them. they were put into two very large bunkers and sealed in concrete. now, when i went back in 2003 and went out to this facility, i discovered that indeed, in the period after the inspectors, u.n. inspects are left in 1998 and before the second gulf war in 2003, the iraqis are someone had broken into some of the bunkers and gone through various facilities. now, whether they gathered together is a lot of scrap that was contaminated. it was more toxic than chemical weapons. the iraqi chemical weapons most of them did not survive as stable chemical weapons in the environment for very long. so there certainly are chem wal weapons and leakers there still. but they re much more dangerous to anyone who tries to get them than they had to anyone they could possibly be used on. the insurgents in 2004, five, tried to use a couple of these weapons as improvised roadside
president because on the one hand, he says he wants a very limited strike that sends a message about how we feel about chemical warfare and kind of and punish the syrians in some way without getting us involved in a deeper way. but if it s ta kind of limited sfwrik shar assad survives he s going to say i stood up to the united states of america and survived. so it is a very tricky thing. sure it is. but i kind you have emp thighes with the box he got himself in because i do believe the use of chemical weapons is different from a lot of other things. we re not talking about changing syria fundamentally. just talking about taking a stand against the use of chem wal weapons. dr. dyson, how troubled is the president on this? is this a gut wrenching moment for him. of course it is. talking about the metaphor of the surgery, the surgery was successful but the patient died. with the reality here, even if you have a surgical strike, you
problem here. i think on the one hand, when he talked about nation building begins at home, it was one of the most popular things he said. richard haass of the council on foreign relations who is no liberal wrote a book called foreign policy begins at home. i think we agree that s where our priorities should be. but i think the president kind of boxed himself in because he did draw a clear red line and said that if they use chemical weapons, we got to act. and i do think that democratic countries have to look at this and say there s a real problem when a dictator uses chemical weapons against his own people. so i m very worried about this the way you are. but i m not sure the president has a whole lot of choice given what he said, not what the neo-cons are saying. i would say it this way. you know, we heard mission accomplished. we heard we were going to be greeted as liberators. we heard that iraqi oil was going to pay for all of the stuff. there s been a lot of missed talking going