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|  #1 Posted on 12.5.03 1153.53
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1159.05 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3018063.stm
The US inspection teams in Iraq are pulling out because they can't find any WMDs or even substantive evidence of their existence. But, remember - it wasn't "lying" - it was just "a matter of emphasis". | Promote this thread! |             | messenoir
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| #2 Posted on 12.5.03 1502.50
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1503.25 | And yet another article, from the Washington Post. Remember, the Post was one of the more gungho pro-war newspapers. I suppose now we'll be told Hussein moved everything to another country, somehow hiding all the movement from our radar systems that can tell the time on someone's wristwatch.
Published on Sunday, May 11, 2003 by the Washington Post
Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq
Task Force Unable To Find Any Weapons
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0511-01.htm
by Barton Gellman
BAGHDAD -- The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for
weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding
proof
that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of outlawed arms,
according to participants.
The 75th Exploitation Task Force, as the group is formally known, has
been
described from the start as the principal arm of the U.S. plan to
discover
and display forbidden Iraqi weapons. The group's departure, expected
next
month, marks a milestone in frustration for a major declared objective
of
the war.
Leaders of Task Force 75's diverse staff -- biologists, chemists, arms
treaty enforcers, nuclear operators, computer and document experts, and
special forces troops -- arrived with high hopes of early success. They
said
they expected to find what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described
at
the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 -- hundreds of tons of biological
and
chemical agents, missiles and rockets to deliver the agents, and
evidence of
an ongoing program to build a nuclear bomb.
Scores of fruitless missions broke that confidence, many task force
members
said in interviews.
Army Col. Richard McPhee, who will close down the task force next
month,
said he took seriously U.S. intelligence warnings on the eve of war
that
Hussein had given "release authority" to subordinates in command of
chemical
weapons. "We didn't have all these people in [protective] suits" for
nothing, he said. But if Iraq thought of using such weapons, "there had
to
have been something to use. And we haven't found it. . . . Books will
be
written on that in the intelligence community for a long time."
Army Col. Robert Smith, who leads the site assessment teams from the
Defense
Threat Reduction Agency, said task force leaders no longer "think we're
going to find chemical rounds sitting next to a gun." He added, "That's
what
we came here for, but we're past that."
Motivated and accomplished in their fields, task force members found
themselves missing vital tools. They consistently found targets
identified
in Washington to be inaccurate, looted and burned, or both. Leaders and
members of five of the task force's eight teams, and some senior
officers
guiding them, said the weapons hunters were going through the motions
now to
"check the blocks" on a prewar list.
U.S. Central Command began the war with a list of 19 top weapons sites.
Only
two remain to be searched. Another list enumerated 68 top "non-WMD
sites,"
without known links to special weapons but judged to have the potential
to
offer clues. Of those, the tally at midweek showed 45 surveyed without
success.
Task Force 75's experience, and its impending dissolution after seven
weeks
in action, square poorly with assertions in Washington that the search
has
barely begun.
In his declaration of victory aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1,
President Bush said, "We've begun the search for hidden chemical and
biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be
investigated." Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for
intelligence, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that U.S.
forces
had surveyed only 70 of the roughly 600 potential weapons facilities on
the
"integrated master site list" prepared by U.S. intelligence agencies
before
the war.
But here on the front lines of the search, the focus is on a smaller
number
of high-priority sites, and the results are uniformly disappointing,
participants said.
"Why are we doing any planned targets?" Army Chief Warrant Officer
Richard
L. Gonzales, leader of Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, said in disgust
to a
colleague during last Sunday's nightly report of weapons sites and
survey
results. "Answer me that. We know they're empty."
Survey teams have combed laboratories and munitions plants, bunkers and
distilleries, bakeries and vaccine factories, file cabinets and holes
in the
ground where tipsters advised them to dig. Most of the assignments came
with
classified "target folders" describing U.S. intelligence leads. Others,
known as the "ad hocs," came to the task force's attention by way of
plausible human sources on the ground.
The hunt will continue under a new Iraq Survey Group, which the Bush
administration has said is a larger team. But the organizers are
drawing
down their weapons staffs for lack of work, and adding expertise for
other
missions.
