You’ve seen the bumper stickers, “Bush lied.” You have heard the idealistic talk about an impeachment and viewed the Democrats’ political commercials, “Bush: Misleader.” According to polls, most Americans believe that Bush either misled or possibly was himself misled by faulty intelligence on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

For the past three years, the news media has told us on a daily basis that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, no biological and chemical weapons. The rumors of a nuclear program were either fabricated or greatly exaggerated. Now America is in Iraq for a long duration and is responsible for needless suffering and shameful destruction. And so on.

Yet the Whitehouse still has on its web site a brief from 1993 explaining to the world America’s reasons for removing Saddam from power:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/disarm.html

Among the charges listed against Saddam:

• The U.N. and U.S. intelligence sources have known for some time that Saddam Hussein has materials to produce chemical and biological weapons, but he has not accounted for them:

• 26,000 liters of anthrax—enough to kill several million people

• 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin

• 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents

• Almost 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents

• From three Iraqi defectors, we know that Iraq in the late 1990s had several mobile biological weapons labs. But he has not disclosed them.

In addition, British intelligence still stands by its claim that Saddam sought to buy uranium from Nigeria. It’s time for all of us to separate the facts from politically motivated rhetoric and examine these claims. There are mass graves of hundreds of thousands who died due to his use of these “weapons of mass destruction.” They are called WMDs for good reason.

We know for a fact that Saddam once had these weapons. He had them before the first Gulf War in 1990 and used them against Iranians and his own countrymen, the Kurds, in the 1980s. We are now hearing daily testimony in Saddam’s trial of inhumane torture, war atrocities and the attempted genocide of the Kurds. Just this week, a CIA leak confirmed that there are several hours of tape-recorded surveillance of Saddam bragging that he had these weapons and planned to use them against Israel and the U.S. We know that Saddam had WMDs at one time.

The logical question that few in the media ask is, “If he did not have them, then why would he risk his own destruction by not cooperating with the UN inspectors.” There can only be a few solutions to this paradox.

• These weapons of mass destruction still exist and are hidden in Iraq or in another terrorist country such as Jordan or Iran.

• Saddam disposed of these weapons shortly after the first Gulf War as required by the U.N resolution, but in his self-destructive insanity refused to acknowledge that he had done so.

• These weapons never existed — even in the 1980s — but were a fabrication of western intelligence. The mass graves are a fabrication as well.

Logically, I cannot think of a fourth alternative. Email me if you think of one and I’ll add it to the poll at: https://www.forerunner.com/discussion.