No one reading this needs a reminder of how conspicuous and politicized the question has become of where, oh where, were Saddam's alleged WMDs in 2002 and 2003? The lack of visible stockpiles of nerve gas, smallpox germs and anthrax, an active atom-bomb project, or similar devilish -- and photogenic -- devices seems to have convinced some people that the threat Iraq posed to its neighbors and the world was misperceived or misrepresented when Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched. But late-breaking news, combined with some often-overlooked facts about basic chemistry, suggest that Saddam might have been closer to having the means to deliver WMDs over great distances than most folks realized -- and he did have the means to hastily manufacture WMDs at his fingertips, hiding in plain sight, all along.

U.S. government officials have just announced that a private Russian company provided technicians to help Iraq develop ballistic missiles with a range of as much as 600+ miles. These efforts continued, in direct violation of United Nations sanctions, until only months before the Second Gulf War began. In a lucky break for humanity, the illegal (as in prohibited, banned, absolute no-no) missile projects weren't completed in time. Had they been, Iraq would have been able to put under threat, from within its own borders, countries as far away and far apart as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The Russian government forcefully denies any knowledge of these blatant violations of international law by Baathist Iraq and by private enterprise within the Former Soviet Union's cash-strapped economy.

The issue here is not Russia's culpability for the actions of a criminal few. The issue is that Saddam Hussein's regime had every intention and made every effort up until the last minute to develop and deploy these missiles.

A weapon of mass destruction system consists of two essential parts: the delivery platform, and the payload. Ballistic missiles with high-explosive warheads are bad enough. Those same missiles fitted with WMD warheads become living nightmares.

But if Saddam didn't have tons and tons of Sarin nerve gas on hand, or mountains of anthrax spores, why would his dictatorship have presented a clear and present WMD threat?

Let's stick to one kind of WMD, poison gas. Consider, if you will, several common industrial or household substances which Iraq possessed in abundance in March, '03. If Iraq had owned a fleet of working long range missiles, as it certainly wanted to, these substances could have quickly been gathered up by Baath Party operatives and other Saddam sympathizers, loaded into properly configured (but low tech) missile warheads, and aimed at -- or fired at -- U.S. troops and various other military targets or civilian populations, including other countries' capital cities. A partial list of these substances, and their medical effects, is provided here just to give the reader an idea of what could easily have been, but thank God wasn't. (This list is no secret to terrorists, because I found the information in minutes today via simple Internet searches):

1. Poly vinyl chloride (PVC). A plastic common in drainage pipes, electrical conduits, and even some toys. When burned, PVC releases dioxin, one of the most toxic substances known to man. Effects of dioxin include cancer, death, and severe birth defects. Shred PVC, pack it with enough high explosive to heat it when the warhead goes off, and the missile will produce and disperse as lethal a cloud of poison gas as one might ever ask for.

2. Bleach and ammonia. This is a "poor man's binary WMD." (Binary means that the two substances, in isolation, are not very dangerous. But when mixed, their toxicity skyrockets.) When bleach and ammonia are combined, they release chloramine gas, which can cause permanent damage to the lungs, sometimes fatal. If the mixture of bleach and ammonia is heated, say by an incendiary included in the warhead, phosgene gas is created instead. Phosgene causes cancer, emphysema, and in the worst-case exposures slow death as the victim literally drowns in their own lung fluids. Phosgene is an especially cruel "improvised" WMD, because one of the symptoms is that after receiving a dose, the victim appears to recover for about twenty-four hours, before succumbing to a terminal stage of pulmonary edema -- the phosgene mixes with moisture in the lung tissues and turns into hydrochloric acid. As for the rest of it, use your imagination.

3. Asbestos. This heat-insulation and fire-proofing substance is common in Third World countries, and is infamous in America for causing lung cancer. The fact that death takes years or decades only adds to the psychological-warfare impact of this dual-use substance upon a community subjected to it when used as a WMD. Shred it, mix with just enough high-explosive to serve as a dispersant upon warhead detonation in the air or on the ground, and you're ready to make millions cower at your feet.

In conclusion, I won't mince words. A definitive smoking gun has been found and announced, indicating that Iraq was making its best efforts to build long-range ballistic missiles explicitly forbidden to Saddam by the United Nations. Those missiles themselves would have been mere delivery platforms; what mattered was what went into the warheads with which they might be tipped. Open information on simple chemistry and public health indicates that widely-available and seemingly unwarlike materials could easily and quickly have been converted into very effective WMDs to arm those wished-for missiles.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com