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The obvious question is if we know where they are why haven't we done anything to confiscate them? I thought that was the whole point of the invasion.

Sadly, this is a widespread belief, that the "whole point" of the invasion was to "confiscate" some objects (WMDs). I wish people would give it just a moment's thought before they say things like this, because they'd realize how silly that sounds.

You don't invade another country in order to "confiscate" some items, and that was not the "whole point" of the invasion at all.

The whole point of the invasion was to dethrone the government of Saddam Hussein. It was to smash up the power of Hussein and his Baathists so that they no longer ruled that territory. That was the whole point of the invasion, and we succeeded.

Now, were "WMDs" in the mix? Of course: "WMDs" were a reason we wanted to dethrone Saddam Hussein. He had demonstrated a willingness to use them and ambitions to create more. Therefore, that helped convince us of the necessity to dethrone him. (Which was the purpose of the war.)

What about all those "WMDs" arguments we made before the UN? Didn't that make it seem like our goal was to "confiscate" WMDs? Well, no. The reason we were making those arguments was that among other things his ongoing WMD ambition put him in technical violation of some UN resolutions; so "WMDs" were also a reason we argued before the UNSC that they should join us in our war (this argument failed, alas). They were, in a sense, "charges" we tried to bring him up on in front of the UNSC.

But "confiscating" them was NOT "the reason" we invaded. We invaded to depose Saddam Hussein, not to "confiscate" some things.

I doubt there has been any war fought anywhere in recent centuries which one nation launched against another nation solely for the purpose of "confiscating" some objects. It even sounds silly to me.

p.s. Another way to see that my way of looking at things is correct - with my way of looking at things, everyone's actions make sense. With your way of looking at things, everyone's actions make no sense, and you start drawing silly conclusions like we need to "lay waste to" Syria and Lebanon. That's a silly conclusion because it proceeds from a flawed premise (that the "whole point" was to "confiscate" some WMDs). The whole point was to unseat Saddam Hussein's government.

re :Sadly, this is a widespread belief, that the "whole point" of the invasion was to "confiscate" some objects (WMDs). I wish people would give it just a moment's thought before they say things like this, because they'd realize how silly that sounds.

Sorry but I remember the build up to war as well.

And the main point was to go in and find and destroy any WMD and WMC.

It was stated that he had a number of systems. The point was also raised that while he may not use them he may hand them over to a terrorist organistion to use.

A point I challenged on FR at the time and was roundly flamed

The point is do they exist and if they do where are they and even more worrying who now controls them.

"WMDs" were a reason we wanted to dethrone Saddam Hussein."
Fair enough. So if the Syrians and Lebanese have Saddam's WMDs now, shouldn't we want to dethrone them as well? I doubt that Bush would have had enough support to go to war if his argument was solely to "smash up the power of Hussein and his Baathists". I think you are rewriting history to justify a claim that Bush succeeded. So far he has not succeeded in this war, IMHO.