WMDs – Saddam had been building what are now called WMDs ( crude chemical weapons, mostly) for use in the Iran/Iraq war and against what he considered internal insurgents (the Kurds, mostly).

None of these so-called WMDs would have been useful as a terror weapon against the USA. Too bulky for transport and crude. There was a worry that he might try making true biological weapons, but very little reliable reports on this.

The adminstration tried to segway these crude WMDs to nuclear weapons. AFAIK, there was absolutely no credible info for this.

Just before the beginning of the USA/Iraqi war, the UN inspectors, who had FINALLY been given full acess, said that their inspection was almost over and they had found nothing. Bush said “too late” and started the war. So the info was pretty good before the war started that the Iraqis no longer had WMDs.

Even if Saddam had had real WMDs, there was no credible information that he would give these to groups to use against the USA. He was a very paranoid person and was very unlikely to give anything powerful to groups that might turn around and use them against him. There was certainly no credible evidence that he had ties to Al Quada – a rather odd association on the face of it ( a secular socialist dictatorship and a fundementalist extremist group that wished to topple Saddam).

What would have happened if Saddam had been left in power? Hard to say – it was certainly an unstable situation as many people wanted to assasinate him. And soorner or latter he would die and dictatorships seldom have smooth transitions after the death of the dictator.

While he remained alive he would have acted as a brake on Iran. My guess is his sons would have taken over after his death, with probably a bit of a bloody shootout in the process. But because the sons didn’t seem to be the sharpest crayons in the box, some general probably would have staged a successful coup against them.