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Comforting news The nuclear disarmament of Libya is moving more quickly than I would have imagined. According to Jane’s Defence Weekly on 30 January 2004:
Libya ships nuclear weapon material to US
The process of removing weapons of mass distruction (WMD) from Libya has begun, with 55,000 lbs (25,000kg) of “critical materials related to Libya’s nuclear weapons programme and ballistic missile capabilities” now held on US soil, according to White House spokesperson Scott McClellan.
Adding this to today’s revelations by Dr. Kahn in Pakistan makes three down and three to go of the potential sources of weapons grade fissionables. Well… plus an extra half to account for the thriving Russian black market.
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Yes, yes, but where are the Iraqis WMDs?
Bush lied, people died!
/sarcasm off
Still–read Weekly Standard’s Parody about the inneffectiveness of disarming weapons. Thank G-D, progress has been made.
Thanks for posting this Dale. The dominos are falling. Some die-heard isolationists, including so-called libertarians, will deny that invading Iraq had anything to do with this, no siree, etc, but surely it has been critical in getting certain states to start cleaning house and being open about WMDs.
I have never bought this argument from some anti-interventionists that we will neve be able to prevent terrorists from getting WMDs so there’s no point in trying. Apart from its defeatist premise, this argument also begs the question of what would the naysayers actually do?
Of course, they never properly answer the question.
Yes, not to mention all the design documents and pattern parts that have turned up in Iraq. Like the physicist who had the stuff buried in a barrel under his rose garden.
The Iraqi nuclear weapons program was definitely being kept in a deep freeze so he could restart it again the instant the world looked the other way.
Also, don’t forget the pre-war negotiations between Khadafy and Saddam for a billion dollars for safety of some members of his family. One wonders if those members were actually something else…
I am indeed still worried where the bios and chem stuff went. I flat out do not believe anyone who tells me Saddam got rid of them all. It just doesn’t match the guys personality. I don’t need no friggin’ newsies or spooks or DOD briefs to tell me that. He had them at Hallabja, he had them for the Iran-Iraq war, he made a show of destroying some for the UN after the Gulf War… but there is no way he would have left himself without a secret reserve. They are out there. Somewhere. Just like bin Laden.
Being of a mind to distrust Quadafi, I keep wondering if he has information that a terrorist nuclear weapon is going to be used in the near future and doesn’t want to be targeted during the US retaliation.
I think the biggest side-benefit of Libya’s capitulation is that it blew the lid off of Pakistan as a nexus of proliferation. Much that was speculation in regard to the nuke programs of Iran, Iraq and N. Korea is now hard intel.
Libya has finally answered the question about the “Axis of Evil”. An “Axis” implies a connection, but there was no clear link between Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
Now we know – the Axis of the Axis of Evil was out good buddy Pakistan.
(I’ve seen mention of a possible overture to Iraq from Pakistan just before the first Gulf War, offering to sell nuclear goodies.)