Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published Feb. 12, 2003

Looking for a smoking gun

I'll bet you thought the United Nations arms inspectors are in Iraq to search for Saddam's hidden weapons of mass destruction, didn't you? That their mission was to find a "smoking gun" as positive proof of Saddam's evil intent, and justification for U.N. intervention?
At least, that is what we were told at the time. And we were told how difficult it would be. Like looking for a needle in a haystack, when the farmer didn't want anybody to even set foot on his the farm.

So for the past four months, we have watched the U.N.-labeled white SUVs fanning out each morning with all the urgency of an O.J. convoy, and returning each evening empty handed. Their task shouldn't have been too difficult. When the previous inspectors were kicked out of Iraq in 1999, they brought with them evidence that Saddam had some 38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 500 tons of sarin gas, nerve gas, and VX nerve agent. More than 30,000 rockets capable of delivering chemical agents, plus various components of a nuclear arsenal. Those totals only reflected what the inspectors were able to discover at that time and did not include the rest of the obvious iceberg, or what Saddam has produced since!

But these bumbling inspectors couldn't locate any of it. So since they couldn't even find the haystack, much less the needle, how does the U.N. save face? Easy. Just change their mission. We're now being told that the inspectors were never sent to find hidden weapons of mass destruction, anyway, but are there to simply verify that Saddam had listed all his weapons in his 12,000-page document of innocence, issued some weeks ago to the U.N. And since Saddam's document didn't list any weapons -- and since the inspectors haven't found any weapons -- that must mean he doesn't have any weapons.

But, obviously, we know differently. We know the weapons were there in 1999 and have not been accounted for since. Saddam says he has no chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction, but he has publicly authorized his field commanders to use their chemical and biological weapons against us.

This past Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell showed satellite photographs of active Iraqi chemical and biological production facilities, and he said that these photos, plus other definitive information, had already been turned over to the U.N. inspection team. So why weren't team members onsite as the locations of these chemical plants were being publicly revealed to the U.N. Security Council? And why now, a day or so later, have we still not seen or heard of an effort by the inspection team to search for them?

If the arms inspectors don't get busy pretty soon, they will find their "smoking gun," all right. And as we know, a smoking gun is one that has already been fired!

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.