http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7573
Lewis Page
"As it happens, the intelligence community got it wrong in both Iraq and Forest Gate. But that isn't really the issue. The problem is that in both cases the danger was absurdly overblown, and that wasn't the fault of the intelligence community. It was, in the end, the fault of the public and the media. The threat presented by chemical weapons was hugely exaggerated in both cases, and in neither case was it questioned.Chemical weapons are, we tend to assume, "weapons of mass destruction," and thus the near-equivalent to nuclear bombs. And military or police operations like Iraq and Forest Gate would be reasonable enough if this were actually true. But it's not. Chemical weapons aren't just much less powerful than nukes: they are actually somewhat less deadly on average than conventional explosives. "
