IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT THE DEFINITION OF "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION" IS

It's fascinating to be this far into the post-Saddam period and still to be arguing about weapons, about terror, and about Saddam. According to one school, the total effect of the whole thing has been to expose WMD claims as a sham, ratchet up the terror network, and give Saddam a chance at a populist comeback.

I don't think that this can be quite right. I still want to reserve my position on whether anything will be found, but I did write before the war, and do state again (in my upcoming Slate/Penguin-Plume book) that obviously there couldn't have been very many weapons in Saddam's hands, nor can the coalition have believed there to be.

--Christopher Hitchens in Slate, May 20, 2003

It must be obvious to anyone who can think at all that the charges against the Hussein regime are, as concerns arsenals of genocidal weaponry, true.

Saddam has been willing to risk his whole system and his own life rather than relinquish this goal.

--Christopher Hitchens in the Mirror, September 25, 2002

There is not the least doubt that [Saddam Hussein] has acquired some of the means of genocide and hopes to collect some more...

--Christopher Hitchens in The Nation, September 26, 2002

(And I shall add that any "peace movement" that even pretends to care for human rights will be very shaken by what will be uncovered when the Saddam Hussein regime falls. Prisons, mass graves, weapon sites... just you wait.)

--Christopher Hitchens in The Stranger, January 16 - 22, 2003

You can get through any conversation or chat show by pulling a solemn face or adopting a serious tone and saying: "Well, the government hasn't made its case on weapons of mass destruction and there's no clear link between Saddam and al-Qaeda and, anyway, we need another UN declaration."

Those who have been getting through the past month by saying this are in danger of looking foolish in the extreme a few weeks from now....

On the weapons issue, for example, it is perfectly obvious that the Iraqi regime has something to hide....

--Christopher Hitchens in the Mirror, January 16, 2003