On Feb. 3, I got the following letter published in the Washington Post:
Conventional militaries must include testing and training milestones in their weapons programs to be certain that their weapons will work.
It is unclear whether the administration analyzed Iraqi programs in terms of milestones. Administration statements (including the October 2002 NIE) do not show that the Iraqi military had tested, deployed and trained to use WMD in the past decade. Therefore, the military threat did not seem imminent.
Administration officials, however, may have been asking themselves another question. Unconventional militaries and terrorist organizations do not need to conduct a complete development program before launching a WMD attack. In 1995, for example, the Aum Supreme Truth cult released a nerve agent in a subway in Japan, killing 10 people. This attack did not require a program using easily detectable testing and training milestones.
In a post-Sept. 11 world, even a small attack using materials from the Iraqi programs would have inflicted severe damage.
In their rush to criticize the Bush administration, critics have failed to ask whether there were any other weapons-related threats arising from Iraqi WMD programs.
HERBERT ELY
As far as I can tell the letter had no impact.
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