DID SADDAM HUSSEIN HAVE WMD?

With ISIS closing in on Baghdad news reports stated that ISIS forces were closing in on an Iraqi WMD facility. Obviously this raises many concerns about how terrorists would use these weapons.   But we have been told for years by the media and liberals that Saddam did not have WMD, which obviously undermines Bush's reason for invading Iraq in 2003.  Liberals and the media have argued that Bush lied, destroying the neo-con rationale for the invasion.

But now we hear that there was a WMD facility of some kind so did Saddam have WMD or not?  Obviously he used something to kill Kurds.  A Frontline PBS (liberal) report indicated that Saddam did have some kind of WMD program which was more than just a plan or a few buildings.

CNN has an interesting timeline which indicates that in 2002 Iraq submitted a 12,000 page (!) report on its WMD programs.  And in January 2003 some WMD warheads are discovered, but they are largely empty (but could presumably be filled with agents).  In February Secretary of State Collin Powell gave his speech to the UN saying that Iraq lied to UN inspectors.  By March the US has invaded.  CIA director George Tennant said, regarding Iraqi WMD, that it was a “slam dunk.”

Hot Air (conservative) argued in 2010 that WikiLeaks proves the US found WMD in Iraq.  But the Guardian (liberal) in 2004 stated that UN and US inspectors found no credible program.

In 2012 Time  (liberal) reported on the CIA’s confession that it was “bamboozled” when it reported Saddam had WMD.

Commentary (conservative) argues that the weapons ISIS finds will not be usable, but reflects on how the weapons could have been used if Iraq had not been invaded.

What does all of this mean?  It would appear that Saddam Hussein did not have a massive delivery capability for WMD, but he did have something and may have been working on building more.  Whether Bush should have invaded can still be debated, but the media myth that there was no WMD is not supported by the evidence.  However, it would not appear to be a massive buildup of WMD that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

7/12/14 UPDATE.  From Wired:  "WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq -- With Surprising Results."

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.