Bush's predominate belief based on the hard evidence should have been one of strong doubt. And therefore he should have shown restraint and continued the inspections. Once again I didn't say "he should have known." Anyway you are just offering the same old same old, to what purpose I don't know.

I think you sum it up well. After reaffirming your prove-a-negative nonsense you conclude with "I will never believe the fairy tail that a dictator who never complied with a singe UN resolution just destroyed tones of WMD for the hell of it – and all the proof of same with it.

Never happened."

I seriously doubt you can establish that he never complied with "a single resolution" whatever that means. For America, defying UN resolutions is in the natural order of things - what hypocrisy! The point is the Security Council didn't find his violations egregious enough to take the matter to an invasion. And you do recall it was Clinton that removed the Inspectors in 1998, not SH. He also had plenty of motivation to destroy his WMDs; to end sanctions obviously. You've already been told what experts have speculated about the lack of records, but I guess "just for the hell of it" is a cute way of conducting a disingenuous argument. An unproven self serving statement followed by a profession of faith in something you don't know and have no proof of takes us full circle in the manner of your argument. It can be summed up with - Saddam didn't prove himself not guilty so the fact that there was no hard evidence to convict him, despite intensive on going inspections and overflight surveillance etc. etc. only indicated he was one hell of a genius in hiding his WMDs.

Due to past experience it no longer amazes me to see you relentlessly invest yourself in an argument that makes absolutely no sense and would be thrown out in any court in the land. You even shamelessly continue to evoke Blix who, as you know, strongly opposed the invasion. However it not just you. It's the kind of thinking that has us stuck in the hellish quagmire in Iraq and is curiously helping our enemies, Al Qaeda and Iran. Too bad you and Bush couldn't find some narrower world to play this kind of illogical, incredibly destructive mental patty cake. You Saddam must prove you don't have WMDs or we invade. How will we find them? Oh by sending in Inspectors after taking control of Baghdad.

Perhaps because Saddam Hussein understood that unless every one thought he had WMD's, he had no chance of bluffing his way to a billion dollar retirement? Seems like a no brainer to me.


It doesn't matter that every one believed there were WMD's in Iraq prior to the invasion, the bottom line is, despite everything, there are no WMD's. Thats all that really matters on that aspect of events. Now you could say thats all been and done now. Water under the bridge, &tc, &tc, but you can't pretend that the truth is not staring you in the face. Saddam Hussein had nothing. He was a paper tiger.

Or... he had nothing except the recipes, so to speak. Which would have been worth something to someone, even to the USA.

You are the one with no argument. Clinton didn’t “pull inspectors” they were kicked out and then Clinton bombed to try to get some of those WMD you say bush should have known wasn’t there – very funny.

Do I have to repeat the Dem statements from 1998? Or Dodd on the Hose floor in 2002 saying there “is no doubt Iraq holds WMD”?

You know little about the Resolutions – Saddam could only have the sanctions dropped by bringing out the WMD requested for UN destruction. He did this with some WMD but as Chief inspector Butler said he kept the rest – which he claimed he destroyed in secret.

No one believed him in 1998 or in 2002. That is because he could not have done it with no proof, spending no money and using no labor. Blix asked for this numerous times and got squat.

Ya we should have waited – I agree – but Bush “should have known” is like saying Clinton should have known – and you would never say that – would you?



As for Resolution compliance – you show you know little about the real issues before the war.”

Read below form the Guardian – hardly a right wing paper.

“15 March 2003
Background
Iraq has failed to comply fully with 14 previous UN resolutions related to WMD
.
UNSCR 1441 is unambiguous: "Recognising the threat Iraq's non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security" (PP3)

"Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions" (OP1). “
The Government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA, and the Council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems...as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material" (OP3)

Given Iraq's history of concealment with respect to its VX programme, it cannot be excluded that it has retained some capability with regard to VX" that could still be viable today. There are significant discrepancies in accounting for all key VX precursors. Iraq said it never weaponised VX - but UNSCOM found evidence to contradict this. (Unresolved Disarmament Issues, 6 March) It was not until 15 March - over three months after the specified date for the Declaration - that Iraq provided a further document which it claimed contained additional information (although this remains unconfirmed).
"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".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1472502,00.html

You're wrong. Butler in cooperation with the Americans ordered the pullout.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1750




I would go with the evidence and not with the party, unlike you. As I've explained to you already and yet you continue to misquote me I would not have applied that expression "should have known" to either. I've said Bush had sufficient information to cast strong doubts on the WMD story and he had Inspectors in the field to resolve the uncertainties. Also your attempt to give equal weight to the intelligence of 1998 with that of 2002 is fascinating in the lengths you will go to score partisan points. 1998 would seem to be irrelevant in so far as making an intelligence assessment in 2002. And please stop this business of "a democrat thought this" therefore that makes it legitimate. The issue is pushing aside inspections and ignoring or cherry picking intelligence because of a PNAC invasion agenda.


