Even as Errol Louis in the New York Sun today scornfully dismisses Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction as a “rationale” for war that is being undercut by “the fact that no such weapons have yet been found,” we get this–and it’s in the New York Times to boot:
A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq’s chemical weapons program for more than a decade… led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. The scientist also told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990’s, and that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda, the military officials said.It’s almost as if reality is withholding the spectacular proof just long enough to get the skeptics to make unmitigated fools of themselves once again.
The Americans said the scientist told them that President Saddam Hussein’s government had destroyed some stockpiles of deadly agents as early as the mid-1990’s, transferred others to Syria, and had recently focused its efforts instead on research and development projects that are virtually impervious to detection by international inspectors, and even American forces on the ground combing through Iraq’s giant weapons plants….Military officials said the scientist told them that four days before President Bush gave Mr. Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war, Iraqi officials set fire to a warehouse where biological weapons research and development was conducted.
The officials quoted him as saying he had watched several months before the outbreak of the war as Iraqis buried chemical precursors and other sensitive material to conceal and preserve them for future use. The officials said the scientist showed them documents, samples, and other evidence of the program that he claimed to have stolen to prove that the program existed. [New York Times, 4/21/03]