WI: Saddam claims he has nukes, doesn't actually

WI around 2002, Saddam announced that Iraq had nuclear weapons and would not hesitate to use them defensively?
Defectors/agents would probably inform the US that they don't actually, but would the US trust these reports and and invade anyway? Maybe a preemptive nuclear strike?
Or could this top the Iraq war all together? Would Saddam keep the bluff if it did or try to build real ones?
 
This will totally backfire on Saddam and he'll get fucked six ways from sunday shortly after his announcement. The only solution is actually having nuclear weapons, and demonstrating them to remove any possible doubt. That's what North Korea did. The costs of the unsuccessful Iran-Iraq War made it unlikely for Iraq to achieve nuclear weapons and the disastrous defeat in the Gulf War was the nail in the coffin for Saddam's nuclear ambitions. Since the debts incurred during the Iran-Iraq War motivated the invasion of Kuwait, a PoD would be Iraq either winning it quickly or never attacking Iran to begin with. From there, Iraq could go the NK route except that Iraq has oil money.
 
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Puzzle

Donor
After it turns out Iraq has no nukes, massive international condemnation, most likely.
Obviously the nukes were destroyed in the explosion and any efforts afterwards are just attempts to smear the US. If the US nukes a suspected enrichment site or bomb depot there won’t be a lot of forensic evidence.
 
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