"The belief that they will be found borders on religious."

Hmm. So are you saying there is some doubt or you think it's very unlikely.
Why not assign some odds, so your postion is more exact?
For example:
What do you think the chances of finding any evidence of WMD.
[This could include small quanities or say evidence of trace amounts indicating small amount or significant quantity did exist within say the last year or so.]
What do you think the chance of finding equipment which has been or is specifically designed to make WMD. And find significant quantity of precursors.
What chances of finding functioning WMD which are ready for field use- artillery rounds, warheads for missiles or bombs, or WMD which are ready to be used by terror type operations.
What are chances of finding large quantities of WMD with wide variety of uses- even larger or more advanced (or simply unexpected) uses than was expected. An example might be a dirty bomb, or say a nuclear warhead which is ready to be used.

And what about evidence that the WMD which has already been discovered by inspectors but not disposed of, has been tampered with or removed?
If you think that Saddam did not intend to keep and use WMD, how do you explain why Saddam did not cooperate fully and thereby get sanctions lifted? And if you think Saddam made this decision when do you suppose he made this choice?
As extreme example do you think that since '91 Saddam didn't have any undeclared WMD, and that any evidence found was due to the US or other parties doing something to lead to this deception.