Melvyn I do think you should drop the WMD analogy. If ever there was an agenda driven search that was it. It was not a search for "the truth"and to compare the consequences of one agianst the other is not helpful. IMO of course.
People tend to have convenient and/or selective memories.
Was President Clinton fabricating, lying and deceiving the world on January 27, 1998 when he addressed the Joint Session of Congress and delivered his State of the Union address ?
President Clinton stated the following:
"Together we must also confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them.
Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the missiles to deliver them.
The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf War. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission.
I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein: You cannot defy the will of the world.
And when I say to him, you have used weapons of mass destruction before.
We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.
I guess, when President Bush took office shortly thereafter that President Clinton told him to keep up the charade.