About that smoking gun....

U.S. says Iraq hid banned weapons well

Because Iraq concealed its banned weapons so well, it will take time to interview scientists and pore over seized documents to find the hiding places, say Bush administration officials who reject charges the White House overplayed prewar intelligence to justify the invasion.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030608/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq_weapons_5

 

OK, here's the deal. Try and follow along.

1.Saddam had chemical and biological weapons in the past. He admitted it after the first Gulf War, and both Clinton and the UN issued numerous reports/statements/what have you during the 90s that cited these weapons programs. And even the most radical anti-war types before the start of the war generally agreed that Saddam did have these weapons programs, they simply claimed that they were not a threat to the US.

2.The cease-fire agreement signed between the Allies and Iraq in 1991 said that Saddam must declare and then destroy these weapons, and then provide proof that he had done so. Several UN resolutions, most recently 1441, said more or less the same thing.

3.Saddam never provided proof that he destroyed the weapons, nor did he even claim he did so.


Now, a series of questions:

1.Do you think that the UN and Bill Clinton, in the reports issued in the 1990s, both lied about the WMD programs possessed by the Ba'ath Party?

2.If not, do you believe that Saddam Hussein destroyed these WMDs after these reports were issued?

3.If you do believe he did so, was this act an honest effort to comply in good faith with Allied and UN demands, or was it rooted in a belief that war was inevitable and a desire to make the Allies look bad after the war?

4.If it was the former, why did he not tell anybody?

5.If it was the latter, then did he not still break the cease-fire provisions that stated he not only had to disarm but also to provide proof that he had done so? And if he disarmed only because he believed war was inevitable, did the war then not achieve its stated objectives?


I look forward to your answers.

 

Bush, Powell and the rest unquestionably did. That's not even in dispute at this point.

Part of Hans Blix' mission was to establish the presence and number of Saddam's WMD. Remind me why he didn't finish his job.

In the case of anthrax, for example, they might have simply spoiled.

Of course, you might ask this of the CIA, rather than BigSoccer's politics forum. It's not really our job to explain why there were no WMD found in a nation that was a deadly, imminent threat to use WMD.

I don't think Saddam was thinking, "Boy, won't Donald Rumsfeld look silly after I'm driven over the border into Syria, bwa ha ha ha," if that's the question.

He probably wasn't able to replace the weapons that he did have. Chemical weapons have a shelf life, after all.

Because those were his greatest deterrence against invasion from Iran and rebellion from the Kurds and Shi'ites, probably.

As we have seen, in violating the request to cooperate and provide intelligence to the UN, the United States was as much in violation of Resolution 1441 as Iraq was.

I somehow doubt that "I destroyed all the weapons, love, Saddam" would have flown in the Pentagon, so inspections would have been required no matter what "proof" Saddam provided.

One might suspect that Blix and the UN was pulled back by the United States because they knew they would find no evidence of WMD. Hence, no war. It's as sensible as any other explanation, and certainly the only reason to trot out Colin Powell to tell a bunch of meat pies on 2/5.

So, in other words, we might as well have simply picked a couple of hundred soldiers at random, shot them for no reason, and accomplished the same objectives.

Blaming Clinton and the UN won't fly. It was the Bush Administration that said over and over again, in detail, in amount, and in location, where the WMD were. Are you seriously that incurious as to why every single statement about WMD from the Bush Administration has turned out factually incorrect? Either they were lying or mistaken, but either way, don't you feel it's kind of their obligation to explain in detail the reasons, and fire those responsible?

Assuming George Bush isn't a Reverend Jim Jones figure among Republicans...oh, never mind.

 

Um, how do you know? Have you seen evidence the rest of us haven't?

Because he had an anti-American agenda and Iraqi moles in his inspections team.

From http://www.bioterrorism.uab.edu/EIPBA/Anthrax/history.html

I don't know which form of anthrax Saddam had, but either way it wasn't his only WMD.

Nor was it our job to decide whether or not to go into Iraq in the first place, yet we had no problems offering unsolicited advice on this matter.

My point was that if he believed there was nothing he could do to prevent the Allies from attacking, and nothing he could do to stop us, he could attempt to preserve his legacy by destroying the weapons and making himself look like a victim of US/British/Australian/Polish aggression.

http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960705/73919_01.htm

http://www.desert-voice.net/weapons_of_iraq.htm

(Disclaimer that I have no idea what kind of website desert-voice.net is, but it cites reliable sites)

Would you rather go up against the Iranians, Kurds, and Shi'ites, or the Americans, Brits, Australians, and Poles?

The resolution said they had to prove they didn't have the stuff.

But I couldn't find anywhere where he even claimed he destroyed the weapons.

Blix worked for the UN, not the US. They were the ones who pulled him out, not us.

Well, if foresight was 20/20...

