we were told that, WITHOUT A DOUBT, Iraq Had Chemical weapon manufacturing capacity

we were told that, WITHOUT A DOUBT, Iraq Had Chemical weapon stockpiles

we were told that, WITHOUT A DOUBT, Iraq Had Bio-weapon manufacturing capacity

we were told that, WITHOUT A DOUBT, Iraq Had Bioweapon stockpiles

we were told that, WITHOUT A DOUBT, Iraq Had Nuke weapon research programs

The following is oversimplified, but still true:

It's worth remembering that at the end of the first Gulf War, there was solid and absolute proof that Iraq had, or was developing, every last one of the things you list. After the Gulf War, the U.N. and others did their damnedest to oversee the dismantling and destruction of as much of this as possible, including a nuclear weapons program they would have sworn the year before did not exist.

Many things were destroyed, but as the U.N. has said, the destruction was not completely documented. Then the inspectors left in 1998, and Saddam was left undisturbed for several years.

That is where we stand now. Sure, it would be good to have hard evidence sufficient to convince someone like you that he had developed more weapons or stockpiled old ones since the inspectors left.

Remember, before the war, most people thought he did have such weapons. Was every nation on Earth "cherry picking" their intelligence data? How many nations, anti-war groups, or other entities around the world stood up before the war and claimed that their intelligence showed that Saddam had NO weapons of mass destruction and that the U.N. inspectors should just go home? Were they all getting cooked data from the CIA? Even the Russians and Chinese?