Interviews and documents describing the transition from Task Force 75
to the
new group show that site survey teams, the advance scouts of the arms
search, will reduce from six to two their complement of experts in
missile
technology and biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. A little-known
nuclear special operations group from the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency,
called the Direct Support Team, has already sent home a third of its
original complement, and plans to cut the remaining team by half.
"We thought we would be much more gainfully employed, or intensively
employed, than we were," said Navy Cmdr. David Beckett, who directs
special
nuclear programs for the team.
State-of-the-art biological and chemical labs, shrunk to fit standard
cargo
containers, came equipped with enough supplies to run thousands of
tests
using DNA fingerprinting and mass spectrometry. They have been called
upon
no more than a few dozen times, none with a confirmed hit. The labs'
director, who asked not to be identified, said some of his scientists
were
also going home.
Even the sharpest skeptics do not rule out that the hunt may eventually
find
evidence of banned weapons. The most significant unknown is what U.S.
interrogators are learning from senior Iraqi scientists, military
industrial
managers and Iraqi government leaders now in custody. If the
nonconventional
arms exist, some of them ought to know. Publicly, the Bush
administration
has declined to discuss what the captured Iraqis are saying. In
private,
U.S. officials provide conflicting reports, with some hinting at
important
disclosures. Cambone also said U.S. forces have seized "troves of
documents"
and are "surveying them, triaging them" for clues.
At former presidential palaces in the Baghdad area , where Task Force
75
will soon hand control to the Iraq Study Group, leaders and team
members
refer to the covert operators as "secret squirrels." If they are making
important progress, it has not led to "actionable" targets, according
to
McPhee and other task force members.
McPhee, an artillery brigade commander from Oklahoma who was assigned
to the
task force five months ago, reflected on the weapons hunt as the sun
set
outside his improvised sleeping quarters, a cot and mosquito net set
down in
the wreckage of a marble palace annex. He smoked a cigar, but without
the
peace of mind he said the evening ritual usually brings.
"My unit has not found chemical weapons," he said. "That's a fact. And
I'm
47 years old, having a birthday in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces on a
lake
in the middle of Baghdad. It's surreal. The whole thing is surreal.
"Am I convinced that what we did in this fight was viable? I tell you
from
the bottom of my heart: We stopped Saddam Hussein in his WMD programs,"
he
said, using the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction. "Do I
know
where they are? I wish I did . . . but we will find them. Or not. I
don't
know. I'm being honest here."
Later in the conversation, he flung the unfinished cigar into the lake
with
somewhat more force than required.
Team members explain their disappointing results, in part, as a
consequence
of a slow advance. Cautious ground commanders sometimes held weapons
hunters
away from the front, they said, and the task force had no helicopters
of its
own.
"My personal feeling is we waited too long and stayed too far back,"
said
Christopher Kowal, an expert in computer forensics who worked for
Mobile
Exploitation Team Charlie until last week.
'The Bear Wasn't There'
But two other factors -- erroneous intelligence and poor site security
--
dealt the severest blows to the hunt, according to leaders and team
members
at every level.
Some information known in Washington, such as inventories of nuclear
sites
under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, did not
reach
the teams assigned to visit them. But what the U.S. government did not
know
mattered more than what it did know. Intelligence agencies had a far
less
accurate picture of Iraq's weapons program than participants believed
at the
outset of their search, they recalled.
"We came to bear country, we came loaded for bear and we found out the
bear
wasn't here," said a Defense Intelligence Agency officer here who asked
not
to be identified by name. "The indications and warnings were there. The
assessments were solid."
"Okay, that paradigm didn't exist," he added. "The question before was,
where are Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons? What is the
question now? That is what we are trying to sort out."
One thing analysts must reconsider, he said, is: "What was the nature
of the
threat?"
By far the greatest impediment to the weapons hunt, participants said,
was
widespread looting of Iraq's governmental and industrial facilities. At
nearly every top-tier "sensitive site" the searchers reached, intruders
had
sacked and burned the evidence that weapons hunters had counted on
sifting.
As recently as last Tuesday, nearly a month after Hussein's fall from
power,
soldiers under the Army's V Corps command had secured only 44 of the 85
top
potential weapons sites in the Baghdad area and 153 of the 372
considered
most important to rebuilding Iraq's government and economy.
