Did Bush manipulate Iraq data?

[Chaerophon]

I don't think that he was making the claim in "item three" that you think that he is. Iraq signed the NPT treaty and, as far as I know, they adhered to it by not producing nuclear weapons. Chemical and Biological weapons are in no way "illegal" in that sense. The United States has used chemical weapons in the past. Apples to apples, please.

gassed unarmed citizens of his own country.

While he did, indeed, gas unarmed citizens, it's not as far from what Americans have done in the past as what you would have us believe. The Kurds were gassed in order to suppress an uprising (granted, it was certainly a justified insurgence). However, just as the North Vietnamese of the 1960's were deemed to represent a threat to the "American way of life", the Kurds certainly represented a threat to Iraqi sovereignty (be there opposition justified or not). Ever heard of Agent Orange?? I know, I know, "it's an herbicide". Say what you want, it was chemical warfare. The war in Vietnam was essentially conducted to suppress a communist uprising against a democratic nation. Furthermore, Americans supplied the Iraqis with chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war. America is certainly not clean in this regard. Neither is Israel, nor are several other notables.

And with regard to your item 4, I can report that since 9/11 large sections of the region known as North America are on fire and loathsome of the mid-east, and is willing to repeat Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. indefinitely if that is the only way to strike back.

Okay, the shade of your neck is showing. Grow up and consider that those are real people over there, most of whom have no real idea of a.) what is going on in the world and b.) why those who hate America feel the way that they do. Of course, your reasons for hating them seem equally justified. Unfortunately, BS like that gives them a damn fine reason to feel the way that they do, while your ideas are based more on some tenuous notion of "freedom".