One more ride around the Christmas tree right Ted? They didn't have the WMDs and they didn't have much of the record of their destruction so they were in breach because they couldn't fulfill an impossible demand. You still don't get it but this is where you are going to take your stand. We went to war because the other fellow couldn't do the impossible. So much for your hollering UN Res. 1441 to the rooftops. You hypocrits need to start hollering UN Res. 242 to the rooftops. Now that's a resolution where you could make some real progress but the perpetually forgiven Israel will never be held accountable, while the Iraqis are being blown to bits because the virtual reality of an imminent Iraqi threat was promoted as reality. Fantasy land = the BA.

It's really sick when you think about it.

Come on please – no inspectors for 4 years. Did you read Ritter testimony to Congress? Go over it again and then I would submit Bush would have expected Iraq had more WMD not less in 2002. With not one spy or UN person there to think Saddam sat oh his hands is ludicrous. And yes you assertions are partisan. If Gore was President and did what Bush did I bet you would have a different view.


And you are technically correct. Saddam did not kick the inspectors he just booted the man charged with finding the programs and secrets (Ritter) and refused to allow inspection of hundreds of buildings claiming they were “part of Palaces” and off limits. Clinton knew this was the end of any real inspection progress – the UN as in 2002 would do nothing that would suggest the use of force – so Bill bombed- convinced Iraq maintained the stockpiles of WMD.




Come on please wake up man. There is no way in hell he could have destroyed the tons of VX and thousands of liters of anthrax, artillery shells etc without proof – and it was ILLEGAL to do this.

He would have been off the hook if he did one of two things – bring it out or prove he destroyed it- he did neither.

The UN never believed he destroyed it. Iraq submitted the same 12,000 pages odf crap as before. Here is Blix on the subject.


“On 7th of December, 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441, and within the time stipulated by the Security Council.

One might have expected that in preparing the declaration Iraq would have tried to respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the UNSCOM documents 9994 and the so-called Almarim report of March 1999

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. Even Iraqs letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the president of the Security Council on 24th of January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. All existing relevant documents have presented, we are told. All documents relating to the biological weapons program were destroyed together with the weapons.
However, Iraq has all the archives of the government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports and how they have been used. They should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports and production and losses of material.
The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the lacing enrichment of uranium, support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals.

Read the highlighted statement carefully. In the 80 and 90s Iraq was very big in records – paper. We found lots of it and this is why Iraq admitted to having made the WMD. When Iraq said they “destroyed the proof with the WMD” Blix, in this statement essentaill said don’t try to blow smoke up my butt – there is no way you could have done this without “requests for funds and reports and how they have been used. They should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports and production and losses of material.” - Things that would NOT have "been destroyed".
Bingo.

So you believe what you like sir. I will be proven right some day.

They had plenty of sources other than Inspectors and plenty of new interpretive possibilities. Over flight inspection would be an example of the former and pre911 comments by both Powell and Rice suggesting Saddam had been neutralized would be among the latter. My point stands.


Don't get me confused with you Ted. I don't engage in partisan flacking. If I did I would try to get Clinton off the hook for going along with pulling the Inspectors.


Problems with 5 out of 300 inspections, that isn't booting anybody. Even more than that going beyond one's inspection mandate and working with America to coordinate a bombing campaign I doubt comports with their job description. Obviously he wanted sanctions lifted so he no doubt was a very reluctant participant when he gathered that over and above their wanting inspections for WMDs, countries like America were committed to using the sanctions to bring about regime change. Bad as the dude was, demanding that he commit political suicide is not an honorable negotiating stance. It's like your 1441 scam. Set up an impossible demand and then punish the offender for not living up to it.




Why not? What's your expertise in that area? Blix certainly seem to think it was possible and frankly I still don't have the details of what was revealed and what wasn't. I suspect your 100% cover up claim is inaccurate. Anyway remember the inspections were occurring at least 10 years after the destruction was alleged to have taken place. Time has its own way of obscuring details. And who knows what the cold blooded cynical Saddam did to those who carried out the destruction if he was dedicated to keeping it a secret. There are a lot details I would like to know and I suspect we would have learned a lot more if Bush and his crowd weren't so hot for an invasion and had let the inspections proceed.

Funny that no great revelations about hidden WMDs have come up since the invasion. It would seem post-invasion that it's a bit of a stretch to still believe there is a whole class of people in the know but nobody spilling the beans. It ranks the hidden WMD believers right up there with members of the 911-inside-conspiracy-funny-farm-club.


Yes, your prove a negative requirements are thoroughly on the record. I repeat for the umpteenth time - THAT'S WHY WE HAD THE UN INSPECTORS!


So what part of "All documents relating to the biological weapons program were destroyed together with the weapons" don't you get? Of course doubt was appropriate. That's why we had UN Inspectors. There is an interesting implication that the WMD matter had been reduced to biological weapons.


I guess one must conclude that the BA did a pretty thorough job of selective record removal because Blix thought the invasion was wrong and before the invasion he is on record as saying he thought the Iraqis may very well have destroyed their WMDs. Your horse's mouth is on my side.


Yes, and they got burned for it which might help explain why they changed their approach to record keeping.


Feel free to stay with your partisan faith based approach. I'll stick with evidence linked to logic and common sense.

