This is a brief response to some of your points, Bill, but it's all I can find time for right now. Alas, the garage is beckoning me to clean it.
you said,
Why is it that the U.S. and Britain were so anxious to attack Saddam, and the rest of the world not? Think about it. Times up... THEY were the ones protecting the "no fly zones" in Northern and Southern Iraq, preventing further genocide. THEY were the ones spending the money, and putting their soldiers at risk. THEY were the ones that Saddam shot at on a regular basis - just to prove that he could with impunity. Or so he thought...
It's true they were the ones protecting the no fly zones, though I don't recall a single British and US plane being shot down (was there? I don't think so). It's nice they were protecting the Kurds though they were violating sovereign air space to do it so getting shot at is not exactly a big surprise (hello?) and it hardly seems that this was a reason for the US and Britain to invade. I really don't have all the answers but I've thought for some time that Blair really enjoys being Bush Jr.'s lap dog, the reasons for which may becom clear over time.
you said,
"It's convenient for the rest of the world to forget both the genocide of the Kurds and the Shia, and the effort that the U.S. and Britain were putting into the peace in the area. One victim of the Unabomber likes to call this the "Holocaust shrug."
I haven't forgotten by a long shot. Perhaps you'll think I'm being unfair by bringing up old news to discredit the current regime but you remember that Rumsfeld was an envoy under Reagan to Hussein and he and DOD at the time helped supply Saddam with the military intelligence to use WMD on Iranian troops and Kurdish villagers, who at the time were thought to be aiding the Iranians (no excuse of course for using those weapons on innocents or soldiers). Regan and Bush Sr. also engaged in trade, against the wishes of Congress, with this butcher both during and after the now famous Halabja massacre. Why? Why were they selling military equipment and information and engaging in other forms of trade with this monster? And why were the British, the French, and the Japanese doing the same? They're no saints either for helping to arm this devil. Rumsfeld is still with us. Personally, I think he, along with other countries, aided a known war criminal, as did Reagan's government. Why is Rumsfeld allowed to be in public office and can I really trust this guy to have good motives under the current US government?
As to the Shia, they made it clear to Bush Sr. that they, with US support at the tail end of Desert Storm, would gladly depose of Saddam and they tried through a bloody rebellion in which the US gave no support, and with their support the Shia could've got rid of Saddam. Instead many thousands of Shia were brutally murdered and tortured. One of my brother's-in-law who is a staunch Republican and kept uttering the mantra "nuke em" during the Iraq war, also had trouble figuring this out. Why? Why did Bush Sr. do this? One theory is that, having soundly beaten the @#$!@ out of Saddam he decided in the end that they were better off with Saddam in than with him out simply in the interest of regional stability. That's one theory but honestly I don't know why Bush Sr. did this. He had more than a good opportunity, with troops and equipment already staged, to take Saddam out.
All this is to say that things are more complicated than they appear. The British and the US are not saints and they're motives are complex.
September 11 proved that a country could be attacked with massive and decisive force: 1) without an army, 2) without the flag of a country, 3) without military hardware, and 4) without conventional weapons. Centers of commerce (the world trade center), the postal system (the anthrax mailings), government (the 4th plane that never hit its target of the Whitehouse or Congress) and the military (the Pentagon) were shown to be alarmingly vulnerable. Thousands of innocents were killed in the effort, which achieved the desired terrorist force multiplicity objective.
You're right. 9/11 proved that with enough planning and some box cutters you can terrorize America and kill thousands of innocents. But this in itself can't be allowed to be the justification for war and here I'll refer to comments I made earlier as to why I believe that there was sufficient intelligence to not invade, and again this is a non-partisan issue as the number of Republican and Democrat officials who question the intelligence are legion. Even before 9/11 Powel and Condoleeza Rice said he wasn't a threat and 9/11 didn't make him one. But it did give Bush Jr. a pretext. And leading up to the war critics within the CIA, weapons inspectors, as well as Brent Snowcroft of all people (adviser to Bush Sr. if I'm not mistaken), were saying the case wasn't good enough and other options focussing on further containment are available.
[so much for cleaining the garage. It'll be there tomorrow]
Imagine what one crop duster and some chemical and/or biological material could do to a city.
Imagine what a little bit of biological warfare material could still do in the U.S. mail system.
