The Individual Vs. The State, An Unusual Case

[kandrathe]

This is a serious misrepresentation of the position of Hans Blix and the UN inspection team. While they put public pressure on the Iraqi government many times to allow them greater access, and mentioned the various things that still needed to be accounted for to have a full inventory (and therefore, to definitively rule out that they had kept any.) The Iraqis position was that they'd destroyed it all, and that there were poor or nonexistent records. This seems plausible for a number of reasons. The Iraqis did not want to be invaded, so they did what they were asked, but they also did not want to be publicly seen as bowing to international pressure. The country was unstable and Saddam Hussein was losing his mind.

The inspectors never found anything, and neither did the coalition forces. Both groups have said so. What, then, does that say about the presence of WMD?

What the UNSCOM 1990's and UNMVIC 2003 teams had were extensive manifests of pre-cursor materials, that may have been used for chemical and biological weapons. What the UN team wanted to see were either the items (used, or unused), or documentation of their use or destruction. Disarming Iraq - Excerpt.

From the US perspective, the UN actions were political cover to justify military action. I think the decision to go to war with Iraq was made well before GWB became the President -- It was clearly stated in the PNAC letter to Pres. Bill Clinton in 1998. (signed by many of the future War dept. in the Bush administration).

But, you also have contradictory information they did find, like this finding of chemical/biological warfare preparedness. Which would hardly be necessary without a reason to fear the use of such weapons. By whom? The only nation that had used them in the region (against their own population) was Iraq.