I'm no math professor but by my count you have listed two (2) issues.
1. did he have them
2. "were they a threat to us" in a sense which militates for an armed response from us
Now, issue 2. was ALREADY DECIDED a long time ago. October, if I recall correctly, when OUR CONGRESS voted to grant Bush War Powers. They made their vote, based on whatever they saw and didn't see at the time, and they voted. That's a done deal.
What I was talking about was "the issue" which, it seems, some people are getting their panties in a bind over: namely, was the "justification" for war (in front of the UN) wrong. But the only thing that justification required was for Saddam to be in violation of Resolution XYZ (1441, whatever). And, he was. If you don't want to use the "poison in the Euphrates" example let's just use the "drone found by Blix" example. That's enough.
Everybody aknowledges he had lots in the past and probably still had some.
Apparently, they don't "acknowledge" that, otherwise why is there this criticism for not finding them and thereby proving they were there?
We are not obligated or responsible for enforcing U.N. resolutions. Our defense is for defending us not the U.N.'s existence or effectiveness.
Apparently, they don't "acknowledge" that, otherwise why is there this criticism for not finding them and thereby proving they were there?
I shouldn't have said "everybody". I disagree with people arguing there are no WMD, because I think they will ultimately be proven wrong. I also disagree with people who think Saddam's WMD were a threat to us. As for the wimps in Congress who ceded war powers to president, I don't think that was done only using objective evaluations of the threat. Mostly it seems there was political pressure enhanced by several stories about WMD just before the vote. They turned out to be rubbish (e.g. aluminum tubes, buying uranium in Africa, etc), but they had the desired effect.