Melon,
Inspections are irelevant if Saddam is unwilling to cooperate. The inspectors are not armed and cannot get pass T-72 tanks if by chance that do pick up the smell of WMD that Iraq has had four years to disperse and hide in a country the size of Texas. The key here is Iraqi cooperation with the inspectors. The Iraqi's have yet to line of the 30,000 chemical/Bio capable shells that the UN found they had in 1998. Iraq claims they destroyed them, but will not show the evidence of the destruction. Bottom line, if Iraq does not cooperate and either hand over these weapons or show the evidence of their destruction, then inspections will never work.
What is the Rush? Many intelligence experts have speculated that Saddam could have Nuclear Weapons by next year. Even if it is a remote possibility, one cannot afford to be wrong. The risk of disarming a Nuclear armed Hussein could prove to be to great. Thats why action needs to be taken now to disarm Hussein before he can do massive damage to the international community with a nuclear weapon or decide he can afford to take more aggressive action in regards to his neighbors because he now has Nuclear Weapons. Regardless of what the possibilities of a Nuclear armed Hussien would be, its not something the world can afford to risk which is why Hussein must be disarmed before he gets such weapons. The only way to disarm Hussein since he is not cooperating is through military force.
"...but we all know the truth. The U.S. is pushing for war *now,* because what it fears the most is having the inspections *succeed* in disarming Iraq. This isn't about disarmament in the slightest, but regime change."
Iraq was supposed to have been disarmed by the summer of 1992. Instead, Saddam has toyed and played with the inspectors for 12 years now. If Saddam had any attention of disarming, he could have rolled out everything for the inspectors when they first arrived back in November 2002 having been kept out of the country for four years. Thats how inspections and disarmament are supposed to happen. The Inspectors are not detectors. The inspectors can only succeed at their job if Saddam is more than willing to cooperate. Saddam has never been which is why the inspectors have been unable to complete their mission which was only supposed to have taken 12 months. Its not up to the inspectors to search every square inch of a large country for WMD, its up to Saddam to line up everything for the inspectors to remove or destroy.
"Whether you think that is right or wrong is not my perogative. Why the window dressing? Why not just be honest? We went into Kosovo not on the premise of disarmament, but for human rights violations--which Iraq has plenty of. So why not use that excuse? Or does this really show, ultimately, the poor diplomacy of the Bush Administration? Maybe it is not only a failure in domestic policy, but also foreign policy?"
I don't consider disarming Iraq to be window dressing. Its been US and UN policy now for 12 years. The international community has tried nearly every alternative to war to disarm Saddam for 12 years. These actions have failed. Just like the only way to kick Saddams military out of Kuwait in 1991 was military action, the only way to disarm Iraq in 2003 will be military force, unless he suddenly surrenders at the last minute.
I agree that human rights for the people of Iraq is a good justification for military action against Iraq in a different context. Unfortunately, this arguement falls prey to those who say that there are dozens of dictators who abuse their people around the world and we cannot go into all of them to protect them. It is clear that there is a human rights factor to the question of regime change in Iraq, but people are more likely to act on that if they feel their security is threatened first, which indeed it is. It is a fact that the USA and other countries act on the threats to their security from other states first, human rights and humanitarian concerns within states second. So far I'd give the Bush administration an A on handling the Iraq situation. It was the Bush administration that got inspectors back into Iraq after 4 years, not the previous administration, the UN, or any other country. They have mustered multi-lateral support, they have worked through the UN, but at the end of the day, they have assembled a military force to do for Saddam, what he has failed to do for 12 years now. If Saddam will not disarm like he agreed to, he will be disarmed by military force.
Knock yourselves out, Republicans. 
