 An editorial / By Dale McFeatters Scripps Howard News Service August 19, 2005
According to The Washington Post, U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in Mosul discovered 1,500 gallons of precursor agents for making chemical weapons along with assorted containers, tubing, hoses and a vat. Prior to the 2003 invasion, the Bush administration firmly believed that Saddam Hussein had concealed weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological and perhaps even nuclear. Destroying those weapons was a key justification for the war. None was ever found. Saddam's halfhearted compliance with the U.N. resolution requiring that he destroy weapons accounted for some of them. Corrupt scientists in his weapons program never replaced them. And the U.N. weapons inspectors accounted for the rest. However, right up until the war, the U.S., British, French and Russian intelligence agencies, and the U.N. inspectors themselves, believed that Saddam had WMD hidden somewhere. However, the modest little homemade weapons lab discovered by U.S. troops was relatively recent. But, unlike Saddam, who was afraid to use his chemical weapons in the Gulf War, there is no question that the Iraqi insurgents would have used the chemical weapons, certainly against us and very likely against their own people as well.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com
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