I have believed right along that the BA had an agenda to invade Iraq regardless of WMDs and were willing to cherry pick the worst intelligence and ignore the best to bring about regime change in Iraq. Well, my view has come closer to being confirmed.

http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/



My questions:

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

No, I don't think he believed that there were no WMD (should have? Probably...)

Why? Because it was obvious (at the time) that he was completely unprepared for that outcome. Had he gone in under false pretenses, having taken that deceptive step already, he would have been prepared to cover his tracks by either planting them or, alternately, promoted the war in a different way. The spin up to the war wouldn't have been "Saddam has WMD!" but rather something along the lines of "look how terrible this dictator operates! The people of Iraq must be freed.." at the very least he would have taken the angle that Saddam had welshed his ceasefire obligations rather than insisting he horded weapons as it would be obvious that such a statement would come back to bite him in the future. There was a 180 out about-face in justification after the weapons were not found, and they expended many many man-hours in the finding. And UNSCR 1441 would not have passed unanimously if there was so very little doubt. Even the maps used during the invasion showed a red line surrounding a portion of the country, after which they believed the WMD would be employed from information they had received from German intelligence (I recommend Cobra II). They crossed that red line and were very surprised to find nothing happen.

I am very very hesitant to believe much information that comes out as a memory years after the fact. It's always very obvious with hindsight to see things that aren't so obvious with only certain pieces of the puzzle in foresight. Have you ever been witness to an incident and listened to other witness accounts of it later? It's amazing how individuals can see exactly the same thing and form entirely different conclusions. And those inconsistencies just grow larger over time. Ever talk about a situation from years back and notice how everyone's perception of his/her own actions changes and the picture is different? Right after WWII, somehow it was impossible to find a Frenchman who didn't support the resistance.

Edited to add: I'll add that I'm not sure what sort of "documented evidence" could possibly have proven conclusively in and of itself that Saddam did not have WMD? If such evidence existed, surely he (Saddam) would have brought it up to the UN to escape invasion? Call me a skeptic, but I'm not sure how a CIA operative could weild such "conclusive proof" when the very leader of said nation didn't have it.

And besides... I had no prior knowledge of WMD.

No. If he did I'm pretty sure someone, if not him, would have at least attempted to plant some evidence after it became clear there were none.
Anyone who bought into the WMDs was clearly looking for a reason that was easier to understand than someone has to try and fix the Middle East.
Bush didn't lie. Even on the premise of WMDs you can't prove any lie. Please don't bring up yellow cake which the Brits still insist is good intel because those 16 words do NOT constitute a lie. The thing that BDS people really miss is what an excellent political machine Bushco is - you're not going to trip them up on something like a lie. What Bush did was give one of a few reasons to invade Iraq.

I think that Bush, and Blair, believed that 9-11 afforded the world an opportunity to get rid of Saddam Hussein, who they both genuinely believed was a bad man. They both briefed their domestic intelligence agencies to that effect - e.g. "look for excuses to take out Saddam".

Saddam's refusal to cooperate fully with UN WMD inspectors under Blix handed them an excuse to ramp up deployments in the region on with the intention to invade, but Saddam's last-minute capitulation took them by surprise; they'd expected him to tough it out, giving them an excuse to go in under existing UN law.

The UK's MI6, knowing how badly their political bosses wanted an excuse, warmed over an old fake report about yellowcake uranium in Nigeria being bought by Saddam, which was know to be nonsense even at the time. However, this was cobbled together into a "dodgy dossier" which formed the core of the presentation Colin Powell gave to Congress on the eve of war.

Blair lied outright - he knew, or should have known (either case is equally contemptible) that the things he was presenting as facts were nothing of the sort, in that he claimed that Saddam's notional WMDs could be used to attack Britain within 45 minutes. Bush's rhetoric at the time was much less WMD-centred, and much more War-On-Terror centred - al Quaeda links (since discredited) meaning that WMDs could find their way into terrorist hands.

Both were basically spinning some rather shaky, or downright untrue, "evidence" to make the case for a course of action that they had already, in private, decided and agreed upon.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

EVERYONE knew damned well that Iraq had possessed WMD, because they had used them on Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq war, and against their own citizens in Kurdistan. This was not a secret - not even the French doubted there were some WMDs in Iraq, they just wanted current evidence of it before agreeing on any action.

Additionally, the UK and USA knew he had them because we had supplied him with most of them when Saddam was a western ally and bulwark against communists and the Iranian revolution who were the bad guys of the day in the 1980s

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?

In principle, there was not much wrong in removing Saddam from power. Had the UN inspectors been given more time and had they found anything, the whole UN would have at worst abstained against military action, and NATO (including, I think, France and Germany) would have helped. But they wouldn't have found anything because there was nothing to find - Saddam hadn't maintained his stocks and had destroyed all but the meagre handfuls that were found. Like Bush and Blair, he found that manipulating the appearance of reality was much more useful than reality itself - as long as everyone in his region thought he was a tough guy that the world's most powerful nations took seriously, then he was just that, and not the sad loser egotist mass murderer that dangled from a rope 18 months ago.

