Frank Gaffney makes the obvious point about the sarin shell, so obvious it has eluded Britain's media:

'Whether partisan Democrats, antiwar zealots and rabid Bush-haters wish to admit it or not, Saddam Hussein is guilty as charged. We now know that Saddam once had significant quantities of Weapons of Mass Destruction and aspired to build more; he used them against his own people and his neighbors; and he persisted in violating nearly two-score UN Security Council resolutions – right up to the end of his days in power – by concealing his actual programs and capabilities. It is now safe to conclude as well that Saddam bequeathed a frightening legacy to post-liberation Iraq: the Weapons of Mass Destruction still at large in Iraq. The alternative thesis – namely, that the only two WMDs left in the entire country were employed in the (fortunately) failed IED attacks involving sarin and mustard gas conducted in recent days – is preposterous on its face.'

Hey, Frank -- that's why it's believed in Britain! Gaffney reminds us of another pertinent fact, so pertinent that it too is airbrushed out of the picture:

'No less studiously ignored is evidence that has come to light that Saddam Hussein could, indeed, have handed Weapons of Mass Destruction to terrorists bent on employing them against the United States and its allies. As Charles Smith reminded us in Newsmax.com yesterday, "(F)ormer Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen testified that in 1998 Saddam's top nerve gas experts met with several members of al-Qaeda in Baghdad." Recent events underscore the danger such a combination represents. Smith notes that just a few weeks ago, a number of al-Qaeda operatives based in Iraq were caught before they were able to carry out a plot aimed at killing tens of thousands of Jordanians with poison gas. Evidently, the failure to perpetrate such an atrocity permits some to persist in the fantasy that this aspect of the WMD case against Saddam is still without foundation.'

But of course.

Posted by melanie at May 19, 2004