There’s not a lot of suprise from me that the UN has uncovered an Iraqi unmanned drone program, complete with a drone with an 8m wingspan; Colin Powell talked about it last month, complete with noting that it had been tested for much further than the UN-dictated 150km range.
Nor is it surprising that the UN report also mentions that Iraq has plenty of chemical spraying tanks and other equipment that could be easily mounted on such drones.
Nor, further, is it surprising that the UN inspectors say that there is “credible evidence” that Iraq had much more biowarfare material — in the thousands of liters, most of it anthrax — at the end of the Gulf War than has been declared so far, and that it probably still has all or much of it.
No, what’s surprising is that the UN saw fit to bury the information in their normally-secret written report, and that Hans Blix didn’t see fit to mention it during his oral briefing to foreign ministers yesterday.
Odd thing that. Also odd that it’s getting very little media play.