Even after the invasion and deposal of Saddam, Iraq could have worked out, but the US led operation failed at the planning stage because there was no really well thought-out plan fro what would happen after the invasion. The idea that it would be seen as a liberation was seductive but nonsensical, and after that dream turned to dust Rumsfeld & co showed remarkable consistency in choosing the wrong options. Disbanding the Iraqi army, de-Ba'athification when the entire Iraqi national infrasturcture and administrative set-up was Ba'athist; these are not an honest mistakes, they're stupid mistakes.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

Blair lied, yes. Bush? Well, I think he more fudged the truth to suit his own purposes. Not quite the same. And if the prosecution of the war following direct military engagements and the deposal of Saddam had gone well, and Iraq was now a peaceful and stable place (whether or not it was a democracy as well is irrelevant), we wouldn't much care why we went in to begin with. It would be merely an historical curiosity.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

There is a follow up piece answering that very question. The president just didn't care. This response is consistant to what I've been reading in Tenet's book, Ron Suskind's book, Richard Clarke's book, Sy Hersh's reports and a few others. This is stovepiping 101 primarily through the defunct OSP office, and currently through the Iranian Directorate. Here are presidentially created offices which allow a by-pass of normal vetting routes of intelligence which are useful if you don't want someone providing a contrary opinion.

Emphasis mine.


Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?


There was a personal vendetta focusing around regime change. The president had an agenda and simply framed whatever intelligence at his disposal towards his goals as Joe Wilson has repeatedly pointed out.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

The best term would be fraud, and with issues with deception mean that time is not on his side. The more time that passes, the more that is revealed about his Napoleon Complex. Unfortunately since several bills were passed giving the president authourity to pursue terror suspects across the globe, one cannot be critical of Bush without being critical of congress. None are legal or binding in my opinion.

Edited: If you do agree with the premise of fabrication, you might want to visit Quarkhead's post. He questions the ethics of covert propaganda for political gain, not specifically wmd but in a more generalized way.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

Who knows what Bush personally believed? The man is a cretin. The question is, what did Cheney and the other people with brains in the BA believe? It was fairly clear to most people at the time (not most Americans, I admit) that this was fundamentally an imperialist project, with little to do with WMD or democratization. That is even more obvious today.

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?

It has proven unfortunately easy to sell imperialist wars to the American people on the basis that they are necessary for self-defense, or democracy or whatever. There is always a Hitler du jour, for example. It is really quite remarkable that the long series of U.S. bully-boy confrontations will minor powers around this planet is considered by the American people to be a heroic example of the defense of freedom. The rest of the world knows otherwise, but Americans remain certain that worldwide detestation of the United States is utterly irrational.

I think that the ruling elites in the United States were not necessarily unified in the belief that the war was necessary or good, but they commonly (and incorrectly) perceived that if it was going to happen, it would be a good thing for them. It was taken for granted that Iraq and its oil would fall under American control (something that in fact failed to happen, of course), with great benefit to the power and wealth of all these elements. That fully explains the compliant press and the seeming craven submissiveness of the "opposition" politicians. In that context, this war on any pretext would have been very difficult to oppose.

So while WMDs made it easier to sell the war, I think they could have sold it anyway. Hell, they could sell the invasion of Canada to the flag-waving buffoons that constitute their core support.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

What difference does it make? And what "possibility of success" exists under Bush's leadership in any case? But yes, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, they all lied like the lying dogs they are. We war opponents knew at the time, or were very confident, that they were lying. We were shouting that from the street corners, but it didn't stop the war or stop the proto-fascists from calling us unpatriotic. So here we are five years and 100,000 dead Iraqis later, not to mention U.S. costs and casualites, and they're still lying to make it appear that the miserable situation they got us into is going to turn out all right if only we keep up our military occupation for a few more years -- most particularly until the principal wrongdoers have left office.

Yes, indeed it has.

The CIA refused to participate in the scheme to arbitrarily invade Iraq .

Having been rejected by Tenet , the neocrazies approached and took over the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. The scam was exposed by USAF Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski .

And guess what she has NEVER been interviewed by the national media. The misdeed has been perpetrated with impunity.

My questions:

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.
I think Bush knew (as did the rest of the world) that Saddam's regime had used WMD's in the past. Bush also knew that Saddam's regime was not cooperating fully in addressing the doubts about the status of their WMD program. Bush also knew that there was a lot of Oil for Food money going into Iraq that wasn't being spent on food. Thus, he had no reason to believe that Iraq was WMD free.

Furthermore, "evidence" from Iraq's foreign minister is going to be considered by any rational individual as about as reliable as combat prognostications from Baghdad Bob. Sorry, just the way it is, Mrs P. explains why in depth.

Finally, we have more timely reports from a senior Iraqi military official (AF general) who claims that the WMD's were relocated to Syria during our run-up. Credible? I dunno.

Now, consider that the vials of phosgene recently discovered in the UN came from Iraq.

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?
Well, as for a "legal" basis, you have the following:

• Support for international terrorism.
• Failure to comply with the string of UN resolutions.
• Repeated violation of the No Fly (and No Shoot at our Aircraft) Zones.

In addition to those, you have the practical matter of "draining the swamp." While many will point to other swamps in the region that could do for some draining, neither Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen nor Iran had really given us enough legal, as opposed to realpolitik, reason for doing so. Iran is doing so now.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.
No, he didn't "lie us into war", he led us into another front in a war that the enemy had been fighting for decades, and we were finally deciding to focus on fighting back. Bush has not, by my estimation, lost credibility on this subject. (Immigration is another matter entirely.) Bush's critics on the war come in two varieties. Those who don't believe there's any reason to fight, and those who disagree with the way Bush is fighting it. The former have zero, zilch, no credibility whatsoever. They have as much credibility as John Kerry when he said that the people of Vietnam wouldn't suffer as a result of the American withdrawal. The latter, well, the jury's still out. We know that the Bush Administration has made mistakes in the prosecution of the war in Iraq, just as we know that the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon Administrations made mistakes in Southeast Asia, Truman and Eisenhower made mistakes in Korea, Roosevelt and Truman made mistakes in World War Two, Wilson made mistakes in World War One, T. Roosevelt made mistakes in the Phillipines, McKinley made mistakes in the Spanish-American War, Lincoln during the War Between the States, etc, etc, all the way back to General George Washington making mistakes during the Revolutionary War. We also know that fewer Allied casualties were suffered in effecting the "regime change", i.e. removing Saddam's government from power, than were suffered in the practice for the Normandy invasion!

