The continued freedom of these men -- one the racist leader of the Bosnian Serbs, the other a hands-on mass murderer -- has undermined Western policy.
You can, say, build a sweatshop factory that will collapse in Bangladesh and kill more people than any hands-on mass murderer ever did, or you can calculate risk and benefit about putting poisons or unsafe machines into the world, as manufacturers do every day.
(Don't be too crestfallen though there is waitlist for those who who'd like to get their hands on one before the device hits mass retail).
The answer is to prevent such people from getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction.
In reaction to my report that national leaders can act irrationally, and hence it is best if they cannot put their hands on weapons of mass destruction, I received a handful of messages.
The warning came on a day when Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said terrorists would inevitably get their hands on weapons of mass destruction as a result of their relationship with people in countries like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea.
For example, the world now knows for sure that Saddam will never lay his hands on weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Bush said he wanted to ensure "that a nontransparent government run by radical clerics doesn't get their hands on weapons of mass destruction".
Do we really want to wait in this world to be attacked by the likes of Saddam Hussein once he gets his hands on weapons of mass destruction?
But other officials said there was no new evidence that Mr. bin Laden had in fact gotten his hands on weapons of mass destruction.
It disclosed that intelligence chiefs had warned that a collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime could end up making it easier for terrorists, including Al Qaeda, to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.