Please stop joking. Do you really think Saddam would do anything that could be seen from a plane or satellite? Did you know that the UN never looked in any of the underground bunkers Iraq had? In fact Blix was just suggesting he might want to do that near the end!





As I posted and you refuse to get it was far from impossible. As BLIX said Iraq could not have destroyed tons of dangerous WMD with no personnel and spending no money – it never happened.

“However, Iraq has all the archives of the government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports and how they have been used. They should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports and production and losses of material.”



If you read the ISG report you would know that the reason for this is fear of prosecution and death. Anyone who could be tied to WMDs might have been tried for the murder of the 5,000 Kurds and more. ISG noted this was a subject that was taboo – but they also said Saddam’s highest strategic intent was to build and maintain WMDs and the ability to make them. So if you want me to believe the man who did not abide by 14 + Resolutions just destroyed WMD the UN could not find – I don’t buy it.




That’s righ – MAY being the operative word here. Did you see the BBC documentary Bilx did? In it he is shown walking through a Iraq chemical lab – his comment is “notice that this lab has been scrubbed clean” And :here is a machine that could have been used to make chemical weapons and here is where a vital part that would have told us it was used for WMD was removed.”




Ya right. I made my case. Every intel agency in the world, most Dems, and the CIA folks with over a hundred years experience say Iraq had the WMD and you want me to believe “Bush Adm. should have known”. This is such ludicrous nonsense it is not worth discussing with you further.

Yeah, it's called moving stuff around. Perhaps you think the entire country was one big subway. There was also internal intelligence and refugees.






As I said Blix agreed with me, not with you before the invasion. On another thread I presented to you his comment on that in a transcribed interview he gave. The destruction of the weapons and the relevant records was quite possible apparently or maybe they just didn't have enough time to dig some of them up.


Thanks for getting it on the record. You really do think there is a massive conspiracy to cover up hidden WMDs TO THIS DAY and no one will reveal it even off the record. Want to give me some of your proofs of UFOs?


Hmmm, appears he was doing his job and checking the labs out. Maybe we should have let him continue. I don't know what point you think you are making Ted. Blix agreed with me. Before the invasion he did see destruction of the WMDs as a possibility. You're great at avoidance and repetitive head banging.


You don't know what every agency in the world thought and you don't how many of the ones that agreed were informed by a doubtful but politicized CIA. I know your taste for disingenuous hyperbole Ted. And you continue to misquote me. I think this is about the 4th time now. You have no argument, just throwing disconnected facts and opinion up against the wall and hoping that your persistent illogic won't show. Sorry Ted, I notice it big time.

Lets stop – we will never agree. Blix said “may” as everyone else did – they had months to even produce people who witnessed the mythical “destruction” of WMD and could not do it.

You don't know what every agency in the world thought and you don't how many of the ones that agreed were informed by a doubtful but politicized CIA. I know your taste for disingenuous hyperbole Ted

Then you show ME someone who though in 2002 that Iraq did not have WMD. Intel agencies included. Nd the CIA does NOT tell the Germans what to think about Iraq. Who told Bill and Hillary? And Dodd?

"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." -- Bill Clinton in 1998

"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." -- Tom Daschle in 1998

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." -- Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998
Blix 2003:
The "most important" problems the inspectors are facing, Blix said, are anthrax and the nerve agent VX. He said Iraq missed the opportunity to provide fresh material to answer the open questions on those weapons in its December declaration.

The UNMOVIC chief also said that Iraqi documents suggest that "some 1,000 tons of chemical agent were 'unaccounted for.' One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded. If they exist, they should be

David Kay: Oct 2003:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/spee...y_10022003.html

We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone. We are actively engaged in searching for such weapons based on information being supplied to us by Iraqis.
Why are we having such difficulty in finding weapons or in reaching a confident conclusion that they do not exist or that they once existed but have been removed? Our search efforts are being hindered by six principal factors:
1. From birth all of Iraq's WMD activities were highly compartmentalized within a regime that ruled and kept its secrets through fear and terror and with deception and denial built into each program;
2. Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post conflict;
3. Post-OIF looting destroyed or dispersed important and easily collectable material and forensic evidence concerning Iraq's WMD program. As the report covers in detail, significant elements of this looting were carried out in a systematic and deliberate manner, with the clear aim of concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime;
4. Some WMD personnel crossed borders in the pre/trans conflict period and may have taken evidence and even weapons-related materials with them;
5. Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage;

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just

Ted, this is an interview with Hans Blix in Feb. 2004 that addresses much of what we have been discussing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/brea...ost/3470051.stm



I've used up my quota of quotes so let me further offer from the interview Han Blix's suggestion of possibilities as to why Saddam was uncooperative at times with UN Inspectors.
1. Beware of the Dog as in wanting to leave the possibility that there were WMDs to scare off threats.

2. The US had warned him that sanctions would not be lifted until he stepped down which made him less inclined to be cooperative.

3. Saddam had a strong basis for believing that UNSCOM was partially fronting as a spy agency for the US and British military.

