The biggest argument is that Saddam would not let inspectors have unrestricted access, within the terms of the agreement, to his sites and materials. He was hiding something, and everybody knows it. With his stalling, he probably managed to get much of it out of the country, but I'd bet the large underground compounds that have been discovered (and are still being investigated - by robots, because they're booby-trapped) are going to turn up some interesting stuff.
Bush/Blair et al. would not have lied about or exaggerated this because the risk would have been just too great. The stuff is out there, I'm sure we'll find it or track it to wherever it was sent.
And as for adopting the worst case scenario, what's wrong with that? In dealing with an unstable dictator who could take out a large part of his region upon a mere whim, going for the worst case seems, to me, to be the most prudent thing to do.
Saddam has played a huge game of deception with us. Deception is very highly valued as an Islamic war tactic. But no way is his crew 100% efficient. We'll find stuff but it'll take a while. No way are his idiots organized enough to do a job that's any better than 75% thorough. His regime was full of bumbling Baghdad Bob types. You don't get perfection from such types.
We'll slowly but surely debrief/interrogate the right people and find the WMD we want to find.
I think eventually Bush will be exonerated when the facts come out, yet (of course) the media will not be so adamant as they are in some of the article coming out here recently. Hardly a mention of credit will be given by the lamestream media I would bet.
What is wrong with that is that it puts you at risk for committing mass murder. Now if you are a sociopath, that might not be a problem, but for honorable people, that is a big problem.
If the WMD story was an intentional lie (or intentional spin, to use the modern word) then the blood of the thousands of dead from the Iraqi war is on this administration's hands. Notice I do not say our hands, we (US citizens) are not all responsible for this debacle, but everyone that helped it along without duress is at least partially responsible. Of course, those who perpetrated the lie are fully responsible.
What is happening now is the slow realization by Americans that there are no WMDs. The probability increases with every passing day without finding anything and the acceptance of the horrible fact is slowing speading among the people. How can this not hurt Bush's prospects for re-election? What were they thinking?
Exactly. Saddam acted like he was guilty as charged and was trying to hide this fact, not like a man who is innocent and has nothing to hide -- despite the fact that his regime's very survival was at stake and depended upon his full and proactive cooperation with the UN inspectors.