Excellent points gentlemen.
I would also add that significant fuel for our desire to "disarm" Iraq came from the Iraqi government. The weapons declaration to the U.N. in December 2002 did not include a great deal of material & equipment that was documented by the Iraqi government in their declaration to the U.N. from 1998.
When pressed by the U.N. inspection teams & the U.S. to produce documentation of the disposition of these materials & equipment not accounted for, the Iraqi goverment stonewalled, & ultimately became hostile toward the inspection teams & the U.S.
Iraq gave the WORLD evidence of the WMDs. Blame Irqi intelligence.
It's also quite amusing how the media have totally forgotten all of these facts in their daily reporting. There used to be info on this burried deep in the CBSnews website, but I haven't checked to see if it's still available.
The Saudi connection is an interesting debate. I've been a supporter of the administration, but there seems to be evidence to support a bit of digging into the Saudis & their support of various groups. To this day I am uncertain about their general attitude toward the west. My only guess as to why they have been summarily excluded from scrutiny since before the Reagan administration, is they simply provide the U.S. with a large enough quatity of oil that they could potentially harm the U.S. economy.
