alan — No credible WMD threat, no war. None of the other reasons you mention added up to enough of a threat to get a majority of Congress to authorize the war, let alone the overwhelming bipartisan consensus that you trumpet. Go back if you want to see what Members of Congress said in their floor statements and press releases when they explained their vote. The vote was about WMD’s. Not about nation building, not about humanitarian internvention, not about getting our mojo back after 9/11. Even Hillary, who is to the right of most Democrats on this issue, notes that if she knew then what she knows now, not only would she have voted no, but THERE WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE BEEN A VOTE.

Terrye — “if you are saying that the CIA had explicit evidence that Saddam did not have stockpiles of weapons in September and just decided to keep it to themselves”

No one knew exactly what was going on in Iraq. But the public record indicates that the CIA had evidence SUGGESTING the above was likely to be the case. My understanding, from “dclydew” link above and other stuff I have read, is that Tenet neglected to report this to his superiors, or else he did report it and they dismissed it. Again, I’m saying a responsible Administration looking to prevent Hussein from getting WMDs, as opposed to one simply seeking a rationale and pretext for going to war, would have taken that evidence and tried to prove or disprove it, rather than taken it and thrown it in the trash. Which is apparently what happened.