UN1441 demanded that SH cooperate immediately and unconditionally, to turn over documentation on the status of existing WMDs and programs which we already knew he had.
Iraq did provide its declaration/documentation on time. There was no time limit to resolving all outstanding issues from unwitnessed CW/BW destruction in 1991 or 1992. There was no time limit on ending diplomacy in 1441 and you have admitted knowing that. So why are you making the argument that you have admitted that you know is untrue?
No they did not, they never turned over documentation requested and we still don't have it.
It wasn't about a time limit... Saddam was required to immediately cooperate and he didn't. It was never implied or suggested that diplomacy would continue indefinitely.
Why was it so important for Bush to have Saddam cooperate?
Because Saddam had WMDs?
Bush's main argument was that Saddam had had WMDs in the past, therefore would have them in the present (2003). Kind of like saying the US had had WMDs and used them, like atomic bombs, napalm and all sorts of things like that, therefore the US would use them.
Paul Wolfowitz said:
"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but, there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two."
It's funny. The second issue, support for terrorism. Saddam did far more than Bush to stop terrorism. I'm not saying Saddam didn't help some terrorists, but you look and see ISIS, and you know ISIS wouldn't exist if Saddam was still in power. Terrorism would have been reduced massively. The Madrid and London bombings wouldn't have happened, for example.
The third point is just laughable, the Bush team didn't give a flying duck about the Iraqi people, never have, never will. They care about the OIL.
So they went for WMDs. Why?
Scott Ritter, in 2002, criticised the US govt for using Khidir Hamza's testimony on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. However Khidir Hamza did work for the Iraqi nuclear weapons program when he claimed he did.
Saddam's son in law, who defected to Jordan in 1995 called him "a professional liar", David Albright, former weapons inspector in Iraq said "Hamza had some good information about Iraqi nuclear programs until his departure from Iraq, but that's it."
Yet the Bush govt had him give "evidence" to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. A guy who knew almost nothing about the Iraqi nuclear program.
Ritter in 1999 criticised the Clinton govt of spying on the Iraqi army for potential WMDs. Why did Clinton not do anything? Why did inspectors leave in 1998 if Clinton's govt thought that WMDs were being produced?
Also in 1999 in an interview with Ritter " "When you ask the question, 'Does Iraq possess militarily viable biological or chemical weapons?' the answer is no! It is a resounding NO. Can Iraq produce today chemical weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Can Iraq produce biological weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Ballistic missiles? No! It is 'no' across the board."
So, Ritter was saying that Saddam did not have the capability at that point to produce these weapons.
"According to Ritter: "Iraq today (1999) possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction capability.""
The Report of pre-war intelligence, from the US govt, said:
"
Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence."
Here is an assessment by the committee:
"The October 2002 NIE stated that Iraq appeared to be reconstitituting its nuclear weapons program. The Committee's report concluded that this view was not supported by the underlying intelligence, and the report agreed with the opinion of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, expressed as an "alternative view" in the NIE, that the available intelligence did not make "a compelling case for reconstitution" of the Iraqi nuclear program. The committee reached several conclusions critical of poor communications between the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community concerning this issue."
So, basically you have Bush, or whoever was controlling Bush's strings, telling the intelligence services, or at least one part of the intelligence services, to go make stuff up. This was all designed to give Bush a reason to go to war. The Powell Doctrine requires that you have public support, and the public wouldn't support a war for no reason. So they made reasons, and they picked up on what the American people would fear the most, WMDs, especially in regards to Israel.
Evidence was simply expanded. It was possible for Niger to sell Iraq nuclear material. This is because Niger has nuclear material. So, if it is possible for this to happen all you need to do is to find one guy who says it has happened, hardly difficult to find someone willing to say something for a wad of cash, is it?
Then you use some old evidence, get a few people who have a grudge against Saddam, like former scientists, stick them up in front of the Senate, pretend they know something about a nuclear program of a country they haven't been to for nearly 10 years, long after Nuclear Inspectors were going around Iraq, long after Clinton's govt were spying on the potential WMD programs, and wham, you've suddenly made yourself a great work of fiction that people will believe because there isn't enough evidence out there to prove it 100% wrong.
So Bush used uncertainty in intelligence, anything they didn't want to release was "top secret", but they supposedly had this information, but no one could see it, no one could question it, even if it was all fake.
So, the question is, why the hell did Bush's govt put so much effort into making this stuff up about WMDs to invade Iraq?
What was the interest for the US in invading an OPEC country that did not support the US?
Was this the very same interest that had the US supporting with large wads of cash the coup d'etat against Chavez in OPEC Venezuela the year before? You bet it was.
Bush had targeted three countries, two were OPEC and the other was Afghanistan, which you can half see why he went in there for reasons not of oil. But you look at the vilification of Muslims, it made Bush's task in Iraq so much easier.