Arms Destroyed By Scientists?
Hmm. The New York Times says:
A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said.They said the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs.
The scientist also told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's, and that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda, the military officials said.
Read the rest of the story here. (Hat tip: TV's Henry.)
"because the weapons program was compartmentalized," he only had knowledge of the department he worked in. Shades of the Manhattan Project, eh?
*imagine my surprise when, for the very first time in weeks, I click on your NYT link and the page comes up and it says: Welcome, KlondikeKate!
Magic. You computer guys are frickin' geniuses. Their subscription dept. however? Not.*
Thanks for the heads up on this article. I'm getting out my snorkle, now.
See! The war was a mistake! Saddam _really was disarming without military force!_
But no, you couldn't explain that to the Warmongering Dubya.....
Heck, I bet he takes credit for the forces poised over the border as the reason that the weapons were destroyed.
See? If we'd only given the weapons inspectors a _few more years_, they'd have FOUND this place, where the weapons that were pledged didn't exist had been destroyed, and there would be no need to blast depleted uranium into the orphanges caused by the evil UN sanctions.
*hack*
Sorry, choked on some sarcasm there.
Addison
Even if this sort of thing were true getting the the world to buy it will be tough.
There's significant incentive for the U.S. to find evidence, or to explain away why there is no evidence.
Portions of the world aren't likely to believe Iraq had WMD, no matter how much we U.S. citizens might believe it.
I think, at this point, independent inspection teams are very important.