On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:16:35 -0500, Fly Guy wrote:

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:
Ask the Bush administration. They made it an international
objective to force Iraq to prove it did not have WMD. Absurd,
yes. Par for the course for this white house? Yes.

The Iraqis were required to verify the destruction of their WMD
by the cease fire agreement of 1991. Proving that something has
been done is not proving a negative.

You can't prove that something no longer exists if you've destroyed it
(especially if you're trying to prove it to those that are bent on
invading you).

You could prove you destroyed it. That's what they were ordered to
do, destroy their WMD programs and retain proof of same. They say
they destroyed them and didn't bother proving it; given Iraq's prior
behavior the UN was unwilling to take them at their word.

--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft