Nukes
Astute readers know by now that the NY Times is claiming that the Bush Administration, under pressure from congressional Republicans posted on the internet documents that "constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb." These documents came from "vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war." According to the NY Times:
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.Of course, it is President Bush's fault for putting these documents on the internet:
“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”Far from tossing a match, I am pretty sure the U.S. disabled this flammable area by deposing Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. And, what is truly amazing is that the left, well, at least the NY Times, now seems to admit that there were WMD programs in active development. As noted in the National Review Online:
I'm sorry, did the New York Times just put on the front page that IRAQ HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM AND WAS PLOTTING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB?So, does this mean that Bush didn't lie us into war? (This all comes from Instapundit.)
4 comments:
First, good to have you back. Haven't seen you in a while; I guess you're a "bad blogger!"
When you say "they clearly don't even know what it is they had," you lost me. Who is they? The government didn't know what the government had? The government didn't know what the Iraqis had?
I read about the same posting, and withdrawal of the documents. I ignored the analysis you discuss because I automatically decided that the story was wholly political, from both sides. But, that gave me my idea for my latest post. (Yes, GeeGuy, I'm trying to poach your readers again).
Velvetine,
First, thanks for stopping by. Welcome.
Second, no fair interpretation of anything his adminstration has said would admit to a claim that they promised to end terrorism by '08. That's weak. (By the way, we haven't been attacked again, have we?)
Oh yeah, Iran and N. Korea started their nuclear programs in 1/00, right?
We "lack the power to control and police either Iraq or Afganistan, so they went right ahead with their nuke projects," huh? I would say that, rather than sneering at our lack of military might, N. Korea and Iran are sneering at our lack of political will, driven in large part, no doubt, by the constant drumbeat of political attacks by the loyal opposition (you). Does that mean that the administration is not worthy of dissent? No, but it gets a little silly at times as your post attests.
So, let me get this straight. They were all afraid of us, until we attacked them, but since we have attacked them and haven't 'won' yet, now they're not afraid? So we're safer not aggressively pursuing a policy of self-defense, even if the policy is misguided?
Heh. Nice logic, dude.
Velvet,
North Korea and Iran perceive having nuclear weapons as leverage against actions by the United States/good guys. Action against North Korea is no better now than it was under Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, or the idiot from Georgia. The United States can't strike North Korea because if we do, the North Koreans will launch a full scale attack on Seoul... which will kill thousands, if not ten of thousands of South Koreas, and destroy a major chunk of their economy. North Korea and Iran, short of military action by the West, are going to develop nuclear weapons. We had no bluff before Dubya... because North Korea and Iran had active nuclear weapons programs. And sending either country money, harsh words or Madeline Halfbright isn't going to change that.
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