I know this is NCD but ability to make a dirty bomb or deploy WMDs on the battlefield or in strategic theater use is not at all the same thing as MAD. Iraq had no space program, no long range strategic bombers, no nothing of the sort. (They also didn’t have WMDs at that point in time though so…). The concern was that Iraq could use WMDs to harm its neighbors, its own populace, or to enable terrorist groups to use smuggled WMDs. Even the WMD tipped SCUDS Iraq used to have were no real threat to the US troops.