Two quick housekeeping notes. First, the good news. Starting Monday you’ll see a couple of new faces ’round these parts: I’ve asked three of my favorite bloggers — Diane Dees of D.E.D. Space, Charles Norman Todd of Freiheit und Wissen, and Julie Saltman — to join us here at MoJo Blog for the next few weeks. I’ll let them introduce themselves, but suffice to say, they’re all fantastic writers and we’re excited to have them here at Mother Jones.
The second item is a bit more depressing, at least as far as the content goes. If you haven’t seen Kurt Pitzer’s story on Iraqi nuclear scientists, now up on our homepage, be sure to give it a read; it’s important stuff and a stellar piece of reporting. Way back in 2003, of course, Iraq had only the tiniest scraps of a nuclear program — certainly nothing worth going to war over. What the country did have, however, was a whole slew of very capable nuclear scientists who, under the right conditions, really could start up a program. Surely in the aftermath of the invasion, then, the Bush administration, being so concerned about Iraq’s latent nuclear research program, would have scooped those scientists up and made sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands, right? Er, right? Apparently not, Pitzer found out: “Nobody knows how many Iraqi scientists may have been lured over the borders into Iran, Syria, or beyond. Nobody knows because no one is keeping tabs.” Oy. So which adjective in the daily rotation should we use for this occasion: Appalling? Unbelievable? Disastrous? Go with something new, perhaps? I can’t decide, but give the article a look.
