Material issue.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills

The second smart step to take in the war against terrorism, after going into Afghanistan to overthrow Osama bin Laden's Taliban protectors and disrupt al Qaeda, was not to invade Iraq, which didn't have weapons of mass destruction, but to secure the dangerous weapons that did exist and which the terrorists might acquire. But as Sam Nunn, the former U.S. senator who has led the world effort to meet this problem, tells Reuters, "the war in Iraq had distracted the United States and diverted resources from securing unconventional weapons materials in regions like the former Soviet Union."

Most of the material is in the former Soviet Union. But the danger is considerably wider. For example, there are some 100...