I'm sick and tired of hearing this...

This is a post I've been wanting to write for a long time. Frankly, I've been more than upset with those on both the Left and the Right for saying "there were no WMDs" and so today I make the argument that should be argued every day in the media and in political debate. I'm a scientist, and so I frequently employ simple logic to make my points. That's what I'm going to do now. Unfortunately, too many in Washington are strangers to logic and so my argument will likely fall on deaf ears, but I'll try anyway in a point-by-point outline:

1) The facts show that Saddam DID have WMDs. How do we know? Simple. He used them. On several occasions he attacked his enemies and his own people. He even admitted that he had them and UN weapons inspectors HAVE found evidence that he possessed them even after he used them. Not one intelligence agency could provide findings to the contrary. The UN couldn't even dispute this. In fact, no one disputed that he had WMDs. The argument was whether or not his weapons could be contained and whether we could prevent him from using them.

2) There is NO evidence that Saddam complied with UN demands and the cease-fire agreement from the Persian Gulf War that required he disarm. The UN weapons inspectors failed to find anything of substance showing that he destroyed his weapons. And since the invasion, US forces and intelligence officials have also found nothing of the sort. Plus, while still in power Saddam made no attempt to show that he had disarmed. Are we to believe that Saddam fully complied with the order to disarm and yet left no proof of this? No documents? No empty warheads? No destroyed buildings? Nothing? He just did it and we're supposed to take his word for it? Wouldn't he have at least given us something? Especially when our troops are preparing for a major offensive against him. He is a narcissistic power-hungry madman. If he had any evidence of compliance, he would have provided it at the final hour...yet he did not.

3) Considering points 1 and 2 and knowing that the WMDs have not yet been discovered, there are only two logical conclusions that can be drawn about what happened to the WMDs. a) he moved them outside the country, b) he hid them well within his own country. If I missed another possibility, feel free to correct me.

So where are they now? I wish I knew. I would sleep a lot better if I knew. Ideally, they are still somewhere in Iraq and will one day be discovered. That's the best case scenario. A worse case would be if he moved them to another country friendly to his cause. And still even worse would be if he dispersed them to multiple individuals or groups who have bad intentions in mind. The fact is, I want to believe "there were no WMDs". If that were true, then I would be thrilled and hardly upset that we invaded under false pretense. Discovering that there "were no WMDs" would be enough justification for the war in itself. Unfortunately, the facts simply don't support that claim, no matter how many political figures say so. Yes, I know the Bush Administration has said this themselves. Why? Who knows. Maybe he's just picking his battles and knows the difficulty that would come if he proposed that Saddam moved them to Syria or Jordan or Iran. I can't explain why they've said this, but I can explain that the facts DON'T support what has been said.

The UN argued before the war that they were effectively containing Saddam. But doesn't that argument fly out the window when we invade and find nothing? And how do they respond? They shrug their shoulders and say "there were no WMDs". How do we as a people let them and other political leaders get away with this?

In case you didn't follow my links, here are a few excerpts:

"Iraq acknowledged making 2,200 gallons of anthrax spores -- enough to kill millions if delivered effectively -- but U.N. inspectors determined Iraq could have made at least three times that much. As many as 16 missile warheads filled with anthrax are missing"

"Iraq acknowledged making nearly 5,300 gallons of botulinum toxin, most of which was put into missile warheads and other munitions. At least five missile warheads filled with botulinim toxin are missing"

"U.N. inspectors estimated Iraq had the means to make more than 200 tons of VX and never found definitive proof Iraq had destroyed its supply"

"Iraq acknowledged making thousands of rockets, artillery shells and bombs containing sarin"

This link gives a detail of what the UN believed in 2004, it's quite terrifying.

Why am I so upset? Well, if Saddam admitted to possessing 5300 gallons of botulinum, and 70 billionths of a gram is enough to kill one person, then how much botulinum can be placed inside a container the size of a soda can? And when you consider that 8,000 people cross our southern border into the US illegally EVERY DAY, how long until there is a major attack on us? After all, we can no longer account for those 5300 gallons of botulinum. Where is it? Who has it now?Naturally, saying "there were no WMDs" just doesn't cut it for me. I want proof! And so far no one can provide proof of this. So if we're to be upset that our invasion has so far failed to uncover the WMDs, it shouldn't be because we invaded on faulty intelligence. It should be because, if anything, we waited too long. Now we may never know what happened to the weapons until it is too late.

So I don't want to hear 'there were no WMDs' until somebody can prove it to me. I think it's wise to assume, at best, that the WMDs existed. I mean, why wait for the mushroom cloud to convince us?