Pointing fingers at Western intelligence - and away from, of all people, Saddam - is today's political trend, illogical as it may be. And some are even conveniently forgetting just how potent a threat Saddam posed, or how the liberation of Iraq - weapons or not - is vital to winning the war on terror. But not everyone is dropping the charges of weapons possession and pursuit, least of all those who know Saddam better than most:

Iraq's foreign minister said on Thursday weapons of mass destruction acquired by the country's former rulers, which inspectors have failed to find, had been carefully hidden and he was confident they could be found. "I have every belief that some of these weapons could be found as we move forward," Hoshiyar Zebari told a news conference in Sofia. "They have been hidden in certain areas. The system of hiding was very sophisticated."

...Zebari, on a visit to Bulgaria, said: "We as Iraqis have seen Saddam Hussein develop, manufacture and use these weapons of mass destruction against us. He hasn't denied that."

Jed Babbin of National Review approaches from the same angle:

The fact that Saddam's WMDs haven't been found proves precisely nothing about whether he had them, what form they were in, or what became of them.

The facts are that we weren't wrong, but our diplomatic strategy was completely disconnected from our military one. We blew any chance of finding the WMDs by wasting six months in the U.N. debating whether or not to disarm Saddam.

...How many times do we have to repeat it? This is a different kind of war, and we are have to fight it in a different way. Preemption of terrorist threats is the only course for a nation that doesn't want to suffer another 9/11....In 1998, President Clinton signed the Iraqi Liberation Act making regime change in Baghdad the lawful policy of the United States. That law expanded U.S. efforts — both covert and overt — to topple Saddam. From that year — when Saddam threw the U.N. inspectors out, until March 2003 — the world, and the U.S., fiddled and diddled about what to do. And Saddam had all the time in the world to do what he could to plan for the inevitable.

Babbin speaks of the facts. What facts have changed? Saddam's temperament, a man with something to hide and someone to overpower, certainly hasn't. Would anyone have found a MIG-25 buried by the Ba'athists had the Allies not been tipped off? Unlikely - and a MIG, of course, is considerably larger than the largest WMD component, estimated by David Kay to be "no larger than a two-car garage." Sounds like the Iraq we always knew. Foreign Minister Zebari's statement reflects Kay's own that "All of Iraq's WMD activities were highly compartmentalized...with deception and denial built into each program."

While the politically expedient - or, depending upon your opinion of the war, advantageous - conclusion to Kay's findings of only bits and pieces of Iraq's weapons programs is that they must never have existed, it nevertheless requires an enormous suspension of disbelief. Would Saddam Hussein, a man who ruled for two decades and might as well have ruled for two more, invite his own destruction for crimes he hadn't committed? How in the world do science institutions fool the shrewd leader of a Stalinist country that had its eye on everyone, and his competing secret police? This is where the theory stumbles, for to bridge the logical gap Saddam must be made arbitrarily incompetent or even insane: How could he let himself be deposed if he could easily demonstrate that WMDs had no place in Iraq? Why, he must have been crazy.

But he wasn't too crazy to bribe dozens upon dozens for years. What ever could the bribes have been for? Bribery is a risky declaration of need - the recipient can always pocket the cash and do as they please - and therefore a tacit sign of submission. Saddam was stiffed a couple of times, but ended up no weaker for his submission. One flimsy part of the standoff theory is that Saddam would lose respect had he submitted to prove a lack of WMDs. Oh, was Egypt planning to invade? Were the WMDs providing Saddam, post-1991, with anything other than pariah status among neighboring dictatorships, some of whom who had weapons programs much like his own? Moammar Ghadafi's submission has won him stature for the short term. We should not mistake a practical conquerer like Saddam for a martyr. Or lack of discovery for proof of nonexistence.