I read in the second line,

"It is possible they destroyed them prior to the conflict."

Duh -- what happened prior to the conflict? We (Donald Rumsfeld and I) watched the Iraqis destroy 70 SAM missiles on national tv under the supervision of the U.N. -- did you miss it on CBS that night?

But the real issue is why is U.S. military intelligence so absolutely miserably poor in either case? The quality of the intelligence reports is making the 12,000 pages of BS look like the Bible! :p

I can't say that I am entirely satisfied with the performance of our intelligence agencies either although I understand that there is considerable probability of error in whatever they can devine from their sources. Still, I have to agree that they need to do a lot better. Maybe they should be allowed to associate with people a bit more shady than a scoutmaster or sunday school teacher going forward. It would seem that the better intelligence could be had from those who have, shall we say, more checkered pasts.