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*Originally posted by Changez_like: *
Any updates?
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Have patience my friend in the end they will find the smoking gun. All these games of finding bits and pieces here and there and then rejecting them is all for the show. Its called building credibility and laying the groundworks to find Saddams awesome WMD....
Frustrations, Frustrations, find them and prove us wrong. After all the intelligence which was so reliable before the war, the stellitte pictures, what happened to all of them. Surely Saddam could have hidden the WMD's, but not the sites, even if he destroyed those unimpechabble sites some sort of chemical residue would have been left for the desperate yanks to prove that the place had been used for producing the dreaded WMD. It's all in the head.
So, Mr Straw, why did we go to war?](http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=406341)
*** Jack Straw, 21 February 2003: ‘Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them’
The legal and political basis for the war in Iraq was thrown into doubt yesterday when Jack Straw declared that uncovering Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction was “not crucially important”.
The Foreign Secretary’s comments added to the confusion over the capacity of the former Iraqi leader to unleash chemical or biological weapons, which in the weeks before the Allied invasion had been declared an imminent threat to Britain and the West.
Mr Straw was accused of rewriting history after he appeared to undermine the Government’s confident claim that Saddam held up to 10,000 litres of anthrax, declaring: “Ten thousand litres is one third of one petrol tanker. Whether or not we are able to find one third of one petrol tanker in a country twice the size of France remains to be seen.”
Asked about Iraq’s arsenal on BBC Radio 4, he said only: “I hope there will be further evidence of literal finds.” Significantly, Mr Straw used the past tense to describe Iraq’s arsenal, saying: “It certainly did exist. There is no question about that, and the Blix report suggested that it still existed.”
Challenged on the importance of a fresh weapons find, he said: “It’s not crucially important for this reason … The evidence in respect of Iraq was so strong that the Security Council on the 8th of November said unanimously that Iraq’s proliferation and possession of the weapons of mass destruction and unlawful missile systems, as well as its defiance of the United Nations, pose – and I quote – ‘a threat to international peace and security’.”
Peter Kilfoyle, a former defence minister, said: "Jack Straw is trying to reinvent history. All these claims about WMD are built on sand. If they do not find these weapons, it takes away the only conceivable justification for conducting this war.
“It shows the real reasons for this war: the superpower flexing its muscles and looking after resources, in this case petroleum.”
Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, insisted yesterday that the existence of weapons of mass destruction was “the sole justification” for war and confidently predicted that such weapons would eventually be found, pointing to finds of biological protection suits and a vehicle thought to be a mobile biological weapons laboratory.
But Mr Straw’s comments were the latest in a series of shifting statements from cabinet ministers about the whereabouts of Saddam’s weaponry, the alleged threat from which provided the legal and political justification for the war.
They were in sharp contrast to the Foreign Secretary’s speech to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in February when he declared that some of Saddam’s chemical or biological weapons could be deployed “within 45 minutes”.
Since then the Foreign Office has, slowly and subtly, changed its rhetoric. While Mr Blair and Mr Hoon continue to exude confidence about the prospects of finding a “smoking gun” in Iraq, Mr Straw has quietly raised the prospect of a different scenario.
He first raised doubts over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction last month when he told MPs not that weapons existed now and would be found, but that “Iraq had illegal possessions of mass destruction and had them recently”.
MPs and watching journalists were left with the impression, unchallenged by senior Foreign Office officials, that Britain was no longer completely confident that the elusive weapons would ever be found.
The Foreign Office has stressed that war was amply justified by Iraq’s failure to account for weapons holdings dating from after the 1991 Gulf War, detailed in reports by the UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix.
Ministers, including Ruth Kelly, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and the Foreign Office minister Mike O’Brien, have used the analogy of the conflict in Northern Ireland to justify the change, arguing that years of searching have failed to uncover the IRA’s weapons dumps.
On Tuesday, John Reid, the Leader of the Commons, said he was not surprised that Iraqi weapons had not yet been found.
Mr Straw argued yesterday that the discovery of mass graves at the site of ancient Babylon provided a moral justification for the war.
“You see these pictures in newspapers about the discovery of 15,000 or so mass graves,” he said. “Anybody who had any doubt about the rightness of our actions should just draw to their own attention the venality of the Saddam regime, which thankfully has now been removed.”
But the Foreign Secretary’s comments raised deep concerns in the ranks of Labour MPs already unhappy with the decision to take Britain to war. Doug Henderson, a former armed services minister, and a leading opponent of the war, said: “I think it’s pretty essential if any legitimacy is to be maintained that the reason for embarking on this process is proven. If it’s not, people will ask what are the motives for war.”
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Originally posted by chosen1: *
** Jack Straw, 21 February 2003: 'Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them'
* Jack Straw, 14 May 2003: Asked of the need to find weapons of mass destruction... 'It's not crucial'**
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It was all about OIL. How much more proof does one need?
Whilst the oilfields have been secured, who cares about these non-existent WMD’s?