I again want to emphasize that from numerous sources including former CIA head Tenet and folks who supported the invasion the clear message that was coming from the BA in 2002 was that the invasion had been green lighted and come hell or high water they were going in. The abrupt dismissal of the testimony of the CIA vetted Iraqi foreign minister that I featured in the opening post is just one of many examples of a prior commitment to an invasion.

Sure it was appropriate to be concerned about possible WMDs in Iraq based on past history. But concern turned into unfounded belief without direct evidence, fed by an Iraqi con man named Chalabi. Bush and co. did not take their job as steward of this country seriously and instead decided to play war games to change the world according to some neocon PNAC fantasy that had become their guiding light apparently.

Again the Iraqi “foreign minister” was the clown we saw on TV. The statement was dismissed because he was a liar and you can go back and review his other nonsense and see this.

Certainly BA after 9/11 was more inclined to go after the festering wound that Clinton Admin. Left him in Iraq with no resolution in sight. IMO Bush got himself into a “must go” attitude when he put the troops in Kuwait (that got the inspectors back in) – certainly he was not going to wait forever for Saddam to comply with 1441 with all those men and equipment sitting there.

As I have said I agree that it would have been prudent to wait out the UN and get them to carry the ball, at least politically, as his father did.

The one thing I do not go along with is the idea that Bush should “have known” Iraq (allegedly) destroyed WMD. If all you have after the mountain of what I have posted is one statement about the nutcase Iraqi minister’s statement being dismissed (for good reason) you have nothing at all.



After all I posted to say this is so ludicrous that we may as well not discuss.

Ted when you are forced into this degree of disingenuousness to maintain an indefensible stance, then you're right. It's time to check out.

You mean when I present overwhelming evidence and you stick to a one liner about dismissing a ludicrous claim by the Iraqi “Foreign Minister” (by CIA) as your whole argument I agree. If this is your argument – well let’s not waste our time.

"You have to read deep into the story to learn that Sabri told the CIA that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons:
Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War......

So NBC had a legitimate scoop, and they buried it in a single sentence beneath a grotesquely misleading headline.
Obviously, if Saddam's Foreign Minister admitted that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and leftover poison gas, that would have been seen as the final confirmation of what everyone in the intelligence community already believed. And Sabri's statement that Saddam "desperately wanted a [nuclear bomb]" but would need more than a few months to a year to build one--bizarrely presented as exculpatory by NBC--would hardly have been reassuring."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSF...imed_sadda.html

Ted, you don't even seem to know what the word evidence means. Evidence is "here is the wmd." It's not "you haven't proved you don't have it." I wonder if there is a Dick and Jane book on the fundamentals of evidence.

Again, it is disingenuous to say that the only evidence I am presenting is the thoroughly vetted Foreign Minister. That's obviously false and anyone who wants to read through the threads can establish that. What particularly interested me about his comments is how readily Bush dismissed the revelations which had been vetted by his own CIA. The testimony should have at least perked his interest. It didn't. No counter research, just an immediate abrupt dismissal. This goes along with a huge other body of testimony to show that Bush had green lighted the invasion in 2002 and simply wasn't interested in hearing any matters that might undermine his plans.

That's 0 for 2 buddy. You saved yourself from striking out by finally not including your bogus "should have known" line. That's progress.

Oh yeah, and as far as your Sabri link I suggest you go back to my first post and read the original link. The difference in the detail and clear sense of narrative authority is like night and day between yours and mine. In any case even yours concedes no WMDs were in the hands of the government at the time. Here's more from the original link although I realize your commitment to your no evidence thesis is as unbreakable as any fundamentalist peddling Genesis.

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

Based on an article by Sidney Blumenthal that quotes a bunch of unnamed sources and asks us to take his word on it? Not without first looking at what Michael Isikoff (no rabid right-winger he) has to say about Blumenthal: "Time and again, in the book as in life, he rearranges facts, spins conspiracy theories, impugns motives, and besmirches the character of his political and journalistic foes". Suffice it to say, I think I'd need a bit of independent confirmation before answering yes to this question. You'd think the French themselves would be able to confirm all of this, right?

As for Dingo's recent point that -


- that turns the debate question on its head. The question is whether Bush should have known there were no WMDs, not whether he had insufficient reason to believe that there were WMDs.

I would only say further that if Bush did have the info that there were none, then so did the Democrats. If anything has been made clear from the recent Alberto Gonzales/attorneys-firing saga, it's that the "BA" has plenty of leftovers from the "CA". There's no way that senior Democrats in Congress wouldn't have had numerous contacts in the administration who would've known something fishy was up, if in fact that was the case.

Exactly, I agree with that 100% WMD was not the only factor going in to this war, Bush made that more than clear from the start, yet finding no WMD somehow means that this war was a scam? I hear things like this all the time, and most interesting of all is we know for a fact Saddam had these weapons in large numbers. Its fact not theory, people seem to be asking the wrong questions. They ask did Saddam have WMD? When in reality they should be asking how long after Desert Storm did he hold on to these weapons?

