The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Who's International Terrorism's Best Buddy?

Why, it might just be the Bush Administration!

It's no great secret that Bush administration policies have given many potential "insurgents" in Iraq and elsewhere more reasons than ever to join up with militant groups, but now it appears that their ham-handed policies in Iraq may have given the terrorists some of the tools they were looking for. Equipment and materials tagged by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during the highly successful inspections and monitored weapons dismantling program have seemingly since vanished from Iraq. In some cases it's not just the equipment, but entire facilities.

The IAEA, which the Bush administration kept from returning post-invasion to continue their monitoring operations, has handed in a report to the UN based largely on what's missing from recent satellite images they've been evaluating. The IAEA's requests for information from the US occupation and interim Iraqi government have gone unanswered, but according to the anti-proliferation agreements the occupation forces and the interim government authority was nominally turned over to in June would have been required to inform the IAEA if they moved or exported any of the tagged materials. No such notifications have been made.

So, either someone in power moved these facilities when they weren't supposed to, or they were left open for others - likely not friendly to the US or interim governments - to cart them off for their own use. With Saddam in place at the head of a largely ruined and successfully monitored country with no discernable ties (certainly no ideological ones) to international terrorist organizations, those materials and facilities were held in check. With him out and Iraq "liberated", these materials may now be in the hands of al Qaida or one of the other groups looking to purge their lands of infidels.

Good work, Dubya.