Saddam's Weapons Plants!

One of my favorite commentators these days is Christopher Hitchens. He's incredibly literate, and incredibly prolific. He's been excommunicated by the left for his support of the War in Iraq.

His web site has tons of very important articles, and information about his various books. Right now, I'm really enjoying his latest book, "Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays".

One of Hitchen's latest articles is more than just interesting. On March 13th, the New York Times ran a major story called "The Conflict in Iraq: The Looting; Looting at Weapons Plants was Systematic, Iraqi Says" by James Glanz and William Broad. Basically, the Deputy Minister of Industry, Dr. Sami al-Araji, is now saying that many weapons facilities were looted after the invasion.

Hitchen's commentary on this article should be read by everybody. Here are the key quotes from Hitchens:

It was eye-rubbing to read of the scale of this potential new nightmare. There in cold print was the Al Hatteen "munitions production plant that international inspectors called a complete potential nuclear weapons laboratory." And what of the Al Adwan facility, which "produced equipment used for uranium enrichment, necessary to make some kinds of nuclear weapons"? The overall pattern of the plundered sites was summarized thus, by reporters James Glanz and William J. Broad:

The kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs.

My first question is this: How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction? And there can hardly be a comedy-club third-rater or MoveOn.org activist in the entire country who hasn't stated with sarcastic certainty that the whole WMD fuss was a way of lying the American people into war. So now what? Maybe we should have taken Saddam's propaganda seriously, when his newspaper proudly described Iraq's physicists as "our nuclear mujahideen."

But, as Hitch points out, it still remains to be answered why these sites weren't secured after the occupation.

Read the whole thing for yourself!