Saddam refused to cooperate with inspections.

Yes, but he began to comply once his back was to the wall.

That is how he violated the terms of his "parole".

Yes, and then he began to comply, so we hit him.

That is sufficient.

Any reason is sufficient when one wants a fight. We have now seen quite a sequence of sufficient reasons.

Please explain how you can blindly assume he was indeed innocent by explaining why you think he did that if he was not trying to maintain WMD or a at least a program on life support that could be easily resurrected once sections were lifted.

I will not explain how I can blindly assume anything. I'm not the one trying to defend a quasi-legal action using legal language.

Behaving in a suspicious fashion is reason to issue a warrant or conduct a search, but innocence is the presumption. The purported reason (not now, of course, but at the time) for invading Iraq was Saddam's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. As the inspectors were allowed back in, and were finding nothing, the absence of evidence was used, perversely, to claim that there had to be evidence concealed. Usually, the absence of a substance means that the substance is not there. Many nations were unimpressed by this line of reasoning at the time; as it has turned out up to this point, that is because this line of reasoning is unimpressive.

Why do I think that Saddam would "violate his parole" if he were technically innocent of the specific accusation? (Oh, btw, wishing to start something later is not the same as actually having done something. Future plans are not prosecutable unless one can show conspiracy. With unforged documents.) Because he didn't get where he was by his charm and diplomatic skill. He got there by being the baddest bully in the barracks. Cave to the Americans? That would be a show of weakness. Let him show weakness and his own fellow bullies, his elite guards, would smell a power vacuum. Many a tyrant has been overthrown by a palace coup. Why would he not defy the US and the UN if there were no external threat? As soon as there was a threat, he towed the line. But that wasn't good enough, because what we wanted was a fight.

Regards--
Mary Anne