The real weapon of mass destruction

A ranking officer in the FBI – I didn’t catch his name – was being interviewed by the BBC (broadcast on NPR) yesterday, and he was asked: “What do you fear the most?”

“What I fear the most is terrorists,” he said without hesitation, “specifically terrorists who have weapons of mass destruction.”

I don’t know if he said that partly because he wanted forgiveness for the American misread of Saddam and WMDs with which the Bush administration justified invading Iraq. But I thought it was reasonable that the two – Saddam as a terrorist and WMDs as atomic or chemical weapons – were linked in his mind.

But they haven’t linked in my mind since the 9/11 anniversary, and a Discovery Channel documentary about 9/11’s planning and execution. Over and over again, the documentary displayed the faces of the terrorists who took over the four aircraft, and looking at these faces over and over again stirred in me the deepest anger I have felt in a long time.

They were sickening. But Iraq was not vital in their organization. They were not operating under the Iraqi flag. Fifteen of the 19 were Saudi nationals, and all that bound them together was hatred of America, a passion for dying, and Osama bin Laden.

If Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were on trading cards, I would give you one million Saddams for one Osama. But he is at large, can’t be found, after all this time, while the Bush administration’s war on terror is headquartered in Baghdad.

And yes, as people have begun to suggest, Iraq is becoming another Vietnam. Iraq and Vietnam are bound at the hip, because again, this country doesn’t know who the enemy is, or how to fight him. Invading Saddam’s Iraq to get at bin Laden’s terrorist crew is like going to the florist for flour. Like Vietnam, our side in Iraq does not know what to do about how the enemy fights. In Iraq now, America’s big weaponry is jeopardized by small, smart bombs whose design is forever two months ahead of the Americans’ ability to recognize and neutralize them. In their newest iteration, they are triggered by infra-red devices used in garage door openers.

In the war on terror, President Bush is like Charlie Brown on an old greeting card I wish I still had. On the cover, Charlie Brown is at the plate, bat high, waiting for the pitch. He is thinking: “Just when you think you understand the game . . . “: Flip open the card, and there is Charlie Brown, bat still ready, but zipping at him is not a baseball, but a football, and Charlie Brown says, “. . . they go and change the rules.” Poor Charlie Brown. He could be Michael Brown’s dad.

In Washington, there is President Bush, setting the example for the nation, bat high, waiting for the big one, the Saddam WMD, which he is going to hit out of the park, when Osama has already slipped the real WMD past him: a box cutter.

With a box cutter, Osama brought mass destruction to our side, destruction that is still going on, with no end in sight. Iconic buildings in New York’s heart brought down on an ordinary Tuesday morning, with more than 3,000 lives lost. Destruction to industries: insurance, investments, airlines. Destruction of freedom, with the Patriot Act. Resources destruction, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on band-aid security remedies. Confidence destruction, with a frustrated president goaded into attacking an enemy he could find, justified by evidence he couldn’t find, and probably didn’t exist. Another 2,000 lives lost so far in that action, bringing the total box cutter dead to more than 5,000. More resources destruction, with $200 billion the present price tag in Iraq. Then into that destruction roars a hurricane, whose repairs the nation suddenly can’t pay for. Four years of destruction, and counting . . . .

It would be interesting, to undertake a total accounting of the destruction brought to this country, whenever that destruction is finally judged to be ended, by Osama and his 19 soldiers armed with box cutters. I wonder if he had any idea. Listening to the FBI, I know they don’t.