What originally sold me, and most of America, on the Iraq War was that Saddam had dealings with terrorist organizations, possibly with Al Qaeda, and that he was possibly hiding or manufacturing NBC weapons and keeping them hidden from UN weapons inspectors. Everyone forgets the time line. Bin Laden disappeared, 9/11 and the anthrax attack were still fresh in everyone’s minds, we did not know if Saddam did or did not have WMD but he was "screwing with" UN inspections. The thought was to prevent Saddam, who is nuts and hated the US, from handing some NBC weapon over to a terrorist organization and having a chemical bomb go off in Times Square at rush hour. This isn't the first report of an old chemical shell being found in Iraq (remember an old sarin shell was rigged into a failed IED a few years back). You can rule one or two out as being "misplaced" since the end of the Gulf War. You don't misplace hundreds of chemical shells, you hide them until the inspectors leave. Its not the big smoking gun of manufacturing and stockpiling of WMD that the admin sold us on, but Saddam did have some Duel purpose abilities leading up to the war and now some old stuff in storage. It seems now that Saddam is not as clean as some people would lead you to believe.
Again I am sickened on how people are swayed by politics, rather than common sense and national safety. I probably feel like this because I no longer have a party affiliation since I think the democrats are too liberal and the republicans are too conservative. Neo cons will give a big "I told you so!" assuming this will wash away previous mistakes regarding Iraq, while liberals will say "so what they are old, stale pre 1991 weapons, it doesn’t count" Regarding the stale thing, Most NBC weapons have a shelf life, but may they still be dangerous, or with some work can be brought back to almost original strength. Prime example is a suitcase nuke, without maintenance they have a limited shelf life. Would you feel safe if an Al Qaeda terrorist had an old suitcase nuke in on US soil if the nuke has a 1/50 chance of working properly? Are those “stale weapons nay sayers” willing to sit in an enclosed room like a movie theater while they open an old stale Iraqi mustard gas shell? I think not!
Honestly it is in everyone's best interest to keep things like hidden WMD in Iraq classified, let Al Qaeda and others assume nothing is there so they don't start looking. If that is the case I give Bush credit for some smart thinking (even though I called him an idiot on other things), if he kept this quiet since 2003 he risked losing an election to keep it under wraps, for the greater good. Santorum on the other hand apparently needs some votes, and just doesn't care.