Apropos of Nothing

I thought this was ironically humorous.

In the "March to War" edition of the State of the Union Address (January 2003) Bush said:

It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see, and destroy them as directed....

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

Of course we know how successful the Bush administration has been in locating this litany of dangerous substances despite Rummy's assurances that "we know where they are." The reason for their failure is now clear: They chose the wrong investigators. The White House should have called in the crack team at Rolling Stone. Along with the folks from the Banned Chemicals Division of Salon magazine the rag tag team of hippy reporters have found missing, banned, lethal chemicals in...Newport, Tennessee.

There, east of town, past the Pigeon River and the True Gospel Free Will Baptist Church and the county dump, you would have stopped near a gated drive that led up a steep slope known as Rock Hill. Beyond that gate, in a small wooden shed, you would have found what you were after. No intricate alarm system to disable, not even a padlock on the shed's door -- just a thin pine branch jammed in the hasp. And behind that door, canisters filled with PFIB, a deadly, lung-attacking gas restricted under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.

(snip)

But chemical weapons made for the Pentagon itself often have wound up in the wrong place -- or disappeared completely. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently investigating some 200 sites in 35 states where the military and its contractors cannot account for missing chemical-warfare agents. Among the weapons already uncovered is a long-lost stash of deadly mustard gas buried less than five miles from the White House.

Here's a thought experiment for you. When France finds out about America's inability to account for banned chemicals how much time do you think they will give UN inspectors before they mass troops along the Mexican and Canadian borders? And six months after the invasion, if they are still unable to locate the banned stockpiles, do you think French leaders will change their story and claim that they were really just trying to liberate the American people?