P'rot,

To counter any negative campaign/beat-up all Saddam had to do was open his doors to all.He might even have issued an invitation to US military inspectors(though that would have dented the huge macho image he was cultivating).

He was renowned for playing games. Remember during the first war how he gathered all his Western "guests" to his palace: implied thread -- bomb me and these will cop it!

What's the m bit in << SPQRm>>?

SPQR,

The "m" was me hitting the "m" instead of the ","

When all is said and done, the inspectors "inspected" and found no evidence of WMDs.

However, that didn't stop them from being invaded under the guise of ridding Iraq of WMDs.

It's pretty straight forward....and conveniently glossed over these days, as apologists for the invasion will tell you the invasion was to bring democracy and freedom to Iraqis and to rid them of a dictator.

That wasn't the official premise for the invasion.

Poirot,

Are these some of the WMD’s that Saddam didn’t have or use?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

spindoc,

We've already discussed chemical weapons...and the fact that the US knew Iraq was using them against the Iranians - and turned a blind eye to that practice when they were chums with Saddam.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

I note this from your article:

"During the lead-up to war in March 2003, United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix had found no stockpiles of WMD and had made significant progress toward resolving open issues of disarmament noting "proactive" but not always the "immediate" Iraqi cooperation as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1441. He concluded that it would take “but months” to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks....."

Poirot,

Saddam Hussein’s WMD types, arsenals and timelines.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/arsenal.html

That was a strange comment.
That Egypt has a sound government.
Its current situation is the driver for this thread but not the only one.
Poirot will try almost any thing to side step the fact.
That is that under any oppression, and I am not unwise enough to say all these country,s have not been oppressed, we make our own beds.
Arabs are not all killing one another and some Muslim country,s are fairing much better.
As I traveled this morning in the bush my radio was on Radio National.
A story about those folk, thousands of them,who sing from the top of Holly places of whorship,was on, interesting.
But I see no way of avoiding what those folk them selves said, Islam is life for them in every way.
If not for that maybe they would progress, even after Poirot,s western Imperialism , if it still exists.
Not racist, just saying is the religion in part or whole the reason the middle east is suffering?