A justification big enough to drive an Abrams fighting vehicle through:

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton says:

Iraqi “intellectual capacity” for producing unconventional weapons was sufficient justification for the successful U.S.-led war against the country ...

Since the first Gulf War, he said, “The most fundamental, most important thing that was not destroyed was the intellectual capacity in Iraq to recreate systems of weapons of mass destruction.”

Bolton said U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors “could have inspected for years and years and years and probably never would have found weapons-grade plutonium or weapons-grade uranium.”

“But right in front of them was the continued existence of what Saddam Hussein called the ‘nuclear mujahadeen,’ the thousand or so scientists, technicians, people who have in their own heads and in their files the intellectual property necessary at an appropriate time … to recreate a nuclear weapons program.”

Bolton said the United States was justified in attacking Iraq because of that alleged capacity.

Apparently, a nation could be bereft of any material objects related to WMD's, and the United States would justify an invation because of a "capacity." Which means that virtually any country - excepting the extremely poor ones - could be attacked on the grounds that it represents a threat.

posted by Quiddity at 5/29/2003 09:49:00 PM