This is interesting although not particularly revealing. In addition to the fact that Dean has no expertise whatever in this matter, he gets a material fact wrong from the get-go:

Dean: Indeed, the claim that these WMDs posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war.

SOTU: Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.

Thus, a direct acknowledgment that the threat wasn't imminent but possible.

And, in the same vein, quibbling over whether the anthrax estimates were enough to produce 20,000 gallons vs. 30,000 gallons is rather silly. Obviously, these are educated guesses.

As to the anthrax estimates, please read the charge. The basis of these numbers is the amount of growth medium they estimated Iraq has. It's like saying we know you have 50,000 dogs because you have 100 tons of dog food. This is an incredibly weak claim.

Point 2 shows an even weaker claim. Production capacity does not equate to produced units. Point 3 shows a complete and blatant misrepresentation of the source - i.e. UNSCOM. Point 4 is a "show me the source". Not damning in itself but certainly goes to deliberate inflation of estimates to paint a scarier picture. Point 5 is the famous "Trailers of Hydrogen Production". Weird how we haven't heard jack about these since the Brits said it was highly likely they were knock offs of old models they had sold them. Point 6 is the nuclear issue in general, certainly laughable knowing what we now know. Point 7 is the actual 16 words. Point 8 is just another example of really, really weak evidence being used to buttress a paper argument. Given that the centrifuge guy said that they were used for missiles pretty much drives a nail into how weak the argument was. Again, not a smoking gun, rather going to show a deliberate pattern of deception and threat inflation.

The presence of dog food is somewhat corrolative o the presence of dogs, generally. But dog food can't be transformed into dogs. Chemicals can be transformed into chemical weapons. And, again, the whole point is that, given Saddam's record and the fact that he wasn't cooperating with inspectors, better safe than sorry.

"Show me the source" isn't an argument. Indeed, most of his arguments come down to, "Well, I don't have access to the intel reports but from the open source docs I've found, I either find somewhat different numbers or can't find numbers at all." Well, so what?

It, too, laid out the case for war, and guess what, nowhere does it mention the words "Niger" or "uranium".

The Democrats who a) voted for the congressional war authorization, and b) now claim to be "misled" are rather dishonest; surely they didn't vote yes in October 2002 because of something Bush would say in February 2003.

Bush didn't say "Saddam, if you don't stop brutalizing your people, we're going to invade." Or, "Saddam, if you don't stop paying off anti-Israel terrorists, we're going to invade."

The ultimatum was about disarmament. The case for war was ultimately about "the safety of our people and for the peace of the world." By "our people," Bush meant the American people, not the Iraqi people.
If Saddam's arms did not pose a meaningful threat to Americans, then Bush's own determining factor was meaningless. We don't tell people to disarm unless we're worried that their arms will create a problem for us.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.

In this passage, Bush doesn't seem to understand the difference between imminent threats and threats that have already been realized in the form of attacks. An imminent threat would be Saddam's proven possession of a working nuclear weapon with the ability to reach the U.S. (such as North Korea has boasted of having). A threat already realized would be the nuking of an American city.
The threat we actually saw from Iraq was Saddam's attempts to have a nuclear weapon. Those attempts were more plausible if he was trying to get weapons-grade uranium, and if he was using aluminum tubes for creating the weapons. Both the uranium and the tubes are dubious evidence for Saddam's ability to pose an imminent threat to the U.S.

As for the congressional authorization for war, I don't recall its having been based on the incontrovertible humanitarian case for war either.

In this passage, Bush doesn't seem to understand the difference between imminent threats and threats that have already been realized in the form of attacks. An imminent threat would be Saddam's proven possession of a working nuclear weapon with the ability to reach the U.S. (such as North Korea has boasted of having). A threat already realized would be the nuking of an American city.

Uh....no. Once a threat gets to the level of the enemy possessing nukes, it's rather too late to strike preemptively. As we're now seeing in Korea. By definition, preemption requires acting before the threat manifests. The capability combined with the intent to develop and use WMD is an imminent threat.