That's probably because she is already a journalist, and has written several pieces for the mainstream media. And I think she was the informant for Seymour Hersh as well? If so, she was "interviewed" as an anonymous source. She is a Lt Col, not a Colonel, BTW. At the Pentagon Lt Colonels fetch coffee.

Edited to add: I'll add (since I'm sure it will come up) that I am not asserting that Ms Kwiatkowski is uncredible. I am placing her perspective in context, from her vantage point. She wasn't privy to insider information at these "special plans" meetings, her observations came from the outside as an office worker. It would be similar to information obtained about area 51 from a "source" who could only stand outside the gate with a camera. Interesting (maybe) and slightly informative, but a very tiny view with little perspective.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

The problem with proving a negative is that it can't be done. Maybe there were WMD in Iraq, and with the broad definition of WMD, there actually were. The weapons were unusable, but that's good enough for some people. Saddam had the potential of building usable WMD, and that's good enough for some people. There was circumstantial evidence of WMD, and that's good enough for some people.

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?

I was against the liberation of Iraq in the first place, but the shotgun reasoning approach to the military action allowed for justifications beyond WMD threat to the US homeland. We've heard it all before: Saddam was a stinker; he liked to kill and torture his people; he funded terrorism; he had links to AQ; the Iraqi's will greet us as liberators; democracy, and more importantly, capitalism will flourish there and eventually throughout the region. I didn't believe a word of it.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

I think our government lies to us all the time. I can use words like disinform, propagandize, mislead, tell half-truths, sell the idea and a bunch of others because I keep a Roget's Thesaurus within reach. Webster's lets you use one online, but I like the old one that organizes words by concepts. The basic concept of government is to keep the truth under wraps. You don't want to know the truth. You can't handle the truth -- best ever political line in a movie.

The Iraq war was indeed a mission accomplished, a slam-dunk and a credit to our armed services. The aftermath failed, and in pluperfect hindsight, we can see why. After the military succeeded, our politicians failed at nearly every turn. Oh, we saw elections over there. A parliamentary government was formed. Some basic infrastructures were rebuilt, but nothing was enough. Many predictions came true, to the dismay of this administration. The predictions were not all accurate to the minute detail, and for some that's enough reason to discredit them and any future warnings about making war for preemptive reasons, which had been known as the Bush Doctrine and debated (before I knew about this site). Things got pretty heated about justifying a preemptive strike on another country.

Yeah, well I didn't believe a word of it. So what. The country was primed to swallow entire elephants, and it did. This is not the first time, and I'm sure not the last, that our government lied to us and got us into a messy, expensive, deadly and obnoxiously long quagmire. If you notice the time period between the end of Vietnam (1973) and the start of the Iraq liberation (2003), thirty years had passed. That's more than a generation, and so there you go.

The lessons learned from Vietnam faded into history, and so the mistakes were done again, just with somewhat different circumstances. History rhymes, as Twain liked to say.

One can see the backlash regarding the invasion of Iran. Few people believe what GWB has to say or the members of his administration. More people are trying to discern the truth beneath the propaganda. The realities of failure in Iraq come home to tell their stories, also word of successes. The debates go on whether this has been worth it, but to sell another preemptive invasion of another country is impossible, by my estimation. The Supreme Salesman sold us a lemon, so we want a different Supreme Salesman.

Meanwhile, terrorism needs to be controlled. If this is truly a war, as some like to call it, then taxes will likely rise:

Top US Tax Rates 1916 - 2011 PDF

Notice the rates for the war years. That's what happens in a real war, so either stop calling the GWoT a war or tax the hell out of the upper brackets. Also stop calling it the War in Iraq. It's a nation-building project that includes bombs and bullets, sort of like trying to rebuild a running engine while falling from 30,000 feet. Theoretically it might be done given enough miracle boxes in the project plan. I suggest wearing one or more 'chutes. Put a bail-out decision box in the plan.

(1) Was there any evidence that Saddam was suicidal? NO

(2) Was there any evidence that Saddam was a radical Muslim? No.

(3) Was there any evidence that Saddam prefered to be making love to his mistresses
than to be engaging in war? Yes.

(4) Assuming, that Saddam had WMD's how the flock was he going to deliver them to
the Continental US? Dunno. Iraq had No air force.


So gents the "negative" has been proven. But we have also shown in this thread that the WMD issue was merely a subterfuge.

You'd be making a great case if it weren't for the fact that your WMD from Iraq is probably just an industrial solvent. But it is not phosgene.

I think you've just been terrorized by Windex of Mass Destruction.

Please give us a break here. Did you read the story??? Here is the key phrase:

“Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle,”

Do you remember the Foreign Minister on TV?? Did this man ever speak the truth?

The Tennant “slam dunk” comment came after this and CIA/Tennant agreed with the rest of the world that Saddam did have the WMD he admitted to having made and for witch no proof has ever been uncovered to verify he destroyed squat.

This story deliberately distorts the facts and implies Tennant agreed with the Iraqi – nothing could be further from the truth.

