Before Saddam went into hiding he was adamantly shouting that he had no WMDs. He didn't threaten to use nuclear weapons against the US military and in fact the reverse was true. He was told by diplomats just before the invasion commenced that if he used poison gas or anything the USA would totally nuke Iraq into a sheet of glass.
I'm generally a proponent of war. Some people just need killing. Just don't confuse the war sales pitch with the history of what actually went down. The truth is much more interesting.
I’m sorry.. you’re facts are incomplete. Do you not recall the threat that if we crossed the line into Bagdad that chemical weapons would be used?
I know that Saddam was claiming, before the war, to not have WMD. I also know most intel agencies did not believe Iraq had much of a nuclear program. Mostly, he was believed to have stockpiles of chemical weapons... and, it was suspected that he was working on biologicals.
Given Saddam’s constant interference with UN inspectors, there was really no way for the world to know, with certainty, what he really had or didn’t have.
Don’t get me wrong: I never thought the WMD argument was the strongest justification for the war. I was happy with “regime change” and “enforcement of the UN resolutions and peace terms”. But, the facts were: MOST intel agencies around the world believed WMD were there... and, after the realities of 9/11, I believe it would have been an unacceptable risk to assume Saddam would not give them to shadow terrorist groups.