[concerned about politics]

The Security Council spelled out a solemn list of 14 salient points. Nowhere did this list mention "find smoking gun." That the original "final opportunity" would morph into the present "no smoking gun" was of course entirely predictable. Indeed, it was predicted by those who warned against letting the U.N. and "world opinion" lay clammy hands on the Iraq issue

Colin Powell's speach:

What happened to nearly 30,000 munitions capable of carrying chemical agents? The inspectors can only account for only 16 of them. Where are they? It's not a matter of ignoring the reality of the situation. Just think, all of these munitions, which perhaps only have a short range if fired out of an artillery weapon in Iraq, but imagine if one of these weapons were smuggled out of Iraq and found its way into the hands of a terrorist organization who could transport it anywhere in the world.

What happened -- please, what happened -- to the three metric tons of growth material that Iraq imported which can be used for producing early, in a very rapid fashion, deadly biological agents?

Where are the mobile vans that are nothing more than biological weapons laboratories on wheels? Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?

These questions are not academic. They are not trivial. They are questions of life and death, and they must be answered.

[Grampa Dave]

There is so much good meat in Powell's speech, that it is hard to absorb all of it.

Thanks for posting this.