Sunday, October 10, 2004

Iraq War: WMDs without end?

Who knows what to make of this?  A real WMD threat from the New Improved Iraq this time?  Or just more manufactured war propaganda?

The Other Weapons Threat in Iraq by Bob Drogin Los Angeles Times 10/110/04.

Insurgent networks across Iraq are increasingly trying to acquire and use toxic nerve gases, blister agents and germ weapons against U.S. and coalition forces, according to a CIA report. Investigators said one group recruited scientists and sought to prepare poisons over seven months before it was dismantled in June.

U.S. officials say the threat is especially worrisome because leaders of the previously unknown group, which investigators dubbed the "Al Abud network," were based in the city of Fallouja near insurgents aligned with fugitive militant Abu Musab Zarqawi. The CIA says Zarqawi, who is blamed for numerous attacks on U.S. forces and beheadings of hostages, has long sought to use chemical and biological weapons against targets in Europe as well as Iraq.

"Zarqawi" is starting to become more of an all-purpose bogeyman than Saddam Hussein was before the invasion.

This is one of the stories emerging as reporters and analysts have the time to sift through the long Duelfer report on Iraqi WMDs.  According to the Los Angeles Times' summary, this particular program was not directly connected to Saddam's old weapons programs.  It was rather an attempt by an insurgent group to come up with a program.

It's certainly a concern, as it is with all terrorist groups and violence-inclined cults, if one of these groups gets their hands on chem-bio weapons.  But the article is also a reminder of why more conventional explosives are still the preferred tool for terrorist attacks.  Creating and maintaining and delivering chemical and biological weapons and delivering them in a way to achieve maximum effect is not an easy task.  A bomb produces a much quicker dramatic effect - and is much easier to acquire and handle.

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