"Unfortunately, as I have documented MANY times, the Clinton administration, the United Nations, most members of Congress, and other nations (besides England) also believed before the war that it was likely Saddam had done all these things."

To which my reply is the same. Independent points, mind you:

1) Regardless, he is the one who pulled the trigger- its his responsibility.
2) What was true in 1998 may not be true in 5 years later, and anyone who wages a war off of 1998 material should be judged a fool, and anyone who claims without equivocation that what was true in 1998 is true in 2003 should be held as a liar.

"While the U.N. and many nations were adamantly opposed to military action to disarm Saddam, not one officially stood up and stated that Saddam did not need disarming and that everyone should just forget the whole thing."

To which my reply is the same. Independent points, again:

1) Most countries did not make unequivocal claims (including France/Chiraq, recall- we have been through that and I even delivered to you the original interview) that Iraq had WMD, only that it was likely, and that Saddam certainly was obstructing the discovery of the truth of the matter. Most countries, in short, climed what I think was knowable at that time- that it was not determined if Saddam had WMD or not.

2) The rest of the world was not making a case for war. Mommy-They-Did-It-Too is not an excuse.

"Hans Blix never once stated that inspections were worthless and should be called off because obviously nothing was there."

Indeed, and to the contrary- he (and el-baradei) said the Inspections were making progress and should be given more time. He also said before the war (and el-baradei) that there was so-far no evidence of ongoing WMD programs.

"one then has to accept the logical premise under these circumstances that much of the rest of the world was also either lying or stupid. "

Not at all. I no more have to accept this then any random conclusion you draw from my remarks (that bush either lied or was incompetent) and your own argument (that EVERYONE ELSE believed what bush believed). Its called a slippery slope.

Tell you what. You disagree with what I hve to say, YOU have to believe the sky is green with yellow stripes!! NO?? HA! GOTCHA (does that work for you? Doesn't work for me.).

"I have stated that a more likely proposition is that the weapons and links are just damn hard to find, either hidden or disassembled into benign uses"

Again, I say this is Yeti Reasoning.

"but your counterposition that there was never anything there to find has not been established as fact either. "

which, as an intelligent sort of fellow, you know will be impossible as no negative can ever be proved. UFOs may exist, Yetis might walk the earth, and WMD might yet be buried under Iraq. I ain't holding my breath.

Davin L.