Self-fulfilling prophecy

Remember how Shrub and the Shrubberies kept saying - our Shrub-in-Chief even repeated it during the first debate - that invading Iraq was a good idea and actually necessary because Saddam was on the verge of getting nukes and who knows, he might pass them on to terrorists? Well, CNN noted the other day that

[e]quipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq, the chief of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency has warned.

Satellite imagery shows entire buildings that once housed high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear bombs have been dismantled, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a letter to the Security Council.

This involved equipment which the IAEA had previously identified, monitored, and tagged before the US booted the inspectors out in March 2003.

Reuters adds that

[s]everal diplomats close to the IAEA said the disappearance of the nuclear items was not the result of haphazard looting. ...

"We're talking about dozens of sites being dismantled," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "Large numbers of buildings taken down, warehouses were emptied and removed. This would require heavy machinery, demolition equipment. This is not something that you'd do overnight."

Diplomats in Vienna say the IAEA is worried that these facilities, which belonged to Saddam's pre-1991 covert nuclear weapons programme, could have been packed up and sold to a country or militants interested in nuclear weapons. ...

Independent expert Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest, said Iraqi nuclear and weapons-related material that was monitored by the U.N. before the invasion had since been found in Europe. Raw "yellowcake" uranium, apparently from Iraq, was found in Rotterdam last December, he said.

So let's get this straight: Based on phony claims about a non-existent threat from a dismantled, monitored, mothballed nuclear program and the non-existent threat of the possible spreading of materials from that dismantled, monitored, mothballed nuclear program to terrorist groups, we invaded Iraq - as a result of which the remnants of that program, including yellowcake and dual-use items (which the IAEA was confident as a result if its 2002-2003 inspections were not then being used for weapons work) were systematically looted over a period of months and dispersed to who knows where.

Bottom line: Once again, the invasion caused the very threat it was claimed to be preventing. The WHS* are not only fanatics, they're just damn stupid.

*WHS = White House Sociopaths