Financial Times on US withdraws 400 weapon hunters from Iraq:
The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials.
The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.
A separate military team that specializes in disposing of chemical and biological weapons remains part of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which has been searching Iraq for more that seven months at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. But that team is “still waiting for something to dispose of,” said a survey group member.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal should talk to a mother who buried her child as a result of this war. They should talk to the children who will never again get to hug their daddy or, in some cases, their mommy. Tell them it doesn’t matter that one of the most important people in their life is dead because we just “had to stop the madman from gassing us all.”
An “oops, my bad” simply will not make up for this travesty.
People are dead as a result of this mad rush to stop Saddam from using weapons he didn’t possess. People are dead as a result of this Administration’s false insinuation that Saddam was connected with the September 11 attacks. People are dead because too many of my fellow Americans would rather do as they are told than bother to check the facts. People are dead because too many Americans gave in to jingoism and nationalism, while real patriots and anti-war veterans were labeled as traitors by chickenhawks and neo-cons. I won’t forget this come November.
I’m too damned angry to say it any better folks. Check out Jim Henley, who stated it quite nicely.