To set the record straight: Bush did not lie to seduce Democrats into supporting the war, and could not have done so, since the Democrats had access to the same intelligence reports he did.
The war was not about extant stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, as Democrats dishonestly claimed: It was about Saddam’s violation of 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions designed to prevent him from pursuing the WMD programs he was developing. -David Horowitz 
But there is a time that line going along that Bush and the other people lied about this. I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq. And lots of mistakes, but it was Bush telling George Tenet, the CIA director, don't let anyone stretch the case on WMD. And he was the one who was skeptical. -Bob Woodward
There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after all. The massive cache of almost 400,000 Iraq war documents released by the WikiLeaks Web site revealed that small amounts of chemical weapons were found in Iraq and continued to surface for years after the 2003 US invasion, Wired magazine reported.-Robert D. Kaplan
Liberal, Narrative
WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday. "We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.
The Committee found significant shortcomings in almost every aspect of the Intelligence Community's human intelligence collection efforts against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction activities, in particular that the Community had no sources collecting against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after 1998.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War
But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
Liberal, Narrative
The Truth There are several quotes. Most of them come during a time in the Clinton administration when decisions were being made about action against Saddam Hussein and amid concerns about weapons of mass destruction.
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." -- Robert Byrd, October 2002
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
As the regime of Bashar Assad disintegrates, the security of his chemical arsenal is in jeopardy. The No. 2 general in Saddam Hussein's air force says they were the WMDs we didn't find in Iraq... Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Warming, Science
"We know that he [Hussein] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." "If you get someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons?"
Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.
Democrat, Liberal, Narrative
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." -Al Gore
But just a month before the Iraq invasion, Carter himself, though he opposed the war, told a British paper that Saddam "obviously has the capability and desire to build prohibited weapons and probably has some hidden in his country."
Liberal, Narrative, War
There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources -- something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction. -Sen Jay Rockefeller (D)
Liberal, Narrative, War, Terrorism
BAGHDAD (AP) — Britain will help the Iraqi government dispose of what's left of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons, still stored in two bunkers in north of Baghdad, the British embassy in Baghdad announced Monday. The British Defense Ministry will start training Iraqi technical and medical workers this year, an embassy statement said. The teams will work to safely destroy remnants of munitions and chemical warfare agents left over from Saddam's regime. He was overthrown in 2003 following an American-led invasion.
The cache that contaminated Sergeant Duling’s team was not the first discovery of chemical weapons in the war. American troops had already found thousands of similar warheads and shells.
The United States had invaded Iraq to reduce the risk of the weapons of mass destruction that it presumed Mr. Hussein still possessed. And after years of encountering and handling Iraq’s old chemical arms, it had retroactively informed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2009 that it had recovered more than 4,500 chemical weapons. -C. J. Chivers
Saddam was clearly not complying with United Nations requirements about exposing and dismantling his chemical-weapons stores. -Patrick Brennan
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Terrorism, Bush
From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule. In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Terrorism, Bush
In late 2005 and early 2006, soldiers collected more than 440 Borak 122-millimeter chemical rockets near Amara, in southeastern Iraq. And in the first nine months of 2006, the American military recovered roughly 700 chemical warheads and shells, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act... Even as the Senate committee worked, the American Army made its largest chemical weapons find of the war: more than 2,400 Borak rockets.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Terrorism
By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
I can remember when Bush got in for the second time, just feeling like so much of the problem about the way that politics go here is that people are improperly informed. That they didn’t know that they had been lied to, or they didn’t understand exactly to what extent they had been, and they still thought that there were weapons of mass destruction. And that was just crazy to me that people could be so under-informed. -“Newsroom” star Emily Mortimer
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Bush
In this exclusive from the National Security Archive, a secret agency report on its WMD failures is published for the first time. This remarkable CIA mea culpa, just declassified this summer and published here for the first time, describes the U.S. intelligence failure on Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction as the consequence of "analytic liabilities" and predispositions that kept analysts from seeing the issue "through an Iraqi prism."
Liberal, Narrative, War, Bush
The CIA’s chief weapons inspector said he cannot rule out the possibility that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were secretly shipped to Syria before the March 2003 invasion, citing “sufficiently credible” evidence that WMDs may have been moved there. Inspector Charles Duelfer, who heads the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), made the findings in an addendum to his final report filed last year.
Liberal, Narrative, War, Bush
An article in the fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that in an appearance on Israel's Channel 2 on Dec. 23, 2002, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, stated: "Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria." According to the article, about three weeks later, Israel's foreign minister repeated the accusation.
Liberal, Narrative, War, Bush
The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed... "There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."
Liberal, Narrative, War, Bush
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, now director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, told reporters that U.S. surveillance satellites captured images of vehicle traffic dispersing WMD materiel to urban locations in Iraq and moving large quantities into Syria as well.
"Those below the senior leadership saw what was coming, and I think they went to extraordinary lengths to [dispose, destroy and disperse] the evidence," said Gen. Clapper. "By the time that we got to a lot of these facilities...there wasn't that much there to look at. There was clearly an effort to disperse, bury and conceal certain equipment prior to inspections." Gen. Clapper added that there is "no question" that people and WMD materiel were moved by truck convoys into Syria.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Terrorism
Islamic State fighters had for months used skilled snipers and roadside bombs to prevent Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite militias from advancing. During that period Islamic State used secret tunnels built by Saddam Hussein to evade United Nations weapons inspectors to move and store weapons and supplies.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Terrorism, Bush
The United States recovered thousands of old chemical weapons in Iraq from 2004 to 2009 and destroyed almost all of them in secret and via open-air detonation, according to a written summary of its activities prepared by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international body that monitors implementation of the global chemical weapons treaty...
It included a table disclosing limited details on 95 separate recoveries and destructions of chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, for a total of 4,530 munitions from May 2004 through February 2009 — a period of often intense fighting in Iraq. The United States later recovered more Iraqi chemical weapons, pushing its tally to 4,996 by early 2011, according to redacted intelligence documents obtained by The Times via the Freedom of Information Act.
Liberal, Narrative, Oops, War, Terrorism
The Central Intelligence Agency, working with American troops during the occupation of Iraq, repeatedly purchased nerve-agent rockets from a secretive Iraqi seller, part of a previously undisclosed effort to ensure that old chemical weapons remaining in Iraq did not fall into the hands of terrorists or militant groups, according to current and former American officials.
The extraordinary arms purchase plan, known as Operation Avarice, began in 2005 and continued into 2006, and the American military deemed it a nonproliferation success. It led to the United States’ acquiring and destroying at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the internationally condemned chemical weapons that Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government manufactured in the 1980s but that were not accounted for by United Nations inspections mandated after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.