What were we THINKing!

A couple of items report that the U.S.

1. sent anthrax spores to Saddam in the 80s and
2. asked the Netherlands not to prosecute former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan for stealing nuclear technology from a Dutch company.

The latter request was made by the CIA.

Even if it was sweet revenge to have Saddam bleeding Iran from 1980-88, one has to ask what dimwit thought up the idea of sending him anthrax to play with.

It was also incredible blindness to let scientists in backward Islamic states get their hands on anthrax and nuclear technology. What could the Dutch have been thinking, for that matter?

By the sacred blood of teen suicide bombers of all nations and creeds! Give the third world engineers access to medical, agricultural, and other such technology but not the keys to the NBC (nuclear, biological and chemical) city.

Ouch wiedersehn nonproliferation.

Let's see . . . . If we actually tried to limit access here the ACLU would file suit in a heartbeat to ensure that no religious or national origin group was being discriminated against. "Equal access to inappropriate technology for all."

By golly. What could be better than that?

Sources:

"Saddam's germ war plot is traced back to one Oxford cow." By Dominic Kennedy. Times Online.

"Dutch Twice Abandoned Plans to Prosecute A.Q. Khan at CIA Insistence, Former PM Says."

Thanks: Global Security Newswire, 8/9/05, published by Nuclear Threat Initiative.