Weapons of Mass Destruction in Popular Culture - The Invasion of Iraq in Search of Sadam Hussein's Alleged WMDs

The Invasion of Iraq in Search of Sadam Hussein's Alleged WMDs

In the context of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq under the guise of Saddam Hussein's alleged WMDs, the phrase became ubiquitous. A parody based on Internet Explorer's "404 Not Found" message was created, poking fun at the state of international affairs, and for a time was the #1 hit for the Google search "weapons of mass destruction". Similarly, at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, February 24, 2004, George W. Bush joked about being unable to find WMD in Iraq, saying "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere", while showing images of himself searching the White House for something. In 2003 an EasyJet advertising campaign attracted controversy with a billboard ad featuring a woman's breasts with the phrase "discover weapons of mass distraction".

Sue Townsend continued her best-selling series of comic-political novels with the 2004 Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. The eponymous hero trusts Tony Blair implicitly, and writes to him asking for proof of the WMDs' existence, so he can get a refund from the travel agency where he had deposited some money for a holiday in Cyprus, since this island is now apparently no longer safe to travel to.

In the 2004 episode of The Sopranos, titled "All Happy Families...", a parole inspector asks Feech Le Manna to open his garage., where Feech has hidden contraband that, if found, could return him to prison. Feech quips, "that's where I make my weapons of mass destruction", in hopes the inspector will be dissuaded by the pop culture reference to the United States' inability to find Sadam Hussein's WMDs in Iraq.

Weapons of Mass Destruction is the title of an album released by the rapper Xzibit in 2004, who also called a car featured on Pimp My Ride a WMD. Faithless released the album No Roots in 2004 which contained the single "Mass Destruction", whose lyrics describe negative traits such as fear, racism, greed and inaction as "weapons of mass destruction".

The 2005 series, Doctor Who, contained a double episode about an alien invasion in London. In one scene, when discussing whether or not an attack on the aliens' space craft was warranted, politicians claimed it was necessary because the aliens had "massive weapons of destruction" which could be deployed "within forty-five seconds" – a reference to Prime Minister Tony Blair's claim in the lead-up to the Iraq War that Saddam Hussein had WMDs could be deployed within 45 minutes. In The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XVII", aliens Kang and Kodos, spoofing the Iraq War, claim that they had to invade, as Earth was working on "Weapons of Mass Disintegration." In the episode ("Rekognize") of Da Ali G Show, Ali mistakenly refers to WMDs as "BLTs" (an acronym for the popular sandwich made of bacon, lettuce, and tomato), going so far as to ask if there was mustard gas in the BLTs.

In 2005, the Paranoia RPG published a collection of new Straight-style missions under the title "WMD". Each mission revolved around a plot device with the initials WMD. At least one of the missions involved an actual device that might have been a WMD; but, in general they simply focused on situations rife with a sense of stress, uncertainty and fear. The American TV series 24 typically features a different weapon of mass destruction in each season: the second, fourth and sixth seasons feature nuclear weapons, the third and seventh feature weaponized viruses, and the fifth, VX nerve gas, a chemical weapon of mass destruction. In the Nextwave comic book the Beyond Corporation© is testing out "Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction" within the US, starting with a weapon called Fin Fang Foom.

In the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black ops 2, there is a map named Nuketown in which a nuclear bomb goes off in the background when a round ends

The Big Show uses a Knockout punch called WMD.