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April 17, 2003

One Thousand More Inspectors?

"Inspectors do not need more time or personnel" President George Bush, March 07, 2003

About seven weeks ago, UN inspectors were deemed to have enough people to do their job by the President. It was only, "the full co-operation of the Iraqi people" that we were waiting for, and then all the illegal Iraqi weapons would be found!

Here is today's headline from CNN.com:

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States is sending a 1,000-man team to Iraq to hunt for weapons of mass destruction, Pentagon officials said Thursday."

So where about 100 inspectors and 100 support staff were deemed sufficient to get the job done when we were still assembling in the Kuwaiti parking lot, now - when we control the whole country, have had the several hundred thousand ground troops on the look out, and already have a stealth weapons team of about 50 civilian experts on the ground WHO CAN'T FIND ANYTHING - now, we need to send an additional team on ONE THOUSAND to find the weapons!

This is dangerous PR being played by the administration. With this many people dedicated to finding weapons, the public humiliation of failure to find some will be enormous. And already there has been noise that anything found at this stage won't be without conspiracy theories attached.

Will these inspectors find anything? Who knows - that is not the point. The point is that this is just one more act of blatant hypocrisy by the President and his administration.

Comments

400 more! This from CNN:

"The Czech Republic is sending humanitarian aid workers and equipment to Iraq -- including a field hospital with 281 staffers and a water treatment facility that can produce up to 26,000 gallons of drinkable water per hour. The Czech Parliament also has authorized about 400 Czech weapons experts -- who had been stationed in Kuwait -- to operate in Iraq."

Posted by: afinta at April 19, 2003 01:58 AM

Another 3,000 inspectors? This is from Time Magazine:

"However sanguine officials sound in public, in private the pressure is rising. The Pentagon dispatched an entire brigade—3,000 troops—to the search and offered $200,000 bounties for any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) uncovered. Local officers were authorized to make payments of $2,500 on the spot. "The White House is screaming, 'Find me some WMD,'" says a State Department official, adding that the task is one of many suddenly facing the department. Members of the Administration must feel a new bond with Blix, since they are now the ones arguing that these things take time. "

Posted by: afinta at April 20, 2003 11:55 PM