A friend writes: “News readers (we’re talking about the “talking heads”) have short memories
for much that matters. As Brett Wagner, president of the California Center for Strategic Studies
and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, noted a year ago in a USA Today article (on Oct. 6,
2003):
[T]he war fighters were right. Military commanders weren’t given enough
manpower and logistical support to secure all of the known [Iraqi] nuclear sites, let alone all of
the suspected ones. … It wasn’t until seven of Iraq’s main nuclear facilities were extensively looted
that the true magnitude of the administration’s strategic blunder came into
focus.
“Now the missing HMX is news,” the friend adds, “and it is mainly treated as a separate issue
to be judged (as the administration would have it) as a tiny, tiny fraction (by weight) of all the
artillery rounds and bombs that have been destroyed.
“Except that a tiny, tiny fraction of the artillery rounds and bombs is very conspicuous when
strapped to a suicide-bomber, even under several large overcoats. Can you imagine a terrorist
with a 250-pound aerial bomb strapped on? That’s the smallest size it comes in.”
