Of course I checked the dates. The point is you're claiming Iraq was WMD free when we invaded. I illustrate just how much WMD capacity they were known to have.

In 1996 they destroy the Al Hakam facility - but the production run of that plant was nowhere to be found.

In 1998 Saddam booted out the inspectors. Clinton knew it was because they were hiding their WMD. Kofi Annan goes down and pulls a Neville Chamberlain with Saddam:

Remember this?

Sometimes a refresher course is necessary. This was after the destruction of Al Hakam in 1996.

Sure enough, as clinton prepared to go to war with Iraq, 157 bombs filled with anthrax were "found by Iraqis and destroyed. Iraq had already weaponized it. But there were major questions in January of 1999. Where were all the chemicals used to create anthrax, where did all that stuff go? Where were the missing 1.5 tons of VX? The Iraqis report and declaration was deemed "deficient in all areas" and they are still unaccounted for to this day.

You may believe that Iraq was WMD free because the stuff was not waiting for troops to seize - but the reality is WMD in Iraq is simply a shell game where key items forbidden by resolution or ceasefire were buried in the desert somewhere waiting to be reclaimed later.

It's reaching 122 degrees in Iraq. If you want to dig it all up in the shortest time period possible be my guest. But we are not going to kill our troops with heat strokes just to expedite the WMD hunt. There will be plenty of time for that this fall and winter.

To suddenly believe that Saddam was WMD-free is naive at best, when he repeatedly deceived, denied and stonewalled UN inspectors.

One has to see the big picture - Saddam saw WMD as his ace-in-the-hole and didn't attack Kuwait until he had a huge arsenal of weaponized anthrax and other agents of mass destruction. When one sees how he used WMD much earlier on the Kurds to control and frighten them one sees he was not adverse to actually using the WMD in stead of keeping them as a form of deterrence.

This whole WMD debate has been facilitated by Rove - who has created a keen sword for democrats to hurl themselves upon unknowingly. When the WMD are dug up or revealed in quantity - every single one of the hard-left democrats and journalists will have impaled their credibility and right in time for Bush's re-election. Rove's instructed Bush's pokerface policy and he knew that if he made it look like Bush was bleeding, the sharks would zero in. Like the old Roman strategy of retreating only to turns and slaughter the fastest pursuers first who thought they were weak or frightened - Rove has already assured a 2004 victory on this no-brainer of Saddam's WMD. Kerry and company are crumbling toast whose own words will hang them in the public square.

SDAI-Tech1