Iraq had those same stores of chemical weapons since the 1980s and was in the slow and arduous process of dismantling them (it had dismantled something like 90-95% of its WMDs by 2003 and was not stockpiling replacements). Given the lack of new production, many of the chemical weapons supposedly in Iraq’s stockpile would have turned harmless due to the short shelf life of chemical weapons.

By and large, people used this imagined idea that Iraq was still developing nuclear weapons as the justification for the invasion. American media ran stories about how aluminum tubes “used for uranium enrichment” were being imported by Iraq. American media brought out Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility who talked about Iraq’s burgeoning nuclear capability. American intelligence claimed that Iraq was actively seeking nuclear weapons development. Of course, all of these claims were entirely false.