Anti-Climacus

WELL: from the comments below:

"And maybe I´m thinking of this incorrectly, but it seems like he did lie: saying that WMD did concretely exist and using that as a basis (or one of the major bases) for attack, while apparently not having such evidence. And, as previously mentioned, when it has become clear that at the time, WMD did not exist..."

Well, the problem here is contrasting cases. When Libya (or South America about a decade ago) wanted to establish that they had no WMD, or that they were destroying the ones they did have, they: 1. made a full and complete admission of everything they had done as far as their WMD programs went, including turning over all their records and making anyone available that was requested and 2. invited in (rather than having imposed in from outside) outside observers to confirm that they were taking all the necessary steps to disarm.

Iraq, obviously, did no such thing. Leaving aside the thorny philosophical issue of someone proving that they had none of something, it's pretty clear that even if you believed Hussein's claims not to have WMD, he certainly behaved in a way consistent with someone who did in fact have them. And again, the principle of philosophical conservatism and the relevant bit of track record (Iraq claimed to have no WMD in 1991, 1995, 1997--you pick it--and they were established to be lying in all of those cases) and it seems like, even if the facts eventually prove otherwise, that it was not unreasonable to assume Iraq had WMD in absence of meaningful (in the sense above) proof that they had none.