Tom:

First off, Thanks for the links.

"I tend to pay attention to sources that actually have names."

Yes, I do too- if you recall Salman Pax boils down to two names, and AAI/Saddam boils down to one.

"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."

Well, the thing is you have to rememeber that the entire argument for war was presented as a Triad:
1) Fact: That Saddam had WMD
2) Fact: Saddam is cultivating and does have toes to terrorist groups, namely Al-Qaeda
3) Resolved: While Saddam has not used WMD himself in the past 10 years, 1+2 indicate that not only is Saddam armed, he is not deturred and he presents a clear and present danger to the US, her allies and her international interests.

This is the argument Rumsfeld and Bush made domestically, and Powell and Blair made internationally.

The absence of (2) really castrates this argument, entirely in fact. This was apparent BEFORE the war (recall our very loud arguments on that topic?). Furthermore That there is no evidence for the existence, or even RECENT existence of (1) places the whole Administration and their claims of sure and certain knowledge as HIGHLY suspect.

"And how many of these anonymous "ex-CIA types" are perhaps the same people every time? Maybe the ones with political axes to grind?"

Yes, but recall, my main points of contention are
1) the linkage of the two claimants
2) AND the fact that they are INC folks,
3) AND the fact that we have RECORDS of that site being set up in the 80's as counter-terrorist training.

"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. "

Tom, watch out there... Houssein Kamel was where we GOT the "fact" that there were "liters of anthrax", " Tonnes of nerve agent" and etc... Kamel was OUR guy, and his testimony was oft-sited in the build up to this war (Powell at the UN, for example). To find that Kamel ALSO said stuff that directly contradicted the Administration was HUGE!

If my main witness contradicts himself on the stand, what does thta do to my case?

Davin L.