Ahhh yes! If you're going to invade another country and kill thousands of people, some you're own, you need damned good evidence, not some trucks that look a bit suspicious. If you don't have evidence of WMD production then don't use WMD production as your justification for war. Powell's performance at the UN was a joke, a cruel and nasty joke that cost thousands of lives an billions of wasted dollars, and distraction of efforts away from the actual threat to lives on US soil.

You are incriminating them by your own explanation of their actions. They chose to take the lies from the "intelligence asset"over the IAEA not because the bullshitter had a credible story and the IAEA didn't, but because the bullshitter had the story they wanted. I credit the intellegnce guys and Cheney with brains, I just don't credit them with much in the way of scruples or ethics. I don't believe for a second that they were taken in by this asset. They could smell bullshit when it was being presented to them. But it served their purpose and lying their way to war was an acceptable means to a desireable end; heck they may have even believed it was a righteous end which outweighed the evil of thousands of deaths hanging off a web of lies.

It's not like i'm defending the war.   Hell... even if the WMD information was correct that wasn't justification for the war.   Some bombing and commando raids?  Sure why not... but all out nation building?

Also, i'm not argueing that they took the story they wanted because they wanted it.  I'm argueing that they had conflicting intellegence, and their predisposed inclination to invade convinced them to take the weaker intellegence story.

It's really not that uncommon a thing.  You see people do that shit all the time.

Your going way out of your way to come up with a more elaborate explination when there is a much more simple, and easy explination.

It's easier to just label someone evil or something... but it isn't constructive or helpful, and will only lead to people making the same mistakes over and over again.

Conflicting intelligence? really? You write as if the information was equally credible on both sides.

The IAEA was quite clear: there was no credible evidence of an active WMD programme or the existence of WMDs in Iraq, and there was no evidence of any plans to resurrect any WMD programme. The best they could come up with was missiles that had a slightly longer range that what the UN allowed Saddam to have after he lost Gulf War 1. That's not even enough justification for bombing raids.

But Bush et al decided to go with the unsubstantiated claims of some dude who the CIA had tagged as lacking credibility.

There's no conflicting intelligence in any meaningful or substantial sense.

Dick Cheney went on TV saying they possessed ironclad, incontrovertable proof that Saddam had WMD, but it was secret and they couldn't show it. History exposes that claim for the lie it is. Cheney et al never had anything like the proof he claimed. Do you think he thought they had the sort of proof he claimed, or do you think he knew he was blowing smoke? I don't think Cheney is a fool, I don't think Cheney believed for a minute that the information they had was adequate to justify going to war. Why do you think Bush, Blair et al changed their justification after the fact and said the reason to go to war was becuase Saddam was a bad guy and he killed lots of his own people with WMD? They had flimsy evidence from the start. Never mind that the only time Saddam used WMD was prior to Gulf War 1 when he was a "friend" to the USA (sure a friend the USA didn't like at all, but he was a bulwark against Iran and its ambitions, so as long as he only did bad stuff to Iran and his own people the US could live with him). Post Gulf War 1 Saddam never used a single WMD ordinance. And he never used WMD outside his own borders or on invading forces during GW1. So even the post facto justification is pathetic.

Calling a spade a spade is hardly unhelpful. The deaths of thousands in a war based on lies, that people knew (or if you want to be charitable suspected might be) lies is evil. Exposing this travesty for what it is isn't going to cause people to make the same mistakes again. Allowing people to carry on with the delusion that the war was right (and righteous) is what will lead to history repeating. Not calling people to account for the part they played in the deceit that brought the war about will allow people to think they can get away with such things again. People saying that everything that comes out of Colin Powell's mouth is golden and can be trusted 100% are guilty of giving him an undeserved free pass on the part he played in the march to an unjust war. And it makes it that little bit easier for the next guy to start an unjust war, yet claim a righteous cause and get away with it.

I respected Colin Powell a great deal, I thought he was president material... until that emperor's new clothes UN presentation.

Christ, i don't even know whwere to start....  All i'd ask is that you do some more independent research.

I guess the best place to start is...  The IAEA doesn't make general WMD reports.

The IAEA stands for the International Atomic Energy Agency.   The only WMD they pay any attention to is Nuclear weapons.  So the IAEA had nothing to say about the possibility of mobile chemical weapons labs or about anything related to chemical weapons.

If I had to guess... I would guess you are talking about Hans Blix and the UNMOVIC reports.  Which didn't state "They definitly don't have weapons of mass destruction."

The UNMOVIC reports stated  "There is no smoking guns that they have these weapons, there explinations for various things like aluminium tubes make sense... so they probably don't have these programs... however.  Direct quote coming.

"There is still no evidence that Iraq has fundamentally changed its approach from one of deceit to a genuine attempt to be forthcoming in meeting the council's demand that it disarm."

So at best the reports at the time were saying "They probably aren't developing new WMDs but they still probably secretly posses a lot of anthrax and other such chemical WMDs they're trying to hide... and in general are being deceptive."

As for the mobile weapons labratories?  He said he didn't come across any proof they existed.  Yet he didn't say they didn't exist. 

At that point it's all a matter of whether you think war needs a smoking gun, or whether preemptive strikes when a nation is being knowingly deceptive is a proper justification.   Bush and Co clearly believed the later.

Essentially it's if you believe in what's known in the gambling world as "Pot odds."

Secondly...reports generally show that any doubts about "Curveball" were never fowarded up the chain of command.  So, Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell and the rest didn't know said doubts existed.

Nothing else you said is actually relevent except as an attempt to play on emotions.

if you want to make an arguement on facts... try using some facts.