06-08-2004, 09:46 PM
"How much anthrax would you need to start that process with? One test tube?"
How harshly would you have to smash Iraq before this would not be a threat? If they're anywhere near the modern age, low-grade biological and chemical weapons (and their precursors) would be incredibly easy to manufacture at any juncture. The potential for the potential for a potential threat is not "imminent", nor is it sufficient grounds to invade above and beyond Security Council measures, which included scrutinous inspections and one of the harshest sanction regimes on the planet. You want to go to war over insecticide? Or over some ten-year-old anthrax in some scientist's fridge, or plans buried in his rose garden? Is this really cause for war? Concern, maybe, but there are appropriate responses and then there's completely excessive (even if it was under the Security Council, which it wasn't.)
Jester
How harshly would you have to smash Iraq before this would not be a threat? If they're anywhere near the modern age, low-grade biological and chemical weapons (and their precursors) would be incredibly easy to manufacture at any juncture. The potential for the potential for a potential threat is not "imminent", nor is it sufficient grounds to invade above and beyond Security Council measures, which included scrutinous inspections and one of the harshest sanction regimes on the planet. You want to go to war over insecticide? Or over some ten-year-old anthrax in some scientist's fridge, or plans buried in his rose garden? Is this really cause for war? Concern, maybe, but there are appropriate responses and then there's completely excessive (even if it was under the Security Council, which it wasn't.)
Jester