“I don't think that the administration "manipulated" intelligence with regard to Iraq's WMD. The bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, the so-called Robb-Silberman commission, found no evidence of political pressure by the White House to get the intelligence community to reach the conclusions it did. “

All voices from all sides -- if they could be called sides -- echoed the same conclusion. Governments and militarists argued that the Iraq's and Iran's and North Korea's and China's were ever more frightening and potent threats and that nothing should be spared to fight the threat and the spread. Peaceniks and professional arms controllers and United Nations do-gooders argued that not enough was being done: that government commitment wasn't strong enough, that budgets weren't big enough, that intelligence wasn't good enough, that action wasn't strong enough. This was the universal truth. When bombs hit Baghdad on the night of March 19, 2003, they rode on a non-partisan midless WMD beam”
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarnin...wmd_stupid.html



.
“

Actually, nothing has been proved about the non-existence of WMD in Iraq. The WMD may still be somewhere -- it's a big country, and like all land masses, could have underground facilities. And then there's the idea that they all got sent to Syria before the liberation, which if I were a despot without an air force and with a Texan cowboy after my head as a trophy [bad prose due to profanity filter-hit avoidance], I might do.

The only thing that can be said about the buildup to Iraq is that the administration was wrong about knowing exactly where the WMD were, which of course begged the question: Why don't we just attack those sites? Contain the despicable despot until the population of Iraq decides to string him up by his toes. Well, we weren't asking those questions, or at least a lot of us weren't. It occurred to me -- a lot of good that did -- had the same effect as a sparrow stomping a foot at the rising sun and hollering, "Stop!"

Anyway, the burden of proof is a lot heavier when trying to prove a negative. That's just the nature of argumentation.

For example, here's a premise: All snowflakes are never exactly alike. Good luck on proving that point. But if research comes up with two snowflakes that are alike, then the premise falls apart. So this premise is easier to prove: Two snowflakes could be alike. You can do research on that, create snowflake comparison machines and continue searching. A similar negative that's hard to prove is that UFOs don't exist. Actually, given the size of the Universe, I'd say that's not only impossible to prove but downright arrogant.

Ergo, WMD could still be in Iraq. The search continues probably, or maybe not. I don't know. It doesn't seem to matter at this point.

I'm really appalled at the fact that there are intelligent liberals who are sticking to the same Michael Moore talking points. It's absurd really.

I'll have to say that if we knew Saddam had WMD's, that he'd used them, that terrorists learned to fly planes into buildings even after being on FBI watch lists, and if inspectors weren't allowed unfettered access... deduction would tell you alone that there was something fishy going on.

People keep making statements about 'vendettas' and what Bush did (Bush lied people died mess...).
I think it's absurd for an adult intelligent enough to seek out a debate site like this to stick to that mess.

I feel with 100% assuredness that people who have said if we believed there weren't WMD's, we'd have planted them. The CIA is the most accomplished and powerful agency in the world (or darn close). We could've worked that one out.

Did they get moved? Were they sold? It could've happened 5 days or 5 months before the invasion... heck, 5 years. It doesn't matter. Saddam would've never been past selling them to someone who was a direct threat nor would he be past using them himself.

The conundrum comes in that what now? No one knows. The resemblance in Iraq to Vietnam is that silly civilians and ignorant Americans believe that they have the answer. It's funny to me. People call AC techs to fix their AC's, Plumbers to fix their plumbing, etc... but somehow believe that the occupation of a nation is within their grasp. That the media's 1/2 way stories are objective and show the reality. Americans that have never fought one day in their lives believe they understand what our military has or has not accomplished in Iraq. It's retarded. Literally retarded...

Here's been my issue with the WMD controversy. It doesn't center around WMD's themselves, that material could have been moved just prior to the invasion. My issue is that after having been on the ground since 2003, we have not uncovered any facility that could have reasonably stored or manufactured WMD recently. Not to mention that we have yet to find any technicians, functionaries or even janitors who claim to have worked in any said facility.
We all know that the Hussein regime has used and has manufactured WMD's........what we don't have is any proof that he did so in any recent years leading up to the invasion.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.
Commonly as the old saw goes the wish is father to the thought. I think Bush believed in that sense. But the case for disingenuousness is clear:
1. An important official in the Iraqi government, Sabri, told them there were no WMDs and the CIA officers were able to provide a high level of validation to his assertions. The straight evidence was hidden from key gov. authorities including the American Congress and Tony Blair and twisted to make it comform to an invasion agenda.

2. It still remains impossible for me to imagine how pulling out UN inspectors, who had had a spectacular record in running down WMDs earlier, and who were free to go anywhere and follow up any lead given to them could be associated with a desire to find WMDs. It only made sense if you wanted to invade. The Security Council was even prepared to increase the number of inspectors.

3. We have the report of the British officials who after talking with key BA officials said the evidence was "fixed" for an invasion.

4. We have a number of off the record quotes from CIA operatives at the time that the decision had been made to invade and that job security meant to get with the program.

5. It appears clear that Cheney and Rumsfeld set up an intelligence rump group in the Pentagon closely allied with Iraqi war promoter Challabi whose purpose was to find evidence of WMDs.

6. Evidence which had already been vetted and discounted was nevertheless still pushed, ex. Curveballs testimony, the aluminum tubing and the African yellow cake.

7. Right after 911, before the evidence had come in, plans were discussed by top BA officials to invade Iraq.

8. The administration was populated by neocon folks who had openly stated(Read PNAC statement) they wanted to engage in proactive efforts to force regime changes in the ME. O'Neil and other insiders have said from the early days Iraq was on the front burner.

9. George Tennet claims the BA officials have been disingenuous in relying on his "slam dunk" comment about WMDs to justify the invasion. You can take it with a grain of salt or take it straight but he claims he was simply saying that a better argument could be made for WMDs, not that there were any.

10. Both Powell and Rice, not long before 911, are on the record as saying Saddam had been effectively disarmed.

I'm not claiming any big conspiracy here. I'm just saying that the BA had an agenda and when 911 happened it provided them with the opportunity to pursue it.