McPhee saw early in the war that the looters were stripping his targets
before he could check them. He cut the planning cycle for new missions
--
the time between first notice and launch -- from 96 to 24 hours. "What
we
found," he said, was that "as the maneuver units hit a target they had
to
move on, even 24 hours was too slow. By the time we got there, a lot of
things were gone."
Short and powerfully built, McPhee has spent his adult life as a combat
officer. He calls his soldiers "bubbas" and worries about their mail.
"It
ain't good" that suspect sites are unprotected, he said, but he refused
to
criticize fighting units who left evidence unguarded.
"You've got two corps commanders being told, 'Get to Baghdad,' and, oh,
by
the way, 'When you run across sensitive sites, you have to secure
them,' "
he said. "Do you secure all those sites, or do you get to Baghdad?
You've
got limited force structure and you've got 20 missions."
A low point came when looters destroyed what was meant to be McPhee's
headquarters in the Iraqi capital. The 101st Airborne Division had used
the
complex, a munitions factory called the Al Qadisiyah State
Establishment,
before rolling north to Mosul. When a reporter came calling, looking
for
Task Force 75, looters were busily stripping it clean. They later set
it
ablaze.
An Altered Mission
The search teams arrived in Iraq "looking for the smoking gun," Smith
said,
and now the mission is more diffuse -- general intelligence-gathering
on
subjects ranging from crimes against humanity and prisoners of war to
Hussein's links with terrorists.
At the peak of the effort, all four mobile exploitation teams devoted
nearly
full time to weapons of mass destruction. By late last month, two of
the
four had turned to other questions. This week, MET Alpha, Gonzales's
team,
also left the hunt, at least temporarily. It parted with its chemical
and
biological experts, added linguists and document exploiters and recast
itself as an intelligence team. It will search for weapons if leads
turn up,
but lately it has focused on Iraqi covert operations abroad and the
theft of
Jewish antiquities.
The stymied hunt baffles search team leaders. To a person, those
interviewed
during a weeklong visit to the task force said they believed in the
mission
and the Bush administration accusations that prompted it.
Yet "smoking gun" is now a term of dark irony here. Maj. Kenneth Deal,
executive officer of one site survey team, called out the words in mock
triumph when he found a page of Arabic text at a former Baath Party
recreation center last week. It was torn from a translated edition of
A.J.P.
Taylor's history, "The Struggle for Mastery in Europe." At a "battle
update
brief" last week, amid confusion over the whereabouts of a British
laboratory in transit from Talil Air Base, McPhee deadpanned to his
staff:
"I haven't a clue where the WMD is, but we can find this lab."
Among the sites already visited from Central Command's top 19 are an
underground facility at North Tikrit Hospital, an unconventional
training
camp at Salman Pak, Samarra East Airport, the headquarters of the
Military
Industrialization Commission, the Baghdad Research Complex, a storage
site
for surface-to-surface missiles in Taji, the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine
Institute, a munitions assembly plant in Iskandariyah and an
underground
bunker at the Abu Ghurayb Palace.
The bunker, toured several days later by a reporter, withstood the
palace's
destruction by at least two satellite-guided bombs. The bombs left
six-foot
holes in the reinforced concrete palace roof, driving the steel
reinforcing
rods downward in a pattern that resembled tentacles. The subsequent
detonation turned great marble rooms into rubble.
But the bunker, tunneled deep below a ground-floor kitchen, remained
unscathed. The tunnel dropped straight down and then leveled to
horizontal,
forming corridors that extend most of the breadth of the palace. Richly
decorated living quarters were arranged along a series of L-shaped
bends,
each protected by three angled blast doors. The doors weighed perhaps a
ton.
In a climate-control room, chemical weapons filters and carbon dioxide
scrubbers protected the air and an overpressure blast valve stood ready
to
vent the lethal shock waves of an explosion. And a decontamination
shower
stood under an alarm panel designed to flash the message "Gas-Gaz."
"Is it evidence of weapons of mass destruction?" asked Deal. "No. It's
probably evidence of paranoia."
"I don't think we'll find anything," said Army Capt. Tom Baird, one of
two
deputy operations officers under McPhee. "What I see is a lot of stuff
destroyed." The Defense Intelligence Agency officer, describing a "sort
of a
lull period" in the search, said that whatever may have been at the
target
sites is now "dispersed to the wind."
