Saddam and his generals know that they have no chance in hell of winning any conflict with the United States MILITARILY. They know they are outgunned, outsupplied, out-technologied, etc. Therefore, their only prayer for surviving the onsluaght is to force a POLITICAL loss on the United States. That means driving up the casualty count, dragging the war out for months, and causing a massive humanitarian crisis. It also means getting images of dead and maimed Iraqis, particualrly children, on Al Jazeera and other networks.Given that, his use of chemical weapons against our forces would guarantee he loses the political battle.Not only that, the Iraqis have to know that the battlefield effectiveness of such weapons...especially agiainst a well-prepared foe like the United States, is minimal at best.Therefore, they gave every impression that they were going to use the weapons...to force the United States to take that into serious consideration in their planning, and make us attack him before we were fully prepared.
