No smoking gun here..close but no.
I'd be very surprised if we found a smoking gun. Unless there's a handwritten note to Saddam that says something like, "Take the WMDs here" with a hand-drawn map showing a road to Syria, I doubt we'll get a "smoking gun." These documents, taken in their totality, are continuing to bolster what most of us agree was a good cause to begin with ... the invasion and regime change in Iraq. The preponderance of the evidence continues to mount, and the smoking gun is the documents as a whole.
"I'd be very surprised if we found a smoking gun. Unless there's a handwritten note to Saddam that says something like, "Take the WMDs here" with a hand-drawn map showing a road to Syria, I doubt we'll get a "smoking gun." "
On the other hand, I'd bet that our first targets in Iraq were in fact the weak point in most Eastern Bloc-based military systems and PARTICULARLY Saddam's: Command and Control.
Which, IMHO, means that the only reliable methods of communication left in Iraq after the first hour or two of air/cruise missile attack was word-of-mouth or written & hand-delivered hunk of paper.
Got to be bloody HUNDREDS of those things lying about, even if the recipients were told to destroy 'em, and that ignores the autocrat impulse to copy everything one does as cover-my-arse or book deal material.
We may very well not only find "smoking gun" notes addressed TO Saddam, but some FROM that same person complete with signature. (As a humorous interlude, just imagine the fuss if one of those "from Saddam" things turned up with a UN address.....)