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?
Absolutely not. We had Saddam contained and he was no threat to this country. Obviously the Israelis had some concerns because he was aiding Hamas. But that was essentially Israel's concern and despite what some may think, Israel is not part of the USA.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

I think he misled us into war. He couldn't sell PNAC as a basis for invasion but he could sell WMDs and Al Qaeda connections. He chose conveniently to believe the latter even though it was not compelled by the good evidence.

Any CEO of any half decent company if he had Bush's track record would have been canned a long time ago. I have nothing personal against the guy but as far as politics I think his credibility and leadership have been damaged pretty much beyond repair.

A curious sidelight to this is when 3 times he had the opportunity to take out Zarqawi(Remember Al Qaeda in Iraq?), who was in American occupied Kurdistan, he withheld action because he thought, apparently, the publicity would distract from the invasion. Talk about ironies!

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

No, he believed there was a strong possibility Saddam had WMD, there were many indicators including Saddam giving weapon inspectors trouble. He probably had the weapons up until late 2002, before shipping them to Syria. However the whole idea behind looking for them was to find out for sure, because we weren't sure, obviously.

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion? If so, on what basis?

Yes, and on the basis of Saddam Hussein. He couldn't have been ignored without it leading to events similar to those that occurred in the late 80's and early 90's. Our main objective always was taking Saddam out and stabilizing Iraq anyway, locating WMD was a secondary objective and this was made clear from the get go.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use. If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

Lied? No I don't think he lied to take us to war, he didn't have to. Even people like Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, and Ted Kennedy said Saddam was a big threat, and they supported this war at the time, and he was a threat. Perhaps more to the region than to us directly but a crazed murderer like that needs to be taken down at the first sign of trouble given his history of violence.

I finished the War on Terror post I've been working on for hours over the last 3 weeks finally, I just need to proof read it. I decided to post it on 9/11 however. It will go over WMD and Saddam in more detail than I did here, As well as several other War on Terror topics. Hopefully one thing it will do is clear up any confusion some have about what our objectives and intentions were in 2003 when we decided to go to war with Iraq. I'm under the impression from a number of forums and from a number of people I know that many in America believe that originally the primary goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to find WOMD, and the idea to liberate Iraq came later on in Bushes attempt to keep this war going on longer, but I have some sources that should put that one to rest I hope.

From your link:

Tests of chemicals removed from the offices of United Nations came back negative for the deadly nerve gas phosgene, two law enforcement sources told WNBC.com.

From a journalistic standpoint, that paragraph is pure garbage. The "law enforcement sources" are not identified...anywhere in the article, a heck of an omission given the topic of the article. Furthermore, the lead again mischaracterizes the nature of phosgene. It is not a nerve agent, and any marginally competent reporter would know that by now, given how many times "the media" has been corrected on the matter. What are the vials? Heck if I know, but nothing worthwhile has been reported.

No and neither did the CIA, the Congress and the Inel services of majot EU countries or the UN






Exactly. The WMD Saddam claimed to have (illegally) destroyed but could never prove he did (including tons of VX and 8,500 liters of anthrax) could have been moved out of country just prior to the invasion. William Butler, former head inspector thinks this could have happened.

As for manufacturing new WMD I agree that Iraq would have had to re build the capability to do that – but given the expertise in country and as the ISG said this would not have been difficult.

Needless to say the war would never have begun if the issue could have been resolved and Iraq had proof that they destroyed the very WMD thay admitted to having produced after being shown their own documents by the UM. It never happened.

“Baghdad's determination to hold on to a sizeable remnant of its WMD arsenal, agents, equipment, and expertise has led to years of dissembling and obstruction of U.N. inspections. Elite Iraqi security services orchestrated an extensive concealment and deception campaign to hide incriminating documents and material that precluded r Only under sustained pressure from U.N. weapons inspectors did Iraq's declarations of its weapons and stockpiles become more accurate.

Even so, according to the CIA report: "Iraq has never fully accounted for major gaps and inconsistencies in its declarations and has provided no credible proof that it has completely destroyed its weapons stockpiles esolution of key issues pertaining to its WMD programs.

there is powerful evidence, from multiple sources, that Iraq possesses a stockpile of chemical agents that probably includes VX, sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard gas. Moreover, it is highly likely that Iraq has concealed chemical precursors, production equipment, and documentation necessary to sustain its chemical weapons programs. At least two significant pieces of public evidence support this contention. One is a 1998 Iraqi Air Force document, discovered by UNSCOM, showing that Iraq overstated by at least 6,000 the number of chemical bombs it claimed to have used during the Iran-Iraq War — in other words, an attempt to hide these bombs from outside discovery. The second, according to the October 2002 CIA report, is that Iraq has never accounted for approximately 15,000 artillery rockets that were the primary means for delivering nerve agents, or for 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas.
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/iraq/threat.htm

All I said was that is was theoretically possible that WMD could have been moved. You quoted my post, but said nothing about where those storage facilites were that would have recently had said WMD. Nothing about manufacturing facilites, nor any employees that would have worked at either type of facility.

This is so well documented I didn’t this I had to discuss. Iraq had thousands of people working in WMD research, Development and production and in 1991 we destroyed many tons of same. We destroyed lots of equipment as well. We did the same for his nuclear program.

We then found thousands of pages of data that showed that the WMD destroyed was not all that was manufactured. Iraq at this time had keep nice detailed paper records and we got lots of it (but not all).

Iraq then admitted to having produced more than we destroyed and later claimed to have “destroyed” the stockpiles. When asked for proof they claimed they destroyed the poof as well as the WMD. No one believed this. Not Butler, Ritter, Blix, Clinton the CIA, or the intel services of most countries.

Thus the UN resolution that lead to the war 1441.

