TIME on WMD. No bias here, folks...
From <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,455767,00.html"Time Magazine:
How do take your country to war when it doesn't really want to go? You could subcontract with another nation, fight on the sly and hope no one notices. But if you need a lot of troops to prevail and you would like to remind everyone in the neighborhood who's boss anyway, then what you need most is a good reason — something to stir up the folks back home.
And of course, the ever-popular nameless officials.
Much is made of the Pentagon making "worst case" interpretations, and basing actions on them. Results: Iraq shut down as a threat at the cost of a couple hundred allies and a few thousand Iraqis. Worth it or not? This end of the stick is easy to see. What about the other scenario?
What if the Pentagon had erred in the other direction? Assumed no threat when there was one? What are the results then?