Did the Bushies make the whole thing up?

Well, I was woken up by an earthquake this morning, so, at this point, I'll say anything's possible.

 

Go Fish.

 

I don't want to get all naom chomsky on you but this is indicative of American life. Tell us the truth if it plays well, if it doesn't ignore it and don't hassle us about politics because we are too busy accumlating capital in order to buy life neccesities like plasma tv's and hummers.
The fact that polls today are saying that Americans don't need wmd to be found or for saddams whereabouts to even be accounted for for us to declare this war a sucess shows that they sold this war hook line and sinker.
Besides we didn't fight this war for the above reasons, we need a punching to beat on to boast our morale. If we beat on iraq, we can't possibly be weak can we?

 

SD - you forgot about the looting of the museum. Americans were lied to about the protection of the art museum when soldiers were busy playing cards in their tents. Housewives in Wichita are up in arms over that boondoggle. I swear, if I see a rare artifact turn up on Rummy's or Wolfie's desk (you read Dowd too!), I'll vote for Rev. Al Sharpton. I'VE HAD IT WITH QUICK, RELATIVELY BLOODLESS REGIME TOPPLING!!!

 

I couldn't resist.

Anyway, the war is only over a week or two. We have lots of evidence to sift through and it will take some time. Will we find WMD? Don't know yet. Wouldn't be "prudent" to speculate "at this juncture."

Some things to think about (so far):

Getting rid of Saddam - good. Limiting casualties on all sides - good. Helping the Iraqi people restore order - good. Hopefully continuing to mold policy in that region in the right direction - good. Getting the Israelis & Palestinians to the bargaining table & working out some kind of land for peace compromise - good. Making nervous liberals wet their pants - good (just kidding).

Leaving Saddam in power - extremely bad for everyone (except France & Russia, of course). Not finding WMD (yet) - inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. Saddam is old news. Time to move on from here and provide stability & leadership in the region.

 

Are you really missing the point on purpose? That's the only excuse I can think of. Superdave's point (and the big thing you've been creeping around but not addressing) is that the Bush administration used the argument that Hussein had WMD's and furthermore, we knew where they were. They used the argument that these WMD's were a threat to the USA and thus a pre-emptive war was not only justified, but necessary. Now that the war is over, they don't care about the whereabouts of Hussein and sons, they obviously do NOT know where the supposed WMD's are located, and it's looking more and more as if they never existed. The ONLY thing we've found in Iraq is oil.

So the argument isn't whether or not you think WMD's or Hussein are relevent now. The argument is whether or not the Bush administration lied about the existance of these weapons as a false justification for a war they wanted years before it took place. Based on what we've seen, the answer is looking to be yes. They lied out their asses. Fortunately, they didn't get a **************, so most of them are still up for sainthood on Fox 5.

 

So here's what Powell said in February:

We know that Saddam's son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all prohibited weapons from Saddam's numerous palace complexes. We know that Iraqi government officials, members of the ruling Ba'ath Party and scientists have hidden prohibited items in their homes. Other key files from military and scientific establishments have been placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi intelligence agents to avoid detection....

Numerous human sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving not just documents and hard drives, but weapons of mass destruction, to keep them from being found by inspectors. While we were here in this Council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq.

Most of the launchers and warheads had been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection.

We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities....

This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji. This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapons shells....

In the middle of January, experts at one facility that was related to weapons of mass destruction, those experts had been ordered to stay home from work to avoid the inspectors. Workers from other Iraqi military facilities not engaged in illicit weapons projects were to replace the workers who had been sent home. A dozen experts have been placed under house arrest -- not in their own houses, but as a group at one of Saddam Hussein's guest houses....

First, biological weapons. We have talked frequently here about biological weapons. By way of introduction and history, I think there are just three quick points I need to make. First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and frustrating years to pry, to pry an admission out of Iraq that it had biological weapons. Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit -- about this amount. This is just about the amount of a teaspoon. Less than a teaspoonful of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001.

This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount, just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope.

Iraq declared 8500 liters of anthrax. But UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this deadly material. And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had.

They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as their R-400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well documented.

Dr. Blix told this Council that Iraq has provided little evidence to verify anthrax production and no convincing evidence of its destruction. It should come as no shock then that since Saddam Hussein forced out the last inspectors in 1998, we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons.

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.

Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eyewitness accounts. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.

The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, UN inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000. The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. 12 technicians died from exposure to biological agents.

He reported that when UNSCOM was in country and inspecting, the biological weapons agent production always began on Thursdays at midnight, because Iraq thought UNSCOM would not inspect on the Muslim holy day, Thursday night through Friday.

He added that this was important because the units could not be broken down in the middle of a production run, which had to be completed by Friday evening before the inspectors might arrive again.

This defector is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eyewitness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.

