Have you read the documents they've gathered? Have you met with the Iraqi scientists? Have you any firsthand information about the WMD search? Odds are, the answer to all 4 of those questions is no. In other words, you (and I for that matter) know no more than what has been reported. To put it simply, you, I, and Don don't know squat.

For David Kay, the answer to all four of those questions is a yes. He has been out in the field with the investigators. He has read the documents. He has met with the Iraqi scientists, and he does have firsthand experience with the search.

Now, whose word do you think I'm going to put faith in, someone like Kay who knows exactly what is going on or you and Don? You're stating an opinion as if it were a proven fact. Sorry, but it has not been even remotely proven one way or the other.

Via InstaPundit, here an exerpt from a Financial Times op-ed (subscription only):

The first United Nations inspection unit, Unscom, operated in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. Its mission was to destroy weapons that, it was assumed, would be handed over by a defeated and co-operative regime. The reality was rather different.

With an area twice that of Britain, Iraq could easily withhold information from a few hundred inspectors. Through infiltration, bugging and physical threats, it systematically obstructed the UN's efforts. . . .

The nuclear weapons Iraq was aiming to produce depend on highly enriched uranium, which may still be available on the black market. Given the documentation from previous work, and the know-how in scientists' heads, the time required to assemble a crude bomb would then be a matter of months.

If the US had yielded to UN pressure to give Unmovic more time, it is unlikely the inspectors would have found significant WMD. The troop concentrations around Iraq would have been dispersed and the pressure on Mr Hussein to co-operate would have diminished accordingly. Ultimately economic sanctions would have been lifted - and a rehabilitated Mr Hussein could have resumed his quest for WMD.

That would have been disastrous for global security. The possibility of links to terrorist groups was one of the weightiest motives for war. Regimes in possession of clandestine WMD must be tempted to use them by proxy, since countermeasures cannot easily be directed against anonymous assailants.

What matters is not whether Iraq's WMD can be tracked down but whether the production of such weapons has been inhibited for the foreseeable future. That required the overthrow of the regime. Preventive wars are not a desirable response to the threat of nuclear proliferation; far better - though very difficult - would be to strengthen the present ineffective mechanisms for preventing proliferation without unacceptably infringing sovereignty. In the meantime the military option may be unavoidable.

Curt Mileikowsky is former head of Asea's nuclear power division. Evelyn Sokolowski is former head of the joint analysis group for Sweden's nuclear utilities