[QUOTE] Originally posted by Seminole: *
What part of *"firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories **on wheels and on rails" makes them stationery items that are in the same place they were when last reported?
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The factories "on wheels and on rails" is only one example that i picked out from Powell's presentation. i was doing a search on the word "biological" on that page, and that was the first example that came up. Powell's speech is peppered with numerous other examples of informed "sources" who told the US details about Iraq's weapons factories.
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So what is so bizarre about this taking a few weeks? ...] Do you think US forces who were still fighting a full-fledged war a week ago and who is now responsible for law and order has time to search all of Iraq and every possible buried spot?
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The US admin. had claimed prior to the invasion, that they possessed all this factual, accurate evidence of WMD in Iraq. Two months later after they have invaded Iraq, now they claim they will offer "rewards" to anyone who helps them find these weapons. Do you see the contradiction - they were ALREADY supposed to have the precise coordinates for these WMD factories. Time was not a factor in February - when they were so confidently describing (and showing pictures of) Iraq's alleged WMD.
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Can we give it a little time before we judge and condone with insults like liars, hypocrits, distrust, etc? At least on this issue?
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i have nothing against that.
What bothers me is when the invasion has been undertaken, thousands of civilians have lost their lives - morally, it's a bit too late for the US to now be claiming they need Iraqis to help them show WMD. If they had the "evidence" in February, they should be able to back it up in April.
If they had the evidence in February why didn't the sons of Blixes go get them?
I don't think "morals" has anything to do the US asking the people who buried this stuff to tell them where it is.
Thousands of civlian deaths? What is the count? Is it less than would have been killed under Hussein in the same time frame? Maybe not, but what about in another month's time? Saddam would have kept on killing, but this history making war because of its lack of civilian casualties has virtually ended. What about the thousands that died under sanctions and Saddams hapless rule? Those numbers will be going down quickly as well. What do you know? By next month the number of healthy, alive Iraqis will be much higher than it would have been with Saddam at the helm.
None of that justifies the WMD or not question, but again - how did Saddam hide his program and tons of chemicals during 4 years of inspections in the early 90's?
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Can we give it a little time before we judge and condone with insults like liars, hypocrits, distrust, etc? At least on this issue?
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Funny, didn't the UN ask for a bit more time for weapons inspections? Coalition terrorists seemed to think these "WMD"'s were such an immediate threat, they they terrorized whole nation over them. I think the coalition terrorists had more than enough time to "find" the WMD, so their next step most likely is to plant them and say that Iraqi's led them to it.
No, what's funny is that anyone would (particularly after 1441) after 12 long years of playing hide and seek could ask for "a bit more time". Like I said above, the 3 weeks of "terrorizing" could be followed by decades of peace, prosperity and freedom. So save the crocodile tears for the hundreds of thousands that Saddam killed, tortured, imprisoned and displaced and the hundreds of thousands that would have come without his ouster. How can you say they should have already found them? In a barren country that size? How many yanks do you think they have out there digging? How else can they find the stash w/o the help of the diggers? You sure are giving the US a lot of credit on this issue, considering they suck at everything else.
Thanks, Fret.
Yes the inspections team was asking for more time (infact if i remember correctly, Blix was asking for months, not years).
>>I don’t think “morals” has anything to do the US asking the people who buried this stuff to tell them where it is.<<
i agree.
The “moral” issue, for me, comes up when the US hyped up the WMD furor to justify invading a sovereign country, and leading to thousands of civilians being injured or losing their lives. All for what - WMD that they are unable to locate now. It goes back to EP’s statements in the very first post - that this invasion was not related towards disarming Iraq of WMD.
>>What is the count?<<
Depends which source we go by. 1631, according to this source. Injured civilians, children suffering from mental trauma - i don’t think there are any statistics on that.
Regarding sanctions’ deaths - i am sure you already know whom i consider responsible for those.
>>…how did Saddam hide his program and tons of chemicals during 4 years of inspections in the early 90’s?<<
i am not disputing that Iraq had a weapons programme, maybe it did. i think every sovereign country has the right to possess that if it is surrounded by countries that are armed in a superior fashion.
Anyways my point in this thread (agree or disagree) is that, especially from January onwards of this year, we heard incessantly of Iraq’s alleged WMD. Powell made a big song and dance of this in February, not even three months ago. Since the US states it has the evidence, it knows where the arsenals and bio/chem/nuc munitions are located — then show it to us. Coming out with requests for Iraqi assistance - sounds ludicrous now to say the least, when Powell was gloating over his multimedia visuals at the Security Council.
