In Reply to: Cliff, re: WMDs posted by matjnewton on Tuesday, 11. October 2005 at 18:45 Bali Time:
Saddam used chemical weapons in 1985. Not against Kurds, but against shia muslims, mostly of Iranian background whom Saddam believed were insurgents. (More accurately, he used the chemicals against a village that included the insurgents.) About 5000 people were killed.
There was a large international protest. NGO's everywhere highlighted this act as one of many of Saddam's evil acts.
Did America act? Yes. They sent Donald Rumsfeld over (he was special envoy to Iraq, back then, not the Secretary of Defense as he is today) to negotiate the sale of more chemical, biological and conventional weapons to Iraq.
Any WMD's Saddam ever had came from America. They had a limited shelf life. They were useless even before the first Gulf War.
There were huge reports of WMD's being found in, and even used by, Iraq. Later, there were tiny reports that the earlier huge reports were inaccurate.
If there was even one WMD in Iraq, it would have been used by now. It hasn't been. There aren't any. Never were. The truck in Colin Powell's photo was probably an ice-cream truck.