"Saddam Hussein's regime 'is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents,' Vice President Dick Cheney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August, adding, 'These are not weapons designed for the purpose of defending Iraq. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale.' Billed by the White House as laying out the case for military action against Iraq, the speech employed the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction' eight times. George W. Bush also regularly uses 'weapons of mass destruction' as a collective term for chemical, biological, and atomic arms. In his 2002 State of the Union address, for example, the president stated that the United States would not 'permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons,' citing chemical, biological, and atomic arms as equal concerns." [more]