Something that has gone down the memory hole:
During the invasion in 2003, troops (and embed reporters) found a chemical plant of a special nature; it was surrounded by guard towers, the plant manager was an army general, and the plant was secured by army troops. The plant was not on any of the weapons inspectors’ maps. They didn’t know about it.
The product of the plant was described as “nerve agent”.
A couple of days later, the news was updated to reveal that, no, it was just agricultural pesticide.
At least three other times, troops and embeds found stockpiles of supposed “nerve agent” at army ammo dumps; in one case the reporters on the scene got sick from exposure. And in each case after a couple of days it was reported that, no, its agricultural pesticide after all.
The difference between nerve agent and pesticide is how you use it. Spread it on Iranian troops, its nerve agent. Spread it on your crops, its pesticide. Iraqi troops used to call nerve agent “bug poison” because, obviously, it is.
So part of the reason we didn’t find any WMD is that we re-defined it out of existence.
Yes. The beginning of Saddam’s biological and chemical weapons program was headed by his agricultural department. The leader went to France which shared intell with Iraq. I talk about this in my book how pesticides and chemical weapons are much the same. Saddam knew that was a good front.