Wednesday, October 9, 2002

Should We Be Preparing to Defend Ourselves Against Preemptive Strikes? According to recently de-classified Pentagon reports, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain began testing chemical and biological weapons thirty-five years ago, in some cases on their own unsuspecting citizens (though perhaps not civilians): The tests included releasing deadly nerve agents in Alaska and spraying bacteria over Hawaii, according to the documents obtained Tuesday. The United States also tested nerve agents in Canada and Britain in conjunction with those two countries. The documents did not say whether any civilians had been exposed to the poisons. Military personnel exposed to weapons agents would have worn protective gear, the Pentagon says, although the gas masks and suits used at the time were far less sophisticated than those in use today. Troops involved in biological weapons testing were vaccinated ahead of time, said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., the Pentagon's top health official. In prepared testimony for the House panel, Winkenwerder acknowledged that some service members involved in the tests "may not have known all the details of these tests." He said some service members participating in tests using simulated chemical or biological weapons may not have been informed about the tests at all. I'll admit that I haven't absorbed every nuance of the arguments for and against attacking Iraq, but aren't these precisely the reasons that President Bush wants to oust Saddam Hussein? And by a reasonable extension of the President's logic (such as it is), wouldn't any nation that felt threatened by our research into and development of weapons of mass destruction (including chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons) be justified in launching a preemptive strike against us? Surely I'm missing something here. Is it as simple as we're better than them, so we can do things that they can't? 6:33:58 PM     What do you think? ()

Wait, You Mean Iraq Might Fight Back? The CIA points out that the man President Bush has labelled a "homicidal dictator" might actually become dangerous if subject to a U.S.-led attack: But a new element was injected into the debate by a C.I.A. assessment that Saddam Hussein, while now stopping short of an attack, could become "much less constrained" if faced with an American-led force. "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks" with conventional or chemical or biological weapons against the United States. "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action," it continued. It noted that Mr. Hussein could use either conventional terrorism or a weapon of mass destruction as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him." But surely this potential loss of life is justified by the risk of a far greater loss of life if we don't act: The letter dated Oct. 7 also declassified an exchange from a closed Congressional hearing on Oct. 2 in which a senior intelligence official judged the likelihood of Mr. Hussein's initiating an attack in the foreseeable future as "low." Clearly the CIA is part of the Axis of Evil. 8:18:23 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:29:30 AM.

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