Originally Posted by Eric5273

Read the summary and conclusions of both reports. Even they say that nothing they found is any evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime was stockpiling or producing WMDs in violation of UN resolutions.

Are you going to take the position that finding any chemical or biological weapons inside of a country means that the government of that country is responsible and therefore guilty of violating international law?

We know that Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs prior to 1991. When you have large numbers of people working on such programs, you are bound to have some security breaches and you are also bound to have mistakes in your records. We found this out with regard to the Anthrax attacks in October 2001, as the investigators have confirmed the anthrax samples came from Ford Detrick. Does that mean that our government is in violation of international law and is stockpiling or producing anthrax? It could mean that. But without any evidence of that, it simply means that at some point in time long before we destroyed our stockpiles of anthrax, some could have been stolen -- a much more likely possibility.

The conclusion that was reached with regard to Iraq is that those in charge of these WMD programs reported larger production numbers than what was actually being produced, perhaps in order to satisfy a ruthless government. They have found recordings of various cabinet meetings during the 1990s where Saddam and his advisors discuss that they have no more WMDs and they do not know what to do to satisfy the UN and get the sanctions removed.

It is quite obvious that while dangerous, these small and isolated amounts of weapons that have been found had nothing to do with the Iraqi government, and the overthrow of that government has done nothing to lessen the risk of those samples finding their way in to the hands of extremists. If anything, there are far more extremists running around Iraq now than before 2003.