Also I believe that Bush believed every word he says about this war, and I remember him talking to Hillery recently about taking this war seriously and considering all options if she becomes the next president as you mention. I may not agree with some of his tactics and decision making at times, but I do agree with his principals for the most part. I've never viewed him as a lier, but I think he is a poor executer of plans in many cases.

The part regarding them, yes you would. Anybody wants to run it down and confirm or dispute Blumenthal's article, be my guest. As to Blumenthal's credibility I assume that the standard applied to when he was a bulldog advocate for Clinton and now as an independent journalist might be different. Presumably the guy wants to stay employed as a political commentator. The best way to discredit the article he posted is to prove it wrong with more accurate information. I'm inclined to believe him in this case because it is consistent with other information that has come out. And how are you going to get info. from the CIA other than annoymous sources?


No, like Ted continually does you got it wrong. The question is do you think Bush BELIEVED there were no WMDs or should have. My answer is no on the first and a qualified yes on the second. Given that he had no positive confirmable evidence there were WMDs(Blix & co. had checked out all their specific suspicions and the vetted Chalabi boys had been found wanting) and he did have horse's mouth testimony from a thoroughly vetted Iraqi foreign minister, for instance, that they had been destroyed, he should have been inclined to assume that there probably weren't WMDs, leaving enough doubt to continue the inspections. The evidence clearly indicates that he wanted to invade and force a regime change regardless of WMDs or not.

As for my evidence statement, I'll stick with it, not withstanding your apples and oranges attempt to somehow conflate it with another matter.

Since your additional statement is also inaccurately premised I won't bother to respond.


WMDs was the justification offered before the UN. As has been shown in numerous posts, by 2002 the BA had made the decision to invade regardless of WMDs and were actively cherry picking questionable evidence and ignoring solid evidence to make their case. Call it wishful thinking on their part, but I wouldn't call it playing it on the up and up.

By the way, the business of Bush including the matter of Saddam's tyranny in his speeches helps make my point. That point is that the BA had a preexisting agenda to invade Iraq that didn't require the WMD concern. The PNAC agenda seems to have been a guiding document for the Bush administration and it advocated a proactive policy of forcefully democratizing the region along lines that would make them friendly to the US and less likely to incubate terrorists.

That's really not that all relevant. Obviously, Saddam was armed to the teeth during the Iran/Iraq war and used WMDs. Just like...umm...uhh....the name escapes me, but they used them in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Face it - war is hell and Iraq is no different from any other country when it comes to war.

The problem with your point, is you believe (don't feel bad, you're not alone) those WMDs from the 90's were usable. But they were not. Chemical weapons have a shelf life of 5 years - biological weapons 3 years.

So, production facilities were crucial to the WMD claim. That's why the mobile weapons labs that weren't mobile weapons labs were so important - you can't have stockpiles of WMD without production facilities. For me - as a conservative republican - the wheels to this WMD claims came off very quickly. We couldn't find a single WMD production facility and couldn't find one person to step up and point out where the stuff was being made. Further, in a country of 20 million people, we couldn't find one person who could tell us precisely where these WMD's might be.

Finally, the White House gave the inspectors their coordinates of sites they "knew" WMD existed - and like every other aspect of the Iraq war, they were 100% wrong. Not 99%. 100%.

Even if you believed in the trustworthy terrorist theory (a country's leader would give terrorists the power to destroy his own country), the lack of production facilities made it clear the WMD claims were dubious. While you spout the "everybody knew" mantra, you are ignoring the calls for giving the inspectors more time a month or two before Bush launched an invasion. Bush claimed there was a trigger in 1441 (there wasn't) and knowing he couldn't get a second vote through the UN security council, pulled the inspectors out and ended the lives of 100's of thousands of people.

"we know for a fact Saddam had these weapons in large numbers" - FAIL. Speak for yourself.

DaytonRocker I make no Iron clad 100% guarantees that he did or did not have these weapons near operation Iraqi Freedom, because I don't know, in this particular case Ive seen evidence that points in both directions but one thing is for sure, every nation fights wars differently and with a different set of morals, and this country may not be perfect but it can not be compared to Iraq under the Saddam regime.

If you want to bring up WW2 and the United States dropping the atom bomb twice leading to the deaths of thousands, at least tell the whole story. Like I say our methods may not be perfect but you can be against the war in Iraq without depicting this nation as being some monstrous tyrant. I'm tired of the anti war who believe this nation is compatible to Germany in WW2 or Iraq under the Saddam regime, thats ridiculous.

I meet anti Iraq war Americans that make sense all the time however. The Iraq war after all is very controversial, and its natural to ask questions or be skeptical given the circumstances, however in the time Ive spent talking in forums a certain percentage of people seem to take that extra yard and say we are bad because we did this this and this. For what reasons I don't know.

Dropping those bombs in WW2 remains highly controversial. Do I think it was the right thing to do? I don't know, but we were the last superpower to enter that war so it was obviously something we didn't want a part of but Lo and Behold we get bombed and all else is history. So what did you leave out?

