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[Tyrone Slothrop]

(1) As set forth in the Lord Butler report, the phony set of documents were not relevant. I also note that Wilson cited these as evidence backing his claim, even though they didn't come to light until 8 months after his "report."

By "not relevant," you mean "now not the only things the Brits say they were relying upon." They are highly relevant, and no one outside England knows of any other support.

As for Wilson, he explains himself in the six-page statement neither you nor Slave apparently can be bothered to read, but -- again -- you are discussing Wilson's credibility, and I am discussing something much more important.

(2) Take it up with Lord Butler

You may have noticed that he is not a U.S. government official, and I would prefer that we only go to war when U.S. government officials have first-hand knowledge of the cassus belli.

(3) They had a nuclear program. It may not have been as advanced as we thought, but it was there.

It was shuttered some time before. We now know it was not active.

(4) It is true what you say about the mines . . . in Niger. Niger is not Africa, however.

Yes. And then there's what I said earlier. But if you're going to stop relying on Niger, maybe you owe Wilson some kind of apology for trashing him.

(5) Wilson, himself, cites evidence that Iraq sought uranium in 1999.

That is, at best, an overstatement.

(6) Scare is a pejorative term. He laid out what he believed to be true. At the same time, Saddam was in violation of 1441 and was playing games with the inspectors. And, of course, the nation had just been bombed 1 year before, and the intelligence agenices were roundly being criticized for "not connecting the dots." What do you think dots look like? Hint: it is not a perfect picture where, if you work hard enough and are smart enough, you get an infallable answer. Frankly, I would be calling for Bush's removal had he not done what he did.

Do you really believe that Bush had any "belief" about Iraq & WMD? Transparently, he had decided to invade, and was looking for a pretext. The intel was boiled down to a [b]single page[b] for him. Give me a break.

Saddam was in violation of 1441? BFD. Like you guys give a rat's ass about UN resolutions at any other time. When the UN passes resolutions about Israel, you scoff, and not without good reason. And "games with the inspectors"? Please. Hans Blix was there, looked in the places our intel suggested, and found nothing. Nada.

We're not talking about getting an infallible answer here. We're talking about being flat-out wrong. Iraq's so-called WMD were no threat to us. Meanwhile, Iran has a nuclear program and ties with Al Qaeda, but we shot our wad in Iraq.