The Yin Blog has a great post up on WMD's in Iraq. Key quote:



"I would say that the fault with the war lies with both the U.S. and Continental Europe. Neither Bush nor Chirac/Schroeder/Putin had interest in the kind of inspections regime that would have been necessary to address the reality. Bush wanted to oust Saddam, and Continental Europe wanted to return to 1990 (pre-Kuwait invasion). Neither position, as it turns out, was the best option.



Hopefully both sides (those who supported the war and those who opposed it) can learn from this report. Unfortunately, the misleading headline above may lead people to draw only the one conclusion, and not the other."



I utterly agree. On one hand, Europe invested their trust in the original, lackadaisical approach to inspections, with the Iraqis being warned ahead of time where inspections were likely to occur and able to cordon off entire areas. Of course Saddam would've built up his WMD's the moment the world wasn't watching. I think about everyone agrees on that. I firmly believe that the inspections as they were being staged weren't enough to keep that from happening. On the other hand, war wasn't the only solution yet we went straight there without some intermediary steps. Perhaps the diplomacy failure was not with Iraq and the other Arab nations, but with Europe?