Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

Have you noticed that the people who started squalling when American forces failed to find weapons of mass destruction after three weeks in Iraq are largely the same people who wanted to give Hans Blix and his blind mice four more months, on top of the four they’d already squandered?

Developments in the search for such weapons can come thick and fast, and this column could be outdated before you have a chance to read it. Our forces have already found two mobile laboratories fitting the description Secretary Colin Powell gave the Security Council last fall of vehicles designed to manufacture biological weapons. Those determined to pooh-pooh such discoveries will no doubt insist they are merely traveling soda fountains, but the hard facts are getting more difficult to explain away every day.

Besides, as Newt Gingrich remarked on a TV talk show the other day, if Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, then Saddam Hussein was the dumbest and most self-destructive dictator in history. For he could just have given Blix 25 helicopters and the run of the place, instead of rationing out his cooperation in coffee spoons.

Saddam had 12 years in which to hide his weapons of mass destruction (hereinafter WMDs) and his ongoing efforts to acquire nuclear ones. In a nation the size of California, there are lots of places to hide them.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was quite correct in saying that it would be pointless to go rummaging around Iraq (as Blix & Co. did). Far better to talk to knowledgeable scientists, who can then lead us to others, and eventually to people who know where the WMDs are hidden.

This, incidentally, was what we urged Blix to do, and indeed he did talk to a few Iraqi scientists. But they were always accompanied by government “minders,” or had to be questioned in hotels or other premises that they – and Blix – knew were monitored by Saddam’s agents. The United States pressed Blix to insist that the scientists be flown out of Iraq, along with their families, to Cypress (where Blix had his base camp) for unmonitored questioning, but Blix refused to agree to this.

Happily, the shadow of Saddam has been lifted from Iraq, and scientists who want to speak freely can now do so without fear of retaliation. You can be sure that American investigators are looking for them now, and may be in touch with them already.

But it all takes time. Someone may tell us that he was told that WMDs were hidden near Tikrit, but not precisely where. Somebody else may actually have seen WMDs in Karbala, but was later told they had been moved to a safer hiding place (whereabouts unspecified). And so on.

In addition, it may be that, as the American attack drew nearer, Saddam Hussein decided to move his WMDs out of Iraq altogether, to keep them from falling into American hands. Would any of his neighbors agree to accept and hide them? It seems unlikely, but not altogether out of the question. After all, Jordan or – more likely still – Syria could always argue that it was doing the world a favor by taking Saddam’s WMDs out of his control, and was planning to turn them over to the United Nations or some other international body in due course.

In any case, the only reasonable course is to assume that the search for Saddam’s WMDs is going to take a while. And what if, like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden themselves, it ultimately transpires that they simply cannot be found in that huge area loyal to Islam? That certainly wouldn’t prove that they don’t exist. But let’s cross that bridge when – and if – we come to it.