Personally, I'm Shocked...

I wasted a prodigious amount of time trying to decide whether to file this under 'Beating a Dead Horse', 'Tired of Asshats', or 'More Evidence Hans Blix and David Kay Are Sleeping Together'...

I finally decided to keep it simple and just file under "Well, duh...":

The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

Now what on earth would cause him to do that???

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.

The Baghdad missile site contained a range of WMD and dual-use components, UN officials said. They included missile components, reactor vessel and fermenters – the latter required for the production of chemical and biological warheads.

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for," Ewen Buchanan, Perricos's spokesman, said. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax."

My goodness... so now they're asking questions. Well at least that's a start. At this rate, after another 12 years or so they might even have.... answers. Oh, wait - I forgot - there's really no point in looking - Hans Blix says there are "no weapons of mass destruction left" after his exhaustive 3-month search. Personally I think we should just take his word for it - I know I feel safe. After all, look at the man... how could anyone not trust that face?

I saw this first on Insults Unpunished. Ace of Spades HQ had a related item from AP.

Kate of SmallDeadAnimals has an informative post you might want to check out, too. She references a NY Times article that (unlike the WorldTribune piece) strangely omits any reference to Saddam shipping parts in and out of Iraq. But then we're dealing with the Times.

This is hardly conclusive evidence, but maybe it will have the same effect as a few whacks with the clue bat.

- Cassandra