I found a simple method for a first run at the paper.

I found four tables in the document, which distill most of the document's conclusions: Tables 3, 4, 5, and 6. Go ahead and print them out. I have them loaded at a graphic file, but hesitate to publish it for copyright reasons.

They summarize the different analyses of Iraq's capabilities in the areas of nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile weapons.

The analyses of five groups or agencies are considered: Pre-2002 intelligence, the October 2002 NIE assessment, U.N. findings from 2002-2003, Administration statements, and evidence since March, 2003.

I won't even attempt to argue with any of the conclusions in the tables, although a few have gaping holes in them, and the dead certainty of the paper that Saddam had never and would never deal with terrorists or engage in terrorism does not stand up very well, either.

Given the information in these tables, could one make a legitimate case for invading Iraq? Or could one definitely conclude there was no reason?

To make it more fun, let's discard all the Administration statements, which the Left believes to be either lies, or stupid errors. We will also discard the NIE assessment, which the Left believes to be cooked information, or forced statements under adminstration pressure. Toss out all the pro-war bias.

Now, we also discard the evidence since March, 2003, since obviously no one had access to that evidence, and no one could have had access to it unless we invaded the country. Kind of a circular argument otherwise, isn't it?

We are left with two categories: Pre-2002 intelligence assessments, and U.N. findings. Let's take a very quick look at the analyses:

Nuclear: Probably not. Probably not. Maybe. No. No. No.

Chemical weapons: Maybe. Not sure. Not sure. Probably not.

Biological weapons: Not sure. Not sure. Yes. Not sure. No comment. Not sure.

Missile and delivery systems: Probably. Probably not. Maybe. Not sure. Maybe. Maybe, but...

Wow. The certainty is overwhelming about whether Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or not. And this is with the authors tilting every conclusion against Bush.

Sure doesn't sound like such a slam dunk any more for those who had to decide based on what we knew in the winter of 2003, does it?

Bush has already established that he had to act on limited information, but that the consequences of a wrong decision would be as bad or worse than the consequences of a war. This paper doesn't really add anything new to the discussion, other than the fact that hindsight is 20-20.