Sun 22 Jan 2006
My Dad is part of group of very thoughtful folks that meet every morning and discuss matters of great import. Physics, philosophy, chemestry, politics, religion and war all are brought up at The Next Chapter bookstore and coffee house in La Connor WA. It is quite the fixture for those in the know and features many guests as well as the core members. They are the self styled “Brain Trust” and they hold court.
They are recently discussing WMD and if they have or have not been discovered in Iraq. Some in the group, dispite being otherwise intelligent, will believe anything Wolfowitz wants them to and so firmly believe that WMD was found. They cite some trucks with mobile labs that were mentioned by Colin Powell in his address to the UN. Dad needs proof to battle this opinion. I emailed him reams of articles and quotes mostly from the NY Times and CNN that mention that the trailers were actually for survelliance balloons. Below is the general theme.
“Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited.” — President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts — including the State Department’s intelligence wing in a report released this week — have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.
So armed with this tidbit, I send the old man off to battle it out with those fully vanquished by Bush’s weapons of mass distraction.
Dad asked me over christmas whether I could provide him some evidence about the amount of money the US vs. other countries contributes to relief efforts abroad. Apparently Dr. Jim (our beloved doctor formerly of the US naval air force) is convinced that the US is by far the biggest spender in the world on medical and disaster relief. While I will acknowledge that Canada is not the leader on a per capita or gross level, it’s amazing to me that he would say so.