. Bush made the choice to go to war. Clinton did not choose it, nor did anyone else. If Bush can't take the
Members of Saddam's elite Republican Guard believed Iraq had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.This is based on what evidence? I assume you mean the radio traffic Powel presented to the UN? This is enough to go to war over?
Saddam believed he had more weapons of mass destruction then he really had. Iraqi scientists went to Saddam with "fanciful plans" for weapons programs, received large amounts of money, then used it in corrupt money-raising schemes.This is not a fact. This is speculation. It makes logical sense, but calling it a fact is incorrect. It is one reason why there were no WMD found. How does this justify going to war? Just because we might have thought Saddam thought he had WMD was reason to think he was a threat to the USA?
"The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs."- KaySo Saddam would have fallen soon and continuing the UN inspections would have quelled the threat.
Due to Saddam's failure to provide any reasonable control over his regime, Iraq was potentially even more dangerous then originally suspected.If there were no WMD, they was no additional danger. The only threat was a civil war. Do we seek to stop all civil wars around the world?
"We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq. And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country - and no central control." - KayWhat terrorists are these? Iranian terrorists helping the Palestinians? They are not Al Queda. Linking all Muslim terrorists into one big group is not only a political ploy, it is rather unjust to blame Arafat for 9/11.
Iraq did make an effort to restart its nuclear weapons programs in 2000 and 2001.What evidence is there for this? Niger? That was false. This has been refuted. The IAOC refuted this. There have been no significant WMD programs operating since the mid-1990s.
Kevin Durm at Calpundit pointed out the big blame the CIA talking point getting high play in GOP circles. That is just not going to wash. The DOD's Office of Special Plans is where Bush supports need to be looking if they want to learn who misled or "sexed up" the WMD intelligence. Bush is not clean on this. He wanted to hit Iraq, and was lead there by people like Doug Feith who ran the OSP.