If they're still there, we'll find them sooner or later. If they're not still there, it's because Saddam destroyed them without telling anybody because he felt war was inevitable, knew he couldn't win, and wanted to preserve his legacy. There's no other logical explanation.

 

The only logical explanation is that Saddam destroyed the only weapons in his stockpile that would stand a chance against the US military so that the world would think he was a victim of US/British bullying? Yeah. Do you look for the black helicopters too? Putting that theory and the word "logical" in the same post is laughable. The most logical explanations for the lack of weapons found are:

1- Bush and Co lied about it or inflated the outdated intel they did posess in order to settle an old score. Rumsfeld and Bush have gone on record more than once that they were out to get Iraq. They both made statements about their plans for Iraq (to stabilize the middle east.) They both made statements about how they wanted to justify an Iraq war because of 911 before the towers were done burning. It makes sense that they would fudge something like WMD's to try and get the nation and the UN behind them.

2- The intel was bad. This is less likely in my opinion, but there is a chance that the intel that Bush and Powell and Rumsfeld clung to for dear life was simply wrong.

 

There are many possibilities including that he traded them for something. Isn't that comforting?

 

Technically yes. But were he and his team really going to stay in Iraq when there is a build up of US and UK forces in Kuwait and Bush and Blair were saying "we're going in with or without UN backing"? Please, that's insulting to people's intelligence. Let's face it, the Bush administration weren't even that worried about WMD, there were plenty of references to "regime change" before the war, WMD were mentioned as the issue that they could hype up. Basically, they were out to get Saddam, for whatever reason I can't really say for sure, but the usual such as projecting military power and "protecting US strategic interests" as the phrase goes (that's a catch-all that means oil, markets for US firms, whatever is in the US interest) would be high up the list. And I still believe they needed to actually get a bogey-man for 9/11, but they haven't got bin Laden and now they've missed out on Saddam.

I've no idea why Blair was so eager in his backing for the war. It appears that he or his close colleagues jazzed up the dossier he presented to parliament and the people regarding WMD in justification of war. What's he getting in return for his support is what I want to know?

 

How do you mean, just out of interest?

Peter Beaumont is the Foreign News Editor of The Observer. Anthony Barnett is a Tech Writer who used to mainly specialise in aerospace technology (Aerospace Journalist of the Year, 2001, no less ... ) and last year won "Scoop of the Year" at the British Press Awards for his expose of Peter Mandelson's efforts to secure British citizenship for a bunch of shady Arab businessmen who backed his Millenium Dome initiative.

The Observer has been running a lengthy series of very well researched and sourced articles on every aspect of the Iraq situation. On Saturday, the conservative Times ran a big story condemning Tony Blair for lying which quoted mainly Observer sources and revelations.

 

Immediate. Credible. Threat.

That's the bottom line Alex. Our politicians said that if we do not immediately start a full-scale war and invade Iraq we would be doing unconscionable harm to our collective security, here, now.

Here. Now. Threat. Credible. Immediate. Threat.

They were lying.

 

Tabloids count as mainstream here. More so, in fact. The Sun daily outsells every broadsheet in the country put together. Sad but true. The fact is that the great unwashed prefer tits'n'football to any form of substantive news content.

The Mirror has delusions about being something a bit better than that and some of their signings (Christopher Hitchens, Paul Routledge) are worth the read, even if they are often off base. Not a big fan of it myself though. The News of the Screws (as it is colloquially known here) is more about Exposed: how illegal immigrant bedded busty beauty. It rubbish.

The tabloids are reckless in their reporting, yes. But then they are not really hitting the serious issues of the day with any great conviction. Nothing you read in any red-top (as tabloids are known here when talking about different newspaper categories as that distinguishes them from the Daily Mail and Daily Express, both of which are more middle ground but share the tabloid format of printing) would count as a weighty contribution to a political debate. For that, you go to the Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph (my favourite for the right of the spectrum), the Independent and The Observer (my favourite on the left).

Question Time - the TV version, is very good indeed.

But you can listen to the Radio equivalent (broadcast every Friday evening and repeated every Saturday lunchtime on BBC Radio Four) anytime from the Beeb's website: it is called "Any Questions" and is also chaired by Johnathan Dimbleby.

Any Question's Homepage

 

But even with those weapons, he didn't stand a chance against the Allies. Sure, he might have killed more Allied soldiers, but the old Iraqi flag would still have been raised in Baghdad soon enough, made possible by American, British, Australian, and Polish troops (and most likely troops from other countries, as even France said they would join the coalition if he used WMDs). Far better for him to destroy as much of it as possible and make himself look like the victim of aggression, rather than to use it in a still-unwinnable war and turn world opinion completely to the Allied side.

Reading is fundamental. Listen to me very, very carefully:

1.Saddam admitted having a WMD program in 1991.
2.Bill Clinton and the UN both released several reports throughout the mid-/late 90s detailing these WMD programs.
3.As the links I provided prove, at least some of the types of WMDs Saddam had did not have a shelf life, or had a very long one, thus they are still viable.