Imagine what one dirty bomb can do in a major city.
It's not a matter of IF this will happen. It's a matter of when and where. I wish I was wrong.
I understand what you're saying and I wish it wasn't so either, but this is not a case or justification for squandering the treasury, sending young soldiers to die, and bombing a country, with all the horrors that result. Everybody understood the Osama connection and the world should be entirely behind the US on this. The Iraq connection was never solid and as I've said already, I, along with many in the CIA and non-civilian military, wish that the resources had been used to focus on Afghanistan, the bordering areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Saudi connection, etc. Ironically, Iraq has turned into a training ground for Al Qaeda and a bunch of other thugs and terrorists. The region is de-stabalized and who knows how things will turn out after the "handover", though extending the term of US soldiers in Iraq may or may not help. However, I see your point that Al Qaeda is de-centralized and putting all the eggs in the Afghanistan basket may not have been a good idea either.
Saddam did not need conventional military sources to deliver a decisive military blow to the U.S. All he needed were a handful of people who hated the U.S. (no problem there) and a little bit of nasty material (nuclear, biological, chemical, etc.) which he either had or could build again on a moment's notice with his abundance of "dual use" technology.
You'd be right except that it was singularly, as all the evidence suggests, Osama and his Saudi hijacker friends. As far as Iraq goes, simply because someone can do something does not mean that they have, are, or will do something. If Bush Jr. is really concerend, perhaps he should have been focussing his energies more on Pakistan and N. Korea, who have a well established reputation for trading in fissionable material and bomb making know-how. I'm not opposed to war on terror. I'm opposed to incompetent, self-serving leaders who manipulate the emotional pain of their citizens to justify a war that I believe was totally unnecessary. I and most of the world supported Bush Sr. in Desert Storm and wished he had taken Saddam out when he had more than a good chance. But Bush Jr. proved something: that if you claim something often enough to be true people will accept it and as much as Michael Moore is an idiot for insulting his own people and telling half-truths and lies (perhaps) for his own personal gain, they're not in the same ball park as the heap of half-truths and lies that W. served up for Congress and the rest of the world.
As to the presence of dual use technology and a variety of stuff that Saddam could've used, you'd have to bomb the planet to rid the world of countries with terrorists that can get their hands on this stuff and may one day use it against innocents. But it's telling that long after Saddam ceased to be an ally of the US, got bombed on a few occasions post Desert Storm, had an embargo put on him, etc. he never (as far as we know) lifted a finger against the US or Britain (shooting at planes in your air space doesn't count, sorry. Show me a country that doesn't shoot at planes, especially enemy planes, in its air space). Why? Because despite the fact that he's a freakin' devil, he's not stupid. He knew that if he so much as did anything to threaten the US, directly or indirectly, Iraq would be turned into a parking lot. The CIA never bought the story that he would give weapons to Al Qaeda because Osama hated Saddam and considered Saddam's secular form of Islam to be an abomination. The old saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not always hold water and the US military intelligence folks have gone on record saying that Saddam would probably not want to give weapons to the people that would likely come back at a later date and annihilate him. He was an SOB but he was smart, up to a point
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June 18, 2004 | The Associated Press
ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) - Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks against the United States and its interests abroad before the Iraq war, President Vladimir Putin said Friday. Putin said he couldn't comment on how critical the Russians' information was in the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. However, he said the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the war.
This could mean almost anything. "Suggested" is vague and with no qualifying information it's not convincing as evidence. Was this article in response to something else? Why is Putin saying this now? And even if he's being truthful, the evidence couldn't have been impressive if it didn't change his mind on supporting the US. Then again, maybe Putin was worried that the war would disrupt the oil contracts he had with Saddam. Always that damn money getting in the way.
Regardless, I hope US soldiers come home and get out of that meat grinder. Too many have died already or have to live with life-long injuries. I hope now that the "handover" has occurred things will quiet down, though I won't hold my breath. And it gladdened my heart to read in the paper this morning the following words from an Iraqi judge addressing Saddam: "you are no longer in US custody. You are now in Iraqi custody. Good morning".
Mark
While I do think that the majority of the media and hollywierd folks are basically two steps to the left of Stalin, I use the whole "ultra-left-wing" description with tongue firmly planted in cheek because of Hillary's comments about the "vast ultra-right-wing conspiracy". 
