Post originally by David Sinclair at 2003-05-18 18:31:59
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Yes, personal views. Regardless the lack of independant verification of any evidence collected up to this point, anyone who thinks the Hussein regime ever had any intention of diarming its weapons of mass destruction is being unrealistic and downright foolish.

Is it really your opinion that having relatively unrestricted access to anywhere within Iraq for a period of barely a full month is sufficient to find anything that was intentionally hidden, given all the additional factors like infrastructure repairs, lawlessness, and the theft of billions of dollars worth of art and artifacts?

Heck, look at how long it has taken to collect those 55 people on the "most wanted" deck of cards thus far... And how about a warehouse full of thousands of 55 gallon oil drums, how long will it take to check all those drums to ensure that no drums full of weapons of mass destruction have been shuffled in with hundreds of drums of innocuous materials? And how about those eight weapons labs trailers they've been hunting for? They've only found three of those so far.

And as for proof of biological weapons loose inside Iraq, much of the staff of the Iraqi Ministry of Health did come forward to state that there were dozens of samples of biological agents, weaponizable ones and otherwise, that vanished during the days leading up to the fall of Bagdad. Admittedly, at this point, they could be anywhere in the world let alone anywhere in Iraq and there isn't much more than the word of doctors and a little documentation to prove they existed, but why assume the doctors lied about the theft?

At best, I would say your views are sorely premature. Maybe six months down the road, I might agree with your views, but not yet.

Now, going to my blurb of "Focuses on weapons used in the recent war in Iraq.", I did say "focuses", not "focuses exclusively". The first volume focused on sidearms made by defunct Spanish weaponmaker Astra (right down to a nifty pistol capable of readily firing any 9mm or .38 cartridge 23mm long or shorter), but there were plenty of guns from other companies presented.

Thank you for the entertaining disagreement,
David Sinclair