[dalmations202]

Originally Posted by purplefrog

I agree there were other reasons. And I don't believe the intelligence community is that inept. Everyone believed WMDs existed going back to the Clinton administration. I believe they existed at one point in time.

They didn't just believe they existed. They knew they did because Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds right after we left the first time.

You suggest maybe we actually found them but for some reason refuse to release that information (at least I think that's what you're saying).

Not exactly. I said we possibly knew about them, and where they were at the time.

It seems to me that since the inspectors did not find WMDs, and then we reported not finding them, then they were not in fact in Iraq after the invasion.

The inspectors were locked out for many months, and when they were given access -- it was only limited access. They were never given free reign.

Maybe Saddam feared someone would use them on him and his family so he destroyed them. And maybe he didn't document the disposal of the WMDs because he wanted to create an illusion of their existence. Sorta like the people that put signs outside their homes that read "Home Security System" when in fact they don't own one, the illusion serves a deterrent.

Why would he destroy a valuable commodity?

Or maybe he shipped them out of the country just prior to the beginning of the war. Who knows...

Who does know?

But the bottom line for me is that the inspectors could not find WMDs and we started the war anyway. Why? Because the administration decided we were going to invade Iraq shortly after 9/11 (actually its a fact that many Bush advisors had this idea back in the late 1990s). Regardless of it being a good or a bad idea the decision was made and there was no reason to give the false pretense that the UN inspectors were going to decide anything. It was a bad strategy from the beginning and they lost credibility. This credibility gap ended up hindering so much of what they tried to accomplish because the public perception turned negative and continued in a downward spiral for the remainder of the Bush presidency.

Agreed, perception did turn negative -- fairly or unfairly.

There are more questions though that need to be asked and answered though, and most will not even be asked for another 30 years at least.