The UN weapons inspectors' discovery of 12 chemical-weapons "warheads" (a term typically reserved for ICBM's, not non-weaponized rockets with a range of 14–15 km) in a military depot south of Baghdad does not bode well for those seeking a peaceful resolution to the U.S.'s current conflict with the Iraqi government. Even if, as the Iraqis have claimed, the warheads were listed in a prior declaration and were simply overlooked this time around, the Bush regime appears to be hell-bent for war and set to use non-compliance with this mandate as grounds for blasting Saddam and co. out of existence.
But maybe the question we should really ask ourselves is, "Should we really be surprised that the weapons inspectors have found something the Iraqi government either couldn't or didn't account for?" Here in the United States, yet another scandal has hit Los Alamos National Laboratory, where computer and other equipment worth $2.7 million has come up unaccounted for. "We are not a bunch of crooks – the problem is, I can't prove it," new interim director Pete Nanos said, unable to account for the whereabouts of the equipment. The Pentagon is famous for misplacing stuff. And the Bureau of Indian Affairs has lost the net national worth of several small countries combined during its existence.
What is surprising is that this is even news at all.
The fact is, bureaucracies are famous for profligate waste and unaccountability. Losing vast sums of loot and merchandise is what governments do. This is because governments spend untold billions of dollars on stuff and have no way of keeping track of it all. Even assuming moral perfection on the part of government employees (which is of course extraordinarily difficult to do), stuff would fall through the cracks. Most of us even have trouble remembering what we have buried in the back of the closet or the garage. Just think of the trouble we'd have if we were responsible for billions of dollars of stuff we didn't own and had very little incentive to treat responsibly. It would be a miracle if all kinds of things didn't get lost or go unaccounted for.
The same kind of miracle would have to happen for the UN weapons inspectors to find nothing not listed in Iraq's declaration of weapons. The country has been embroiled in wars with two of its neighbors over the past fifteen years. The region is notoriously unstable. Saddam's grip on power is directly related to the power of his military. For these reasons, there's likely to be all kinds of military hardware lying about. Should we really be going to war because Iraq is just as inefficient at keeping tracks of its toys as the rest of the world's governments are?
Another question we need to ask ourselves is "Just what kind of threat is Saddam Hussein?" If in nearly two months of searching the weapons inspectors have only been able to find 12 undeclared non-weaponized chemical weapon "warheads" (euphemistically described as "weapons of mass destruction," but actually only useful for battlefield engagements), what do we have to fear of the man? He obviously doesn't have the capability to do anything to the United States at this time. Even his neighbors, excluding Israel, say they don't feel he is a threat.
The real threat, for all of us, is what might happen to the region once Saddam is out of power. Who fills the vacuum then? And at what cost in lives and livelihood? These are the great unknowns of the U.S.'s latest oversea military venture.
What isn't unknown is that governments lose stuff. If this is a sound basis for going to war, then we're all in big trouble.
January 21, 2003
