So where'd those WMDs go anyway? A United Nations report dated May 28, 2004 - which I covered here - said some Iraqi WMD-related materials were turning up in European scrapyards. Big media ignored the story; a few bloggers didn't. In June I wrote:

Highlights from the report by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) include discovery in a Rotterdam scrapyard of a radioactive, UN-tagged Iraqi surface-to-air missile engine; more Iraqi surface-to-air missile engines in a Netherlands scrapyard; and satellite photo evidence showing major alterations to known Iraqi weapons sites.

Now, more evidence from the UN that WMD-capable Iraqi materials were shipped out of the country, and a smattering of news coverage, at least. CNN reports today that:

Iraq has exported about 130,000 tons of scrap metal to Jordanian trading companies following the U.S.-led invasion, including SA-2 missile engines and equipment that could have been used to make banned weapons, according to U.N. weapons inspectors.

...The inspectors, who left Iraq before the fighting began in March 2003, said they are concerned that several sites in Iraq, where weapons of mass destruction could have been produced, have been plundered. Using satellite imagery, they also have determined that some sites were razed.

...Scrap company managers estimated that between June 2003 and June 2004, 130,000 tons of Iraqi scrap metal passed through Jordan's largest free trade zone. Iraq also exported scrap metal to other bordering nations, as well as to Europe, North Africa and Asia.

Among the items discovered at the Jordanian scrap yards were 20 SA-2 missile engines, a solid propellant mixing vessel tagged by UNMOVIC during its 2002-2003 inspection activities in Iraq, parts of an SA-2 air frame and booster and four chemical-related vessels tagged as dual-use items -- for legitimate civilian or illicit military use.

The report includes the caveat that UN inspectors aren't sure that such materials would have been used for purposes banned under the UN's governing agreement with Saddam to rid Iraq of WMDs and adhere to an open inspections process.

Yet, given Saddam's past record of using WMDs, and his continued defiance of the UN inspections process, was the U.S. not indeed correct in deducing that necessary assurances of compliance were not only lacking, but likely to remain lacking?

And knowing of Saddam's payments to, and provision of safe harbor for terrorists, should we or should we not have regarded his evasions on WMDs as a vital national security concern in a post 9/11 world? Did Bush "lie?" Or rather, did he simply have the cojones to do what a skittish "international community," eager to obscure America's undeniable geo-political primacy, could not?

The answers are becoming increasingly clear, and none bode well for the (Blame America First and Always) Left, or John Kerry.

Today's news on the UN findings don't belong in a skinny column on Page A10 of the newspaper, foreign editors. It belongs on the front page, in a comprehensive report linking the May 28 UNMOVIC report to the new one, with a recap of all other post-invasion reports of WMDs in, or leaving, Iraq. After all the screaming front-page stories about "No WMDs," honest journalism demands no less.

I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at September 8, 2004 11:00 AM

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» Where are the WMDs? Maybe they're in Jordan from steevak.com v3.4
Matt Rosenberg points to another article hinting where Saddam's WMD program may have gone. Money quote from the CNN article (emphasis mine): Iraq has exported about 130,000 tons of scrap metal to Jordanian trading companies following the U.S.-le... [Read More]

Tracked on September 8, 2004 04:34 PM