What qualifies as a WMD threat?
The new weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, says he won't rule out the possibility of finding WMDs in Iraq. I really don't think it matters at this point, because the world has now officially decided that the whole WMD issue was a "myth".
We know this much for certain - an evil, America-hating, homicidal dictator who had used WMDs in the past and who had connections with numerous terrorist organizations willing to use WMDs, was violating UN resolutions on WMD by conducting prohibited biological research, deploying long range missiles capable of delivering WMD, and hiding components necessary for the development of a nuclear weapons program. None of these facts are in dispute. Also not in the dispute is the fact that many WMDs (particularly chemical) can be quickly produced and rely on technologies that have been with us since early in the last century.
So regardless of whether or not there were 12 million liters of anthrax stored in barrels marked NYC, L.A. and D.C., Iraq obviously posed a WMD threat. Indeed, any country which harbors terrorists and has long range missiles poses a WMD threat, as the critical limitation for many WMDs is not the ability to produce them, but the means to deliver them.
Anyone who thinks honestly about this issue realizes the truth of this statement, yet the issue of Iraq's WMD threat has still been discredited in the eyes of the world. Obviously, most of the world is more concerned with defeating Bush than in dealing with security threats. Which is why I think it won't really matter what Duelfer might find in Iraq.
