Silent Acorns

In my opinion the current evidence for Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction (WoMD) is analagous to the Christian's evidence for God.

So where do you stand on the question: does Saddam have WoMD?

Weak Atheist - I do not believe he has WoMD
Strong Atheist - Saddam cannot have WoMD
Theist - We must have faith in Bush that Saddam has WoMD
Agnostic - It is impossible to know if Saddam has WoMD
Pantheist - the universe is a WoMD
Deist - Saddam has WoMD, but he has no will to use them
Polytheist - There are many Saddams, and they all have WoMD
Prophet - Saddam has told me that he has WoMD

Silent Acorns

Looking at this again, I should have included an additional catagory:

Apologist - There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Saddam has WoMD

Could a moderator add it to the poll for me?

If so, sould you also add the descriptions to the poll itself?

Sorry, but this is my first poll and I wasn't sure how it would work.

Thanks

Krieger

Haha, nice poll.

theyeti

How about...

agnostic: I don't know if he has WoMD, but we may know in the future after the Bush adminstration releases the evidence that it's been claiming to have but for some reason won't share with the UN inspectors.

On a related note, I really don't like lumping every chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon under the same label of Weapons of Mass Destruction, as if they all represent the same kind of threat. It's not as if a bit of mustard gas is in the same league as a 50 megaton thermonuclear tipped ICBM. It makes a huge difference in terms of whether or not Saddam is a legitimate threat if he has the former or the latter.

To break it down:

Does Saddam have nuclear weapons, or a credible nuclear weapons program?

No.

Does he have any biological weapons?

Possibly, but probably nothing more than some old antrax spores and/or botulinum, which while not a good thing, are of extremely limited use.

Does he have any chemical weapons?

Possibly, but what kind or how much is the real question. Some of the old stuff we gave him is not really anything to go nuts over.

***

In general, biological and chemical weapons are of little military value. Their only real value is psychological, and Saddam would be stupid to ever use them against us or Israel or any other country that we didn't give him the green light to use them on (like Iran). What should really concern us is if he had a nuclear weapon, or had to capability to make one within reasonable amount of time. Has anyone noticed how the Bush adiminstration has slowly changed its rhetoric away from "he could have nuclear weapons!", which was the rallying cry last fall, to "we know he has Weapons of Mass Destruction�!" which is the current claim? They know they're not going to find any evidence of nuclear capability, so they're going to use some old and ineffective chemical agents as an excuse for war.

theyeti

Loren Pechtel

Incomplete. Saddam has WMD and will use them if backed into a corner. He will also use them against targets incapable of retaliation.