Absolutely correct. I agree completely that so much is not known--and such is the fog of war.
I would like very much to believe what our President Bush has said, that he has looked in Vladimir Putin's eyes and seen his soul.
Surely they have made an agreement to reduce nuclear arsenals dramatically based on personal trust.
You are right to create the distinction between Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin--and you know what a dramatic difference there is between William Jefferson Clinton and George Walker Bush.
I listened to the 32-minute address of Clinton at the 1994 Commencement of the U.S. Naval Academy in the Marine Stadium with the epic battles on its walls.
Clinton lied: first that he would not put our people in Bosnia--which he did for a year, then another eighteen months, then indefinitely--when it was a matter in the very backyard of Europe which they lacked the will to address.
Second--that he would not unilaterally arm the Bosnians. This he was at that very moment allowing the Iranis to do.
Clinton allowed his major donors Loral (Bernard L. Schwartz) and Hughes (C. Michael Armstrong) to fax the Chinese 200 pages in 1995 which gave the PLA 100% missile reliability.
Then Clinton allowed Wen Ho Lee to be protected (Code Name Kindred Spirit by Notra Trulock, FReeper ntrulock) as well as giving the PLA all manner of guided tours through U.S. military installations and platforms.
Saddam Hussein has had freedom from inspections since 1998.
As for avoiding satellite reconnaissance, I have read that the road-mobile SS-25s are moved to avoid this annoying problem.
Iraq has/had mobile bioweapons labs and these can be easily moved.
You taunt, "Is US intelligence so poor"?
Are you aware of the great work of such U.S. heroes as former Senator Robert Torricelli who hamstrung CIA's recruitment?
This during the Clinton deconstruction of US intelligence which included the replacement of James Woolsey with John Deutch.
As well as the replacement of William Sessions with Louis Freeh.
At any rate, we shall see what we shall see.
Ken Alibek became convinced the US bioweapons program was dismantled and left his post as head of Biopreparat in 1992.
He says it retains at least four sealed sites capable of manufacturing tons of anthrax, and that Russia hosted Iraqis and Iranis in its bioweapons-related educational programs.
We have thus far found a facility in the north wherein terrorists were making such weapons as ricin, and I've never doubted Saddam Hussein was aiding terrorists--
He's always rewarding Hamas, Hezbollah, al Aksa bombers' families, and there is the Salman Pak airliner fuselage for hijacker training.
And the link of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with his alleged nephew Ramzi Yousef--two Pakistani Baluchs with stolen Kuwait passports implicating Iraqi intel.
I don't insist upon an official Russian program to aid Saddam Hussein--only that there is a thriving traffic out of Russia in arms of all types.
It is even reported that nuclear sites are so insecure that materials flow freely from them.
The bunkers and tunnels of Iraq will be yielding up surprises for years to come.
But now they will be less lethal surprises.
As for the even-handed application of anti-terror standards (KLA, Chechnya, etc.), it seems an obvious necessity to me--for example, I cannot condone this government's insistence on discussion of a Palestinian state when they continue to train their children to wear bomb belts.