Discovery? - Every day that

Discovery? - Every day that we don't find immense caches of chemical weapons is another day that the extreme left gets to practically wet its pants with "Told you so!" glee.

Unanswered: what if Hussein buried the weapons, or shipped them abroad, or just destroyed them, or some combination of the three?

According to Judith Miller of the Times, there's evidence of all of the above.

We've found an Iraqi scientist, says Miller, who claims to know where the proverbial bodies are buried:

A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said.

They said the scientist 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 article continues:

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.

By the way - you can practically year the conspiracy-theorists of the left shooting steam out of their ears over this bit:

Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha, this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials.

Those officials asked that details of what chemicals were uncovered be deleted. They said they feared that such information could jeopardize the scientist's safety by identifying the part of the weapons program where he worked.

We'll be watching this one.

(Via Powerline)

Posted by Mitch at April 21, 2003 10:11 AM