You don't recall all the back-and-forth about the IAEA? Hans Blix had visited this site and El Baradei had visited that site? Really? Do you actually remember that time, or do you just remember later reporting about it? Because in the news I watched in 2002-3, it was all IAEA all the time.
Yep, I remember that, and the inspections had a timeline that would have concluded in several months after the US invasion started. The US's allies were asking it to wait for those inspections to conclude.
Then, of course, the US ignored them because "he's going to hide the evidence", invaded for its own reasons... and famously found nothing. Blix was painted as an incompetent by the US, but even after stomping Iraq into dust and having full control of the country, the US found nothing.
