I suspect that Iraq does not possess the WMDs we have alleged they possess. Its possible that Saddam Hussein attempted to keep a WMD program going on a shoestring, but I doubt that we will find anywhere near what George Bush asserted he had.

The U.S. contention that the Iraqis possessed large quantities of WMDs was based upon an admission by Iraq in the mid-1990s that it still had a stockpile of such weapons manufactured prior to the 1991 Gulf War. It is increasingly apparent that since that time Mr. Hussein did not possess the wherewithall to continue large scale production of chemical and biological weapons. More importantly, any of the stockpiles he admitted to having in the mid-1990's would be useless sludge by now as the stuff has a shelf life of little more than five years.

So why did the Bush administration think Iraq still had these things?

One possibility may be that Saddam manufactured the mythology that he had such weapons as a strategic defense from his neighbors like Iran and Syria. The 1991 War left Saddam's military infrastructure in a shambles. Perhaps his self defense of Iraq depended upon his neighbors believing he possessed and would use chemical and biological weapons.

My cycnical side suggests that the entire allegation was manufactured by the Bush administration prior to the 2002 elections to take the public's mind off the failing economy and rebuild Mr. Bush's popularity numbers.

My less cynical side suggests that the hawks in the Bush administration manufactured the WMD allegation to create a pretext to go to war in the sincere belief that a successful war with Iraq might set the stage to remake the Middle East political landscape.

My more practical side suggests that these allegations were manufactured to create a pretext to go to war with the simple idea that the war on terrorism needs to demonstrate to the Arab and Islamic world that the U.S. means business and won't tolerate even the weakest of threats.

Wherever you land, I think the message is becoming increasingly clear...there are nowhere near the chemical and biologiical weapons in Iraq we claimed there were. More than likely Saddam got rid of the stuff as he claimed in the late 1990's. But because Saddam poured all of his resources into building palaces rather than a government there is no adequate documentation of this. In fact, its clearly apparent that but for his palaces, the Iraqi government was effectively an empty shell. Much of its infrastructure, including large military facilities, had been left to languish in the years following the Gulf War. This is clearly the case with the warehouse of bodies found near Karbala. They had been left, almost forgotten, there for nearly fifteen years.

These thoughts are admittedly speculation. But among them, I suspect lies a kernel of what the truth is.