Here is what Butler said about WMD capability of Iraq in 1998.

"The fact is that Iraq created a quantity and quality of weapons of
mass destruction that, when one thinks of the size of the industrial
base, etc., was virtually unique, breathtaking in its scope and its
danger to its region and population beyond," Butler said.


"The Security Council was right in recognizing that fact and setting
up a mechanism to deal with that problem," said Butler, who is an
Australian disarmament expert.”

"Is Iraq being singled out? Yes; because, after all, it was unique,"
Butler said.


"In another sense Iraq is a test case...for the view that is advanced
by most people in the civilized world -- certainly by most member
states of the United Nations and the Security Council itself: Will the
21st century be marked by ever more increasing weapons of mass
destruction."


"The answer is a resounding no,"


Later Ritter and others testified to Congress about WMD, and WMD programs and capabilities still in Iraq in 1998 – Clinton bombed etc.


In 2002-03 the info was essentially the same as 1998. Iraq still claimed the WMD were destroyed and had no proof – not even records of money that would
have been spent to accomplish this. Needless to say few believed him and certainly not our CIA or Bush.

http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/s/990125/dis-chem.htm


March 15 2003 report: Iraqi non-compliance with UNSCR

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1472502,00.html

The attached material assesses Iraqi progress in complying with relevant provisions of UNSCR 1441 with illustrative examples.

"It seems highly probable that destruction of bulk agent, including anthrax, stated by Iraq to be at AI Hakam in July/August 1991, did not occur. Based on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and may still exist

Failure to account for material unaccounted for when UNSCOM were forced to withdraw from Iraq in 1998: for example, what happened to up to 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, including 300 tonnes unique (in the Iraqi programme) to the production of VX nerve agent? UNSCOM estimated that quantities of undeclared growth media could have produced: 3-11,000 litres of botulinum toxin; 6-16,000 litres of anthrax, and 5,600 litres of clostridium perfringens. (Amorim and Butler reports, 1999)

According to Dr El-Baradei (IAEA written report, 27 January) the Declaration "does not include, however, additional information related to the questions and concerns" outstanding since 1998.

That's all well and good Ted, but where are any technicians or employees that can show the Exploitation Task Force (oh thats been stood down....) where these recent storage facilties were, how the WMD's were moved out of Iraq, and where they are now. Or if its still in country, where is it?
Face it, we've had four years, we've combed the country, theoritcally would have run across some shred of proof or person who could corroborate the continued or very recent stockpile of WMD.

Needless to say if we had the info on exactly where they are we would have them or at least know what country they are in.


The best guess, with some gossip attached is Syria: I have a Lebanese friend with family there who said that was the strong rumor after the fall of Baghdad.

Did Saddam’s WMD Go to Syria? Part I
Flopping Aces ^ | 06-18-07 | Scott Malensek
Posted on 06/18/2007 8:36:07 PM PDT by Starman417
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1852520/posts


As the inspectors have told us all of it would fit in to a couple of tractor trailer trucks. Needless to say, and as noted in the ISG report, no one associated with the WMD program is talking a lot since they fear (rightly) the UN war crimes folks.

Some day we may learn what happened – may being the operative word.

As I have said before I think Bush was an idiot to begin the attack on Iraq without knowing exactly where they were. The assertion by Tenant that it was a slam dunk (that they were there) notwithstanding.

In the battle of memories Tenant is critical of the administrations use of his line "slam dunk" which he now claims was not employed to give the invasion operational validity but simply to offer that a strong case could be made for WMDs. Call it nuance but Tenant is adamant that his use of that expression as a green light justification for an invasion was a gross misuse.

Some of his thoughts on the slam dunk are included here but what is more interesting and relevant to my thread is Tenant's comment that by some time in 2002 it was clear that a policy was in place that was highly resistant to any change due to additional information.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1615839,00.html

Excuse me but the so-called weapon inspectors were CIA Agents.

Back in 1999, major papers ran front-page investigative stories revealing that the CIA had covertly used U.N. weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq for the U.S.'s own intelligence purposes. "United States officials said today that American spies had worked undercover on teams of United Nations arms inspectors," the New York Times reported (1/7/99). According to the Washington Post (3/2/99), the U.S. "infiltrated agents and espionage equipment for three years into United Nations arms control teams in Iraq to eavesdrop on the Iraqi military without the knowledge of the U.N. agency." Undercover U.S. agents "carried out an ambitious spying operation designed to penetrate Iraq's intelligence apparatus and track the movement of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to U.S. and U.N. sources," wrote the Boston Globe (1/6/99).

At first, U.S. officials tried to deny them, but as more details emerged, "spokesmen for the CIA, Pentagon, White House and State Department declined to repeat any categorical denials" (Washington Post, 3/2/99). By the spring of 1999, the UNSCOM spying reported by the papers was accepted as fact by other outlets, and even defended; "Experts say it is naive to believe that the United States and other governments would not have used the opportunity presented by the U.N. commission to spy on a country that provoked the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and that has continued to tangle with U.S. and British forces," USA Today reported (3/3/99).

Who cares what he says now. No he does not “justify” anything but his statement was used to do that by Congress and he was referring to WMD in Iraq and not a basketball game.

My point is Bush should have held he feet to the fire and not gone in until we knew exactly where they were and that they had not left the country.




Well of course it was “unfinished business” – as in UN Resolutions including 1441. Do you remember the lead up to the war? UN resolutions not met no compliance and the SC dithering about when, if ever, they would vote to use force – France’s delays. Certainly by this time it was clear to all Iraq would not comply with 1441 as it had not with all the other Resolutions going back 11 years.

