"Q: And why would world leaders believe something for which there was no hard evidence?

A: Because for moths they were relentlessly fed sexed-up intelligence and outright lies by the "leader of the free world"."


Try years instead of months (you meant "months," right?)- apparently they believed it from Clinton too. Bill Clinton's on record saying he certainly believed it. Where did he get his intelligence? The Saddam thing was going on long before W took office. Anyhow, Saddam's not a complete idiot; and while no one's yet found any WMDs (although they did find fighter jets buried in the desert), they have found evidence that research was taking place.

Prohibition-era law enforcement believed Al Capone was behind a lot of stuff, but they had no hard proof of his involvement in murder, bootlegging, organized crime, etc. He was tried and convicted for income tax evasion. Maybe not a great analogy, but it's the best I could think of at the moment.