A pattern of behavior COUNTS for something!

This is like saying: "Given a pile of household/farm chemicals, the appropriate knowhow and the appropriate will, this janitor/farmer could make a terror weapon. Therefore he is guilty of doing so. Therefore we should execute him."

Had that same farmer previously been proven to have built a bomb from farm chemicals, then the same evidence would be seen in an entirely different light. Saddam HAD been developing drones for weapons use a few years back.

Do you think the Iraqis are that supremely competent as to have executed in short order, simultaneously, and with no failures a campaign to completely remove and hide not only all WMD and terrorists, but every shred of their evidence.

Saddam had MONTHS to make ready for what the dimmest idiot would have seen was an almost inevitable invasion, and long years of practice pulling the wool over the eyes of inspectors. Concealing or rendering harmless any evidence would not have been difficult. Particularly in the case of newer facilities that had yet to be used for weapons production, a surprisingly simple answer to why WMD traces were not found on much of the equipment. This could easily be the case with the trailers.

And did you really think the terrorists were going to sit in the middle of the road waiting for the Marines? Hiding a terrorist is the easiest thing in the world to do. Poof! He's a civilian.

As for the State Department dispute with the CIA on the trailers, their conclusions (the ones they released) don't stand up very well either, especially the theory that these things were for refueling missiles, something I know a little bit about. I don't have access to details of the State Department's reasoning other than this.