"The search goes on..."
and you don't wonder HOW they had the types and amounts of poisons in the warheads during the initial reports, and in the follow-up reports?
Then - AS WITH ALL THE REST - are these unsubstantiated denials that suddenly crop up after ALL reports of wmd.
Very very odd. Don't you think?
WHO is denying this? WHO is ordering this to be denied? WHY?
It IS odd, now that I think about it. One can take it at face value, i.e., there are very few if any WMD in Iraq, and more-sophisticated follow-testing proves the absence of poisonous substances despite preliminary positive indications for each of these "finds".
Or one can speculate as to whether there is some conscious effort to downplay or cover-up the existence of WMDs. What would be the motive for doing that? One possible motive is to keep them out of the hands of terrorists and guerillas. Suppose the U.S. knew that there were caches of chemical weapons hidden throughout Iraq. Both sides would be frantically looking for them, but it would only take a few in the hands of the bad guys to cause enormous damage to civilians and our military forces.
So letting the world think that such weapons didn't exist, even to the extent of deliberately embarrassing the Bush Administration in order to lend a patina of credibility, could offer the best hope of keeping them from the enemy while we hunt them down.
Bush has taken a (temporary) political hit over the issue, but he can recoup the damage with interest in September or October when the U.S. finally announces that large stockpiles of WMDs have indeed been located, and that prior denials were merely wartime misdirection.
And what would be the justification for revealing the truth, especially so close to the election? Blame it on the new Iraqi government, which is now sovereign and for its own reasons refuses to go along with the cover-up any longer.
Hey, I can spin neat conspiracy theories all day....
empty or not, these shells aren't allowed in Iraq's inventory per the terms of the cease fire and other UN mandates. Iraq was and is still in violation. Now for the bigger question-when do we start listing the inventory we've found and the sources for them including production dates? The time to put the noose around those necks is long overdue IMHO.