SDAI-Tech1: "As recently as 1997 Saddam could kill billions of people."

MY REPLY: What a load of hooey! By 1997 whatever stockpiles of chemical weapons Mr. Hussein possessed were well-past their useful shelf life, although its clear he didn't possess much of anything at that time anyway. And the type of weapons originally involved were artillery shells - hardly an effective means of killing billions of people. The farthest distance any of his missiles could fly was 93 miles and none of these were chemical weapons capable. And, whatever bioweapons reseaerch he was doing was abandoned over ten years ago.

Yes, he had and used chemical weapons in the mid to late 1980's - then fully supported by the Reagan-Bush administrations. But by 1997, even his conventional military infrastructre was essentially non-functional.