NY Times: U.S. Withdraws a Team of Weapons Hunters From Iraq
The New York Times reported today that US Inc. will be laying off 400 employees from its Iraq headquarters. After an year of unprecedented growth in its workforce, the flailing defense security industry has finally affected the company, forcing it to downsize. The second Gulf Defense Contracts Expo drew less participants this year resulting in fewer global sales of US Inc.’s latest products. An unimaginative marketing campaign may have been the key factor that led to the poor turnout.
The 400-member team withdrawn from Iraq, known as the Joint Captured Matériel Exploitation Group, was primarily composed of technical experts and was headed by an Australian brigadier, Defense Department officials said. Its work included searching weapons depots and other sites for missile launchers that might have been used with illicit weapons, the officials said, and it was withdrawn “because its work was essentially done.”
There will still be a large workforce in Iraq to continue US Inc.’s work in the fledgling market.
A separate military team that specializes in disposing of chemical and biological weapons remains part of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which has been searching Iraq for more that seven months at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The majority investors in the company seemed unfazed by the current climate of the industry. Though there has been talk about realigning the board of directors, the present CEO and Chairman, George W. Bush, still has a tight rein over the company.
What they’re saying here is that there are no weapons in Iraq. They were probably all destroyed back in 1991. The US was misled and Sadam was most probably misled as well by his own scientists who were just making him happy with falsified reports or just securing their own jobs.
The biggest find seems to be a stack of papers which would be 10 miles high if they were to take the time to stack them all. They’re translating them at this very moment (you might’ve seen the gov’t banner ads on the Times site looking for Arabic teachers in case you’re interested). The translation project, if the GOP play it right, will probably generate some intriguing tidbits just before the election, but will most likely not produce any complete findings until well into the second term.
Look, I get it. Sadam is a dictator in the literal sense, but we went in there with the false impression that this guy was tied to OBL & AQ, by something more substantive than a connecting verb.
The other side is that the Dems are crying foul because the GOP weren’t playing straight. Now, if at one point W were to turn around and say he was wrong about the WMDs and the OBL & AQ link, then the Dems would be ripping him to pieces, maybe even threaten an impeachment hearing for old times sake and try to get some kind of perjury charge against him for closure’s sake. So what’s he going to do? Back down? Forget about it - it’s a dead horse. Personally I don’t see how the general population is going to see Iraq as an issue since we got Sadam.
The sad thing is that this election hinges on something horrible happening (that’s the veiled threat that runs through everything each candidate says) and I would just give anything for that not to happen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/international/middleeast/08WEAP.html
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