Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003....
The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.
Here's the relevant segment, which appears well down in the interview:
Mr. Piro: "The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there."
Mr. Pelley: "And that was his intention?"
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Mr. Pelley: "What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?"
Mr. Piro: "He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program."
Mr. Pelley: "Chemical, biological, even nuclear."
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
...The key point is Saddam's admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.
Check out the entire article. As you might imagine this aspect of the situation--that Saddam had all the necessary ingredients sitting around, as well as the chefs, ready to cook up all sorts of WMDs the instant that the world looked the other way--was buried in the program.
Not too long ago, there was a massive release of Iraqi documents captured in the war which were published on the internet by the government as an answer to the "Bush Lied Etc" crowd. Much of this was taken down after concern that the documents were so detailed about Saddam's various WMD programs that the information could help countries like Iran to develop them. The whole situation prompted this comment at The Belmont Club:
The New York Times is complaining that information from Iraq's nonexistent nuclear weapons program that was posted on the web by the Bush administration to disprove the NYT's assertion that Iraq's program didn't exist has helped Iran advance its own existing nuclear weapons program. It's Bush's fault. It is just me, or is something wrong with this train of reasoning?
There has always been somthing wrong with both the MSM's and the political left's train of reasoning on this topic. First the press persisted in encouraging the delusion that no WMD's or their antecedents were ever found in Iraq and that "Bush lied"--the latest iteration of this meme is the supposedly "objective" and "independent" study funded by the confirmed Bush Hater, George Soros. The "Bush Lied" argument is pushed alternately with the opposite meme--that Saddam indeed had a detailed and documented program developing WMD's, but with the caveat that the real problem was and is that Bush Administration is so reckless and is only facislitating the spread of WMD's (i.e., by publishing of the details of Saddam'sprogram).
Don't you love it?
I have always suspected that the first MSM meme--that Saddam had no WMD's--was just a deliberate type of "concrete thinking" (see ); or simply a "lack of imagination" or inability to "connect the dots" (something that the left is fond of saying about Bush and 9/11 when they aren't blaming him directly for planning it). Presumably, the skeptics expected to find nuclear missles conveniently lined up and pointed at the U.S. ; or warehouses of biological weapons with labels and detailed plans of how to distribute the stuff attached to each vial. Or maybe they even expected to find a written, signed confession by Saddam admitting that he had plans to develop and use whatever weapons he could find that would kill large numbers of people.
Or maybe, just maybe, no amount of evidence would ever convince some people that Saddam was a threat to the U.S. and the entire world and that he once had WMDs and used them; and fully intended to have them and use them again.
The most recent permutation of the MSM's basic Iraq template is simply another manifestation of the Bush Derangement that continues to poison the rational thinking proceses of the left. They continue to believe that George W. Bush was far more evil and more of a threat to the world than Saddam ever was. Of course, they are correct in a way they don't imagine, when you consider the threat a person like Bush poses to their own virulent ideology.
By their refusal to acknowledge the reality of the threat posed not only by Saddam, but by Islamic fanatacism and the regimes that support it, the left has created a recipe for disaster. Just listening to the two Democratic Presidential nominees the other night try to outdo each other in their denunciation of the Iraq war and the unseemly desire to surrender to Al Qaeda, should be a wake-up call for every American.
A while back I presented an analogy between Saddam's WMD and my world-famous "Death By Chocolate Cake." It is worth reprinting in light of the new information from Saddam's interrogator, so I reprint it (and the cake recipe) below:
Let's say that people in my neighborhood got together and voted (in the interests of neighborhood health) that I couldn't bake my "Death by Chocolate" cakes anymore (these cakes have been known to be lethally caloric). I reluctantly agree, and say I am complying with this order, but refuse to let anyone check by looking in my pantry.
Finally, tired of being manipulated by me, and concerned that I might go ahead and bake one of those destructively high calorie cake things, my neighbors force their way into the house and find THAT I HAVE NO CAKE SITTING ON THE COUNTER WAITING TO BE EATEN! How foolish they were to doubt my word! How stupid they were to imagine I might be up to my old chocolate baking tendencies!
On the other hand, they discover while carefully going through my pantry that there are 2 boxes of devil's food cake mix; chocolate bars, cake pans, pudding mix, flour and sugar, mixing bowls and a number of other questionable items. They even find a recipe book which includes several variants on the "Death by Chocolate" Cake theme--muffins, breakfast loaf, etc. And, on top of that, they have a video showing me carrying a cake-like item out of the house the day before they barged in to verify my compliance with their silly order. They suspect that I took one of the cakes to work to share with my co-workers. I calmly refuse to tell them anything.
So what is the conclusion? That I had no pre-existing cake, waiting to be eaten? Or, that I had all the ingredients to make that cake at a moment's notice, despite my having said I wouldn't; and that I even made one just before they came to check, but had taken it somewhere else to eat?
I don't know about you, but I think if you conclude that I haven't been making my famous "Death by Chocolate" cake because one isn't sitting out on the counter for you to find, then you are more foolish than even I could possibly have imagined....
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Death-By-Chocolate Cake
1/4 c. oil
2 eggs
1 1/3 c. water
1 chocolate cake mix (get your favorite--I like devil's food chocolate cake)
Mix the above ingredients by hand (do not use electric mixer). Pour into greased 9x11 inch pan. Sprinkle 12 ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips on top (I like Hershey's). Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.
Cool about 5 minutes. Poke holes in cake (it should still be warm) and spread with 1 large jar of Smuckers Hot Fudge Topping. You can eat the cake unadorned; or with high quality vanilla ice cream. If you are a choco-purist, you are free to use chocolate ice cream instead.
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BWAHAHAHAHAHA....enjoy it while you can!
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