Iraq was in a shooting war with the US and UK for all of the 1990s. Saddam's main adversaries were no longer Iran or even Israel. His adversaries are on different continents, and those adversaries themselves have WMDs.

Why have strategic WMDs? (I use the word "strategic" here as opposed to "tactical". There have been about a dozen artillery shells of sarin found. I don't care. I mean nukes and bioweapons.) The entire purpose behind WMDs is deterrence.

But there are certain conditions that must be met for successful deterrence, most of which can be discerned from a screening of one of my favorite movies, Dr. Strangelove.

"Vy dind't you tell ze vorld, eh!?!"

1. Advertisement of the weapon. While ambiguity has a certian utility, you can't be deterred by something that you don't know even exists.

USAF B-52 "Leper Colony" ; Soviet ICBM complex at Laputa

2. Credible means of delivery. You've got to be able to deliver it.

President Merkin Muffley : General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.

General "Buck" Turgidson : That's right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it's beginning to look like, uh, General Ripper exceeded his authority.

3. Adequate command and control. Kinda sucks when you lose control over city-killing weapons. Upsets the calculus of terror, don'tcha know. John Pina Craven's unique take on the Cold War as told in his book The Silent War largely focuses on how the Soviets command and control began to degrade. The United States detected this decline, and made clear to the Soviets that they knew what was up.

Plan R

4. Ability to strike from beyond the grave. Otherwise, a decapitiation strike might allow the aggressor to get away unscathed. If one party or another lacks this capability, one of them may as well shout to the world, "Kill me! You'll be safer!"

During the 1980s, Saddam Hussein had already achieved considerable success using tactical WMDs, and had shown a sustained interest in obtaining more powerful, strategic WMDs. During the 1990s, Saddam's Iraq was bombed almost daily by the US and UK, had bits of his country achieve de facto independence under that same air cover; Saddam furthermore survived several coup attempts sponsored by the US and UK druing that time.

So, it's little Iraq against powerful, distant opponents. What would 1,2,3 & 4 look like?

I, for one, can't be sure what they would look like. But I can tell what 2 would NOT look like. Saddam didn't have any strategic bombers, and no ICBMs, only crappy MRBMs - SCUDs, and not many of those.

So where are these WMDs? If there is anything worth worrying about, anything worth invading over, any smoking gun it's not in Iraq.