On Thu, 10 Feb 2005, Howard Brazee wrote: @> Obviously attacking Iraq did not get rid of any caches. Question is - is @> that because they don't exist, or is it because we looked in the wrong @> country? It's because they don't exist. Do you have any other questions? Alright, that was a bit flippant. Let me break it down for you. 1) You can't just export some people without leaving a trail, and that trail would have been found by now, because there's been /intensive/ investigation of the area by everybody in the universe over the past several years, and particularly during the occupation. The current administration would leap at the chance for even a shred of credibility at this point. But nothing has been found. No records of Iraqi scientists being smuggled out of the country or suitcases of cash being mysteriously exchanged by people in sunglasses in the middle of the desert. Nothing. Because there was nothing to find. It is always possible to miss something, but after a certain amount of investigation you have to go with the probabilities, and those are now so heavily weighted on the side of "no WMDs" that even the most rabid proponents of the WMD theory in the administration have backed away from it, whistling and looking in a different direction. 2) Very specific claims were made by the administration. Not "they might possibly have some kind of research program, maybe, that might produce a weapon in twenty years". No. "They have bombs, and we know exactly where they are." Lies. Filthy, stinking lies that got thousands and thousands of innocent people killed. 3) We can't afford to go to war with a third country at this point. We do not have the necessary resources. So if that scenario really was true, then the current administration didn't just screw us but /completely/ screwed us by attacking the wrong country.