“Saddam’s Bomb”

This was on Best of the Web, so you may have seen it, but it is too entertaining to pass up. Check out “Saddam’s Bomb,” a news article dated March 2, 2001, which says that Iraq has already developed nuclear weapons. Here are some excerpts:
“There is growing concern that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction now threaten stability in the region as never before. But has Iraq already tested the atom bomb? Since I first spoke to Leone, my investigation has come a long way. I have confirmed beyond doubt that UN inspectors missed a very large slice of the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme. There is also evidence that the Iraqis tested a small nuclear device underground.
“Saddam is now a hero in the Middle East because of his stand against Israel, Britain and America. The tragedy is that the warnings of defectors like Leone have come to nothing. And that Iraq is now emerging as a nuclear power, causing the threat to peace to be far more real than ever before.”
The story is by Gwynne Roberts of the BBC.
That was then and this is now, of course; news organizations never apply the standard of consistency to themselves. Yet there is a certain over-arching consistency in the BBC’s worldview:
“I asked him if it was definitely a nuclear test. He said it was. I asked him who had supplied the uranium for the bomb. ‘South Africa,’ he said.
“So had South Africa really been selling off surplus stocks of highly enriched uranium?
“I contacted a former intelligence official under the apartheid regime who had helped procure components for his country’s nuclear weapons programme on the black-market. ‘The story is true,’ he said. ‘About 50 kilograms were sold to the Iraqis. The Americans gave the green light for the deal.'”
So if Iraq does have nuclear weapons, it’s America’s fault!