All last week, McPhee drilled his staff on speeding the transition. The
Iraq
Survey Group should have all the help it needs, he said, to take
control of
the hunt. He is determined, subordinates said, to set the stage for
success
after he departs. And he does not want to leave his soldiers behind if
their
successors can be trained in time.
"I see them as Aladdin's carpet," McPhee told his staff. "Ticket home."
? 2003 The Washington Post Company
The Illusion Of Iraq's WMDs
Imad Khadduri Al-Hayat 2003/05/07
http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/07-05-2003/Article-20030507-01f7faa8-c
0a8-01fc-0051-f910f3f8f57d/story.html
In late August, I listened with apprehension to the mounting
accusations of
President Bush about the dangers of the Iraqi nuclear program. It was
easy
to know that his arguments did not hold, and to understand his
determination
to use the issue as a pretext to occupy Iraq.
Based on my contributions spanning over thirty years to the Iraqi
peaceful
and military nuclear program, I wrote a number of articles to
demonstrate
that this program had completely ended with the beginning of the 1991
war. I
tried to refute the feeble evidence, especially the one Colin Powell
waved
in his sarcastic performance to the UN Security Council last February,
in
which he tried to prove that Iraq was trying to revive its military
nuclear
program.
With equal apprehension I listened to Vice-President Dick Cheney during
a TV
interview as he said that he didn't believe the IAEA experts, who had
concluded that Iraq was not trying to revive its nuclear weapons
program.
The experts were convinced that the document that was provided to them
by
the American and British intelligence, which maintained that Iraq was
trying
to purchase uranium from Niger, was fake. Still, Cheney insisted 24
hours
before the American ultimatum to Iraq, that the American intelligence
had
secret evidence of Iraq's possession of nuclear weapons. My reaction to
these lies was an article I wrote, in which I voiced my fears that the
army
of occupation might implant fake evidence to support these claims, once
it
enters Iraq.*
Moreover, after bombing the nuclear research center at Al Twaitheia and
the
entrance of American troops to that center, the teenager soldiers
stupidly
broke the seals of the IAEA that had been placed to exert control over
the
30-year-old nuclear graveyard, which includes tons of poisonous
high-radiation nuclear waste, thus allowing thieves to enter the
facility
and contaminate themselves and their families. One month after the
occupation, Cheney maintains total silence.
In addition to the lack of evidence pointing to the presence of nuclear
weapons in Iraq, two main events happened over the past two months that
supported the notion that there have been no chemical or biological
weapons
in that country since 1991.
I read about the first event in Newsweek, on March 3, 2003. The
magazine
published the text of the testimony of Hussein Kamel over weapons of
mass
destruction in Iraq, which he made to the CIA following his escape from
Iraq
in 1995. Kamel insisted that Iraq had destroyed all these weapons and
their
means of delivery following the end of the 1991 war. He said that all
that
remained were maps and reports that had been kept on computer discs or
microfilm. The report also said that the CIA and MI6 had obtained
similar
information earlier. However, this information has been kept secret
over the
past eight years, in order to stall the Iraqis and to invite additional
information.
There was also the revelation by a researcher at Cambridge of the fake
report that had been presented by the British intelligence to Tony
Blair in
order to highlight the accusation against Iraq. It appeared that the
report
was no more than a copy of a PhD dissertation that had been prepared by
an
Iraqi student living in California in 1991. The student had obtained a
copy
of a sensitive report by the inspectors which he published it on the
Internet.*
Still, in his testimony, Hussein Kamel expressed his opinion regarding
the
liar Hussein Hamza, who had spread his lies through the American TV
networks
and Congress about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, claiming that Iraq
was a
year or two away from developing a nuclear bomb. But in April 2003,
Hamza
suddenly fell silent only to emerge in Kuwait on his way to Baghdad to
assume the ministerial post he had been promised in the new 'Iraqi'
government.
Yet the above was not enough to convince me that Iraq had no weapons of
mass
destruction. The second event came in the middle of last April with the
failure of the occupiers to find such weapons in Iraq.
Amer Al Saadi, who served as the scientific advisor to the Iraqi
government,
was the first official to surrender to the Americans through the
mediation
of his German wife. Before his surrender, he arranged to be interviewed
by
the German TV. During that interview, Al Saadi, whom I knew personally
and
witnessed his candidness, insisted that all he had said to the
inspectors
was true, and that Iraq was totally free from WMDs.
