OK, so we've lost some plutonium By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle I can see the news item now: "Canada is massing troops for an invasion of the United States, claiming the U.S. is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Because of shoddy record keeping, the Department of Energy does not know the whereabouts of much of a stockpile of nuclear material it has loaned or leased to academic institutions, commercial facilities, hospitals and other government agencies. "Among the findings in a report from DOE's Office of the Inspector General were that DOE recorded substantial amounts of plutonium to be at two licensed facilities that no longer exist and that, in some instances, records show more nuclear material being returned to DOE by borrowers than had been originally loaned by the department." The first sentence, about Canada, is a joke. The rest of it comes, verbatim, from a report in Chemical and Engineering News. Then again, it's not the only stuff we're missing. Remember those Navy and FBI laptops reported missing? And there's more. In Connecticut, a nuclear power plant is under investigation for apparently throwing out two spent nuclear fuel rods, believed to have been safely disposed of two decades ago but listed as missing all that time. So it gets a little difficult to get excited at this end about missing weapons in Iraq. I mean, if the greatest bureaucracy ever invented can lose stuff, you expect Iraq to keep a perfect count on its toes? And it's not just the United States. A nuclear power plant in Japan is about 206 kilograms short on plutonium as well. Look, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein isn't a sleaze. For all I know, he's got his bombs in a row someplace well hidden. But for all our accusals, we haven't got the evidence, the proof, to send young men and women in there to get killed to stop him. It may be that he is planning an attack on us, but we have no proof. It may be that he is working with the terrorists, but we have no proof. And if the United States stands for anything, it's fairness. It does not stand for first strikes based on assumptions. I get the feeling in listening to our leaders that only serious international pressure has kept us from sending in the bombers already. We have more than enough on our plate. We do not have to enter every fight out there. And this comes from somebody who was in favor of our operations in Iraq the last time; the aggressiveness shown against Kuwait required an aggressive response. Last Sunday, I stood and watched as young men and women from Wisconsin hugged their loved ones, got on a bus and - possibly - went to war. They went voluntarily, proud to serve their country, and it was impossible not to be proud of them. I am supportive of them, but not of the cause for which they fight - a first strike that is against everything America stands for. If Iraq makes a move in any direction, then yes, attack with all we've got. But we cannot make the first move without giving up almost all of the moral leadership America has built up in 225 years. Barrington is a reporter for The News-Chronicle. He writes a column every Friday. Contact him via e-mail at [email protected] or call 432-2941, Ext. 145.