Screaming Penguin

So I was talking to a guy at work this week about the imminent war in Iraq. I saw the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN on Nightline the other day and he said something to the effect of "We would not use chemical or biological weapons in a war with the US because we don't have any." I started thinking, what would happen if the US went in, occupied Iraq and didn't find any significant evidence of weapons of mass destruction? I speculated that the administration might say, "well they gave all the weapons to terrorists," and use it as a reason to continue this Orwellian permanent war. My coworker noted, "Well of course we would just plant some." That turned into a crack about Chris Rock's bit on the LAPD who whenever they needed a reason for having beaten someone would just "Sprinkle a little crack on him." Something makes me think that may already have begun. In addition to what is now the second worst diplomatic bungle in the history of the US -- driving hard for first -- already, CNN is reporting that the IAEA has found documents turned over as evidence of Iraqi nuclear programs by the US and UK intelligence communities -- That seems more and more like a misnomer -- to be "obvious fakes". Some highlights:

Sources said that one of the documents was a letter discussing the uranium deal supposedly signed by Niger President Tandja Mamadou. The sources described the signature as "childlike" and said that it clearly was not Mamadou's. Another, written on paper from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who by then had not been foreign minister of Niger in 14 years, sources said. "The IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts that these documents -- which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger -- are not in fact authentic," ElBaradei said in his March 7 presentation to the U.N. Security Council. Close said the CIA should have known better. "They have tremendously sophisticated and experienced people in their technical services division, who wouldn't allow a forgery like this to get by," Close said. "I mean it's just mystifying to me. I can't understand it."

Let's face it, we all know that the US government does things that we would think were unconscionable if we knew about them, but we take it on faith that they are for our own good. I would have simply thought they were better at it than this.