There are none. Right? After all, the place was swept for all kinds of weapons of mass destruction and declared clean. So, the inspectors are gone and there's no reason to look further.
But what if that was the point of all the hoopla over yellow cake and drones and mobile production units in the first place? To prove that there was nothing there?
Lots of people still can't figure out what John Kerry meant when he said it was the wrong war, in the wrong place, for the wrong reason. And they can't figure out why his position on the war in Vietnam seemed to have changed; why he wasn't the anti-war hero he was when he'd just been there.
Most people weren't aware until just a couple of years ago, on the fortieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, that John F. Kennedy made a secret deal with Nikita Khrushchev back in 1962 to get the Soviet missiles removed from within striking distance of our major American cities; that, in addition to lifting the naval embargo on Cuba, the U.S. agreed to remove the 15 Jupiter missiles that were still in place on three bases near Izmir, Turkey.
Since Kennedy had already ordered these missiles removed
By the time that the Turkish Jupiters had been installed, the missiles were already largely obsolete and increasingly vulnerable to Soviet attacks. President John F. Kennedy ordered the removal of all Jupiter IRBMs upon taking office in 1961. The Air Force, however, delayed removal and the President was infuriated to learn that they had not yet been removed more than a year later. All Jupiter IRBM's were removed from service by April 1963.
the Soviet demand was not unreasonable and keeping it a secret probably had as much to do with the realization that the Air Force's recalcitrance had brought on a crisis that needn't have been, as the desire not to appear to give in to the Soviets.
So what's this got to do with Vietnam and Iraq and why has Senator John Kerry change his position? Could it be because he's since discovered that the reason the American interest in Vietnam was never clearly defined was because, then and now, the real reason is finding a permanent home in the Indian Ocean region for our nuclear missiles and bombs--bases from which it would be easy to launch our WMD, with little chance that they could be intercepted before they hit their intended target?
The goal, after all, is to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here at home, as George W. Bush has said over and over, and John Kerry has not bothered to refute? Because he couldn't. After all, he's been voting for the Pentagon budgets that contained the planning money for this project all along.
If you think this scenario is far fetched, ask yourself why the Pentagon construction budget for Iraq this year is double what was spent in the previous four. What is it that we're building in northern Iraq to which our friends the Kurds object?
Kennedy ordered the Jupiter missiles removed because in his judgement, as a former Navy man, he concurred with the assessment that the carrier fleet and submarines were a more reliable delivery system. No doubt, the Navy would argue the same today. But the Air Force is obviously not satisfied with the huge complex that was secretly constructed at al Udeid in Kuwait. Or perhaps, like South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, Kuwait has refused to host our nuclear missiles and bombs.
And then there's Europe. A study just released by the
Natural Resources Defense Council is sure to generate a discussion of how much longer our nuclear weapons will be welcome there.
The United States' closest ally, Britain, currently plays host to 110 tactical nuclear missiles at the Lakenheath airbase in Suffolk, the home of American F-15 fighter planes in the UK. This figure itself is three times as high as previously thought. Elsewhere around Europe, the US has 90 bombs deployed at Incirlik in south-eastern Turkey, 90 in Italy and 20 each in Belgium and the Netherlands, according to the NRDC.
No doubt, after Vietnam was ruled off limits, a secular Iraq ruled by a friendly dictator seemed a likely candidate for U.S. bases, but Saddam Hussein had ideas of his own and, eventually, the price for his co-operation got too high. So, the decision was made to take him out and prepare the ground for the U.S. to be welcomed with open arms.
Though it hasn't quite worked out as expected, the bases are abuilding and a "partial withdrawal" will leave enough troops to man the missiles and satellite tracking stations, as well as permanent maintenance and fuelling facilities for our stealth fleet. And nobody's talking about nukes because we all know Iraq is "clean."