Setbacks Plague U.S. Arms Effort in Iraq

[Rose Siding]

The dangers of Baghdad and a shortage of cash have set back the U.S. effort to put Iraqi weapons scientists to work rebuilding their country and keep them off the global job market for makers of doomsday arms.

To steer them to civilian projects and training, the State Department had planned a dozen workshops and seminars for hundreds of idled specialists from Iraq's old nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, beginning in the first half of 2004.

It also envisioned an early project, a desalination plant, as a model for other ventures employing scientists, engineers and technicians who once built weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear physicists might work in radiotherapy, for example, and chemists at environmental monitoring stations.

But the department got no new funds for the program, and none of these plans has gotten off the ground, nine months after U.S. officials said they would "jump-start" the initiative to discourage weapons experts from emigrating and offering their services to the highest bidder.........more............

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-arms-makers-for-hire,0,7262338.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[truthisfreedom]

1. that would last about 2 seconds before becoming a terrorist target.

i wonder how many Iraqi scientists have already left.