I'm not buying this. If he insisted on bluffing that he still possesed them why destroy them at all. What did he have to gain by destroying them if he wasn't going to use that fact to get the UN to lift the sanctions? I believe he didn't destroy all of them and they will be found.
I'm not sure what to believe about his WMDs, but I said in another thread long before this article was written (
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/985175/posts?page=3#3) that I believe Saddam allowed us to believe he had great stockpiles of WMD's so as to strike some fear and possibly deter an invasion. I hate to think like one of those conspiracy-behind-every-rock types, but if indeed this was the case, he had everyone fooled, the U.S. intellegence agencies, the Press, the U.N., etc. (I think I might have just ruined my theory since it would be pretty tough to fool all those groups or to get them all to help him in his deception)
I can still understand why he would want everyone to believe he had been pumping iron so no one would mess with him. Either way, he miscalculated badly. I knew a lot of bullies throughout my years in public school and they all wanted everyone to think they were tougher than they really were. As soon as they were met with sufficient force, their true weekness was exposed.