Fear

[ATFFL]

1- Our intel agreed with everybody elses, including the UN.  Everyone believed Saddam had large amounts of bio-chem weapons somewhere.

2- There were low level organizational ties, but no collaborative ties.

3- Actually, Saddam was seeking components for nuclear weapons.  He lacked teh ability to do anything with them, though it is not clear he knew that.

[ATFFL]

1. HUH.  Why do you think the UN inspectors (and the whole world) wanted to keep investigating the country for weapons before launching an attack.  

2.  The US govenment had stronger orginzation ties with Al Queda than the Iraq government, heck we set up shop and trained them.  Sadam was no ally to Al Queda because they were a threat to his power.

3.  He was seeking.  He was a nut and he would have never been able to do it with sanctions in place.

1- If they thought they didn't have them why inspect?  They believed they were there and they believed Saddam was playing games with the inspectors.    If they thought nothing was there why spend the money on inspectors?  Just declare he is WMD free.

2- The US ties you mention were long since severed.  The Iraqi ties were current and on going.  They provided trianing and a safe haven.

3- He did quite a good job with sanctions in place, actually.

[ATFFL]

1. They suspected that he might have weopons and so they were  investigating to make sure he didn't.  They didn't want to invade a country's sovreignty on a mistake and had the inspections been allowed to continue either their suspecians would have been verified and the world united would have removed Sadam or they would have found, as was the case, that they didn't have weopons and they would have continued making sure that Sadam couldn't get those weopons (which he wasn't able to get under sanctions and the world could encourage the people to take control of their country so that the people can develop their own sense of national pride.  You should not go on a costly, unpredictiable, and dangerous  line of war on very vague and very wrong suspicians.

2.  The Iraqi ties were minor and their were stronger ties to Al Queda with organizations in the US than their were with Organizations or government in Iraq before the invasion.  You can not deny that Al Queda has a stronger presence in Iraq after the invasion than before.

3.  Hey he was a tyrant.  He was terrible.  We should have done more to make sure the Iraqi people were fed during the Santions.  Hell we should have helped the Shiite's who rose up and tried to take Saddam out when the time was right in the early 90s.  During the sanctions however Saddam was not able to make WMDs because the proof is in the pudding.  No weopons, no capability.

1- They were not suspicions, every nation with an intel report on Iraq said he had them, not that he might, but we're not sure.  Show me one nation that said he did not have them.

The inspectors did find violations of the sanctions, by the way.

2- Yes, there were and probably still are ties to organizations inside the US.  Many of them have been found and shut down.

Also, part of the putpose of the invasion was to bring more Al Queda members out into the open in Iraq rather than to other US interests where US civilians are more likely to be threatened.

3- You are trying to change the point.  He was seeking nuclear materials.  This is a verified fact now.

Also, the US is fully capable of producing weaponized small pox yet it is not.  Just because someone does not do something does not mean they cannot.