It is a time-honored tactic of grossly overestimating the capability of your bogeyman in order to secure compliance from the populace for doing what you want to do anyway.
At some point, Saddam had chem/bio weapons. Most of what he had was crude, and his delivery systems were not very effective unless you were in a Kurd village or massed Iranian troops. There are model airplane enthusiasts who can build something more sophisticated that his "drones."
The question is whether the terrorists on 9/11 succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, or whether is was the tip of the iceberg. I tend to believe the former. And if you believe the former, the perpetual war on terror can easily be seen as the best excuse ever devised for a government power grab.
Nomex on.