As for their existance, there has not been any proof that they did or do. UN weapons inspectors never found any prior to the invasion.
Ask Iranian vets from the Iran-Iraq war if there was any proof that WMD existed. Or maybe ask the Iraqi Kurds.
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iraq/Chemical/index_2826.htmlUNSCOM's final report to the UN Security Council noted a number of outstanding issues arising from efforts to verify the accuracy of Iraq's declarations. These included:
discrepancies regarding Iraq's use of CW during the 1980s
550 artillery shells filled with mustard agent declared to have been lost shortly after the Gulf
a large number of R-400 aerial bombs
a lack of information regarding Iraq's production of VX agent and its plans for the use the agent
inadequate accounts of the disposition of precursors used in the production of VX
On 30 September 2004 the ISG released its final report on Iraq's WMD programs. Its key findings regarding Iraqi chemical weapons programs were as follows.
Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable.
While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991.
Iraq's CW program was crippled by the Gulf war and the legitimate chemical industry, which suffered under sanctions, only began to recover in the mid-1990s. Subsequent changes in the management of key military and civilian organizations, followed by an influx of funding and resources, provided Iraq with the ability to reinvigorate its industrial base.
The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions.
Iraq constructed a number of new plants starting in the mid-1990s that enhanced its chemical infrastructure, although its overall industry had not fully recovered from the effects of sanctions, and had not regained pre-1991 technical sophistication or production capabilities prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.
ISG investigated a series of key pre-OIF indicators involving the possible movement and storage of chemical weapons, focusing on 11 major depots assessed to have possible links to CW. A review of documents, interviews, available reporting, and site exploitations revealed alternate, plausible explanations for activities noted prior to OIF which, at the time, were believed to be CW-related.[6]
What should really concern people is the 1.5 tons of VX gas that is unaccounted for. That much VX gas could kill alot of people. I posted links in another thread (the one about Iran) that show just how much of SH's stockpiles are unaccounted for. Some are VX gas precursors.
