Some news from Iraq
Way to go, USA, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, reported by the AP for CNN.com:
"Some Iraqi nuclear facilities appear to be unguarded, and radioactive materials are being taken out of the country, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency reported after reviewing satellite images and equipment that has turned up in European scrapyards.
The International Atomic Energy Agency sent a letter to U.S. officials three weeks ago informing them of the findings. The information was also sent to the U.N. Security Council in a letter from its director, Mohamed ElBaradei, that was circulated Thursday.
The IAEA is waiting for a reply from the United States, which is leading the coalition administering Iraq, officials said.
The United States has virtually cut off information-sharing with the IAEA since invading Iraq in March 2003 on the premise that the country was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
No such weapons have been found, and arms control officials now worry the war and its chaotic aftermath may have increased chances that terrorists could get their hands on materials used for unconventional weapons or that civilians may be unknowingly exposed to radioactive materials."
The second to last sentence I quoted is badly written, since it could imply that United States cut off information sharing with the IAEA "on the premise that the country was hiding weapons of mass destruction," when in fact it means that the United states invaded on that premise. But it does not explain why we have cut off information sharing, nor what the official DoD response is to this aggregious threat. I'm hoping that this is just the first run article, coming out in response to the UN IAEA press release, and that soon all will be explained. But I'm not too hopeful. The press, the public and Congress need to keep putting extreme pressure on the administration to deal with this problem--it's absolutely vital to our national security.
1st: Sgt. Dwayne Farr: Kilt-wearing, bagpipe-playing African-American Marine in Fallujah. What a crazy, charming, terrible world we live in.
