Could Saddam have possessed WMD's all along but destroyed them as soon as the coalition invaded Iraq?

Question

Supposing if he did possess them, the reason why he didn't use them on the coalition could be:

i) Fear of a retaliatoy attack of destructive power

ii) To achieve exactly the damaging anti-war political climate that exists now, or i.e. to make them believe that the WMDs were all a myth, or conspiracy and that they never existed.

This would have destroy political and public support for the war, and made the American and Britis public turns against their leaders, and also made the US lose credibility with it's allies in the War on Terror, and broken up their alliance.

And who knows, he probably would have thought that this would achieve an ends means, and that as a result of intense political pressure back home, like in the Vietnam War, that they would eventually withdraw from Iraq.

After, all, he would have realized after the Gulf War that his army couldn't possibly hope to compete with the technological sophitication and military might of the West.

Answer 1

Ask the Kurds if he had them.
They are still there ,buried in the desert somewhere.
Every major nations intell forces said he had them and so did the UN.
Sarin gas shells have been recovered,hundreds of them.
For the Dummies out there,SARIN is a nerve gas.

Answer 2

I say the same. I don't find anything tricky, or impossible in burying the WMD conteiners somewhere in the desert waste dump, or selling them to a allied country. the same like Iraqi airforce being flown into the Iran, who surprisignly refused to return the planes after the war was over.
Anyway it is disputable whether the bigger evil is the Dictator that posses the WMD but not guts to use them, or the country full of unleashed fanatics blowing each other away.

Answer 3

Evidently I am the only one who understands the Arabs
and the Middle East. Could that be because I lived and
worked among them in a management position---hearing
their likes and dislikes for each other ?

Hobnobbing with some of the Leaders of the various
countries , and sleeping on dirt floors on occasions to
visit with families of workers in order to reassure
myself that we are all alike in our needs ?

Could it be that I am a "street person" even tho I
am highly educated and dress well and speak
well and could fool anyone because I spent many
years as a successful actor ?

Do you know that many of the Shiite Muslims in
Iran hate the Sunni Muslims because of an imaginary
incident that was supposed to have happened
200 years ago in the desert ?

Saddam was a Sunni , but he got along with the 70%
Shiite population in Iraq because he kept things
under control as a strong leader ----

As for the WMDs ----surrounded as he was with
none too friendly neighbors---he used the oldest
ploy in the world of one-up-manship-used by Attila,
Napoleon, Peter the Great, and all good Poker
Players ---he bluffed !!

If you ain't holdin' but you can make 'em think you're
holdin' ----you can win every time !!

Answer 4

There has been evidence of WMD's as we have found components (bits and pieces of WMD.)

Unless we dig up the whole country, we'll never know for sure if there are whole WMD's.

I think finding bits and pieces is pretty significant though.

Answer 5

I have it on good authority (from a friend of a friend who heard it in a cafeteria) that Saddam is most definitely not trying to acquire WMD's.

Answer 6

...according to the Israeli Mosad, Iraq had many WMD's (it wasn't "blabber-mouthed" like the U.S. Press and others do) and Saddam had a "heads-up" on the coming events... The WMD's were moved to Mr. Assad in Syria (where they remain today).

Answer 7

Whatever he had, he wouldn't have destroyed them. He would have burried them in the desert for future use.

Also, trucks were moving from Iraq to another country (Syria?) just before US forces went in.

It's highly unlikely that he had nuclear weapons, but we know for a fact that he had chemical WMDs at one time.

Answer 8

no... if they had real proof of there even being WMDs they wouldve been able to track movement of them out of Iraq. as for destroying them.. it takes more then just blowing them up or dismantling them, theres always a trace of it. the radioactive material has to go somewhere... nothing short of a fission reactor can eradicate it... and that would take a very very long time for the yellowcake uranium or plutonium to be completely spent and brokendown.

Answer 9

What would be the point in that? ..just to make the U.S. look silly? Are you saying the U.S. is silly for what they are doing because there are no WMD's? Hmmmm... maybe you're right.

Answer 10

There were none. That's why he made the UN weapons inspectors wait for 2 months.