I don't think you're Bowser...although some of the positions are the same, you tend to come to the table with your arms full of charts, links, and glossy photos with circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back of each one. Bowser's not normally known for doing that kind of homework. Good job! (Don't forget to bookmark it for later reference!)

*If* there are Al-Queda operating in Iraq, they are operating out of the Kurdish area

You make a good case for this, but keep in mind that Al-Qaeda (how the hell DO you spell that?) doesn't hold a world monopoly on the terrorism market, and a direct link between Iraq and 9-11 is not necessary to show that Saddam is a supporter of terrorism.

Saddam is not a threat to his neighbors, militarily.

Note that your link is dated 1996. Saddam is on record as having attacked two neighboring nations, with the intent to take them over. There is no reason to believe that without our military hanging over his head that he wouldn't do it again. Keeping our military in the Middle East, even in token numbers, is politically dangerous. There is evidence that Osama bin Laden's main beef against America was our stationing troops in Saudi Arabia to keep Saddam at bay.

And if Saddam is left alone, what keeps North Korea from sneaking long range missiles to Iraq like they've been sneaking SCUDS?

Not sure what the hell military spending has to do with aggressiveness. A lot of punk nations with little money have caused a lot of trouble. How much cash did the WTC hijackers lay out?

Might be fun to play the "foreign aid game" and figure it by percentage of GDP. Although the numbers for Iraq are a bit twitchy, I get 2.2 percent of GDP for them, as opposed to 3.2 percent for us. Pretty close! ;)

Saddam is deterred, contained and in a box and will not use WMD unless attacked - the state of the last 12 years! The head of the CIA agrees....

The head of the CIA agrees that Saddam will probably not attack the U.S. overtly with weapons of mass destruction. I don't think anyone has ever been concerned about Saddam mounting an attack on the U.S. flying the flag of Iraq. We've been concerned about him sneaking nasty crap to some fly-ridden psychos who will do the dirty work for him. Deterrence implies we can fix the blame, or that the instigator isn't nuts. I didn't notice Afghanistan and the Taliban worrying about our reaction to an attack on New York City, at least not enough to be "deterred."

This CIA letter is extensively used by anti-war groups. Somehow overlooked are phrases like this:

...In the above dialogue, the witness's qualifications -- "in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now" -- were intended to underscore that the likelihood of Saddam using W.M.D. for blackmail, deterrence, or otherwise grows as his arsenal builds.

The several bullets at the bottom tying Iraq to Al-Qaeda and other terrorists also seem to escape their notice. Oops.

The facts don't support [the clear existence of a covert nuclear program.]

As far as hard evidence goes of a current nuclear development program, I would have to agree. As far as Hamza goes, I would concede that any evidence that comes from a single source has to be taken with a grain of salt. I will admit that I have not read Hamza's book, as I did not consider it a critical data point. You will admit that his detractor in your link has an axe or two to grind as well.

However, there is hard evidence that Saddam has a record of persistent pursuit of nuclear weapons in the past, with his first efforts squashed by an Israeli bomb run, and his second efforts squashed by the first Gulf War and its followup disarmament efforts. It is also on record that after the Gulf War, inspectors were shocked at how much Saddam had managed to hide from them before the war.

I see no reason to believe that Saddam would not, given even the slightest opportunity, go after nuclear warheads again.

But that's neither here nor there. I don't think anyone is relying on the "hidden nuclear weapon program" as a major justification of the war.

Other weapons of mass destruction, distributed to terrorists, are sufficiently dangerous. And if North Korea (definitely next on the agenda, although I hope it never gets to the military point) starts cranking out warheads, or some surplus ones dribble out of Russia, who do you think is sitting on loads of oil money and will be among first in line to buy one?

Also remember that it is much easier to build warheads--and conceal such building--if one can obtain the fissionables elsewhere, instead of having to distill them on your own.

Good post...hope I did it a little justice. Remember, we (the general public) may not actually be in possession of all the facts. As I wrote a while ago, at some point I guess it boils down to who you trust.

My local paper, natch, is on your side. You might find this editorial interesting. I think it is fairly accurate, although I don't believe ALL of these things have to go right to make the war a success.