The coming days will demonstrate the truthfulness of his testimony to
the
disadvantage of Bush and Blair, and that seeking WMDs in Iraq will
prove an
illusion, unless evidence about the existence of such weapons is
planted by
the Americans and the British.
Mr. Khadduri is an Iraqi nuclear expert.
| FurryHippie
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| #3 Posted on 12.5.03 1751.31
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1759.05 | I love how there aren't any "let's go get em, they're hiding weapons!" pro-war people commenting in this thread yet....
Nothing silences like the truth, eh? | Pool-Boy
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| #4 Posted on 12.5.03 1754.50
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1759.08 | Originally posted by FurryHippie
I love how there aren't any "let's go get em, they're hiding weapons!" pro-war people commenting in this thread yet....
Nothing silences like the truth, eh?
Actually, I believe I am on record as saying "Lets go get them, Saddam is a murdering thug who tortures, rapes, and murders his own people."
I for one am not at all sure we could have found "banned weapons" this soon. And I really could care less. We went in there and accomplished a great thing, and a whole nation is liberated as a result.
And just for the sake of argument, if there ARE no weapons of mass destruction, I believe that was only one of three main reasons for war, the other two being that Saddaam supported terrorists and that he was a brutal dictator. If, by chance, there are no WMDs, how does that invalidate the other two, equally as important, and utterly true reasons for this?
(edited by Pool-Boy on 12.5.03 1556) | FurryHippie
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| #5 Posted on 12.5.03 1830.49
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1836.38 |
Originally posted by Pool-Boy
Originally posted by FurryHippie
I love how there aren't any "let's go get em, they're hiding weapons!" pro-war people commenting in this thread yet....
Nothing silences like the truth, eh?
Actually, I believe I am on record as saying "Lets go get them, Saddam is a murdering thug who tortures, rapes, and murders his own people."
I for one am not at all sure we could have found "banned weapons" this soon. And I really could care less. We went in there and accomplished a great thing, and a whole nation is liberated as a result.
And just for the sake of argument, if there ARE no weapons of mass destruction, I believe that was only one of three main reasons for war, the other two being that Saddaam supported terrorists and that he was a brutal dictator. If, by chance, there are no WMDs, how does that invalidate the other two, equally as important, and utterly true reasons for this?
(edited by Pool-Boy on 12.5.03 1556)
I have no problem with the other two reasons, just the fact that numerous threads on this site were dedicated arguing the fact that Saddam was hiding weapons. And in that respect, my statement holds true. | PalpatineW
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| #6 Posted on 12.5.03 1913.49
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1914.05 | | The fact that they haven't found the weapons proves nothing. The build up to war was bloody glacial; Hussein had months and years to hide the things. | Grimis
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| #7 Posted on 12.5.03 1914.25
Reposted on: 12.5.10 1917.20 | And there probably ARE WMD's somewhere in that country. Remember, it is the size of California. We didn't have nearly enough people looking for them.
This is just more bad PR by Team Rummy. | spf
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| #8 Posted on 12.5.03 2239.31
Reposted on: 12.5.10 2254.46 | But all throughout the buildup we had a seemingly endless amount of information on how much they had, what they were building, how they were building them, and so on. Theoretically if we knew everything they had, we should have some idea where they were keeping it. So did our intelligence collapse just before the war then?
My problem with this is the way that our government seems to just keep throwing war rationales against the wall to see what will stick. We were told of this arsenal that Saddam was building which was a threat to the free world and that it must be destroyed. Now though there's nothing there and the war was about liberation. It makes a skeptic wonder just exactly why our government was so keen to go in there. | Nate The Snake
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| #9 Posted on 12.5.03 2313.31
Reposted on: 12.5.10 2329.03 |
Originally posted by Pool-Boy
And just for the sake of argument, if there ARE no weapons of mass destruction, I believe that was only one of three main reasons for war, the other two being that Saddaam supported terrorists and that he was a brutal dictator. If, by chance, there are no WMDs, how does that invalidate the other two, equally as important, and utterly true reasons for this?
