If Fox News Channel is correct, Coalition forces have discovered a chemical weapons facility approx. 100 miles south of Baghdad. The Pentagon has apparantly confirmed that the General in charge of this plant has been detained.
I'm waiting for the French and friends to claim the U.S. built this facility overnight. If its true, the argument against Bush's decision is greatly damaged, and the peace movement takes a drubbing.
If it wasn't for war, you wouldn't know what peace was.
I think the reason they kept this secret is so that when we got in there- we could find it. Instead of having the Iraqis convert it to a milk factory.
Our leadership presented SOME evidence that there were violations, and said that they can't announce more for security reasons. This was all appropriate. The problem with the "anti-Bush" argument was this- there ARE chemical weapons. The administration announced what they could without giving away too much (hindering our ability to secure these weapons). They did their job exactly as they should, and the nay-sayers demanded that the President disclose everything, no matter how much that hindered us, purely for partisan politics. Our troops have backed up Bush's accustions, and we will continue to do so.
I just hope all of the "We have not gotten enough proof!" crowd remembers that, and changes their tune.
Well, you do realize that the only way to satiate most of the rational anti-war protesters, as far as that goes, is to produce documents dating back to before they found this, showing that they knew this facility existed.
If indeed they found a working chemical munitions factory then I have a couple of questions, assuming they knew about this before the invasion:
- Did we give this information to the UN Weapons inspectors to act on it? If we did and they failed to act upon it, I would be greatly interested to know this fact, and I would think that the White House would want people to know this. - If we did not give the information to the inspectors, then I would ask why not. Was it out of some desire to see if the Iraqis would divulge it themselves? Was it that they felt a need to keep this information private for some security reason? Or was it, as a cynic might think, that they wanted to make sure there were such things undiscovered by the Inspectors as a way to retroactively justify their actions? Is this something they kept an eye on this whole time, so that once they went in they could say "see, we told you the UN was too incompetent to be trusted"?
(edited by spf2119 on 23.3.03 2207) "It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
Good questions, but I cant imagine the correct answer is "B". I mean, I have to assume it would be WAAAAAAY easier for Bush to justify going to war BEFORE the fact.
I don't think answer "b" makes sense. I heard Bill Tyrny (sp?) say during the buildup to war that we keep info from inspectors because in the past, information has been betrayed.
Originally posted by Pool-BoyI think the reason they kept this secret is so that when we got in there- we could find it. Instead of having the Iraqis convert it to a milk factory.
Our leadership presented SOME evidence that there were violations, and said that they can't announce more for security reasons. This was all appropriate. The problem with the "anti-Bush" argument was this- there ARE chemical weapons. The administration announced what they could without giving away too much (hindering our ability to secure these weapons). They did their job exactly as they should, and the nay-sayers demanded that the President disclose everything, no matter how much that hindered us, purely for partisan politics. Our troops have backed up Bush's accustions, and we will continue to do so.
I just hope all of the "We have not gotten enough proof!" crowd remembers that, and changes their tune.
(edited by Pool-Boy on 23.3.03 1943)
What I'd like to know is, how much of that is the stuff that we gave them in the first place. It's really easy to say "they've got chem/bio weapons" when you've still got your copy of the receipt.
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These conclusions are a little hasty don't you think. That report was just a war reporter on site with no expertise in what a bio-chemical site is or isn't so he just did a hasty knee jerk which is the worse thing to do for something this important.. Truth is we don't know what is at the site. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030324/wl_afp/iraq_war_us_chemical_1
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Originally posted by WhitebaconIf Fox News Channel is correct,
That's a rather huge assumption to make.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt
That was NOT a munitions plant they found. They found a chemical plant yes. It was under camo netting, but it was NOT a munitions plant, I could be any number of things. Oil is a chemical. Could be an oil plant. I'm not saying that it isn't used to manufacture chemicals for war, but it isn't confirmed, yet.
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NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. officials said Monday that no chemical weapons were found at a suspected site at Najaf in central Iraq, U.S. television networks reported.
NBC News reported from the Pentagon that no chemicals at all were found at the site. CNN, also reporting from the Pentagon, said officials now believe the plant there was abandoned long ago by the Iraqis.
Well I guess that was a lot of fuss over nothing.
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. officials said Monday that no chemical weapons were found at a suspected site at Najaf in central Iraq, U.S. television networks reported.
NBC News reported from the Pentagon that no chemicals at all were found at the site. CNN, also reporting from the Pentagon, said officials now believe the plant there was abandoned long ago by the Iraqis.
Well I guess that was a lot of fuss over nothing.
Expected. In all honestly- I thought it was a little soon in the War to have found anything like this. But you know the press- everytime they find a bleach production plant, or anything like that, the speculation will start to fly.
I suspect that it will be a couple of months before something substantial is presented. Before that- a few dozen false alarms... such is the nature of the press in a live situation...
A relevant quote from the article: The U.S. and British accusations that Baghdad was hiding chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs were the reason most commonly cited by Washington for attacking Iraq. The credibility of those claims was undercut, however, by disclosures of forgery and misrepresentation underlying some of them, and by the failure of U.S. intelligence reports to lead U.N. inspectors to any important finds.
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee
I voted for McCain in the primary in 2000, and between BCRA and his change on tax policy, I have regretted every day of it. Naturally, I will support Bob Ehrlich if and when he runs. Otherwise, I'm not sure who I'll support in the primary.