"OTOH - if this stuff is as serious as it seems, why hasn't the Bush administration pushed it more?"
I believe that it hasn't been pushed because it is not true. I don't doubt that Jordan arrested Al Qaeda operatives, but the details are hard to believe.
First, it is not 20 tons of chemicals they claimed to seize, it is 20 tons of explosives. That is 40,000 pounds ... unless it was a very primitive explosive, like in the Oklahoma bombing, the quantity seems excessive to me.
Second, they never released any further details about the alleged chemicals ... since the initial claim there has been silence on the matter. By this time they should have been able to identify the type and quantity of chemicals with specificity.
Third, I find it hard to believe that terrorists would try to combine an attack with both a huge amount of explosives and chemicals. Cyanide would be destroyed by such an explosion and rendered ineffective ... I imagine 40,000 pounds of explosives would do a number on sarin and other poisons, too.
Fourth, we recently had an example of a nation that made false claims about capturing alleged terrorists in order to impress the US. I forget which country it was, but they killed seven innocent people as part of a concocted terrorist plot. |
