Our low profile approach to WMD confiscation I am certain has its roots in the belief that parading caches of weapons which may have obvious ties to other foreign powers and corporations will be counterproductive until investigations, covert or legal action can be taken against those who supplied them.

This is, in essence, much larger than collecting WMD - but is an unraveling of the whos, whats and wheres of the supply chain and global corporate sponsors of WMD.

If we can not only take down the WMD but the people who sold them to Saddam - we eliminate a much larger problem. These folks will just seek new wealthy customers and dictators to profit from.

One of the long-held desires of the US intelligence agencies has been to unravel some of the Russian and former Soviet sellers of WMD. By following the purchase orders of Saddam's government wholly new and revealing information can be obtained. Unfortunately, most of the captured documents need translation and so such a process can be slow an tedious due to the shortage of interpretors with the required clearance to work on such a sensitive pursuit.

The taking of Iraq is an intelligence jackpot - with the documentation which can lead us to all sorts of bad guys and make us aware of groups and suppliers we never knew existed.

Everything about this war is going on our own timetable. Release of information regarding WMD will likely be following this trend.

While Bush may seek public validation for his war - he knows that he can release the info when needed for best political effect. Especially if he can lure his political opponents in with the thought that maybe Saddam didn't have any WMD. Emboldened, by the lack of info...when they make that the center of their opposition to Bush's policy - when the evidence is finally proffered - they are weakened to the point of political irrelevancy.

Pretty clever strategy, eh?

SDAI-Tech1