1. Before we even entered the war, let alone dropped a bomb we were bombed at pearl harbor without warning by Japan who were German Allies .
2. Dropping those bombs ended WW2 some say years before it would have ended otherwise.
3. Verbally we warned Japan as a nation that they would be attacked if they didn't pull out of the war, in light of there apparent aggression toward this nation.
4. On top of that Millions of leaflets were dropped over multiple cities in Japan, by plane, to warn civilians of an imminent attack from the U.S. just before we bombed them


This is how one of those leaflets read, this is obviously a translated version....
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=30


So my question is where were the informative leaflets from Saddam when he gassed the Kurds on multiple occasions killing thousands? Since we are comparable to Saddam we might as well talk about the fine details, am I right?

Also, As for the shelf life of chemical WMD, Id like to see the report that explains what you said in detail. I'm not doubting you, but the devil is always in the details. Do they become 100% ineffective or do they simply become less effective in the time period you described? Even if I read that they literally become useless in just a few years, from a reliable source which I haven't, there is no guarantee he didn't continue to develop these weapons well into the 90's. In a matter like this I like to consider all the evidence, not just evidence that supports my viewpoint. Over the last month or so Ive upped my research on this war to find that even the most knowledged people, like some who are running for office or already have for example, can fall into the trap of paying more attention to the evidence that supports them politically or personally rather than keeping all options open.

Some in turn claim that Saddam having WMD around the time Bush said he did is a lie just like that, while others say there is no doubt he had them. I say I don't know, not only does it depend on who you ask, it often depends on whether or not your willing to consider all the evidence before coming to a judgment. I think he did have them probably as late as 2002 but I'm not positive, and I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

No, credibility is credibility, and it needs to be earned. It's trying enough when we're expected to believe everything some established "respectable" news organ quotes some anonymous person as saying. When it's some obvious partisan hack like Blumenthal who's doing it, it's all but pointless to even give it the time of day. And I see little reason why the French can't confirm, at least in a very general sense without revealing anything about sources or methods, that they did in fact vet everything Sabri said and found him to be eminently credible - assuming Blumenthal's tale is true. Because as far as I can remember, the only thing the French and others were saying at the time wasn't that Saddam had been disarmed, but merely that more time was needed to determine whether or not he was.


OK, "should have believed", not "should have known". I guess there's some kind of significant difference there, but I don't see how it fundamentally alters my point. You're still moving the goal posts by saying merely that Bush didn't have sufficient reason to believe that there were WMDs, not that that he should have believed that there weren't.

I've been looking over the exchange between you and Ted, but the clincher in that argument, in my view, actually comes from you, where you said, "Sure it was appropriate to be concerned about possible WMDs in Iraq based on past history. But concern turned into unfounded belief without direct evidence". In other words, Bush didn't have solid reason to believe there weren't WMDs, he just also (in your view) didn't have good enough reason to believe that there were, at least not good enough to justify going to war. That second part is not necessarily an unreasonable viewpoint in itself, but it's very different from the debate question you asked.


The premise is just not worded in the way you prefer, but my basic point remains the same. If there was some serious hanky-panky going on in the way Bush was dealing with the evidence coming from the CIA, top Democrats would have known something was up. The conspiracy theories that have been batted about just aren't credible, in my view.



So Bush ended these peoples' lives? That's interesting, because I think even Saddam's worst enemies (who, of course, are justifiably very numerous) would only blame him for the deaths of people that were actually killed by those under his command, and wouldn't be inclined to include in his death toll the number of, say, Kurds killed by other Kurds rivaling for power during his rule. In fact, I think every mass murderer throughout history has been given that little bit of "courtesy" of only attributing to him deaths of people who were actually killed by him or his goons/followers/incitees. For some reason, a completely different standard gets applied to Bush. There's a certain syndrome coming to mind whose name escapes me...

You still refuse to get it Dingo. I presented evidence that the UN was looking for real WMD that they had documentation going back to the 90s showing Iraq produced certain quantities of WMD and as Butler said they showed us ½ of it and hid the rest. They NEVER after that disputed this but merely said (laughably) that they had somehow destroyed it all without labor, money, or any evidence.

And Blix pointed out how they could “prove it” – (as I posted) and they ignored it because they were lying.

Some give me a break with the stupid “can’t prove a negative argument” when the opposite is true here and you know it.



Do you have any idea what happened that day in the oval office? Tennant no doubt laughed when he heard it because it was so ludicrous. And as I POSTED that the CIA analysts with over 100 years experience concluded the opposite – so you contention is toss all that out over the statement of one Iraqi liar? Please!!




Didn’t I beat this silly incorrect argument to death many times. The “shelf life” of many WMDs is decades.

http://www.britainusa.com/iraq/other_show....mp;other_ID=493

Shelf Life of Iraq's Chemical and Biological Weapons
FACTS ABOUT IRAQ: The Shelf Life Of Iraq’s Chemical And Biological Weapons
Iraq had a well established and proven chemical and biological weapons programme and retains capability to use and deploy such weapons as a "break out".
Iraq's ability to retain a significant proportion of these weapons and manufacturing capabilities and to increase these once UNSCOM inspections ceased is known as “breakout” capability
Nerve agents have a considerably shorter "shelf life" although certain "stabilisers" will prolong their storage and Iraq has not provided details to provide a technical assessment of their durability.
Iraq has a break out capability and as such the shelf life is irrelevant.
Iraq has the expertise, knowledge and experience to produce militarily significant quantities of VX, sarin, tabun and mustard of exceptional purity.