A second source. An Iraqi civil engineer in a position to know the details of the program confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving on trailers.

A third source, also in a position to know, reported in summer, 2002, that Iraq had manufactured mobile production systems mounted on road-trailer units and on rail cars.

Finally, a fourth source. An Iraqi major who defected confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological research laboratories in addition to the production facilities I mentioned earlier.

We have diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile facilities. Here you see both truck and rail-car mounted mobile factories. The description our sources gave us of the technical features required by such facilities is highly detailed and extremely accurate.

As these drawings, based on their description show, we know what the fermentors look like. We know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We know how they fit together, we know how they work, and we know a great deal about the platforms on which they are mounted.

As shown in this diagram, these factories can be concealed easily -- either by moving ordinary looking trucks and rail-cars along Iraq's thousands of miles of highway or track or by parking them in a garage or a warehouse or somewhere in Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers....

By 1998, UN experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected drying techniques for their biological weapons programs. Now Iraq has incorporated this drying expertise into these mobile production facilities.

We know from Iraq's past admissions that it has successfully weaponized not only anthrax, but also other biological agents including botulinum toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. But Iraq's research efforts did not stop there.

Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox, and hemorrhagic fever. And he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox....

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction....

Second, as with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents.

If we consider just one category of missing weaponry, 6500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq War, UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be on the order of a thousand tons.

These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for. Dr. Blix has quipped that, "Mustard gas is not marmalade. You are supposed to know what you did with it." We believe Saddam Hussein knows what he did with it and he has not come clean with the international community.

We have evidence these weapons existed. What we don't have is evidence from Iraq that they have been destroyed or where they are. That is what we are still waiting for.

Third point, Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons. The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law.

UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq had produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery, yet to this day Iraq denies it had ever weaponized VX. And on January 27, UNMOVIC told this Council that it has information that conflicts with the Iraqi account of its VX program.

We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. To all outward appearances, even to experts, the infrastructure looks like an ordinary civilian operation. Illicit and legitimate production can go on simultaneously or on a dime. This dual-use infrastructure can turn from clandestine to commercial and then back again....

And so on.

Here's what Bush said in March:

Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents to avoid detection by inspectors. In some cases, these materials have been moved to different locations every 12 to 24 hours, or placed in vehicles that are in residential neighborhoods.

We know from multiple intelligence sources that Iraqi weapons scientists continue to be threatened with harm should they cooperate with U.N. inspectors. Scientists are required by Iraqi intelligence to wear concealed recording devices during interviews, and hotels where interviews take place are bugged by the regime.

These are not the actions of a regime that is disarming. These are the actions of a regime engaged in a willful charade. These are the actions of a regime that systematically and deliberately is defying the world. If the Iraqi regime were disarming, we would know it, because we would see it. Iraq's weapons would be presented to inspectors, and the world would witness their destruction. Instead, with the world demanding disarmament, and more than 200,000 troops positioned near his country, Saddam Hussein's response is to produce a few weapons for show, while he hides the rest and builds even more.

Inspection teams do not need more time, or more personnel. All they need is what they have never received -- the full cooperation of the Iraqi regime. Token gestures are not acceptable. The only acceptable outcome is the one already defined by a unanimous vote of the Security Council -- total disarmament.

Oh, and here's what Donald Rumsfeld said back in June of 2002:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld summarily dismissed Iraq's June 9 statement that it doesn't have weapons of mass destruction and isn't developing them.

"They're lying. It's just false, not true, inaccurate and typical," Rumsfeld said of the Iraqi statement in response to a reporter's question shortly before leaving Kuwait this morning. He said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and continues to "weaponize" chemical weapons and to work to develop biological and nuclear weapons.

"I don't know what other kinds of weapons would fall in the group of weapons of mass destruction," he said. "But if there are more, I suspect (the Iraqis are) working on them as well."

Golly, folks, they sounded pretty fucking sure to me.

And now we're told...with the regime no longer there to threaten the sources...with the regime no longer hindering inspections...with absolutely no reason to hide their intelligence anymore...with that wealth of information at their disposal...that they haven't found jack Shi'ite, and may never find jack Shi'ite.

So yes, Virginia, they did make it all up. If they do find anything, it'll be capable of photosynthesis - being a PLANT, and all.

 

For what it's worth, all of our big-name prisoners are denying that such weapons exist.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030430/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons_search_7

 

The war was fought for those reasons. The people have an opinion, and don't need certain things. Why arn't they allowed to support the war for whatever reason? You say they bought the war hook line and sinker,and you say that as a bad thing. Well you bought the anti war stance hook line and sinker and now you're mad becuase they have been wrong about a lot of things.

