OK I admit it, I can't handle the truth... I just read this article, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems pretty objective and it isn't a very easy thing to read. In the article, Sen Bob Graham states (who was on the Senate Intel Committee and saw the classified intelligence for the war against Iraq) that currently (unless there is a huge pile of bad stuff that we simply haven't found, which obviously is pretty unlikely after almost 3 months since the war started) three possibilities exist for the lack of any WMDs in Iraq -- "One is that [the WMDs] were spirited out of Iraq, which maybe is the worst of all possibilities, because now the very thing that we were trying to avoid, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, could be in the hands of dozens of groups. Second, that we had bad intelligence. Or third, that the intelligence was satisfactory but that it was manipulated, so as just to present to the American people and to the world those things that made the case for the necessity of war against Iraq." It's been fairly easy for me, as an American, to be so anti-war, partly because I hate the Bush administration blah blah blah... But let's face it -- these three possibilities that Graham mentioned are pretty scary......and what would the stock market fallout be from such a scandal?? Obviously, if the WMDs made it out of Iraq, it would be pretty bearish...but what if it is just a scandal and Bush lied/manipulated intelligence?? What then? http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html
In my opinion it's the 3rd option mentioned above. If our intelligence was (is) so damned good ... and I recall Colin Powell stating his case before the UN with slides, aerial photos, etc. ... then surely we'd have found SOMETHING by now. Heck if Saddam & Co. were going to take the WMD elsewhere then why wouldn't our intelligence have detected that? Bush was determined to go to war come hell or high water ... And an interesting point is that when we lost thousands of people in the 9/11 terrorist acts the US was outraged, as we should have been. Innocent people killed in the WTC attacks. But thousands of civilians in Iraq have also been killed who were not guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It'll be interesting to see how the Bush administration handles the damage control if no WMD are ever found, especially with election year coming up.
I can envision the following spin. Saddam Hussein escapes from Iraq with MWD. With the money at his disposal, and angered at his eviction from power by Bush & Company, he hires a terrorist army who attack the US and unleash the WMD. Bush claims that there indeed were WMD, and he was right all along to attack Iraq, and that Hussein would have done it anyway if we hadn't stopped him....err....liberated the people of Iraq. It is possible to spin anything any way you want. Question is, can you get people to buy into it? If the economy sucks, they won't buy Bush's spin.
If We Knew Where It Was -- Why Don't We Know Where It Is? By John Cory TO correspondent in Saudi Arabia t r u t h o u t | Perspective Monday 09 June 2003 I am not an educated man, and there are plenty of folks who will tell you that I am not all that smart either. But I have a few questions about this WMD thing over in Iraq. Now I know a lot of smart people are writing about this, but I thought I would ask my questions in the hope that some of those real smart media people and congressional types would provide some answers. I am fairly certain that they must be asking these same questions. Right? Here goes: 1.) How is it that if the administration knew that the order had been given to deploy chemical weapons, they did not know where these WMD would be stored? When the US bribed senior military officers not to defend Baghdad and gave them safe passage out of Iraq, why was the location of these chemical weapons not provided to the US as part of the payoff plan? Could the Iraqi officers deploy WMD without knowing where to go and get them? And remember, it has been reported that Iraq had the capability of deploying WMD within 45 minutes of that command. Someone had to know where to go to obey that command. Didn't they? 2.) If the Collin Powell telephone intercepts presented to the UN were authentic, why couldn't the intelligence community trace the location of these intercepts and secure those sites after the invasion of Iraq? And whatever happened to those big missiles he showed us? 3.) How is it that the administration was able to know the whereabouts of Saddam and launch the initial bunker attack that started the war, and yet this "source" within the inner circle of power never provided WMD location data that was crucial not only to safety of the world but to the safety of our military personnel who were about to invade Iraq? 4.) The administration said that the UN could not resume inspections because the threat was imminent and delay was dangerous. Now this same administration says we must be patient because it will take time to find these WMD that they used to know the whereabouts of, but must now guess and search. How is that possible? Ahmed Chalabi and other sources insist that Saddam Hussein is still alive and hiding in Iraq. It seems to me if that is true, then surely he and his surviving supporters know where to get the remaining WMD and use them against the occupying forces. Or hasn't that occurred to anyone but me? Are our soldiers in danger? 5.) How is it that a nuclear waste site was left unguarded and subject to looting without regard to possible contamination, even as the US military previously found and guessed this site was part of the "secret" nuclear weapons program? 