Uno dei più intelligenti articoli mai scritti sulle armi di distruzione di massa irachene. L'autore è Rolf Ekeus, svedese (come Blix), ex presidente esecutivo dell'UNSCOM in Iraq, ex ambasciatore negli Usa, attualmente a capo dello Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Dice che il punto non è trovare ingenti quantità di armi chimiche o biologiche ammassate da qualche parte (gli iracheni sapevano che in poche settimane sarebbero state soggette a deterioramento): quel che conta è che il regime avesse (come aveva) un programma per la produzione di queste armi pronto per essere attivato al momento opportuno. Quel che conta, aggiunge, è che l'insieme di conoscenze, tecniche, agenti chimici e biologici pronti per essere trasformati in armi non finissero nelle mani dei gruppi terroristi in guerra con l'Occidente. Insomma: l'arma di distruzione di massa per eccellenza era il regime di Saddam. E bisognava disinnescarla al più presto.

Thus the Iraqi policy after the Gulf War was to halt all production of warfare agents and to focus on design and engineering, with the purpose of activating production and shipping of warfare agents and munitions directly to the battlefield in the event of war. Many hundreds of chemical engineers and production and process engineers worked to develop nerve agents, especially VX, with the primary task being to stabilize the warfare agents in order to optimize a lasting lethal property. Such work could be blended into ordinary civilian production facilities and activities, e.g., for agricultural purposes, where batches of nerve agents could be produced during short interruptions of the production of ordinary chemicals.
This combination of researchers, engineers, know-how, precursors, batch production techniques and testing is what constituted Iraq's chemical threat -- its chemical weapon. The rather bizarre political focus on the search for rusting drums and pieces of munitions containing low-quality chemicals has tended to distort the important question of WMD in Iraq and exposed the American and British administrations to unjustified criticism. 

The chemical and biological warfare structures in Iraq constitute formidable international threats through potential links to international terrorism. Before the war these structures were also major threats against Iran and internally against Iraq's own Kurdish and Shiite populations, as well as Israel. 

Conclusione.

The door is now open for diplomatic initiatives to remake the region into a WMD-free area and to shape a structure in the Persian Gulf of stability and security. Moreover, the defeat of the Hussein regime, a deadly opponent to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, has opened the door to a realistic and re-energized peace process in the Middle East.
This is enough to justify the international military intervention undertaken by the United States and Britain. To accept the alternative -- letting Hussein remain in power with his chemical and biological weapons capability -- would have been to tolerate a continuing destabilizing arms race in the gulf, including future nuclearization of the region, threats to the world's energy supplies, leakage of WMD technology and expertise to terrorist networks, systematic sabotage of efforts to create and sustain a process of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the continued terrorizing of the Iraqi people. 

Tutte le altre sono chiacchiere da salotto.