The U.S. State Department earlier this month announced a new program to provide at least $22 million in funding for Iraqi weapons scientists to conduct more peaceful research. The program promises to keep such scientists in Iraq and working on benign projects.
Although no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, more than a thousand PhDs were trained in the black arts of making nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, according to Jonathan Tucker, a bioterror expert at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Only five of them are still imprisoned by Coalition Provisional Authority forces, according to the Associated Press, and some have already reported to have crossed the border into Iran. Others are rumored to have joined the anti-Coalition resistance. Most of them, however, are waiting for some opportunity to be employed.
The program announced earlier this month is designed to do more than provide scientists with salaries; ...
