First: Checkmate.
Kerry's huge scandal has just blown up. In his face. He will look like a fool over the next couple of days. He made desperate charges, and now he will have to conduct a climbdown. This is the end.
I strongly suspect that this story, if it gets play, will lead to a loss of some morale among marginal Kerry voters.
Second: the SPETZNAZ moved in and moved the stuff to Syria. Why? BECAUSE THE STUFF HAD BEEN MADE AND SOLD TO SADDAM BY THE RUSSIANS AND UNDER RUSSIAN SUPERVISION!!!! If it's SPETZNAZ troops, or the Guards Iron Hammer Airborne troops, it's Putin's personal operation.
We KNEW this, and have known it all along. It was the intention of Bush to forgive the Russians their tresspasses because Putin never betrayed Bush personally. The Russians were in cold pursuit of their national interests. We knew that Putin was moving the stuff out. We also knew something else:
Putin took possession of Saddam's WMD stockpile, in part to give the headstrong Americans pause, in part to cover their own participation in the Moustache's arms buildup, and lastly to keep it out of the hands of Al Qaeda, and their good friends, the Chechens. Botulinum toxin or VX gas works just as well in the Moscow Subway system as it would in Penn Station. I will bet you that Bush, Rice, Powell, Rummy, the head spooks at CIA, Blair, and MI-6 knew this as well.
This story tells me the whole missing ingredient: Vladimir Putin. Only the KGB could assemble a team in a short time and get the bad stuff out. They knew where it was hidden; we did not. He must have promised Saddam asylum and a healthy retirement on the Black Sea in exchange for cooperation. I wonder how long it took for Saddam to realize that Putin had taken him to the cleaners?
Why did we let a huge KGB operation go forward? Why did we let the WMD escape? Well, two reasons:
1. The WMD and the high explosives were going into Russian hands. Russians are reasonable, sane people. They are not Arabs.
2. And the most important reason of all? Saddam would never get the chance to use combat mycotoxins or VX against our troops. It is possible that hundreds of lives were saved this way, possibly several thousand. If the choice was between Bush being embarrassed and having to put up with the likes of a blowhard like John Kerry and Bush presiding over the loss of hundreds of guys in a single day due to VX?
The choice, my friends, was an easy one for Bush to make.
Which is another reason why he gets my vote: the interest of the fighting men came first.
Be Seeing You,
Chris