KEY QUOTE: "Acknowledging that it was only one of his theories, Wallace said the reason such unconventional weapons never were used was that the Iraqis had to hide them from U.N. weapons inspectors up until the last days before the war."

In otherwords, if these WMD's actually exist, the U.N. inspections that preceded the war may be responsible for saving hundreds of American lives. Perhaps, instead of blistering Blix and the U.N. we should offer a debt of gratitude.

Of course, this begs the question about why the war was needed in the first place. If U.N. inspections drove the Iraqis to hide their WMD's so well it was impossible to use them, perhaps relying upon the inspetors to continue doing their job may have been the less costly alternative in terms of lives and dollars.

But would should be disturbing to all of us is that if Saddam had these things, there are people in Iraq who know where they are and are now fully capable of getting these materials into the wrong hands. If this has occurred, as some have already alleged, the war cannot be regarded as a success. The whole point of going to war was to keep these weapons from falling into the wrong hands.

Time will tell.