Well, thanks to @besttrousers for dropping the Iraq WMD grenade in my lap - you shall pay, Matt - but one thing to remember is that Saddam could have screwed over Bush and Blair by complying with UN demands at the last minute. In fact, U.S. was worried he& #39;d do that. /1

Saddam& #39;s own generals later were debriefed and said stuff like "Well, my unit didn& #39;t have them, but the units near me did." When you& #39;re so good at this your own generals think they exist, you can imagine that foreign intel agencies aren& #39;t betting on the under. /2

No major intel agency anywhere dissented from the basic view that Iraq was hiding WMD. Weapons inspectors wanted more time to prove a negative, that Iraq *didn& #39;t* have them. Duelfer later found none, but intent to preserve the WMD programs for quick restart. /3

You can argue that invading Iraq was a bad idea, badly executed, or badly premised on WMD as the major reason. But "experts were stupid and everyone knew there was no WMD" is just 20-years-later retconning for a war that went bad for a lot of reasons.
/4x