[Nogbad]

Hey you guys, why should Saddam go through the trouble
of putting sleepers in the US with secret codes, etc?

All he has to do is hand over his germs to the terrorists
(in some third country)
and they will do the work for him, lots of fun for years to come.

[Nogbad]

RePing

[aristeides]

If the terrorists already have the germs and the ability to release them, why should they have waited until now (and probably longer) to do so?

[The Great Satan]

All he has to do is hand over his germs to the terrorists (in some third country) and they will do the work for him, lots of fun for years to come.

Well, he could do that, too. But the control issues are the same. There has to be a hand-off of control and, ideally, that hand-off has to occur even if Saddam is killed. So there is really no important difference between the two scenarios, except that in one case we get whacked immediately, and in other case we get whacked later (maybe). And, from GWB's standpoint, the calculation is exactly the same. In fact, it's exactly the same even if, in reality, Saddam's bluffing -- even if he has no capability to manufacture powdered anthrax in anything but gramme quantities. We have to assume the worst, because the worst is perfectly plausible.