Therefore, even if Bush et al had been lying about the specifics of the WMD programs, it wouldn't have changed the fact that the programs did exist. And if Bush was lying or received faulty intelligence, then that means Clinton and the UN were also lying or received faulty intelligence.

 

Ben--it's not comforting in the least, but if he did that I think he would've done it anyway sooner or later. And again, it justifies the war in and of itself.

Read the CIA link I provided earlier.

 

Frankly I'm just as surprised as the hawks that nothing has shown up, but the big difference between Clinton/UN and Bush is that Bush decided that the threat against the rest of the planet was serious enough to merit a full-scale invasion of a sovereign country.

Whether Bush and everyone else was deliberately lying or just misinformed, this war has become the international diplomacy equivalent of the Amadou Diallo shooting -- kill first, find out the truth later. And that says more about the Machiavelli devotees running DoD than any of us really needed to know.

 

I did. It proves my point. Even the CIA do not have the balls to assert that anything Saddam may or may not have had (and as things stand “may not” is using “may” as a coffee table) constituted an immediate threat to the Western world.

Are you seriously asserting that the stuff they can’t find which they can’t prove was there in the first place and the properties, scope and nature of which they had little or no actual knowledge about IS that immediate, credible threat?

Face it kid - you’ve been led around by the nose like the poor sap you are, by the men you most fervently hold to be your true and worthy leaders. It must smart, but you can’t expect us to feel SO sorry for that we buy into your increasingly wild conjecture about the state of play, based on admissions from 12 years ago and documents that suggest that some of the materials Saddam may have had (although no evidence can be found) were possibly still a viable constituent of a threat (remember, you need the delivery systems too. We can’t find those either, unless, like Rumsfeld, and consider a 500-mile rocket on the other side of the planet a serious threat to your security).

They lied to you. There was no credible, immediate threat. And it is on that basis that they went to war.

So again - it’s this simple:

Immediate. Credible. Threat.

If what you attest is a justification for war seemed an immediate, credible threat to you, then you, boyo, are a big girl’s blouse.

 

Re: Freudian slip?

Sorry, I was having an Axis Alex Moment (TM). The name has since been fixed.

I could never allow myself to participate in the "they shot the wrong Diallo" chant, but nobody who supports Metro would have been upset if he were permanently trapped under something very heavy. Everyone associated with Metro should have been fired the day they decided to trade for him.

 

From the CIA report:

The "small quantity of agent" put in spray devices is obviously the most troubling as it could be used to attack the US or UK directly. But the WMDs put in bombs and warheads could be used to attack Allied military bases in the region, or neighboring friendly countries such as Turkey, Kuwait, the UAE, or The Big I.

They can prove it was there in the first place because Saddam admitted it. And the had some knowledge of the nature of it because it's there in the CIA report (which was simply the first thing that popped up on Yahoo when I typed in "chemical weapons shelf life").

You're the one who's been led around by the nose by the leftist establishment, and you can't see the truth for what it is.

A 500-mile rocket poses a serious threat to Allied military bases, neighboring countries, and our interests in the region (yes, I'm talking about oil). And just from eyeballing it on the globe, it looks to me like if Saddam had improved his capabilities and gotten a 7-800 mile missile, he could've hit Istanbul.

If you think Bush and Blair were lying about the specifics, then fine. I disagree with you, but I can see where you're coming from. However, even if they were, the justification for the war still clearly exists--it's there for us all to see.

 

Re: Re: Freudian slip?

Dave, it doesn't say anywhere on the report when it's from. But if you click the up arrow at the top of the page it brings you to a page titled "Files posted on 960705", so my guess is it was released on July 5, 1996--meaning I doubt that Wolfowitz or Rove had much influence on it.

 

Alex you wrote:

---
If you think Bush and Blair were lying about the specifics, then fine. I disagree with you, but I can see where you're coming from. However, even if they were, the justification for the war still clearly exists--it's there for us all to see.
---
Ok so if they lied, then what is the clear justification that still exists? Saddam was a bad man? There are a lot of bad men, but they're not "floating on a sea of oil", so they stay in power.

 

The clear, obvious, blatant, irrefutable (unless you believe Clinton and the UN were also lying) evidence that Saddam was violating the terms of the 1991 cease-fire, as well as dozens of UN resolutions passed during the 90s.

Again, if you believe Bush was lying about the specifics of these WMD programs, then fine--I don't believe he was, but neither one of us is going to convince the other any time soon. But the only possible way he was lying about the simple existence of these programs is if Clinton and the UN were also lying (or if Saddam unilaterally destroyed the weapons and didn't tell anybody even when it could have saved his regime). Which is it?

 

Now, what in the Hell is wrong with that??