 

Interesting perspective. So what you are saying is that all the people who supported the war with not a trace of critical analysis (let alone scepticism) of the things they were being told have been vindicated, whereas the people who opposed the war on the basis of active scepticism about the things they were being told are now faced with irrefutable evidence that their scepticism was ill-founded or misplaced?

 

PS - FWIW I don’t think either side bought the argument they broadly sided with “hook, line and sinker” because neither side presented a wholly cohesive case. In the same way as the hysterical nonsense about “clear and imminent danger” was exactly that, the whole “Bush = Hitler” and “No blood for oil” was largely irrelevant hooey. The reason most people I know who opposed the war did so (including myself) is because, on balance, the line we were being fed from the pro-war camp was considerably less cohesive, logical and credible than that which formed the fundament of the anti-war argument - the more hysterical bluster emanating from the anti-everything crowd notwithstanding.

 

I'm not saying that Ted Koppel, you're saying that.

 

Note to manny - one-liners referencing some Yank I've never heard of tend to go off the post and into touch for a goal kick.

 

Sorry, I didn't know you Limey's weren't familiar with Ted Kopple. I'll try to avoid using that again.

 

Well good for you in wanting to curb your cynicism -- if not you're enthusiasm.

At this point, it still all has to shake out.

Maybe we will discover significant caches of WMD. Maybe we'll find significant caches of WMDs that are active. Maybe we'll find significant caches of WMDs that are degraded. Maybe we'll find evidence of wholesale destruction of WMDs just BEFORE the war began -- equivalent to flushing the stash down the toilet before the narcs arrive. (No evidence, but still guilty). Maybe we will find important means of production the could be started up in a week or two, but no actual agents (still guilty).

Or maybe we find nothing.

If we find nothing, though, that does that mean that the Bush adminstration was, as you're thread title said, "making the whole thing up?" This asserts a consistent pattern of dissembling and deception --- an approach where one has to imagine Bush, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice, Powell, Jack Straw, Tony Blair and Geoffrey Hoon -- ALL of them, EVERYONE -- rubbing their hands together with shoulders hunched over, and saying,

"Gee, we can REALLY pull a fast one!! Let's snooker everybody!!"

You know, this reminds me of those who thought we really didn't walk on the moon, but actually concocted the whole thing in a Hollywood studio. But conspiracies require silence by many many people, which is why usually (a) they don't work and (b) they don't happen.

Now if your thread title was "Did the Bushies guess wrong?" -- well, that might not only be fairer, it might even be more accurate.

Intelligence is NOT perfect. It has degrees of validity. People who say "we should never go to war without 100% certainty on EVERY front" are naive about the new threats in the world that face us.

It's good that you admit your conclusion that there are no WMDs may be premature.

Not only might it be premature, but it also may be flat out wrong to assume there was this grand conspiracy to pull a fast one over on the public.

 

Misrepresentation.

This is not a singular, decisive and conclusive event or action that is alleged (or suspected, whatever). This is conceived by those of us with a critical disposition toward the weakness of the case, as presented, to war as a series of parallel events, some linear, some not, all of which sprang from an initial - independent decision to eliminate the status quo in Iraq. Everything that followed from that was the aftermath, including all the efforts made to sell the decision. Most, if not all of the reasons used to sell the decision remain either unproven, inconsistent, hypocritical or plain fanciful.

Each of those threads, back from today to that initial single decision, bear their own stories. Some will emerge (it is to be hoped) as grounded in sense, logic and intellectual consistency. A good number of others will turn out to be primarily characterised by obfuscation, contradiction, dishonesty and malevolent intent.

History's final verdict on this period of time will rest on the ultimate scoresheet between those two categories.

 

While some on the left expect absolute certaintly from the evidence that we SHOULD go to war, we instead get this sort of morphous, unprovable, set of accusations -- unknown, unknowable, but conveniently shaped to fit the cynical preconceptions.

Could this be...I dunno...that worst of all sins in the leftist mind, hypocritical?

From ANOTHER thread....The Basic Qualities of the Left/Liberal Sensibility

But mostly [the proclivity towards cynicism] takes the form of the leftist/liberal assuming, hoping, arguing, asserting that the conservative right is engaging in all forms of lying, deception, dissembling, rapacious self-interest, and complete venality. That it’s all about shadowy whispers and sneaky conspiracies.

 

So would those liberals that thought the Nixon administration was involved in some huge conspiracy have been wrong? Sometimes, cynicism is necessary.

 

Re: Re: Re: Did the Bushies make the whole thing up?

This gives new meaning to the phrase "jump to conclusions." (This will be in "Part III: Liberal Leftist Sensibility).

Meanwhile, using Salon.com as some sort of authoritative voice would be like me using Fox News as an objective viewpoint.

 

Re: Re: Re: Did the Bushies make the whole thing up?

Don't rule out stupidity. I'm serious.