I'd like to say this is great news, but if it's true, then why isn't the White House proclaiming the WMD have been found? Why aren't Republican members of congress proclaiming it? You can't say that it's the liberal media keeping it quiet, because I can assure you Fox News would give Bush and any right leaning legislator or expert airtime on this. But I haven't heard it. In fact, in the last speech I heard from Bush, he said something to the effect of "I hope they find a weapon over there".

I'm not trying to throw water on this- I'd love it to be true. But I'm highly skeptical.

Great...an article containing no evidence at all. Well done.

If that's all their "findings" then they (and you?) are getting very, very desperate. Pathetic. Surely even Americans won't fall for that lot?

Keep it up. It's all very amusing.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

The media is wrongly described this war as being based on a claim that Iraq had WMDs.

NOT TRUE!

Read U.N. Res. 1441. I have. It doesn't say that Iraq had WMD. It says Iraq's WMD as known to exist after Gulf War 1 were unaccounted for, and that Saddam had not provably disposed of his WMD and his WMD PROGRAMS.

And 1441 gave him ample time to comply.

He failed to do so.

Fact is, if he had disposed of every last WMD and every last bit of his WMD program, but failed to prove to have done so and to account for the whereabouts of the WMD, he would have STILL been in violation of 1441, giving the U.S. casus belli. And as the Iraq Survey Group has PROVEN, Saddam was in clear and material violation of the provisions of 1441 dealing with his WMD programs.

We had just cause for war under 1441 alone.

Given Iraq's daily attacks on coalition aircraft, we had cause to resume the Gulf War that was, remember, only at a "truce" phase, not ended.

And, after September 11, we would have been insane to allow a murderous thugocracy that had ties to international Islamist terror groups and terrorist leaders (Ansar al Islam/Al Qaeda, Hamas, Abu Nidal), ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (Ramzi Yousef), ties to an attack on an American president, and a clear record of both using weapons of mass destruction and hating the U.S., to continue to flout the U.N. resolutions and retain its WMD programs.

As I said, desperate. Who exactly are you speaking to with this drivel?

P.S. Thanks for the Abu Nidal ref. Brilliant!

SPock,

I laid out a list of facts and a cogent analysis of them, and you respond with ... nothing.

Please, if you're going to use my bandwidth to post comments, do so intelligently and add to the conversation. Don't just toss out personal attacks and insults.

As Timmerman notes, WMD stockpiles would occupy little space and would be transportable. Multiple reports from the early days of the war indicate at least two burial sites in Syria.

This week, the foiled al-Qaeda attack on Jordan via Syria - plus confirmation by the Sudanese government that Syria has been hiding missiles and toxins in Sudan - strongly suggest that those early reports were accurate.

In time, we'll know the truth. Meanwhile, sarcasm is not a substitute for being informed.

It wasn't that long ago the half of polled Americans thought some of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis. No amount of explanation could dissuade them. After months of emphasizing mushroom clouds and duct tape, and a threat from WMDs that grew more dire with each successive proclamation, Bill thinks that complex explanations can make people understand. The Bush admin and the RNC know better. Only John Kerry doesn't seem to recognize this characteristic of the American public. Shame on you, Bill. You're so John Kerry!

At what point is it appropriate to tell William and Spock that if this country is so bad "There are dozens of other choices: make one!"?

These folks aren't anti-war, they're just on the other side.

To reiterate lyle's point about "little space", people quote statements about looking for (e.g.) 25 tons of this germ or that chemical as if such a huge amount could not possibly be hidden in Iraq or have been sneaked into Syria. Of course, in one way 25 tons is a huge amount: I wouldn't want to have to haul it all up two or three flights of stairs, even with a couple of helpers.

But in another way it is very little. If you do the arithmetic, you will see that 25 tons of just about anything would easily fit in a single not-very-large room or a single railroad car. I could fit 25 tons of anthrax in my basement, and I live in an apartment, not a mansion. The fact that these quantities have not turned up doesn't come close to proving that the WMDs are not still in Iraq, or moved to Syria.

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say it could fit easily. 25 tons is (approximately) 25,000 liters, or about 6000 gallons. Call it a little over a hundred 55-gallon drums. Stacking the drums 2-high, you can fit it all in a rather small 14x15 foot space. And it probably goes without saying that this would need to be on solid concrete floor, with something underneath (like earth, maybe) to support it. Consider that a filled waterbed weighs about a thirtieth of this.

Imagine getting over a hundred large drums weighing about 450 lbs each into your basement.

I'd hesitate to call it easy. Easy enough to imagine it'd be tried, though.