Funny, Chris, the UN inspectors were pretty clear that they didn't have any.

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So they continued to look for weapons they knew didn't exist? Was it just a scam for them to collect a paycheck?

Well, you want to be sure, don't you?  I mean, his own military were bragging about having them even after we destroyed them all.

Saddam was touted as being this big danger because, well, it's good for this country's psyche to have a big danger (yeah, right, just like it's good to give an anorexic a funhouse mirror for Christmas).  Clinton talked him up (and blewed up his country real good), Kennedy talked him up - they all did.  Boogeymen make for some great posturing.  NO ONE gets a free pass on the PR campaign that turned Saddam Hussein from the guy we loved for kicking Iran's ass (not really) in the 80s to the worst thing since Hitler in the 90s.  It's incredible how we fell for it.

But BUSH and co. are the ones who invaded.  Yes, the spinless democrats fell into step ("We can invade without authorization"  "Oh, FUCK DAT!  You sit right over there and wait until we give you your authorization" "Okay, *snicker*, you're the boss"), yes, the press smelled the ka-ching and beat the drums, and BIGGEST DAMN YES OF ALL, we KNOW it was a fuck-up and we are holding NO ONE accountable.  We deserve all this shit.  Unfortunately, most of the shit is overseas.  I'd pay twice as much for gas if the money would go to the people of Iraq.

No blood for oil?  How can you tell which is which?  They BOTH run our cars.

"So they continued to look for weapons they knew didn't exist? Was it just a scam for them to collect a paycheck?"

Their job was also to verify fully that Saddam had neither the raw material, the equipment, the facilities nor the expertise to operate or restart such a program. Saddam tried to maintain a desparate illusion that he still had such weapons in order to not appear weak to his many neighboring or domestic enemies, while denying it in a way that he knew his supporters could interpret as a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge".  This is why he kept stalling the weapons inspections and compartmentalized the information to keep others from realising that there were no stockpiles of such weapons.

This kind of posturing is par for the course in militaristic dictatorships and is even found in democratic societies.

The weapons inspectors did have the expertise to determine this, obviously enough to have a better grasp of what Saddam had or didn't have than the CIA.

Bush had support for coercing (threatening) Saddam into allowing the inspections to be finalized. This would effectively strip Saddam naked, showing him to be a toothless old lion, so to speak. It would also allow for the sanctions on Iraq to be lifted in order to allow for more import of medicines etc and put an end to the high mortality rate in Iraq, exacerbated by the blockades.  Saddam himself didn't suffer, as he smuggled oil out in sufficient quantities to support his own extravagant lifestyle.

But when Saddam caved, Bush still used his "mandate" to go in militarily. That is what most people objected to. It was unnecessary, failed in improving the situation (rather making it worse) and was accomplished with lies, strongarming and hateful polemic attacks on the people who disagreed with this reckless course of action.

Yet, we still get people criticisng France, the weapons inspectors and those who opposed the war as if they were the ones who were wrong.

That's one thing that mystifies me about Saddam - he risked his own country (and untimately his life) to keep up the lie that he had WMD in order to save face. I guess he was a madman after all!

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He kept waiting for Ashton to show up.

Well... also, Vinny, remember what kind of government he was running - a hard-core dictatorship that mustn't ever show weekness... because... (ready for the most depressing though of the last decade?) he was keeping the fanatical terrorists at bay.

Collective sigh, everyone?

Of course he was a bad man, and of course the world is better without him, but even the most hard-core supporter of the war has to see the irony in this whole debacle.

Hey, here's a fun news update - now I can't sit here, during a busy workweek and plow through thousands of pages... but some people can!  And here's what people are finding.

Newsweek says Hillary is up to shenanigans, and didn't really do much: http://www.newsweek.com/id/124271

Reuters says she did a lot!  But that includes backing terrible policies like NAFTA! http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080319/pl_nm/usa_politics_clint on_records_dc

AP?  They tone down the enthusiasm a bit: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080320/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_pape rs_glance_1;_ylt=AryPto5CGnEHXmRznk0utMEb.3QA

etc and so on.

Bottom line?  I stand unwavering in my support of Obama and my disgust with Hillary.

I saw this on television tonight. I was amazed.. not that Cheney would say such things, but that we continue to be told that our opinions to not matter, and we take it. Sad.

"On the security front, I think there's a general consensus that we've made major progress, that the surge has worked. That's been a major success," Cheney told ABC News' Martha Raddatz.