Memories - Remember Afghanistan or Iraq's Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Threats?

CSM -- Taliban appears to be regrouped and well-funded

"The general idea that was being put forward by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld last week, is that the Afghan military, backed by US forces, is engaged in mopping up some remnants of the past - that is not true," says Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University. "They [the Taliban] are now organizing for a new offensive, and they are still getting some support from Pakistan. Even if Pakistan is not cooperating directly, it is not cooperating in efforts to end the support that is coming from Pakistani territory."

The reorganized Taliban are mounting increasingly brazen attacks on Afghan soil. In Zabul Province last month, for instance, Taliban forces took control of two remote districts near the Pakistani border for nearly a week. Afghan military forces, backed up by US Special Forces and helicopter gunships, eventually dislodged the Taliban fighters.

WP -- U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq -- Task Force Unable To Find Any Weapons

The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of outlawed arms, according to participants.

Leaders of Task Force 75's diverse staff -- biologists, chemists, arms treaty enforcers, nuclear operators, computer and document experts, and special forces troops -- arrived with high hopes of early success. They said they expected to find what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 -- hundreds of tons of biological and chemical agents, missiles and rockets to deliver the agents, and evidence of an ongoing program to build a nuclear bomb.

"I don't think we'll find anything," said Army Capt. Tom Baird, one of two deputy operations officers under McPhee. "What I see is a lot of stuff destroyed."

Unable to admit what was obvious eight months ago - at least 99% of Saddam's weapons programs were destroyed over ten years ago.