The point is that you would know none of this at all if Saddam were still in power and the U.N. was still doing inspections.

That's nonsense, Tom. The inspectors said Iraq had no WMD, and they were right.

Furthermore, as I have repeatedly pointed out, there was reliable information in the public realm negating the wild claims of the dangers posed by Iraq. The yellowcake, aluminum tubes, bearings, drones, mobile weapons and all the rest of the overblown nonsense peddled by Pres. Bush and his fellow chickenhawks were not credible at all for anyone who bothered to read beyond the lurid headlines and do just a little digging.

If a criminal is shot by the police for holding a gun to a hostage, a criminal that has taken hostages and shot them dead in the past, it is completely irrelevant if the gun is later found to have been unloaded.

Neither were there bullets, nor was there a gun. Iraq's was an emasculated military force.

Iraq was no threat to the United States of America; nor was it a threat to our allies, such as they are, in that region.

The bottom line is that Pres. Bush and his cronies lied about the threat posed by Iraq in order to scare the American public into supporting an invasion.

S