Friday, February 07, 2003
[posted by jaed at 1:21 PM]"But there's no smoking gun!"
The National Post explains why this is a silly remark, in detail, with footnotes:
All told, by 1991 Iraq had produced -- again, by its own admission -- 19,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 8,500 litres of anthrax and 2,200 litres of aflatoxin, among other biological agents. In addition, it had produced 2,850 tonnes of mustard gas, 210 tonnes of tabun, 795 tonnes of sarin and cyclosarin, and 3.9 tonnes of VX, an especially deadly nerve agent.
But there is no "smoking gun."
None of which are news to anyone who's been paying attention, but this piece is well-organized and concise, putting all the main pieces in one place. There is even a chorus.
Of course, considering the etymology of "smoking gun", my own view is that what the people who talk about smoking guns are hoping for is a mushroom cloud over an American city. That would, indeed, constitute a smoking gun, though for such people the relevant fact would be not that it was proof that Iraq has a nuclear program, as well as chemical and biological, but that America had, once again, failed to understand "why they hate us", and had "provoked" a "desperate" world. There is no winning scenario with such people.
Bitter? Me? Take a look at the window title!
(via PejmanPundit)
