I am in agreement with you about what the diplomatic delays cost us in finding out the truth about the weapons. Our soldiers were on hold off shore while France threatened Turkey if they helped us they would never enter the EU, equipment on the ships was being damaged and officers were saying you cannot leave the troops in limbo for long because it effects battle readiness, and it was costing the U.S. millions while the delays dragged on.
My theory is Iraq and its allies at the U.N. had a pretty smart plan to make sure Blix never found anything and that their kickbacks would keep coming from the oil for food program. All they needed was time to move things into Syria and the Saddam apologists did an admirable job of throwing up time consuming roadblocks and signing a resolution they never intended to enforce.
Why wouldn't Saddam just let inspectors in and be totally open if he really didn't have any stockpiles left? He would have kept his country, sanctions would have been lifted, and the thugs that admired him would just think he was super smart to fool everyone. The caravan that went into Syria prior to the war has never been explained that I know of and I for one do not feel confident that biological and/or chemical weapons aren't being hidden in Syria or elsewhere until they can be used against the U.S. or its allies. It wouldn't need to be large stockpiles--'a little dab will do ya' when it comes to many of the weapons like that.
It would have been in keeping with Saddam's character to dispose of every man that took the weapons out of the country once they were hidden safely. I just don't buy every intelligence agency we know of felt there were some weapons there--even Middle Eastern ones which would have had much better access than we did, but they were all mistaken. Maybe I will change my mind later, but for now that's how I see it.