John Derbyshire is my second favorite conservative columnist, after Mark Steyn. John, whose occasional correspondance I consider an honor, has this to say about Iraq:
"This may, of course, be premature. I am writing this on Monday afternoon. It is well-nigh certain that brave young troopers from the Coalition forces - aye, and brave young Iraqis, and poor helpless noncombatants too - will be maimed and killed before the business is wrapped up and done. It is possible something large and ghastly will happen. I hope you will forgive me for setting these things aside and saying: Even so, we have won. There is nothing so large and ghastly it could change that."I wish I could agree. One possibility remains, the one that has been bothering my wife all along. The Iraqi information minister said today that our soldiers must surrender or be "burned in their tanks." His statements have been delusional all along, and there is no special reason to think this is more than bravado. Yet... there is a chance that there are atomic "doomsday devices" in Baghdad. That the Iraqi government might have these is possible, and indeed, such weapons do not need to be tested. Detonation of such weapons could take out a division or more of forces inside Baghdad, which would be a loss of such magnitude as to raise the cost of victory beyond what we would readily pay again. Hopefully, though, if such weapons exist at all they are known to our intelligence people, and have been priorities of all those Special Operations gentlemen in country.
It strikes me as highly unlikely. Still--it is not impossible.
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