6.) After the capture of various Iraqi high officials and scientists, how is it that no WMD locations have been revealed thus far? Are these officials so uncooperative and able to resist all interrogation that there is no hope of getting answers? 7.) If as Rumsfeld now claims, Iraq may have destroyed the WMD at the last possible moment in order to embarrass the US, how is it that satellite photos and other intelligence technology failed to notice such large scale efforts? Wouldn't it take major activity and trailers, and Lord knows what else, to destroy the vast quantities of chemical weapons supposedly in stock? And how were these destroyed? Burned and incinerated? Would not the air quality samples around Iraq reflect these chemicals and toxic substances? What about soil and water samples? Didn't we have air sensors deployed with our troops to detect and warn about poisons in the air? 8.) Why is the US not interested in casualty statistics in Iraq? It would seem to me that the large numbers of Iraqi military personnel unaccounted for would be of prime interest in the occupation - I mean- reconstruction of Iraq. Knowing how many dead soldiers subtracted from the initial troop strength reports should provide an idea of the size of possible resistance to the proposed US interim government. It might also indicate the length of continued US involvement and the necessary troops needed to maintain the peace. But I could be wrong. Like I said in the beginning, I'm no brain, just a guy with questions. And who knows, maybe the really smart guys like Rove and Rumsfeld will explain everything at the GOP convention. By then I'm sure they will have their act together. Still, I have to ask: If we knew where it was, why don't we know where it is?
it's like the end of spies like us...or maybe it's more like a "jobless recovery" i don't know bush is the guy who nominated harvey pitt, as well as at least 3 of those indicted during the iran-contra scandal, some of which didn't require congressional approval. (don't believe me? http://www.fair.org/extra/0109/iran-contra.html) ***one thing that strikes me as odd, is why the enemies of the US (i.e. iraq, syria, n korea, iran, etc.) haven't raised these issues more directly?? or maybe they have, but it's not really published in the US because most people would either deny or choose to ignore bush's questionable motives in iraq most people who agree with the war seem to do so simply because they think that iraq is a bad place anyway, and while the war may not be justified, annhilating iraq is justified based on its dismerits alone isn't all that bad an idea -- i mean, 3,000 people died in the WTC, so what's a few thousand more? (maybe all of this is monica lewinsky's fault??? ) here's a more left-slanted article on the finest achievements of our fine Moron leader -- http://www.fair.org/extra/0205/bush-book.html (From the above article) "Far more troubling, however, was the mediaâs failure to report those stories that would surely complicate Bush's posture as a pure crusader. Our press has told us very little of the links between him and our new enemy--such links as would have had the anchors turning somersaults if it had been Bill Clinton. Concerning Bushâs family, first of all, the watchdogs have been perfect lambs. Most of them spiked the news that the bin Laden family owned a small piece of the Carlyle Group, employer of the senior Bush (an awkward fact reported by the Wall Street Journal--9/27/01--and that drove the bin Ladens to sell their shares); or that Salem bin Laden, Osamaâs older brother, seems to have invested in Arbusto Energy, George W. Bushâs fledgling oil concern, back in 1976 (a story noted in the foreign press, and, stateside, only by such plucky independents as the On-Line Journal--7/3/01). The media have also been too tactful about Carlyleâs profits from the "war on terrorism," through the (aptly named) Crusader, a giant, pokey howitzer made by United Defense, a Carlyle subsidiary. Although the Pentagon itself had hoped to phase it out (in Kosovo, it proved to be not worth the cost), that $11 billion turkey was resuscitated by the terrorist attack. "On Sept. 26, the Army signed a $665 million modified contract with United Defense through April 2003 to complete the Crusader's development phase," reported the Los Angeles Times (1/10/02)--and few others, including Multinational Monitor, Red Herring and Paul Krugman in his New York Times column. (The deal was never mentioned on TV.)... ...While the media did take the lead in glamorizing Bush, however, they were not forcing that heroic view on everybody else, but merely coming up with the heroic view that, for the moment, many people wanted. Traumatized, the journalists and many in the audience were eager for George W. Bush to be another Roosevelt; and they were just as eager not to know whatever disenchanting truths an independent press would try to tell them. Thus the terrorists did land a blow on our democracy, by knocking millions, briefly, to their knees--TV journalists included. "George Bush is the president," Dan Rather said to David Letterman (9/18/01). "He makes the decisions--and, you know, as just one American, he wants me to line up, just tell me where. He makes the call." (Moments later, while reciting lyrics from "America the Beautiful," the anchorman broke down in tears.) That fearful, warlike mood was all-pervasive after 9/11. Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University, is the author of The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder (Norton). This article is excerpted from the new preface to the updated paperback edition. the thing that most people don't realize is how powerful the oil cartel really is here in the US....it would blow your mind, baby...