Iraq deployed three biological agents in weapons in 1991.
• Anthrax spores have a half life of decades,
• Aflatoxin at least ten years.
• Smallpox, a suspected agent within its arsenal, has a shelf life of decades.
Iraq has yet to provide a credible account of its biological weapons programme nor has it demonstrated that the programme has been terminated.
As with chemical weapons Iraq has the knowledge and expertise to produce weapons at short notice.
"The resumption of arms control in Iraq is urgently required. But, it would have to be serious. If Iraq again refused to cooperage, then to pursue compromised inspections would be dangerous"
Richard Butler, Senate Committee, 31 July 2002

They said they destroyed it and events have proved them right. How much evidence there was of that destruction still remains unclear but the destruction occurred apparently before 1992 so probably not a lot. Blix and I apparently agree that destroying records wouldn't necessarily be that hard.


Whether they could or could not prove it ,Blix agrees with me that presently proving the actual existence of WMDs was what his investigation was about. You know that and yet you continue peddling your prove a negative nonsense. As I posted Blix gave very cogent reasons why Saddam might not be inclined to be totally cooperative on the matter.


Sorry, I won't give you a break from the rules of evidence. You haven't got any evidence that Saddam had WMDs around the time of the invasion, none, zip, nothing and neither did Bush but he invaded anyway. Your prove a negative aint evidence.

I presented the Blumenthal article, I have not yet seen anything credible to dispute it. Even your muddy partisan piece does nothing to show that Saddam had WMDs at any time in the vicinity of the invasion.

Recall this quote from my article? "The officers continued to insist on the significance of Sabri's information, but one of Tenet's deputies told them, "You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change." Comments of this nature came from anonymous intelligence folks I was reading even before the invasion. It was a commonplace.

Ted, it is really amazing how loyal you are to Bush. In post after post within thread after thread you keep throwing stuff up against the wall, some of it certainly interesting in itself, that talks about past records of WMDs that nobody disputes were produced. When the principals insist they destroyed the WMDs plus the records and nothing is shown to prove otherwise you assert that was impossible. Based on what? Saddam's inability or unwillingness to show where, when and how he destroyed this or that WMD. So, for whatever reason, he doesn't cooperate on revealing evidence of destruction in many cases but he leaves the entire country open for inspection. When your prove a negative(That Saddam didn't have WMDs preinvasion) approach is pointed out to you as being nonevidence, you respond by throwing more of the same records and insist Blix, who conducted a very incomplete investigation due to Bush, was not satisfied that Saddam was being fully cooperative. You then spin this as evidence that he had WMDs, ignoring Blix's contrary opinion.

Why you continue to be so invested in your partisan absurdities is beyond me. Do you really want to end up as one more 911 type conspiracy crank, arguing the equivalent of a missile must have hit the Pentagon because there were so few plane parts on the adjacent lawn, or drawing grand silly theories about planted charges in the WTC building because some suppose thermite was discovered in the wreckage?

No WMDs were found and no one has come forward to explain where they are hidden either in Iraq or elsewhere. Furthermore at no time was any direct positive evidence presented that there were WMDs and the BA folks made it clear from innumerable quoted sources that by 2002, WMDs or not, they were invading. It seems to me your time would be better spent trying to understand the basis for your own persistent partisan driven illogic so you don't recycle it again and again in other matters. Break the pattern Ted.

As usual you miss the point. From the beginning they were REQUIRED to bring the UN the WMD to be destroyed. They did this with ½ of them and then (later) tried to say they (illegally) destroyed the rest – and all the proof with it. Are you saying Bill Clinton was wrong too???

And again let me point out for the last time that Blix told them there were several other ways to prove they did this – and he got squat for response. So you keep dreaming that he destroyed them and I will maintain they were not destroyed.

Have a nice day.



.


Ya ya partisan crap – can I remind you it was Bill Clinton that called for regime change – and with good reason – Saddam had complied with nothing all through the 90s.

What you have failed to show is that the “evidence” was credible at all. Obviously if CIA believed it, it would be in their conclusions – which it is not. Nor do you have the head of the CIA agreeing with you. All you have is a piece of partisan crap full of innuendo and little else.

If possession of WMDs by a rogue state where sufficient for going to war, we would have invaded North Korea and Iran by now.

I think we will find, 20 years out, that we went into Iraq because Saddam was an easy target; we needed a large, permanent presence in the ME, which we will have indefinitely in Iraq; we needed to be there to make sure Israel didn't go off on some wild military expedition; we needed to be there to control Iran and other ME nations, i.e. we can reach out and touch you anytime and we are here, and to protect the use of petroDollars rather than a petroEuro; and this admin had delusions of grandeur about American might, hence all of the PNAC folks in this administration (Project for a New American Century).

I do not think any of the goals linked to the above will necessarily pan out, but I do think this admin knew how vulnerable we are, as we are dependent on foreign oil and foreign capital for our very lifeblood. This was their way of addressing this vulnerability.

