Weapons of mass destruction have been found, just not in Iraq.?? They were not found in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, but rather in the area around Tyler, Texas.??In fact, since March 2003, more WMDs have been found in President Bush's home state of Texas than in all of Iraq.
On Nov. 26, 2003, CBS 11 News in Dallas reported, \Three people linked to white supremacist and anti-government groups are in custody.??At least one weapon of mass destruction-a sodium cyanide bomb capable of delivering a deadly gas cloud-has been seized in the Tyler area.""
The authorities also confiscated at least 100 other bombs, bomb components, machine guns, 500,000 rounds of ammunition and chemical agents.??Federal agents are concerned that the group may have WMDs in other locations. A problem is that the largest investigation of domestic terrorism since the Oklahoma City bombing has received almost no media coverage, while every day we hear of the ongoing search in Iraq for possible evidence of WMDs.??
The Bush administration is putting great effort into proving that the war in Iraq is a necessary part of the War on Terror while proven threats, like this incident in Texas, seem to fade into the background. The fact is that Iraq had no connection to the Sept. 11 attacks and there is no evidence of a cooperative relationship between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The war in Iraq was justified based on the idea that WMDs existed there and that they would be used against the United States and its allies. Colin Powell has recently conceded to the possibility that there may not have been any WMDs in Iraq as of March 2003, when the war began.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's former foreign secretary, Robin Cook, recently said about Blair's insistence that weapons still exist, ""It is becoming really rather undignified for the prime minister to continue to insist that he was right all along, when everybody can now see he was wrong, when even the head of the Iraq Survey Group has said he is wrong.?? The threat did not exist.""
The war in Iraq took large amounts of money and soldiers away from the War on Terror that Bush claims is his top priority.?? If it is his top priority then why was Iraq invaded at this moment when very real terrorist threats exist at home, in Texas, and abroad in other countries that have been shown to have nuclear weapons, like North Korea and Russia'One way to better spend the money that is being used to fight the war in Iraq would be to buy the surplus nuclear weapons remaining in the former Soviet Union that would pose a real threat if sold to terrorists.
Another discrepancy in the War on Terror exists in new security measures for airline passengers.?? Passengers can no longer carry sharp objects onto airplanes. However, the only attempt to use an airplane as a weapon of terrorism since Sept. 11 came when Richard Reid tried to detonate a bomb in his shoe on a flight from Western Europe to the United States. He had no sharp objects, but he did have a lighter that is still completely legal to carry on board airplanes.??There have been many laws and regulations passed since Sept. 11 aimed and making us all safer, but nothing banning lighters. The only object to have been used by a terrorist on a plane since Sept. 11 can still be legally carried onto airplanes.
There are many discrepancies between the purpose of the War on Terror and the actions being taken in its name.??More rules and regulations and wars only make us safer if they are directed at a real threat.?? The threat of domestic terrorism still exists.??Lighters, the same kind used by Richard Reid, are still allowed on airplanes.??Real threats from international terrorist groups still exist, but Iraq was not one of these. Let us overcome our desire for a false sense of security, look clearly at the real terrorist threats and make sure that our leaders are using the War on Terror to fight real threats of terrorism.