Kymar Fye explained in some detail on another thread why the WMD factor was never articulated as the sole or even the main justification for the war. Still, I will admit that I am as curious as anyone. Let's ask a few questions of our own. First, did the administration ever state that it knew the location of WMD? Or that large amounts existed? A lot of this after the fact criticism seems to be based on an assumption that they said pretty much exactly that. Yet the Blix inspectors were unable to find much, except for some illegal missiles. Second, Did the UN not confirm after the Gulf War that Iraq had large quantities of WMD such as chem/bio weapons? And was the destructionof these stores ever documented? Third, wasn't one of the main justifications that Iraq had not cooperated with inspections for years? Saddam had 10 years to move and hide WMD programs, not a few months prior to war. Finally, I'm all for putting DCI Tennett in front of a Senate committee and asking him if the administration inflated estimates. He was appointed by Clinton and was a Democrat Senate staffer, so I don't htink he can be accused of partisan bias. And if he says yes they were lying, I hope someone asks him why he didn't immediately resign.
Maybe you have missed this from UN: UN top inspector: We never asserted Iraq had any remaining weapons of mass destruction Iraq-UN, Politics, 3/19/2003 "UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered the withdrawal of all UN personnel, including UNMOVIC inspectors, after receiving information from the United Kingdom and United States regarding the continued safety and security of UN personnel in Iraq. Blix, who is to discuss a work plan of remaining disarmament issues today at the Security Council, also said the inspectors had never asserted that Iraq had any remaining weapons of mass destruction, only that there were a lot of things unaccounted for. This comes as statements made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed that the US knew that a second UN Security Council Resolution was needed for any military action against Iraq, making the US aware that any military action against Iraq are illegal." UN top inspector: We never asserted Iraq had any remaining weapons of mass destruction Iraq-UN, Politics, 3/19/2003 "UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered the withdrawal of all UN personnel, including UNMOVIC inspectors, after receiving information from the United Kingdom and United States regarding the continued safety and security of UN personnel in Iraq. Blix, who is to discuss a work plan of remaining disarmament issues today at the Security Council, also said the inspectors had never asserted that Iraq had any remaining weapons of mass destruction, only that there were a lot of things unaccounted for. This comes as statements made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed that the US knew that a second UN Security Council Resolution was needed for any military action against Iraq, making the US aware that any military action against Iraq are illegal." And what happened to the 12 thousand page declaration that Iraq provided? No Doubt Iraq had and even used chems 15-20 years ago and it still depends on what time you read what pentagon's releases. Iraq did not even breath since 1991. 1998 Cheney himself wanted to get permission for HAL to do business there. If I recall well he even asked for sanctions lift. You do agree that Bios nad Chems are banned and outlawed right?? Then lets have regime change in the nation that is storing the following: The cache of chemical weapons includes 873,020 pounds of sarin, 1,657,480 pounds of VX nerve agent and 1,976,760 pounds of mustard agent - enough to kill or incapacitate millions. http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/16/Worldandnation/Not_Iraq__but_Annisto.shtml I wouldn't put it passed these thugs in office to move some of it over Iraq. You know ... if we cannot find some lets plant it. outrageous YES. crazy? yes. Has it happened before YES. (Planting evidence after the fact? YES) I woudn't be surpriced. We come and go in there as we please. And this time it's not a policeman trying to save his skin. The stakes are trillions of dollars and huge heads will fall. You can choose to trust what ever they tell you. But there people who have enough critical thinking to question the bull$shit. You know.. It's not WMD's that will take OilShrubMafia and Co down, if and when it happens. Wait till the 9/11 issues start surfacing.
Well, that was my point, that there was no proof the WMD were ever destroyed. Look, I am as mystified by this whole deal as anyone else. On the one hand, if Saddam had destroyed the WMD, why didn't they just produce evidence of destruction. In fact, it would have been logical for them to invite the UN in to witness the destrcution. But that never happened. On the other hand, if they had them, why not use them on invading US troops? What was to lose at that point? Were they hidden or moved? Apparently we don't know, but the important fact is that the existence of WMD was hardly our only or even pricnipal reason for war.
