Those elusive weapons of mass destruction Lionel Van Deerlin Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years. San Diego Union, June 4, 2003 In the final decade of the 11th century – not quite a full millennium ago – Pope Urban II launched the western world's first armed invasion of the Middle East. His goal was to recover sacred Christian relics from a Holy Sepulchre believed to exist in Jerusalem. The quest continued through a series of Crusades stretching two centuries. Let's hope that a more recent Mideast intrusion – the U.S. assault to find and remove hostile weaponry in Iraq – will wind up a bit faster. At the moment, regrettably, those weapons seem every bit as hard to find as the Holy Sepulchre. The mystery of Saddam Hussein's arms cache is unfolding like a detective story. At its outset, remember, none of us doubted the premise. The whole world agreed Saddam was stockpiling chemical, bacteriological and maybe even nuclear armaments. Our special authority for this seemed beyond challenge. Armed with intelligence reports, Vice President (and ex-Defense Secretary) Dick Cheney gave warning last Aug. 26. "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," he said. A nuclear capability aside, intelligence officials had found Saddam equipped to produce up to 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. The administration hinted that American agents knew where these things were to be found. Yet a sizable and well-trained team of United Nations inspectors assigned to Iraq kept begging for more time. Their lack of progress annoyed President Bush and the Pentagon hawks, who vowed to conduct the search themselves. (This, of course, would follow the prior necessity of an armed assault on Iraq.) The United Nations inspectors were warned to get out of the way, and American troops – thoroughly drilled for action in gas masks and chemical-resistant garb on the hot desert – stood ready on Kuwait's border, less than 400 miles from Baghdad. Announcing our impending offensive in a televised address the night of March 17, Bush offered this prime reason for war: "... The Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Backup testimony was heard from Gen. Tommy Franks, the coalition commander. "The weapons will be identified and found, along with the people who produced them and who guard them," he promised on March 22. The old Reagan arms expert, Kenneth Adelman, joined in the call to action, saying "We're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction" (March 23). Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld added specificity. "They are in the area of Tikrit and Baghdad," he confided on March 30. Happily, the fighting lasted only two weeks. Delay ensued while U.S. forces turned attention to looters and rioters. But those vaunted arms caches have since proved as hard to locate as Hussein himself. Every crime novel must have a surprise twist in the next-to-last chapter, when the author's clues seem to run out. There's a body unaccounted for. Or the victim wasn't who they'd thought. Or more than one person is found to have plotted the same murder. The men from Scotland Yard try not to seem surprised. And so it has been with Iraq's little mystery. "I never believed we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country," Secretary Rumsfeld said on May 4. Faithful to script, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice chimed in, saying "U.S. officials never expected that we were going to open garages and find weapons of mass destruction." "I still expect them to be found," said our Marine commandant, Gen. Michael Hagee, a doughty beacon of hope in a sea of despondency. At this juncture, the story line requires a surprise solution. It was first hinted by Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, who commands the 101st Airborne. Said he of Saddam's weapons cache: "I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago – I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago – whether they were destroyed right before the war, or are still hidden." Rumsfeld seemed eager to clutch a life rope. "Yes, they may have had time to destroy them," he said last week. "I don't know the answer." So there we have it. The Mideast's most evil ruler was also its dumbest. Having invested millions of dinars in hideous weaponry – the sort of stuff that's banned by international convention – Saddam was militarily prepared. But at the very moment he might find use for these devices against U.S. attack – he destroyed or buried them. Or, in a land whose enchantment seems contagious, maybe he sent them skyward aboard Ali Baba's magic carpet. Copyright 2003 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.