SNIP
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>I have seen 2 people recently speak on this. One was a former chief U.N. inspector in Iraq, the other was the scientist who was featured on last night's show, Saddam's Bombmaker, on the History Channel. Both said that it is nearly impossible to find these weapons in the first place, or stop them from being produced. A country has to want to disarm for U.N inspections to work. Is it not apparent that Saddam does not want to disarm?

I have to believe that they do still have some WMDs in Iraq, else 1441 couldn't have achieved unanimity.
That Saddam is doing his damnedest to hang on to every last one of them seems to be true. At least I felt that Secretary Powell's argument at the U.N. was convincing as regards on-going hiding activities.

That Saddam has been bending, admittedly very very slowly, in the face of overwelming pressure by the U.S. military build-up (with some assistance from the U.K.) is also apparent to me.

Now I am one who agrees that the U.S. cannot continue such pressure indefinitely and I am also of the mind that such is exactly what Saddam is hoping for (sufficient obfuscation as to make continued U.S. military presence untenable).

But here's my problem: the only alternative to sending U.S. troops back home should NOT be sending them to war. There needs to be developed some other action plan that continues to effectively contain Saddam and its manpower and costs need to be borne by countries other than the U.S.

If there were some way that all of the supporters of war without provocation could take their place on the front line to show their committment then I think I would see it differently. But as long as hawks can continue to live in comfort while proxies do the dirty work for them I will always have trouble with the concept of unprovoked war.