A friend writes: "News readers (we're talking about the "talking heads") have short memories for much that matters. As Brett Wagner, president of the California Center for Strategic Studies and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, noted a year ago in a USA Today article (on Oct. 6,2003):

[T]he war fighters were right. Military commanders weren't given enough manpower and logistical support to secure all of the known [Iraqi] nuclear sites, let alone all of the suspected ones. ... It wasn't until seven of Iraq's main nuclear facilities were extensively looted that the true magnitude of the administration's strategic blunder came into focus.

"Now the missing HMX is news," the friend adds, "and it is mainly treated as a separate issue to be judged (as the administration would have it) as a tiny, tiny fraction (by weight) of all the artillery rounds and bombs that have been destroyed.

"Except that a tiny, tiny fraction of the artillery rounds and bombs is very conspicuous when strapped to a suicide-bomber, even under several large overcoats. Can you imagine a terrorist with a 250-pound aerial bomb strapped on? That's the smallest size it comes in."