[AntiGuv]

IMO, your expectation that the bulk of Saddam's weaponry should be easy to locate has caused you to over-generalize from the available information.

You may well prove correct in that view. I think my main point of disagreement with others rests on the basis that I do think this evidence should prove easy to locate. At least, that is, easy to locate now that we've occupied Iraq & removed the Ba'athist regime. If I am eventually proven wrong on that particular point, then it's conceivable I will be proven comprehensively wrong in my conclusions.

[Bonaparte]

"You may well prove correct in that view."

Thankyou. And if you admit this much, as you evidently do, it necessarily follows that the non-existence of significant caches of WMDs is not an "inescapable conclusion," but only one possibility.

Consider what I pointed out in post 99.

Saddam Hussein spent years dodging inspectors. He delayed, diverted and deceived them. He submitted unresponsive documentation. Even Blix constantly complained about this. Such behavior is characteristic of someone who has something to hide and what could that something be if not forbidden weaponry?

Moreover, all the years that Saddam spent blatantly defying his inspections obligations, he was denied many billions of dollars in petroleum income. That oil income he derived from oil-for-food and from his smuggling operations was only a small fraction of what he could have realized had he cooperated. Had he done that, he would have been free to develop and market those resources, enriching his regime far beyond what he was able to do while remaining recalcitrant. And not only that, he would have been far more likely to remain in power in Iraq.

But he gave all this up. He lost huge potential profits and ran the distinct risk of overthrow, and for what? To my mind, there is only one reason that makes any sense. He had something to hide and that something was WMDs and related materials and documents.

And how much time have we had to search for these? A month at most? Iraq is a country of ~437,000 km², roughly the size of California. In addition to its vast desert region, its topography is marked by ~200,000 km² of often rugged mountains in the north and east (of which the Kurds occupy only a very restricted part). There are heavy snows up there. Blinding dust storms, sand storms, and massive flooding of the plains are not uncommon occurances. And Iraq's 58 km coastline extends its territorial waters by 12 nautical miles out to sea.

Were you conducting such a search, what would you consider a reasonable timetable, a realistic deadline, for such a logistical and engineering accomplishment? One month? Really? What manpower would you need to enlist in such an effort? 500? 10,000? How much of what kinds of heavy machinery would you need to use and what practical problems would you need to address when transporting it into mountainous areas, much of it under snow? Into the marshy areas in the south? With summer fast approaching, what effect would the scorching heat have on your operations? What sort of budget would you expect for all this?

One month? Really?

And what of the very real possibility of trans-shipment into Syria, Iran and possibly Jordan?

One month?

Are you sure?

Saddam was a very clever fellow who had many years to figure out the best ways to keep things hidden. And he was not without the resources for accomplishing these goals.