Investor's Business Daily features an editorial today titled, Saddam Had WMD. One might think that such a revelation would be trumpeted from much further reaching media outlets than IBD - and it might, were it true.

The IBD editorial refers to a group of secret tapes leaked to ABC News earlier this month. The tapes feature Saddam Hussein speaking with aides about how much he would like WMD.

Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the war, says the tapes show extensive deception but don't prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. "What they do is support the conclusion in the report, which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted."

You know, I would really like a Rolls Royce. I really would. I think it would be awesome. And, if circumstances permit, I will get one. Of course, that doesn't mean that I have a Rolls Royce, or that I'm anywhere near obtaining one.

IBD refers to these tapes as if they contain some new information about Iraqi WMD programs. What the tapes show about Iraqi WMD programs, though, is exactly the opposite of what IBD states in the title to this piece.

What do the tapes tell us? Iraq had no WMD. The UN weapons inspection program was working - it was actively preventing Saddam from having working WMD programs. What did we learn about Saddam from these tapes? That he was a brutal dictator? That he would've liked some WMD if it weren't impossible for him to get them? We knew all of that already.

The IBD article claims that the "most chilling" part of the tapes are statements by raq Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz as to how easy it would be to set off WMD in New York. But this was obvious to everyone but the Bush administration that chose to ignore the Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S."

IBD concludes from the tapes that

We had to invade to disarm Saddam — otherwise, he would have completely reconstituted his chemical, nuclear and bio-weapons programs when inspectors left.

But this conclusion actually contradicts itself. We had to disarm Iraq, otherwise they may have armed themselves?

IDB goes on to say that Iraq had WMD, even though this was contradicted by the tapes, and that they may have been secretly moved to Syria. For this, IBD cites Georges Sada, current Iraqi National Security Advisor, who claims he was told (by some unnamed person) that Saddam secretly moved the WMD into Syria. IBD also cites former deputy undersecretary for Defense, John Snow, who has spread the unsupported conspiracy theory that Russia secreted the WMD into Syria. IBD reports both of these theories despite the fact that President Bush's senior weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, found no evidence that any WMD were moved into Syria.

On Syria, the report said that "no information gleaned from questioning Iraqis supported the possibility" that weapons were moved out of the country before the invasion, which was one theory about why no unconventional weapons were found.

Today's Investor's Business Daily editorial is little more than a self-contradictory amalgam of previously disproven conspiracy theories and misinformation. The fact remains that there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed either WMD or active WMD programs at the time of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.