This is a compelling peice of evidence and certainly very interesting. I feel i should make the point, however, that when it looked as though no WMD's were going to be found i noticed a great number of people saying that who cares if we didnt find the WMD's, we are over there liberating Iraq. The WMD justification for the war was left by the wayside by many who quickly took up the argument of liberation.

Of the roughly 200 countries on this planet, I'd guess at least a hundred and fifty of them have weapons that can be nebulously referred to as 'WMD', and at least half of those countires are thugocracies. Is Bush gonna invade them all? I always got a laugh out of the "We must invade Iraq 'cause they have WMD" argument; it's the Middle East, fercrissakes, *everyone* has weapons!

Some CIA guy claiming to have found some bombs with some naughty chemicals does not justify the invasion of a sovereign state. Some reporter claiming to have some documents linking Bin Laden and Saddam does not justify the invasion of a sovereign state.

What we are finding is that there are some networks that are seeking to tap into ... this expertise, and try to use it against the United States

Yeah, right. That's pretty sleazy scaremongering, and when I see spin like this it makes me doubt the rest of the story.

Some CIA guy claiming to have found some bombs with some naughty chemicals does not justify the invasion of a sovereign state. Some reporter claiming to have some documents linking Bin Laden and Saddam does not justify the invasion of a sovereign state.

Considering how much outcry there is against the war solely because of the supposed lack of WMDs found, I think it does.

Considering how much outcry there is against the war solely because of the supposed lack of WMDs found, I think it does.

That doesn't make any sense. There is an outcry because the WMD's weren't found. That means we had NO reason to invade Iraq(i know there are other reason's, but im addressing the outcry you were speaking of), but even if they did have them, that doesnt give us the right to invade iraq like we did. I don't even care to get into the debate as to whether or not the war was justified, i just know that we didn't have the right to do what we did.

That doesn't make any sense. There is an outcry because the WMD's weren't found.

I keep hearing different claims. On one hand, WMDs were found, but on another WMDs weren't found because the WMDs that were found weren't "WMD" enough or some other excuse.

That means we had NO reason to invade Iraq(i know there are other reason's, but im addressing the outcry you were speaking of), but even if they did have them, that doesnt give us the right to invade iraq like we did. I don't even care to get into the debate as to whether or not the war was justified, i just know that we didn't have the right to do what we did.

Because there were no WMDs, we had no reason to invade Iraq, but even after WMDs are found, we have no reason to invide Iraq? I don't see how crying about the lack of WMDs was relevant, if the existence of WMDs was completely irrelevant to the justification of the war. Why did they bother unless they were looking for ammo and had no other reasons to be against the war?

It is pretty obvious what happened:

Saddam and Iraq did at one stage have WMDs, he used chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds in the 1980's. Technology for producing these weapons was knowingly supplied to Iraq by various countries including the US, Russia and France.....Many a dictator has found, you can get away with murder and the west will ignore or even support you if it is also in their own interest.

These weapons were used in the Iran/Iraq war with the knowledge and (at least tacit) support of the Reagan administration (refer to the famous picture of president Reagans special envoy Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam at this time when the CIA was reporting chemical weapons being used.) The US was, at this time funding Saddam.

When the US decided to go after Saddam post Sept 11 much more weight was given to unsubstantiated evidence given by Iraqi exiles (eager to gain power) on WMD than evidence to the contrary. Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Saadi UN liason always claimed that WMDs had been destroyed. This was compltely ignored.

Really the US heard only what they wanted to hear so they could go to war.

What's funny to me prior to 9/11 and the Iraq war in February 2001 both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice went on the record and stated that Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to the U.S. that we have blocked them access to weapons and that sanctions where preventing them from getting the funds to work with.  Now all of a sudden post 9/11 they pose a threat even though there still was no connection with any of the attacks...

Because there were no WMDs, we had no reason to invade Iraq, but even after WMDs are found, we have no reason to invide Iraq? I don't see how crying about the lack of WMDs was relevant, if the existence of WMDs was completely irrelevant to the justification of the war. Why did they bother unless they were looking for ammo and had no other reasons to be against the war?

Did you even read what i posted? I said that i knew that there were other "REASONS" why we went to Iraq, but none of them gave us the RIGHT to do so. "crying about the lack of WMD's" as you put it was relevant because thats why we were told we went over there. Having the right to do something and being justified in doing so are two completely different things.

These weapons were used in the Iran/Iraq war with the knowledge and (at least tacit) support of the Reagan administration (refer to the famous picture of president Reagans special envoy Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam at this time when the CIA was reporting chemical weapons being used.) The US was, at this time funding Saddam.

In the first World War, Japan was our ally, but they were our enemy in the second World War. Alliances change. Also, the enemy of our enemy is often our friend, and in this case, Iraq was the enemy of Iran, our enemy.

When the US decided to go after Saddam post Sept 11 much more weight was given to unsubstantiated evidence given by Iraqi exiles (eager to gain power) on WMD than evidence to the contrary. Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Saadi UN liason always claimed that WMDs had been destroyed. This was compltely ignored.

What evidence to the contrary? There were claims that the WMDs had been destroyed, but that's it. If North Korea said: "We destroyed our WMDs but have no evidence of us doing so and you can't check for yourselves," would we be wrong in being a bit skeptical?

Did you even read what i posted? I said that i knew that there were other "REASONS" why we went to Iraq, but none of them gave us the RIGHT to do so. "crying about the lack of WMD's" as you put it was relevant because thats why we were told we went over there. Having the right to do something and being justified in doing so are two completely different things.

Who grants us the right to go to war?

If we were attacked in some way by Iraq or Iraq was posing a direct threat to one of our allies, then we would have the right to go over.