The Chin is In

Here is an essay Jon sent for me to post:
An article I read somewhere else suggested that Saddam Hussien's weapons program was a hoax used for intimidation. It's called 10 Q&A about Iraq or something like that. It was written right at the end of hostilities. The author surmised Saddam may have kept an illusion of his WMD capabilities in order to scare the Iranians , or in that case, any potential adversaries away from Iraq. In essence, WMD is a deterance weapon, which means it is used as a chip in political bargaining. Saddam created a arsenal of phantom weapons. It reminds me of a Taiwanese thug who was stopped by the cop on the road for a search because he looked sketchy. He pulled out an air soft pistol, the metal-made kind that is identical to a real weapon in every aspect except for the trade mark engraved on the slider. The policeman shot him dead right on the spot. A police brutality suit as brought and lost. Very sad, but pathetic nonetheless.
Saddam may not have WMDs after all, but that wouldn't stop him from pretending to have it. Nor will it prevent him (or either one of his idiotic sons) from invading some country small, say Kuwait, and than claim to use WMD to deter intervention. Saddam did a good job convincing every one that he has a chemical-biological arsenal, and if you have read Hanns Blix's interview in Time, it is evident that even Hanns Blix himself was convinced Iraqis might have been keeping stuff away from the inspection team. For instance, he told the reporters that Iraqis officials had repeatedly refused to provide any evidence of their disarment while claiming they had no WMD. When reporters asked him whether Iraq has any credibility in their claim, he said, and I quote, "Iraq has no credibility. Iraq has already lost their crediblity in 1998." Obviously, no one believed that Iraq is clean, and the dubiousness is certainly a deliberate ruse. Even the anti-war people were convinced that Saddam has WMD.
The bottom line is, we would never know if Saddam has WMD without going in with the military. Not that some people did not foresee, by the merit of their foresight or good fortune, Iraq does not possess WMD; but the fact that U.S. policy-makers would be affected by such possibilities, therefore weaken their resolve in future crisis.