Ummmm.. curious! did you click on the url? And what happened to the 12 thousand page declaration that Iraq provided? How can I trust that he didn't declare all we wanted or not? No Doubt Iraq had and even used chems 15-20 years ago and it still depends on what time you read what pentagon's releases. Iraq did not even breath since 1991. 1998 Cheney himself wanted to get permission for HAL to do business there. If I recall well he even asked for sanctions lift. You do agree that Bios and Chems are banned and outlawed right?? Then lets have regime change in the nation that is storing the following: The cache of chemical weapons includes 873,020 pounds of sarin, 1,657,480 pounds of VX nerve agent and 1,976,760 pounds of mustard agent - enough to kill or incapacitate millions. http://www.sptimes.com/2003/03/16/Worldandnation/Not_Iraq__but_Annisto.shtml --- Hint! the above cache is not in Iraq! any comments on that part of my previous post? Peace !
Well, we've been through this before on other threads, and some thoughtful articles on the subject have been written here and there. You have to begin with a bit of humility though: We don't yet know the full story or even most of it. It's never easy to look into the mind of a Saddam Hussein and reach conclusions of any dependability. Being a tyrant was his job, and he'd been at it for decades. We're just amateurs. That said, it's not hard to put together a rational explanation for what we've observed to this point: 1) Even if SH had had all or most of his WMDs and WMD equipment destroyed, there are several reasons why he wouldn't want to comply with inspections: The aim of the inspections was NOT to discover hidden WMDs; the aim was CONFIRM full disarmament. As Blix himself confirmed, Iraq never offered more than isolated, piecemeal cooperation on matters of substance, and instead focused on stringing the inspectors along by offering superficial procedural cooperation. Total cooperation would have required, among other things, full access to all elements of Iraq's WMD programs, including technicians and scientists, and all dual use equipment, alongside a full accounting. Saddam never came close to providing this. To do so would have exposed and confirmed his past deceptions - both known ones and new ones - and would have inevitably have added impetus to ever more intrusive and comprehensive efforts. The end result would have been either real, complete disarmament, including the eradication of Saddam's ability ever to reconstitute the program, or confrontation. Saddam was unwilling to allow the former to occur, and instead hoped to delay and manage the latter - as he had successfully done in the past. Additionally, maintaining uncertainty about his WMD capacities served purposes of its own in managing external and internal threats, and refusing to give in on this (or virtually any issue) served his image as "the one who doesn't back down," which was fundamental to his political effectiveness and aspirations. 2) Part of managing the looming confrontation was preserving support among his allies - especially the Axis of Weasel governments and the peace movement. Before the war, he may have hoped, though may not have expected, that the US could be forced to back down. He at least could have thought there was a reasonable chance to delay the date of the attack, possibly even long enough for other events, or a loss of will, or changes in government, etc., to interpose themselves. The discovery of WMDs would have ruined this hope. 3) As for the why-not-use-'em question: At no point did Saddam have any reason to believe that what WMD capacity he preserved would be of high military utility on the battlefield. WMDs of the type Saddam possessed even at the height of his military power are difficult to use effectively against a well-prepared, highly mobile force. Additionally, the moment that a single WMD was used, or even discovered in a position where it could be used, his political strategy - which became even more important once hostilities had actually begun - would have collapsed. France had even stated publically that WMD use would cause it to reverse its opposition to the war. To us, Saddam's defeat seemed inevitable, but it may not have seemed that way to Saddam. Even at this late date, we have no reason to believe that Saddam has admitted defeat. Both he and the Iraqi people - including WMD scientists and WMD program officials - may still believe that a Ba'athist insurgency and other difficulties of occupation may sooner or later force a US withdrawal, and provide him (or his sons) with a chance to re-gain authority - if not over the entire country in the near term, then at least over a secure base of operations. Heck, he may even believe that he's re-gained momentum... I tend to believe that there are probably some WMD materials and possibly even some real WMDs somewhere in Iraq, and that some items may have been successfully moved out of the country, but that the old WMD artillery shells and the like were probably destroyed or discarded, and that the quantities of precursor chem/bio materials are probably much smaller now than when originally observed by the UN. It's worth keeping in mind that even x-thousand liters of one or another toxin requires only a few tens of barrels for storage, and that a much, much smaller amount is sufficient for re-starting the manufacturing process over again - if the "intellectual capacity" has been preserved. Saddam knew this last point well. He was much smarter and more knowledgeable about and more experienced with WMDs - how they're made and how they're used militarily and politically - than, say, most Bush Adm. opponents, and, it's fair to say, probably than a lot of Bush Adm. operatives and allies as well.