The original story on Salman Pak appeared here. Granted, it's an old story, and some of it is now in doubt, like the Atta meeting in Czechoslovakia. A lot of this, I think, was sourced from Frontline's detailed discussion of the whole issue here. Again, this is also somewhat dated.

(For a PBS source, I have found Frontline to be quite balanced. An article they did on nuclear power impressed the hell out of me.)

But given what they knew at the time, it was hard to come to any other conclusions. While the Left is talking like it was obvious that there were never WMD in Iraq, if you remember, damn few people said that before the war. The U.N. did not say they believed Saddam had no weapons. The Democrats did not say they believed Saddam had no weapons. They pushed alternatives other than war to disarm Saddam, but nobody was saying he did not need disarming.

BTW, a story you have linked to as refutation is here:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

I tend to pay attention to sources that actually have names. The cascades of unnamed sources in these stories disturbs me. Given the recent revelations that a lot of media folks are pulling facts and events out of their asses, I begin to wonder. And how many of these anonymous "ex-CIA types" are perhaps the same people every time? Maybe the ones with political axes to grind?

While there are certainly inconsistencies in the Bush take on WMD and terrorism, there are inconsistencies in the "no WMD or terrorism" views too.

For example, defectors' accounts of WMD, terrorist links, and other things supporting Bush's position are dismissed out of hand by Bush's opponents as being unreliable and suspect.

Yet, when an account is found where the late General Kamal states that the WMD were destroyed years ago, suddenly this particular defector is speaking the gospel. The anti-war types tend to cherry-pick intelligence sources too.