Ignored facts on WMD

The world's most implacable foe of the Iraq war, French President Jacques Chirac, actually did believe Saddam possessed WMD. If he had evidence that Saddam was disarmed, wouldn't he have used that evidence to stop us from going to war? Of course he would have. So would German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. So would Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Putin, who opposed the war, actually thought that Saddam was preparing to stage terrorist attacks on the United States. As he said last month: "After the events of 9/11, and up to the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services and Russian intelligence several times received . . . information that official organs of Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist acts on the territory of the United States and beyond its borders, at U.S. military and civilian locations."