And, yes, Saddam's disarming--to comply with the Gulf War I ceasefire and several UN resolutions was the key. Saddam had to either produce the weapons that previous UN inspection regimes had documented or provide evidence that he had destroyed those arsenals. He did neither.

The Administration's case was manifold. Presumably, different Congressmen signed off on it for manifold reasons as well.

First off, their not ours. We have no legal jurisdiction over them. IE we have no legal power to impose/do anything to them. Their health is in the hands of their country. We can a pressure them, but thats about it.

Secondly, to go to war over civil attrocities would put us in a moral high-chair. I don't know a PC way to put this. I suppose something like "what gives you the right?" kind of thing. A lot of extra hassle.

Thirdly, because of polical ramifications. Since we are already on a war against terrorism, and have already bounced on Afganistan(sp), it makes it much easier to keep going on that note. Especially since Iraq is known to harbor/help many terrorist groups. Iraq is a doorway into the middle east, by fixing Iraq we can pressure/change the whole of the middle east. Besides, what's a better way to improve the Iraqi's life then to oust the bastard and give them a real shot of being free. (if you go to war over civil rights, then you have to do a lot more micro-management. We don't want to do that. Also, it makes it harder to keep putting the pressure on in the future. Working with other countires would be more restricted to the fields of wellfare, instead of terrorism. That would really put us in a jam.)

The reasons go on and on. I'm just to lazy:)

And even if it was possible, in order to go to war over it would take to long. We would have to send in investigators, and spend years monitoring him to see if he raised his standard of living. So its a totally impracticle way to start a war. (Even though its a good motivation.)

As for the rest of your complaining... consider this. Why do you care? Do you really feel vexed by our president saying stuff? How vexed were you over Monica and Clinton?

I think your just upset because your to ingraned in your POV/political standings and refuse to consider a different one.

One final note. If a man goes walking down the street with an AK, even if its unloaded, he's going to be arrested. Saddam had the means to create WMD, weather he had them at the point in time is unimportant. Weather he had the nuke's doesn't matter... the point is he had the potential to have them. Thats what makes him dangerous. You don't wait for your enemy to load his gun before you shoot him. The point of a pre-emtive strike(sp) is to stop him before he buys the bullets. Not stop him AFTER he loads and aims.

Having said that, it was never the main point that convinced me that Gulf War II was a desirable course of action. Last September, I emailed the White House expressing my disapproval of the war, and then followed up in December with an email changing my position.

What changed between September and December, 2002?

The actual threat posed by Saddam Hussein did not change in that time. In fact, it might have actually decreased. What changed was my evaluation of the seriousness of that threat in light of 9/11.

Prior to 9/11, I would never have supported such a war; so blaming Clinton for not aggressively prosecuting such a war is a non-starter for me. But after 9/11, it became increasingly obvious that the whole Middle East region was not only a festering sore, but a breeding ground of irrationality that must be taught a lesson in reality.

This may sound cold, but as long as terrorist were killing themselves, Israeli's and Europeans, I considered them at best, a circus-like freakshow, and at worst, a nuisance. It became obvious to me that after dealing with the initial source of 9/11 - Afghanistan, the administration was right in determining that much more was needed to pull the "weed" of terrorism out by the roots. We needed to inject ourselves into the mix, and overthrow the despots who were oppressing their own people and getting their religious leader lackeys to blame the USA.

The only place where we had a "legal" justification for invasion was Iraq. So we used that case to start the ball rolling. But the point was/is to get started on rooting out oppression and disinformation in the Arab/Islamic world.

In those three months in 2002, I became comfortable with using the legal technicality of Iraq's non-compliance with the 1991 cease fire as justification to impose freedom.

BTW, we are not imposing freedom on the citizens of the Arab world. We are imposing freedom on the Arab dictators. And free Arabs will never fully agree with the USA on policy issues. I can live with that, just like I can live with France & Germany. But freedom once obtained is precious, and newly freed people are hard pressed to become oppressed again. And the freedom to make our case in greater Arabia is all we can justifiably require.