You know, that is a steep claim to make considering nothing existed. You continue to pound this square peg into a round hole because you don't have the intellectual honesty to admit you were wrong and still are wrong. How can there be this "breakout capability" when there was nothing to break out? This is as dubious the claim that the Iraqis stored binary delivery systems because it worked so well in Die Hard III. It all sounds sexy as hell, but at the end of the day, it's just empty conjecture. The bottom line is, no WMDs were found, no production facilities were found, and out of 20 million people, not one person can show us either where they were or where they went (outside of the 15,000 page dossier Saddam provided to fulfill his end of the agreement).

Conversely, when both of Saddam's son-in-laws defected, they told anybody who would listen that all WMD programs were shut down. I guess they were lying too?

I don’t know DR I guess when it comes down to believing the Dems and you or the man who was there longest I believe the latter.

Breakout capability just means that they would be back up and producing CW and Bio WMD quickly and thie cannot be refuted easily.

They had the “dual use “ equipment – In the Blix documentary with the BBC he walked through a scrubbed down lab to a piece of equipment that could have been use for WMD production and showed the commentator where the part that would have proved that was removed.

Saddam spent 10s of billions on WMD and his strategic goal was to have them. If you want to believe that because we could not find them they did not exist be my guest – I don’t but it.

But cut the “shelf life” crap – it is just not true.



Actually it was the same 12,000 page document Blix was so disappointed witch as I posted and you ignored. Worthless for UN 1441.



No production facilities were found?? You mean after we destroyed the numerous facilities we found in 1991 I assume.

And we were looking for the output of those plants that we knew Saddam produced and he admitted to producing.



“Given continued frustration of UNSCOM efforts, could Iraq reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile capabilities? According to Scott Ritter, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Ritter testified in late August before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees that, absent continued inspections, "Iraq will be able to reconstitute the entirety of its former … capabilities within six months."
Iraq’s former WMD capabilities were substantial. Prior to the Gulf War, Iraq maintained one of the most deadly chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities in the developing world. According to UNSCOM findings, Iraq deployed seventy-five 600-km-range Al Hussein ballistic missiles tipped with biological or chemical warheads. Iraq possesses extensive experience developing and producing such agents. At its peak, the Iraqi CBW arsenal included over 30,000 liters of deadly biological agents (anthrax, botulinum toxin, and aflatoxin) and a demonstrated capability to produce and deploy a variety of chemical weapons as well (VX, Mustard Gas, Sarin). Iraq probably maintains the necessary precursor chemicals and documentation for the production of chemical agents, and commercial production facilities could be readily adapted for such an effort. A similar effort could result in a near term limited production capability of biological agents.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publicati...view&id=112


 Iraq also possessed declarable equipment for chemical production, which it had not declared to the UN. During ISG operation, a complete process hall containing stainless steel reaction vessels of up to 3m3 for theextraction of purity of essence of plant material was discovered at Samarra’ Drug Industries.
By cannibalizing production equipment from various civilian chemical facilities, it would have been possible for Iraq to assemble a CW production plant. Alternatively, equipment that was less suitable could have been reconfigured at an existing site and used for short-term limited production. Iraq had improvised and jury-rigged equipment in the past.

DaytonRocker


Why not? If Saddam and members of his regime were responsible for hiding or selling these weapons prior to our invasion why exactly is it that they would tell us where they are? That doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. In fact the only ones who were willing to talk were the ones who parted ways with the regime, such as General Sada, and even those who parted ways with the regime in most cases id assume would say little or nothing in fear of being exiled. General Sada took a big risk by revealing the secrets he has and in fact he is still at risk.

This issue has become so black and white for so many Americans and I don't understand in the least how anybody would base there skepticism on this war on the notion that Saddam had no WMD prior to our invasion. You couldn't prove that anymore than I can prove he did have them, but you seem pretty sure to me. What breakthrough crucial piece of information did you get your hands on that makes you so sure, dare I ask? Id still like to see that info on the shelf life of chemical WMD. With all this focus on people being asked to show he had these weapons, are you really sure you could come up with anything that shows he didn't have them that wouldn't end up being inconclusive?

We do know the following...

He had these weapons in substantial quantities
He used many of these weapons not only in the Iran/Iraq war, but in his cowardly attack on Kuwait in 1991.
He continued to show interest in developing WMD throughout the 90's. In 1998 Bill Clinton launches Operation Desert Fox on this notion.
He made things difficult for weapons inspectors prior to the 2nd gulf war

So I'm supposed to believe he didn't have some of these weapons left prior to the war? There is no doubt he suffered losses in Desert Storm and throughout the 90's. His ability to launch an effective WMD attack was no doubt a fraction of what it was in the late 80's but he has enough deaths to his name to make me nervous with a pellet rifle, let alone even a singe WMD. It wasn't worth the risk to let him go on if you ask me, and I'm glad he is gone

Yeah, you too. Blix agrees with me, not you. Thanks once again for avoiding the interview I offered and demonstrating how much you are at war with the facts.