This is not well-understood by most people, even at the time. Saddam Hussein did have a "weapon of mass destruction", poison gas, and used it on Kurds. You can

This is not well-understood by most people, even at the time. Saddam Hussein did have a "weapon of mass destruction", poison gas, and used it on Kurds. You can find photos of bodies with white foam from their mouths from that time. He did not have much, if any, nuclear technology, despite the "aluminum tubes" news clips which led to the concern over weapons of mass destruction. (There are specialized alloys used in nuclear processing, but not aluminum.) Aside from that, the main information source was an exiled Iraqi politician that the administration said was credible to construct their narrative. So Saddam Hussein went from a US ally, to a war criminal. One major US newspaper tried to push back, but the rest, including the NYT, just repeated everything the White House said.