It's easy to gainsay Colin Powell's 2003 decision. At that time, we had a list of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had had before and we didn't have evidence that he had destroyed all of them. Hence, based on the idea that capabilities matter as much or more than intentions in terms of potential danger, we pretty much had to assume he still had some of those capabilities, even if hidden or "loaned" to others. It would have been irresponsible to just assume that Saddam had destroyed everything without better evidence than was available at the time.
It's easy to gainsay Colin Powell's 2003 decision. At that time, we had a list of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had had before and we didn't have evidence that he had destroyed all of them. Hence, based on the idea that capabilities matter as much or more than intentions in terms of potential danger, we pretty much had to assume he still had some of those capabilities, even if hidden or "loaned" to others. It would have been irresponsible to just assume that Saddam had destroyed everything without better evidence than was available at the time.