Sooner or later someone was going to either act or walk away. Bush chose to act and the Congress agreed based on Intel from Tenant and others.

The BA had no info WMD were not in Iraq and neither did anyone else – certainly not CIA – and Mr. Tenant

Some in the higher levels of the administration may have believed that they would find a few left over chemical weapons in Iraq that that they could point to after the invasion as technical violations. No one with real power believed that Saddam posed a real WMD threat to the US or the region. The real motive was control of oil. Paul O'Neil, Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury, made it clear in his 2004 book that Bush officials were busy divvying up Iraqi oil long before 9/11. Numerous other analyst have concluded the same thing. Now, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, has concluded mater of factly that the Iraq aggression was and is about oil.

See This Discussion of the Subject and [email="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece"]This Article[/email].

*sarcasm*
Well since we're nearing 4000 dead US Soldiers and by some counts 40 trillion dead Iraqi babies - when will we have control of the oil?

How many dead babies does it take to control ther oil and thus have gas cost me .25USD/gallon? Give me the number and lets make it happen.
*/sarcasm*

One sentence out of a 531 page book...

BaphometsAdvocate, sarcasm is only effective when you're holding someone up to ridicule to an audience that largely agrees with your position. Unfortunately, I think you've lost your audience.

Your followup reaction from Greenspan is interesting but only illustrates his own willingness to commit acts of agression for economic gain. In no way does it indicate that oil wasn't the major factor for the invasion, only that official knew it couldn't be discussed openly because it lacked popular support.

Your sarcasm regarding dead Iraqi children is beyond the limits of reasonably discussion!

You're quite right. All we need to do is look at the primary source, Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack:


It was at that point that Bush turned to Tenet:


This has been interpreted to mean, in context, that convincing Joe Public was the "slam dunk". Woodward puts the entire conversation in the context of marketing, of presentation - will Joe Public buy the pitch on the basis of underwhelming evidence? And Woodward has not contradicted this interpretation. But is that enough? Well, reading on, it becomes clear exactly what "case" is being discussed. President Bush tells us himself:


It doesn't matter what Tenet may have meant by "slam dunk". What matters is what President Bush was looking for. Bush is not talking about gathering more intelligence to prove Hussein has WMD, he's talking about putting together "a slam dunk case" to convince the Joe Public that we have a reason to invade. The meaning of the conversation is clear - and it's not that the president had confidence in the CIA presentation. It is patently obvious that George W Bush himself was not convinced by the available evidence: it didn't work, it wasn't compelling - it was a flop. Yet, on the basis of that evidence, he sold the WMD story to the public.

The fact is, the White House didn't care whether Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or not. All they cared about was selling the invasion to Congress and the public.

Do you think Bush believed there were no WMDs or should have believed there were no WMDs in Iraq before the invasion? Explain.

I don't think he knew one way or the other - and I don't think he cared one way or the other. There was no compelling case to prove that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and there was no compelling case to demonstrate that he had destroyed his stockpile of weapons. It didn't matter. The White House was determined to invade Iraq

Assuming they knew there were no WMDs do you still think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion?

I don't think they would have been justified in going ahead with the invasion even if there were WMD.

Do you think Bush lied to take us into war? If not, what word would you use.

I don't know if he consciously lied or not. I wouldn't put it past him. I do think he cherry-picked and slanted intelligence in order to convince us that there was a case to be made for invading Iraq. I have no idea whether he believed any of it himself or not. So I wouldn't necessarily use "lie", but I would definitely use "weasel".

If so, do you think his loss of credibility removes the possibility of success under his leadership? Explain.

I think the possibility of success under his leadership is more hampered by incompetence and mismanagement, both of which also contribute to his lack of credibility.



That's still all well and good, Ted, but you're still not addressing DTOM's point. If WMD had been smuggled out of the country, there would be evidence of it having been in the country. There would have been storage facilities from which it was transported. There would have been manufacturing facilities from which the storage facilities would have been filled. There would have been people working at such manufacturing and storage facilities. None of the above have been found. If there had been a recent stockpile of weapons or weapons material transported from the country, at least some of the above would have been found by now.

By the way, did your Lebanese friend's cousin's neighbor tell you the one about the poodle in the microwave?

Sorry I don’t buy your whole argument. Esp. when Bush says no stretches to make our case. And you are saying that is exactly what he is doing?!

And looking at the Tenant comment it is clear to me he is speaking of the WMD but does it matter? If the reason for invasion is WMD and Tenant says “Slam Dunk’ how do you interpret that to mean anything else but that he is confidant that they are there? You can torture the words all you like but changing the meaning will not fly.

And certainly if Bush was looking for justification and asking for “NO stretches to make our case” he did not want Tenant to lie. So all we have is a CIA with the same intel all the other services had (French, German, etc) and the same info Clinton believed to be true and Blix, Butler, Ritter ……..

And you want me to buy Bush hyped it. Give me a break please.



How many damn times do I have to answer this. Did you ever bother to read my posts? There was thousands of pages of proof Saddam produced the WMD and lots of what he produced (and ADMITTED to having produced) was unaccounted for – THUS UN 1441.

Please read the history before making silly statements sir.

Sadly on this board, no it isn't and your tenous grasp of sarcasm aside - if oil was the reason the US attacked Iraq then where are the spoils? Is it the 80USD/barrel prices? Or is it the collapsing US Auto industry who, in cahoots with BushCo decided to build giant SUVs since the oil was going to flow forever? Oh I know, the oil companies who made record profits. Yes of course! Bush is an oil man, he went to WAR so some of his friends could make money and duped the entire US Population and US Government - to say nothing of the Brits and Australians to do it. Of course Bush is busy letting offall the bastrds that are making money off this Iraq thing! Oh wait...

