Beware of WMD sign?

UN inspector Hans Blix speculates that Iraq probably destroyed their WMDs. Excerpt:

Blix, who spent three years searching for Iraqi chemical, biological and ballistic missiles as head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, said Iraq might have tried to fool the United States into believing it had weapons of mass destruction over the years in order to deter attack.

"I mean, you can put up a sign on your door, 'Beware of the Dog,' without having a dog," he said from his home in Sweden.

In last night's Nightline, Koppel grilled national security advisor Rice over the WMDs issue. Koppel laid out the possibilities: the intelligence was wrong or the WMDs have now been moved to neighboring countries. She said the administration awaits the report from David Kay and looks forward to a full accounting.

In the end, deception is part of military strategy. In WW2, Patton was established as a decoy in England with a fake HQ, sent false radio messages and created a phantom army that was supposed to invade at the Calaise. This deception pinned a number of Germany army units down while the actual invasion occured in Normandy.

Hussein may well have employed the "Beware of dog" plan. Given the history of US reluctance to suffer casualties in battle, he may have believed the threat of having WMDs would be enough to keep the US away. During the full blown combat phase of the war, some speculated that Hussein's underlings feigned progress in the WMDs to keep Hussein happy but unaware they weren't really having much success making the coveted weapons. So deception could have worked at that level.

Hopefully, in a few months, the David Kay report will clear things up.