(edited by Pool-Boy on 12.5.03 1556)
The reason this is significant is that the WMD were touted, from the start, as the main reason we were there at all. Saddam's brutality and support of some terrorists has never been in question, but they've also never been used as anything more than a "AND he's a bad person, too!" sort of thing.
Without the WMD and the threat they posed (not to mention the ignoring of the disarmament orders that their existance would have proved) we had no real justification for going there. Yes, Hussein was a dictator. But the US does not have the authority to depose governments as we see fit. There're rules that need to be followed, by people and by nations, and by setting ourselves above those rules we completely invalidate them. | Jaguar
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| #10 Posted on 13.5.03 0000.04
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0000.29 | Just remember this scary thought:
The US's failure to produce Iraqi WMD makes the UN look more competent, and actually means that they were in the right by not supporting the war (as there's no proof of violation of the treaty).
-Jag | Pool-Boy
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| #11 Posted on 13.5.03 0006.07
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0006.46 | Why should the United States be the only nation to follow these rules?
According to these so-called "rules," flying planes into buildings is not permissible. Starving, raping, and murdering your own people is against the rules. Targeting civilians as a means of warfare is against the rules.
The United Nation has proved itself to be completely and totally unwilling to enforce these rules. If the UN had stepped up to the plate, not only after 9-11, but well before that, the US would not have any need to act the way it has.
I, for one, am tired of these "rules" of behavior in this International Community. The UN's lack of action pretty much disqualified the world from having the right to make any complaint about our defending ourselves.
Terrorist groups are the evil here, not the United States. If the International Community wants to solve the problem, let them step up to the plate and do a little more than pass worthless resolutions. Otherwise, they should get out of the damned way and let us take care of it ourselves.
No one was out there damning Hussein for his atrocities with nearly the venom that we were attacked for taking action to solve the problem. No one, outside of a few token words of support, damned any terrorist groups for targeting, and murdering civilians. If anything, they were EXCUSED for their actions, because they openly opposed the United States.
It is a simple matter of "Put up or shut up." If the UN thinks we should be working with them to solve the problem of terrorism, let them step up to the plate and ACT. People like me will take the hats and robes there a lot more seriously if they do. But as it is now- working with the INternational Community means nothing more than discussing and maybe coming to an agreement that terrorists and murderous dictators are evil.
Of course, no one will even think about doing anything concrete to solve these problems....
(edited by Pool-Boy on 12.5.03 2206) | fuelinjected
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|  #12 Posted on 13.5.03 0044.20
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0051.26 | If I could channel David Letterman for a second. They found Weapons of Mass Destruction ... IN MY PANTS! :b
It's interesting to me how people make the United Nations out to be this protector of peace and impartial hand of justice! If the USA had no justifiable reason for going into Iraq, where's the United Nations now? Where's the sanctions against the US? Where's the REAL backlash? Oh you mean they only want to enforce their will of peace and justice when it benefits them? All the members of the UN wouldn't possibly have their own hidden agendas and shady motives? No way, if the United Nations does something it must be for purely 100% justifiable unselfish reasons. Riiiiight.
Look at my country, Canada, for example. I saw numerous polls where a more Canadians supported the US military action then didn't. But Jean Chretien chose to damage our relationship with the US. Why? Because he acted for himself, not on behalf of the country. He placated to the United Nations. I'm sure it was just because he thought they were right. Not because when he leaves office in a few months, he's going to be going for Kofi Annan's position as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Just wait and see.
| godking
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| #13 Posted on 13.5.03 0249.30
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0259.03 | Palpatine:
The fact that they haven't found the weapons proves nothing. The build up to war was bloody glacial; Hussein had months and years to hide the things.
The United States claimed they had PROOF, big capital letters PROOF, of WMDs, but they couldn't release it because it might endanger the source. Not that anybody in the American media is going to say anything like "hey, now that Hussein is gone and we can do what we like, what exactly was that proof anyhow?", but you'll notice that this PROOF isn't exactly paying off.
And incidentally - other than biological labs, which are relatively easy to set up and dismantle, it's a very long-term and difficult process to move a chemical weapons production facility, and just about completely impossible to move a nuclear weapons production facility.
According to these so-called "rules," flying planes into buildings is not permissible.