The point is, you haven't answered the question. Your posts in response have sidestepped the question to which you are referring. Does it not bother you to stand by the statement that Hussein had the stockpiles of WMD used to justify the invasion, yet 0 storage, manufacturing, processing or transit facilities have been uncovered, or any employees, pay stubs, training manuals or company picnic flyers have come forward?
We know that he produced and used them in the past. Got it. Point driven home. Where is the proof that drove the invasion train?

I have answered the question numerous times. It is well documented that Iraq had thousands of people working in Chem, Bio, and nuclear WMD programs. He had a massive infrastructure and this is why the man who headed the inspections and was there longer than any other said this – which I posted for you
:

"As you listen to Iraq's propaganda keep your eye on the ball: what is
at issue here is disarmament," he said.


"The fact is that Iraq created a quantity and quality of weapons of
mass destruction that, when one thinks of the size of the industrial
base, etc., was virtually unique, breathtaking in its scope and its
danger to its region and population beyond," Butler said.


"The Security Council was right in recognizing that fact and setting
up a mechanism to deal with that problem," said Butler, who is an
Australian disarmament expert.


"Is Iraq being singled out? Yes; because, after all, it was unique,"
Butler said.


Is this not self explanatory? All we were looking for could have fit in a good sized 3 car garage – yet it could have killed millions. So the questions are where did the missing WMD go to and how did they get there or did Saddam inexplicably destroy them. And if he did he did it, as you say without “any employees, pay stubs, training manuals or company picnic flyers have come forward”.

If fact Blix asked this very question when Saddam said he destroyed the WMD – and got no answer.


If you want more DON”T read Bush – read Butler, Blix, and the testimony of Ritter to Congress after he was tossed in 1998. Then tell me he had no WMD – Oh and then convince Clinton who was confident enough that he had plenty to bomb Iraq.

More here.

Butler noted that it has been eight years since UN inspections
programs for Iraq began. "In practical terms," he said, "this has
meant that the job of disarming Iraq, which should have taken a year,
is still not complete."

After the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq was to disclose fully all nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons programs and the means of
manufacturing them. Baghdad was also prohibited from holding,
acquiring or manufacturing missiles that could fly more that 150
kilometers.

Instead of complying, Iraq embarked on a policy of making false
declarations about its weapons and materials. It divided its illegal
weapons in two, Butler said, one portion it revealed to the U.N.
inspectors and the other it concealed.

And here is some of the testimony of Blix to the UN:

On 7th of December, 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441………….


Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that will eliminate the questions or reduce their number

I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered, and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.
The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said that the agent was never weaponized.

Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponized.

I turn to biological weapons. I mention the issue of anthrax to the council on previous occasions, and I come back to it as it is an important one. Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.
Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared and that at least some of this was retained over the declared destruction date. It might still exist.

Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was indeed destroyed in 1991

The Iraqi side suggested that the problem of verifying the quantities of anthrax and two VX-precursors, which had been declared unilaterally destroyed, might be tackled through certain technical and analytical methods. Although our experts are still assessing the suggestions, they are not very hopeful that it could prove possible to assess the quantities of material poured into the ground years ago. Documentary evidence and testimony by staff that dealt with the items still appears to be needed.

Not least against this background, a letter of 12 February from Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate may be of relevance. It presents a list of 83 names of participants "in the unilateral destruction in the chemical field, which took place in the summer of 1991." As the absence of adequate evidence of that destruction has been and remains an important reason why quantities of chemicals have been deemed "unaccounted for," the presentation of a list of persons who can be interviewed about the actions appears useful and pertains to cooperation on substance. I trust that the Iraqi side will put together a similar list of names of persons who participated in the unilateral destruction of other proscribed items, notably icy the biological field.

Believe it or not words do require context. They don't drag their context along with them. "Slam dunk, we can sell the Iraq has WMDs case to Joe Public" is different from "slam dunk, we have enough certainty to go in." Tenant adamantly insists on the distinction and as Wertz quite correctly points out the follow up to the WMD matter was one of selling the WMDs rather than establishing their validity, which kind of makes Tenants case about the BA's public misuse of his comment.


This is inaccurate and misleading. Some of these folks, entities had disagreements with the CIA intel and some agreed because the CIA was their source. As far as stretching, it wasn't necessary. Cherry picking only things that served your case was quite sufficient, with some indifference to the source if it was Challabi and the INC. I call that a version of lying.



Beside it being nonresponsive to Wertz' and DTOM's point Ted you keep insisting that because some paperwork was not forthcoming from Saddam on destroying WMDs therefore they were around and must have been spirited out of the country. Why you insist they couldn't have been destroyed much earlier without the proper recording paper work remains a mystery accept for your need to justify a proinvasion agenda. Even with all the paper work, inspectors presumably would have been necessary to prove the "proof of destruction" wasn't falsely manufactured. It's your old "prove a negative(ie you don't have WMDs) or we have a right to invade you" argument. Following your kind of standard, preemptive war would be a constant everywhere.

Nonsense – where is the context you claim? Bush specifically says without streaching? Get it. And there is no need to “hype” WMD since the whole world believed he had them including lots of Dems. So he meant what he said and has said since. He believed Iraq had stockpiles of WMD.




“cherry picking – come on please LOOK at what I posted above – not ONE WORD of which was uttered by GWB – this is the intel and background in 2003. So if you want to imaging that Bush just made it all up please address all those other statements above since they are the basis for most positions at the time.




They could have been destroyed – I find it hard to believe that a man who did not fulfill a single UN resolution in 11 years could have done that but it is certainly possible – and you know what – if he had he would have been able to PROVER IT and them there would have been NO war. That is why I don’t believe it Dingo.