The gassing of the Kurds was a terrible thing, but it was no threat to the United States. Did it prove he did at one time have chemical weapons? Silly question, the UN inspectors destroyed tons of the things years later...
The important issue is, did he have them currently and was he willing to use them against the US most likely via al Qaida.
I will spare you a thesis, but the Administration has still not come up with any evidence to justify they had reason to believe either was true, aside from presumed guilt from the lack of cooperation in the inspection process.
#^&#^&#^&#^& Chenye on many occations made strong assertions of evidence to link Saddam with al Qaida that had been clearly disproven in the International community and even the CIA.
Remember Powell's fameous UN speech about mobile weapons labs? We later learned the information was single source, second hand and came from a cousin of Achmed Chalibi, known criminal and head of the INC which was being paid by the Administration 300 grand a month!
The bi-partisan Senate investigated even reported that many of the conslusions were not made from CIA intel, but rather through Pentagon sources with no accountability...people like Chalibi who was telling us exactly what we wanted to hear. Chalibi and the Administration shared one thing...an agenda. Rumor has it he may be the next Iraqi Oil Minister.
You could almost turn a blind eye and argue they just thought they were doing the right thing to protect Americans...but dig a little deeper and the same people who architected this war have written at length about removing Saddam as an initial step in their agenda, long before 9/11 ever happened.
McNamara doesn't have a proud place in history...neither will they.
Ok, I almost but didn't quite write a thesis this time
-spence