You'll note that when proof was shown that the government of Afghanistan colluded with Al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks, the UN immediately sanctioned an invasion and all those countries America has been bitching about for the past nine months signed on to join in the fight.
No one was out there damning Hussein for his atrocities with nearly the venom that we were attacked for taking action to solve the problem.
And nobody said "hey, WMDs in Iraq, fine by me!" or "boy, we like it when civilians are murdered". The response from the international community was "a pre-emptive invasion sets a dangerous precedent, particularly in a world where you already have numerous nuclear-armed nations that are poised to enter into conflict, such as North Korea and China or India and Pakistan. If this must be done, then do it under the auspice of international law and allow time for the inspections to take place."
Except it's becoming rapidly obvious that the United States knew perfectly well A) Iraq didn't really have any WMDs worth mentioning and B) Iraq's support of terrorist groups targeting the United States was nominal at best. So they didn't want to chance that their invasion would get called off. (Remember, this is an invasion force that immediately secured oil wells, but NOT the nuclear waste depositories - odd behavior for a country supposedly acting in self-defense.)
No one, outside of a few token words of support, damned any terrorist groups for targeting, and murdering civilians.
Except for the combined intelligence agencies of France and Germany and most of the West and also Syria and Iran, all of which contributed to arresting dozens and dozens of Al-Qaeda agents. But I suppose that doesn't count.
Terrorist groups are the evil here, not the United States.
Sure, and that's why it's so frustrating. The United States' policies on terrorism seem to completely miss the point of it. Terrorism doesn't need a lot of money or political support from rogue nation states - it's nice if they can get it, but they don't need it. All terrorism needs, to continue to cause havoc, is
A) a group of people inclined to crazy, evil deeds
b) a larger group of people inclined to say "we don't know nothin'" when questioned about group A.
The war in Iraq has caused both groups to grow immeasurably, which is immediately counterproductive to your stated goals - another reason most of the rest of the world regards your stated beneficient motives as bogus. | Bizzle Izzle
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| #14 Posted on 13.5.03 0757.56
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0759.01 |
Originally posted by FurryHippie
I love how there aren't any "let's go get em, they're hiding weapons!" pro-war people commenting in this thread yet....
Nothing silences like the truth, eh?
I didn't comment because I didn't see the thread. I was too busy driving around in my car, now that gas prices are dropping. No WMD's? Who cares. | astrobstrd
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| #15 Posted on 13.5.03 0938.36
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0941.21 | I was going to post something, but then godking posted exactly how I felt, only more concise and smarter and stuff...
Originally posted by Bizzle Izzle
Originally posted by FurryHippie
I love how there aren't any "let's go get em, they're hiding weapons!" pro-war people commenting in this thread yet....
Nothing silences like the truth, eh?
I didn't comment because I didn't see the thread. I was too busy driving around in my car, now that gas prices are dropping. No WMD's? Who cares.
Cool. I want cheap video games, can we bomb Japan next? I'd also like some silver and diamonds, so lets add South Africa and Argentina to that list.
If this is now being played off as not being about WMD's, but about human rights abuses and breaking treaties, why aren't we in Africa?
Pool-boy, I respect your opinion, but Iraq and Al Quaeda have not been proven to be in cahoots. They are on completely different ends of the "We Hate America" spectrum. Fundamentalist Islamics HATE Sadaam. If definitive proof is found that they were in cahoots, feel free to post as such, but until then please refrain from asserting this as fact. | OlFuzzyBastard
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| #16 Posted on 13.5.03 0945.02
Reposted on: 13.5.10 0947.24 |
Originally posted by Bizzle Izzle
Originally posted by FurryHippie
I love how there aren't any "let's go get em, they're hiding weapons!" pro-war people commenting in this thread yet....
Nothing silences like the truth, eh?
I didn't comment because I didn't see the thread. I was too busy driving around in my car, now that gas prices are dropping. No WMD's? Who cares.
Hey, Bizzle, I want you to go talk to the families of the troops that were killed in this war and tell them that, 'kay? | CRZ
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| #17 Posted on 13.5.03 1005.20
Reposted on: 13.5.10 1008.31 | NOW does everyone see where trolling gets us? That's right...with me closing the thread.
Use your brains, people. | | ALL ORIGINAL POSTS IN THIS THREAD ARE NOW AVAILABLE |
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