Colin Powell's speech at the UN in February 2003 talks about "real and present danger." Saddam was scared s4less, and finally allowed the weapons inspectors to do their job. Quote from the report: "This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance."

Now, assume that the administration was convinced that Iraq's WMD programs were a "real and present danger." Wouldn't they want first hand confirmation from the weapons inspectors? I think they would, and indeed they seem to have tried to point the inspectors to the places where there were supposed to be WMDs. It turned out that all these leads were false.

So given all that, a reasonable person would have developed some doubts regrding the certainty of their beliefs, and at least let the inspectors work a little bit longer before pulling them out and invading. The fact that only ten days after the inspectors' report to the UN they were told to pull out because of the upcoming US invasion leads me to believe that the administration knew there are no WMDs to be found, and wanted to get into Iraq at any cost - at this point one part of that cost is 2512 dead American troops and (unfortunately) counting...