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TOny, WMD and Iraq

trg | 14.01.2003 15:25

Yesterday Tony Blair laid out his vision for a war on WMD... some questions for him

The essence of Tony Blair's message yesterday was pretty much 'The proliferation of WMD means that there is an ever increasing likelihood that someone will get their hands on them and use them, thus they are a threat to world peace...i.e someone could sell or give them to Alqaeda...WMD's make the world a dangerous place, so we will go from country to country dealing with their weapons programs....'
Well, OK, but if we're gonna be honest there are some obvious questions to ask before it is possible to start the task....
Q1) Which countries are KNOWN to produce WMD? Should we not prioritise the countries known to produce WMD?!? (Wild idea!)
Q2) Who is KNOWN to have traded (sold/given) in WMD? Should we not prioritise these countries in the fight against WMD since they not only produce but proliferate WMD? Certainly the purchasers should be dealt with, but they could not buy without someone producing and selling the weapons
Q3) Who has the most WMD today? Who has used the most WMD in recent history? Whoever has the most is clearly a priority since such proliferation encourages an arms race, whoever has used the most is clearly a priority since we need to stop them using their WMD again.
Q4) What is the best way to go about destroying WMD? Inspectors destroying them on the ground or bombing suspected sites from thousands of meters above? Will we apply this to all countries with WMD?
Q5) Is killing 2 million people with 'conventional' weapons or 1/2 million with economic weapons worse than owning WMD? or worse than killing 5,000 people with WMD? or worse than killing 2 million with WMD? Why?

Why aren't theese questions being asked by Tony or the media or indeed anyone? Maybe cos they don't provide the correct answers?!?

trg