I am just SO right ...

Snowed under with work, but pleased to see that two of my favorite theories are seeing faint glimmers of vindication.

One is my theory that Saddam Hussein practically had to invade Kuwait - or some country - given his political predicament in the early 90s. As Arab dictators sometimes do, he started a war to distract (and dispose of) enemies.

I take encouragement about this theory from Saddam's curious response to being formally charged with crimes against humanity for that invasion - he said he was worried about a coup within his military. I'll probably expand on this in a later blog entry.

The other theory that may yet be proven while I'm alive: that when Colin Powell presented WMD evidence at the U.N., the very visibly televised discomfiture of Blix and ElBaradei stemmed from their own secret knowledge that the supposed chemical weapons trailers were not for making chemical weapons. Why would they have kept that secret? To protect the researchers and their families from a vengeful Saddam, were he to discover that the weapons he'd been promised were not forthcoming. How would Blix et al. have found out? Well, in renewing olde acquaintance in Baghdad, somebody probably sat them down and told them - maybe even showed them - that Saddam was being hoodwinked by his own.

In this theory, I take encouragement from a story today, "CIA knew there were no WMDs". The CIA may have just decided to sit on this for the same reason Blix might have. War wasn't a foregone conclusion at that point. There was still a chance that an invasion could be headed off, inspections expanded, and those researchers and families saved, not to mention a lot of other trouble saved. Also, think of the embarrassment of having to admit it: it's not like Blix or the CIA can easily admit, at this point, "We lied and said there probably was WMD when we knew in fact that the chances were vanishingly small - but our intentions were good!"