[GretchenEE]

I don't think we're going to be hiring weapons inspectors as a prelude. I get the sense that Bush believes the years have come and gone for that. Rumsfeld made the case quite forcefully that our best intelligence on where the WMD's were stored in Iraq came not from weapons inspections, but from family members who defected, who were later slaughtered (God only knows what torture they endured first) by Saddam.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Rumsfeld made the case quite forcefully that our best intelligence on where the WMD's were stored in Iraq came not from weapons inspections, but from family members who defected, who were later slaughtered (God only knows what torture they endured first) by Saddam.

IMO, the whole weapons inspection program was a fiasco, a game of "Two-card Monty", wherein neophytes like Scott Ritter -- now a paid agent of Iraqi interests -- were totally bamboozled into thinking that they had "discovered" any significant elements of Saddam's WMD programs in the early 90's. It was all a sham. The inspectors inspected where Saddam permitted them to inspect. It was a child's game, and Saddam won and we lost, that's all. Why else would that butt kissing Ritter be putting up such a fight (aside from being paid by Iraqi interests)? It's because once the truth comes out, his credibility will be lower than that of an Arkansaw politician or aattorney.

Weapons inspection is a losing, PC/UN proposition, as VP Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld so ably pointed out this past week. Powell, well, what can one say? He was wrong in '91 and he is wrong today.