I am surprised that most of the people you knew believed the WMDs claim was totally wrong, in view of the facts that no one denies (a) Saddam had had them and (b) Saddam had used them.
The inspections & destruction policy was all well and good, but (a) Saddam had been giving the weapons inspectors the run around and (b) Iraq is a bloody big country and 'needle and haystack' situation comes into play.
Arguments along these lines I remember quite well, but it was usually those in favour or not very against the looming war that made points about Saddam having them in the past, giving inspectors the run-around, burying them in the desert.
Without wishing to have a complete rerun of this argument, the counterpoints went along the lines of 'the weapons had a use-by date, it was very hard for him to import new ones from anyone, we had mangled his capacity in many ways over many years, how much he hindered the inspections was hyped for propaganda purposes and he let them back in anyway, plus the government evidence for WMD was so weak it suggested the reality was even weaker'.
Perhaps faking evidence of WMD to save face was considered far too risky because if it went wrong and was exposed, well the last thing they needed was more damage to their credibility.
I was quite fascinated by the Rumsfeld & friends explanation later on that Saddam had wanted us to think he had weapons. Ho ho. I assume that sort of brinkmanship is a standard feature of global politics and people in charge of analysing threats would take such possibilities into account, certainly Saddam would not have wanted neighbours like Iran to know how weak he really was, but I think the reality was fairly easy to predict.
Anyways in general I think its clear that there are a large number of different reasons why the different power players do the things they do, and why they lie about stuff. Sometimes their motives and methods are just as dodgy and corrupt as conspiracy theorists would have us believe, but the reality is so much more complex and nuanced, including governments actually trying to act in the way they think best serves their nation and people. Its not really that hard to imagine what it would be like to be a decider of some kind, what limits there are, and that there is not one shadowy force at work, but a collection of persuasive factors. Sometimes a belief may cause a dodgy decision, sometimes some other powerful people or group exerting pressure, sometimes personal interest, sometimes forces from the past. Sometimes knowing the reality, having quality info and seeing what the real threats are, coupled with a lack of faith in masses or other groups reacting in the right way, and having to play the international poker game and so not be transparent to other players, leads to dodgy things. Fear, greed, and the will to get ones way surely lead to all manner of suspect decisions, perhaps some of them resemble plots, but good luck ever being truly sure whats occurring.
