One reads with anger the conclusions of the U.S. Senate report and the British Butler report on the false intelligence reporting used to justify the U.S.-British attack on Iraq.
To any impartial observer at the time, it was obvious that the justifications were almost certain to be false. The weakened Iraqi regime was in no condition to be preparing or even hiding weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations had reported no findings. Previous U.S. reports of WMD stockpiles had turned out to be false.
As for claimed al-Qaeda links, these had to be fantasy. The regime itself was busily executing Islamic militants as a threat. The al-Qaeda leaders were on record condemning the Iraqi regime both for the executions and its secularism, i.e., for its lack of Islamic fanaticism.