Yep. I started floating the theory right after the invasion that the reason any stories of WMD facilities were being spiked was just for that reason. Saddam had over 10,000 weapons depots. The LAST thing we needed was to be in some kind of race with Al Queda to scrounge up some chemical or bio weapons, all spread out allah-knows-where. It seemed logical to me that it was in our best interest to say instead that there were no WMDs. One reason I was so suspicious of this was that it seemed like the announcement of "no WMD's" came out ~awfully~ early... long before we could have actually searched all those thousands of locations. It would meand that Bush would have to fall on his sword and take the personal hit for it, but I do think he would do that if that's what was necessary.
It was necessary and that’s exactly what President Bush did.