In the midst of arguing that the Iranian threat is being overblown, Fareed Zakaria mentions historical examples of past threats that he says were also overblown. He writes:
Saddam, we were assured in 2003, had nuclear weapons-and because he was a madman, he would use them.
It's one thing to say that we were told that Saddam had WMD, but nobody was assuring us in 2003 that Saddam had nuclear weapons. The farthest the Bush Administration went was to say that Saddam was seeking them. That's a crucial difference, and I'm surprised that Zakaria would be so careless.