Pat,

"HR 3994, a supplemental appropriation allocated $200 million for humanitarian aid and reconstruction to Afghanistan as well as eventurally $350 milllion for 2005. This is perfectly normal for funding needs that are not part of the budget which in this case was essentially the budget left over from the Clinton presidency."

I´m willing to be convinced. I can only say that the impression in 2002 was that the Bush administration was fixated on Iraq and neglecting Afghanistan.
The BBC article simply mentions that Congress did add aid money for Afghanistan to the federal budget after it discovered that the Bush administration hadn´t ask for anything. And HR 3994 was introduced after that BBC article, just to mention it.
By the way, how can the 2003 budget proposal mentioned in that BBC article be a left over from the Clinton administration? As far as I know Clinton stepped down in January 2001? He might have introduced a proposal for a 2002 budget, but a 2003 budget?

USCOM was never allowed back into Iraq but for 3 months another inspection team, UNMOVIC, tried to search but eventually reported two things. That they couldn't find any WMDs in the sites that Iraq allowed to be inspected and that the weapons that UNSCOM was looking for couldn't be found as long as inspectors were not given access to all the sites. So yes, UNMOVIC could report no weapons much as the blind man described an elephant.

You are right about UNSCOM. That apparently was the UN inspection team in the 1990s. UNMOVIC was the 2002/03 one.
My mistake.

For your other claim read my UN link "some more months".
Report of Hans Blix to the UN Security Council March 7, 2003.

Quote:
"Initial difficulties raised by the Iraqi side about helicopters and aerial surveillance planes operating in the no-fly zones were overcome. This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance."

You could also look at his February 14, 2003 statement.

Quote:
"Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.
...
In my 27 January update to the Council, I said that it seemed from our experience that Iraq had decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, most importantly prompt access to all sites and assistance to UNMOVIC in the establishment of the necessary infrastructure. This impression remains, and we note that access to sites has so far been without problems, including those that had never been declared or inspected, as well as to Presidential sites and private residences."

That seems to contradict your statement that the "inspectors were not given access to all the sites"? Could you provide a link prove your statement?

The link concerning DOE is not about DOE except as anonymous and unsourced. The Institute for Science and International Security is a NGO with some good sources but nothing official or on the record.

I tried to restrict myself to media reports that were available before the war started. Given that American media also used lots of anonymous sources to make the case for war, I felt I was justified including it. If you have anonymous sources on both sides, treat them equally. Especially when media articles were cited approvingly by members of the Bush administration.

Notice that the UN inspectors also questioned the aluminum tubes - WMD case before the war. For what it´s worth, the NGO was proven right by the NYT in 2004.

Quote:
"But almost a year [which means 2001] before, Ms. Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and two senior administration officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.
...
Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, an examination by The New York Times has found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of nuclear experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public.
...
In fact, the team [DOE team in 2001] could find no centrifuge machines "deployed in a production environment" that used such narrow tubes. Their walls were three times too thick for "favorable use" in a centrifuge, the team wrote. They were also anodized, meaning they had a special coating to protect them from weather. Anodized tubes, the team pointed out, are "not consistent" with a uranium centrifuge because the coating can produce bad reactions with uranium gas."

There are some very good arguments to be made concerning the intelligence of the US invading Iraq but repeating anecdotal stories is simply not the way to advance a serious argument. The anti-war position is serious and deserves consideration but not if its basis is tired and discredited talking points.

Ohh? Anecdotal stories?
I feel that you are focusing on minor things in my comment.
UNSCOM - UNMOVIC, HR 3994 and "Bill Clinton" and anonymous DOE sources.

In fact though I linked to websites - not anecdotes - that said:
a) in early March 2003 that UNMOVIC had pretty much unrestricted access.
b) the UN inspectors themselves disputed the Aluminum tube case. (And some American media said that DOE experts agreed with them.)
c) HR 3994 was introduced in March 2002 after the BBC report from February 2002.

You don´t even mention the other links.
Like the UK WMD dossier cited approvingly by Colin Powell at the UN Security Council meeting. Or the Niger yellow cake fraud.
Not to mention that Hans Blix in his reports disputes your statement that the "inspectors were not given access to all the sites".
Are these "tired and discredited talking points" too?

Simply put, all I´m saying that if you did follow the international media (in my case US, UK and German media) in late 2002/early 2003, you would get a little bit suspicious of the whole WMD - mainly nuclear - case against Iraq.

However, I´m willing to consider your point.
So, could you write a comment detailing what you would consider good anti-war positions before the war?