An article giving some idea as to where we are (or aren't) with the WMD search.

I'm not ready to declare total victory on the WMD front, and I doubt I ever will. It seems kinda stupid to be saying this, seeing as how even I expected them to find shit over in Iraq once we invaded. I did not expect them to prove me wrong on the one thing we agreed on. The problem is, even if we find nothing, the question will remain as to whether or not we just didn't look hard enough. Of course, we are looking pretty hard. If any of it pays off, and we do find (or plant) something substantial, my guess is that it will show up sometime this year, and probably before November.

One thing that does seem pretty evident is that, yes, Iraq did have some plans or at least desires to develop banned weapons. This, however, IS NOT WHAT WE WERE TOLD about Iraq's supposed weapons. We were told that they had shit on hand, and lots of it. Shit that he planned to use on us.

Weapons programs do not constitute an immediate threat. I'm no expert on genetics, biology, or weapons hardware, but I do have a little bit of experience in R&D. Enough experience to know that when you want to develop something, it takes fucking time. There's no magical factory that you can send an idea to which will produce a finished product that same day. There's a lot of planning, research, design, simulation, and test before you have some sort of viable product. Iraq sounds like it was nowhere near that "finished product" stage.

The reason why I did not support the war despite (probably mistakenly) believing that Iraq had WMD was because I was nowhere near convinced that Saddam was going to use them on us. We kept such a tight reign on Iraq, carving the country up with no-fly zones and dropping bombs if Saddam so much as woke up all wet and sticky after dreams of illicit weapons. He didn't have the capability to strike the American homeland, and even if he were brazen enough to strike an ally like Israel or some other American interest, that would have been fucking suicide. We would have immediately figured out where the attack came from and then been in there wit' da quickness to fuck him up. If nothing else, I figured Saddam would have used them when we were on Baghdad's doorstep, but even that didn't go down.

The only other possibility would be that he would transfer his weapons to someone else, like terrorists, who would then use them. Well, this didn't really fly either, because I doubt it would be all that easy to move shit like that without someone noticing. Of course, now that it's looking more and more like there was nothing to move, it's all a moot point.

The main point here is that even if Iraq had weapons before the war or if they had them in the future, that doesn't mean they were planning on using them. This makes the Bush team's justification for war, that of an imminent threat, a complete and total lie.

I know what you're saying. "Why would they have all these horrible weapons if they weren't planning on using them?" Well, there are lots of other countries that have some pretty evil shit, the United States included. Just because we have it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to use it. "But this is Saddam we're talking about it. He's crazy."

Yeah, let's talk about Saddam a little more. Sure, Saddam was a brutal dictator who was hungry for power. In the end, though, he was what so many other world leaders are: a big fat pussy. He didn't go out with guns ablaze, he surrendered to U.S. forces without firing a shot just so he could have his hair checked for ticks and lice like a first grade child.

If that there was our "imminent threat," then I am not impressed.