All this, as i stated before, just serves to discredit the US government in my eyes even more. We expect lies from dictatorships, not from democracies.
What makes this all such a stinker is that during the threat indoctrination phase prior to the war the whole catch was that Saddam had these weapons and could (never did use definite words) transfer them to terror organizations, such as al Qaeda (always stressed). A few times I heard on TV top-level advisors admit that they thought it unlikely that Saddam himself would use them - the stress was always on terror organizations, such as al Qaeda.
We had the technology to locate, identify, and track NBC facilities, stationary and mobile, during harsh conditions then.. what since has disrupted that technology? Through all the glorious fields of intell (mostly SIGINT/MASINT and HUMINT) we are able to keep up with such things even during a war. There was no "fog". Since we should know where they are, logic dictates that pursuing those items would hold a higher value than eliminating stray bands of fedayeen or securing desolate oil fields.
So... Saddam's government has fallen. He is no longer a threat. But regarding WMD we always thought that he is not the true threat; the terror organizations, such as al Qaeda, are. They are still out there.. yes, in Iraq. Would it not make sense that members of these terror organizations, such as al Qaeda, would like to get their hands on Saddam's WMD? especially for free??
Looking at it like this.. how can anyone say that hunting down 5 pissed Iraqis here and there is more important than finding and securing these WMD?!?
"i am not disputing that Iraq had a weapons programme, maybe it did. i think every sovereign country has the right to possess that if it is surrounded by countries that are armed in a superior fashion."
Maybe it did? They admitted to it. It is documented. It is fact. The difference with this sovereign country is that it AGREED to dismantle its WMD because it was defeated in a war aimed at stopping its agression. If we can't agree to that point, anything else beyond that is not debatable on this topic.
No matter WHO was responsible for the deaths because of sanctions, they WILL subside from this point forward. That will save at least 1631 deaths a month won't it? So within a month we will have more and fatter and happier Iraqis than we would have under Saddam. For sure within the months it would have taken Blix to complete the 13 year inspection process. Even if sanctions were lifted because it was proven that Saddam had an epiphany and suddenly did destroy his weapons he wasn't supposed to have, he would have kept on killing, imprisoning and displacing millions. Never mind that he would have remained a pariah and the economy would not flourish like it will now with US investment.
Again, if there was evidence of exactly where it was in February, why didn't Blix go get them? Was it a conspiracy by US to keep it from UN?
You stated that “The difference with this sovereign country is that it AGREED to dismantle its WMD because it was defeated in a war aimed at stopping its agression.” True. What gets lost, i think, in this discussion is that as early as Clinton’s first term in office, the goalposts consistently kept changing. First, it was - Iraq invaded Kuwait, so it must disarm. Fair enough, i will swallow that. But then Albright and others came along bellowing that even if Iraq complied vis-a-vis disarmament, regime change was what they wanted.
>>That will save at least 1631 deaths a month won’t it? So within a month we will have more and fatter and happier Iraqis than we would have under Saddam.<<
i think we have our numbers mixed up. Sorry, i meant that 1631 deaths was due to the invasion.
According to Unicef, some 5000 children die each month due to the sanctions. Just because you lift the sanctions overnight, it doesn’t mean that malnutritioned babies are going to overnight magically put on a couple dozen pounds.
>>[Saddam] would have kept on killing, imprisoning and displacing millions. Never mind that he would have remained a pariah and the economy would not flourish like it will now with US investment.<<
Flourish with US investment ? The country was flourishing quite well during the end of the 1980s up until the embargo was imposed. It was flourishing on a par equal to Greece, with socio-economic indictators quite positive.
>>Again, if there was evidence of exactly where it was in February, why didn’t Blix go get them? Was it a conspiracy by US to keep it from UN?<<
If i remember correctly unless i am mistaken, Blix was asking the US to show his team the “intelligence” information that the latter stated they possessed. Blix did request for the US to give him any weapons-related info. they had. i am not so certain why that request was never satisfied.
Interesting. You raised some excellent points, Spoon :k:
i would think that securing oil wells is less significant than securing the alleged factories of WMD.
Nadia, there is no point trying to convince these people. They will never admit that they were/are wrong.
