>>>I'm not following you. I said ALL the leaders of the US believed the intelligence, as did several other foreign leaderships. Just becuase there is no direct link between Saddam and 9/11 doesn't mean there is no proof he was involved with training, harboring and possibly directing terrorist operations. He needed to be removed and he has been. The next step is to stabilize the country and then move on to Iran.
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>>I realise that. What I'm having a problem with is how you know so definitively that all of them believed it. If Bush and his inner circle lied (and I'm not saying they did, because I don't have any inside information), then the fact that he says he believed the same intelligence that the rest of them received would also be a lie. It is not beyond the pale to think that a U.S. president could lie, yet somehow you seem to know without question that Bush and crew are not lying. You are not presenting this as your opinion. You are saying with no latitude for dissent that they all knew the same thing. How do you know that? That's my only question.
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>What I'm saying is that according to all the reports at the time we went to war, the leadership of our government (the president, both houses and both parties) was on board. They looked at the same intel and came to the same conclusion (granted Bush may have had a little more). Many other governments (Britian, Spain, Australia, etc.) came to the same conslusions. If all these leaders were of the same opinion, why would you think this was a Bush lie? Much of the intelligence they viewed came from other countries, which goes to bolster the argument that it had merit. It's called corroborative evidence. It supports the original assertion.

Considering that there has been a bit of turmoil in England over whether or not the intelligence supplied by Tony and Co. to their own people and to the U.S. was doctored, it may not be a ringing endorsement.

Besides I contend that most of the countries (possibly excluding England and maybe Australia) that joined the U.S. in the war effort were not there because they necessarily believed in WMD's, but more because they thought it would benefit them in the long run to side with the U.S. Far more non third world countries stayed out of it than joined in.

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>The fact remains that Saddam had indicated he had WMDs, he intended to get more and would have obtained nuclear weapons if he could have remains. Why people can't understand this guy HAD to be removed is beyond me. Now that he has been removed, we need to stabilize and withdraw.

I am not necessarily of the opinion that Saddam should have been allowed to stay in power. I do have a problem though with the idea of one country acting as the International Police answerable to nobody.