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Originally posted by chosen1: *
...
* Jack Straw, 14 May 2003: Asked of the need to find **weapons of mass destruction... 'It's not crucial'*
..
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Now the truth comes out, finally they are starting to admit.
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*Originally posted by Changez_like: *
Now the truth comes out, finally they are starting to admit.
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Exactly. Whenever they can't find something or someone, it's no longer crucial. Just like finding Saddam is "no longer crucial", yet they blow up a neighbourhood if they suspect he's in there.
At least plant some WMD.
That way US might just be able to save face. What's left of it that is.
However, in reality even after the plant takes place, US are in a lose-lose situation.
It will be easier to admit that Saddam possessed Weapons of Mass Oil and we've found them!
J. Straw should shut his mouth - the more he talks, the worse the image he gives off of the British government.
Straw retreats on finding banned weapons, Nicholas Watt
The Guardian, 15 May 2003
Britain back-tracked on the contentious issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction yesterday when the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was forced to concede that hard evidence might never be uncovered. He said it was “not crucially important” to find them, because the evidence of Iraqi wrongdoing was overwhelming.
He dismissed the significance of the failure to find banned weapons on the grounds that Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, had uncovered a “phenomenal amount of evidence” before the war. *
…] His comment, seized on by critics of the war, was a dramatic retreat from a claim by ministers last year that Saddam Hussein could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes.*
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*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
J. Straw should shut his mouth - the more he talks, the worse the image he gives off of the British government.
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Rummy's loud enough to drown out most of Straw's nonsense, in the media at least.
But, I'm going to reiterate every time I come back here.. unless we account for every gram of weaponry in Iraq it could be in Times Square for all we know. That was what we wanted to prevent because faith alone was not enough.. now we are supposed to rely on faith alone to know that it was prevented??
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Originally posted by spoon: *
* now we are supposed to rely on faith alone to know that it was prevented??
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**
Or rely until it is sold to some group and, God Forbid, utilized.
The excuse now will be that - those sons of Blixes did afterall do a rather effective job at disarming much of Iraq's arsenals, hence the UK/US are experiencing problems in discovering it.
Many individuals endorsed the invasion against Iraq based upon their faith in the legitimacy of the governmental assertions from the UK and US; now, these individuals will again be asked to trust their governments, simply on faith, despite no tangible evidence being discovered as repeatedly promised.
Here’s something to think about:
If the stuff is so well concealed.. If it may have possibly been destroyed.. If it is/was Saddam’s life support.. If the people that handled it are so slow in cooperating.. If it is something that people may want to keep for themselves.. If it really has little to no effect on the outcome of the war..
..why was it so easy to find his money?
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
the U.S. is like any other country and has it's share of wrongs.
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So you are saying the US government was wrong i.e. lying when it said that Iraq had WMD? If not where is it, because the excuses are getting rather lame.
60 days and counting....
No one answered this one, here or anywhere else I’ve tried it…
Spoon
I'll try and answer your query regarding the money.
The money was so easily found because it was physically in Iraq.
The WMD are not being found, because there ain't any.
i am probably missing something extremely obvious here but - wouldn’t Hussein and his sons have transferred the money to some other source - i mean, why leave it lying around? They must have been aware that the US would take control of it were they to leave the money in the boxes in the palace (quoted in the article above). So what obvious point am i missing?
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*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
i am probably missing something extremely obvious here but - wouldn't Hussein and his sons have transferred the money to some other source - i mean, why leave it lying around? They must have been aware that the US would take control of it were they to leave the money in the boxes in the palace (quoted in the article above). So what obvious point am i missing?
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You see Saddi is one hell of a smart ass. He left billions for US as a bribe not to find WMD...
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*Originally posted by Abdali: *
You see Saddi is one hell of a smart ass. He left billions for US as a bribe not to find WMD...
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Hmmm...
Is it possible that those sons of Blixes may have been on the right track after all…
Coalition Offers Iraqis Cash For Information on Banned Weapons, Agence France-Presse, 21 May 2003
The US-British coalition occupying Iraq on Wednesday urged Iraqis to come forward with any information about banned weapons programmes and offered “generous rewards”. Having failed to come up with proof to support the main justification for invading Iraq, the coalition broadcast by radio the appeal for help from “honourable Iraqis”. People were asked “to supply any information in their possession about these weapons” of mass destruction.
“Generous rewards await (those who provide) any information on the whereabouts of components, products or equipment used to develop, process, produce or maintain weapons of mass destruction,” the report said. “This includes laboratory equipment and computers or any document relating to the planning, purchase, sale, export, storage, maintenance or use of weapons of mass destruction,” the radio announced. Al-Manar newsaper, a new independent daily, said the ward was up to 200,000 dollars.
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*Originally posted by Nadia_H: *
The US-British coalition occupying Iraq on Wednesday urged Iraqis to come forward with any information about banned weapons programmes and offered "generous rewards".
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Desperate people do desperate things.