Puzzled as I am about why this story hasn’t gotten more attention, I post this editorial from the Khaleej Times of the United Arab Emirates for your examination.
So – after America invaded and occupied Iraq for nearly a decade and spent a trillion or so dollars – if one includes long term car and treatment of the wounded, ostensibly to deprive it of “WMDs,” Baghdad has informed the world that it not only retains a chemical weapons capability, but that al-Qaeda has infiltrated its security services in a plot to steal and smuggle them into Europe and the United States! And all this as fighters flood across the Iraqi border into Syria.
Beyond the fact that the story once again demonstrates the absurdity of the Iraq invasion, isn’t this something that should elicit some immediate concern – rather than nearly complete media silence? The news, according the Khaleej Times at least, is very worrying indeed, both to Iraq and the outside world.
The Khaleej Times editorial starts off this way:
Iraq’s announcement that it has unearthed an al-Qaeda plot to lay hands on its chemical weapons is nothing short of a bombshell.
Indeed, it has opened a Pandora’s box, and at a time when the country is sliding toward anarchy and sectarian killings have quite literally unnerved the administration in Baghdad. Iraqi authorities claim that they were tail-teasing a group of people who allegedly wanted to smuggle out of the country [to the U.S. and Europe] toxic agents, including sarin and mustard gas. The group is also said to have had designs on using them inside Iraq. To substantiate its revelations, the Iraqi Defense Ministry paraded four men on television it says were arrested. The plot thickened further with the “stated” confessions of the accused – who were produced with black hoods on their heads. The men reportedly say they received instructions from another al-Qaeda offshoot. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry says that cooperation between Iraqi and foreign intelligence services made the arrests possible, which is a good omen for the security-scared Arab country.
The plot cannot be brushed aside as an isolated incident. Al-Qaeda and its accomplices have been the only terrorists to use chemical weapons. … The Iraqi government’s claim that the ultimate aim of the group was to smuggle the agents to Europe and North America will kick off investigations on a far broader scale.
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