According to this timeline I see no actual evidence of deception after July 1996. The question really is while there was some lack of cooperation when after this date did UNSCOM actually find something hidden, or that they were prevented from seeing. After this there was some restriction of access and some documents were burned, but what actual evidence is there that weapons existed after this date? As I recall Sadaam's relative that defected in 1995 said then that everything had been destroyed, so where are the finds after that that show the defector to be a liar?
This timeline also shows much of the resistence to inspections was because there was no agreed mechanism for lifting sanctions. The DoD briefings seem to be a mixture of discredited and disputed information.
Sooner or later the argument has to shift from the burden of proof and "better safe than sorry" to what was actual known to exist, and was subsquently found. There's little point in trying to make out trucks for filling balloons are biological factories for example. There seems to be no evidence at all beyond 1996, if there is I would like to see it. It appears that Desert Fox may even have hit nothing at all, because there may have been nothing left even then.
Knowing what we know now, there would appear to have been no reason to invade Iraq and fail to lift the sanctions. The helping the people argument is exposed as unlikely because now there is a genuine need to help in Liberia the same ones would claim that was their motivation in Iraq now don't want to help there. That's the problem with taking up an altruistic argument on Iraq, you can't put it down when a real opportunity to help comes along.