Of course they will never find them because Saddam was so clever he moved them in places where US can never find them, however, he is not smart enough to build any kind of formidable defense for his country. People like seminole who ask you if they are close minded, need to take a good hard look in the mirror. Its their close mind that forces them not to see the other side of the coin.
Its lies, lies and more lies. Aided by enormous media machine.
I think they will find the weapons.. after all, they got log books of what was sent to the ass to kill Iranians ....
The reason its taking so long is to justify their invasion.. remember what I used to ask? Why couldn’t they just give UN the details of these weapons? ... Well .. they will say, “look.. it took us this long to find the damn weapons .. How could 100 or so inspectors find them under the ‘regime’?
Yes, lies, lies and more lies.. But different kinda lies from what you are suggesting.. Just my viewpoint …
If US were so nice, they could have just bombed the dictator ass and told the UN where to look for the weapons.. end of story … but naaah … we will find them .. and while we are there, we will also destroy the infrastructure and ring up the bills so that the Iraqis spend next 20 years paying us back …. One down .. and few more to go and end of any ‘threats’ from the east …cool plan .. me likey ..
“logic dictates that pursuing those items would hold a higher value than eliminating stray bands of fedayeen or securing desolate oil fields.”
Before stability? You guys were all pissed off that US didn’t go from military to policing within 24 hours. Less than a 3 week war, 1300 civilian deaths, increasing stability, you want it all and right now. Nothing would be good enough. If it was 1 week and 13 deaths, you’d still be complaining.
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Before stability? You guys were all pissed off that US didn't go from military to policing within 24 hours. Less than a 3 week war, 1300 civilian deaths, increasing stability, you want it all and right now. Nothing would be good enough. If it was 1 week and 13 deaths, you'd still be bitching.
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Yes, before stability - the same way we took the oil fileds (I am not implying evil intent in the oil part, simply displaying the military's ability to maneuver under harsh conditions). Yes, they should have instituted civil affairs units better and quicker - the day after D-Day 1944 we air dropped civil affairs people into France and took administrative control of the country almost immediately - it is possible, simultaneously.
I've gotta catch a plane to London in an hour.. I'll see if this is still going on Tuesday....
The US is preparing to intensify its efforts to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, sending in 1,000 scientists, intelligence analysts and others, straining further the international disagreement over who should verify that the country is WMD-free, it was revealed yesterday.
The Iraq Survey Group will be led by a US general and equipped with mobile laboratories to do tests on site, the Wall Street Journal reported. An American official told the newspaper it would be “a much more muscular organisation” than Unmovic, the UN inspections body.
The announcement will exacerbate disagreements between Washington and France, Russia and other security council members, who want the verification to be undertaken by Unmovic, led by the UN’s chief weapons inspector for Iraq, Hans Blix.
Britain is urging an alternative plan in which a neutral country or representative would rule on the matter, much as the Canadian general John de Chastelain has succeeded in maintaining the respect of all sides in Northern Ireland.
Mr Blix has complained of being shut out by the allies and warned that purported discoveries of banned weapons by their own investigators will lack credibility.
In an interview with the German news magazine Der Spiegel, a frustrated Mr Blix said the coalition had not given the UN weapons inspectors “any prospect of co-operation”.
Please tell us where you see “increasing stability” in Iraq? Apart from the INSTABILITY we all see in town after town across Iraq, we see US soldiers butchering Iraqi demonstrators who dare voice the new “freedoms” we are told they have.
As to the search for “WMD”, it’s one desperate measure after another. Now we we have the American occupiers bribing people (when they are not busy killing them for speaking their “free” minds) to provide information, and the US violating UN resolutions by sending in their own “inspectors” or rather should I say planters.
As Blix has asked why does the US not let the UN inspectors back in, for it is not Saddam that is stoppoing them going back in now, but the USA.
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
the U.S. didn't now exactly where WMD were as they can be moved around. Investigations take time, asking for help from the locals isn't desperate, it would be foolish not to.
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One can move WMD but not the infrastructure... It takes a huge setup to produce nukes and chemicals.... Hey why don't you guyz play Suddan and blow up some Pharmaceutical factory..... If you need the cordinates of N. Korean setup just ask.. Ah! but it will take America X 10 to look that way given the past jolly experience with 4 footers.
Please tell us where you see “increasing stability” in Iraq? Apart from the INSTABILITY we all see in town after town across Iraq, we see US soldiers butchering Iraqi demonstrators who dare voice the new “freedoms” we are told they have.