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Powell To Address The UN Security Council

It starts in about 20 minutes (15.30 GMT).

He'll supposedly be presenting all the evidence the US has about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the UN security council, and put forward his case for a war on Iraq.

Let's see how he does.

damnit, i have to run to class. ill have much to read when i get back... cant wait to y'alls impressions on the speech

He's on right now and making a very convincing case... I really don't see how people are gonna argue with this

Izzy, are you in ROTC at A&M?

Everyone had it difficult to stop themselves from laugh hearing all that bullshit

more assumptions and mythical facts backed by weak evidence from the CIA. Whats next? Are they going to claim that Osama and Saddam are twin brothers??

Please enlighten us how his presentation was based on "assumptions and mythical facts backed by weak evidence." This should be good

tell you what, france china and russia start to get really childish...

quote:

Originally posted by stringfelowhawk Izzy, are you in ROTC at A&M?

A&M yes, ROTC no

its obvious that in the intellegence world, if one's goal is to go to war one would rather try persuade others without exposing sensitive information, only when that doesnt work do you provide the 'facts'

to all those who doubted america had evidence, did you belive america was lying when it said that it had it?
to the others who still doubt this evidence, do you really belive this is all a fabrication?
if you belive this evidence is credable, is this just cause as resolution 1441 says for iraq to now "face serious consequences"?

quote:

Originally posted by TranceGiant tell you what, france china and russia start to get really childish...

Because a certain student in class thinks they are the principal

Okay, just watched it. I was going to watch the reactions from the other nations as well, but it's 4.30am here and the guy from Cameroon just kept going on and on, so I only got to hear the reactions of China, UK and Russia, all of which were pre-prepared and added nothing to their stances that we didn't already know. Anyway, to Powell's speech.

He seemed to split the speech up into five major categories (in that he addressed each of the major issues in turn, without much overlapping) so I suppose that's the way I'll talk about them here.

The first area dealt with Iraqi deception, and he attempted to prove the lengths to which the Iraqi government went to in order to cover up its "production of weapons of mass destruction". There were three recorded messages in the speech, all, really, were attempts to demonstrate just how subversive the Iraqi's were being in their attempts to throw off the UN Inspectors.

The first recorded message had something to do with a "modified vehicle" and was, just a few minutes into the speech, probably the most convincing evidence presented all-in-all. It started with a higher ranking Iraqi official appearing to be rebuking a lower-ranked Iraqi official for possessing this "modified vehicle" at his base in advance of a visiting UN inspection team. The lower official then said something along the lines of "what shall I tell the inspectors if they see it?" sparking some frustated disbelief in the higher official that they should possess this "vehicle" ahead of UN inspections and that it shouldn't be there. I found this picture on the BBC website, which provides a small part of the transcript:



Taken out of context it looks pretty condemning, but viewed in context of the rest of the transcript I can't remember thinking that it was anywhere near conclusive evidence that Iraq was moving around weapons in anticipation of UN visits. Colin Powell seemed to think that the use of the Arabic equivelent of the word "evacuation" used in favour of "destruction" or "removed for presentation to the UN inspectors" was proof enough that the Iraqis have been running the inspectors around, but, once again, you need a pretty broad imagination to associate the phrase "modified vehicle" with "weapons of mass destruction".

The second message was similar, with a higher official talking to a lower official about the upcoming visit of some specific part of the UN inspection team (I cannot remember the name). My memory is hazy on this point, but it had something to do with one of the inspectors asking what would happen if any "forbidden ammunition" was found on a certain site. In fact, to quote CNN, one official said:

"They are inspecting ammunition you have ... for the possibility there are forbidden ammo"

And the other replied:

"We sent you a message yesterday to clean out the areas, scrap areas, abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there."

Once again, it could be construed as evidence of the Iraqis cleaning out evidence of WMDs in anticipation of UN inspections, or it could be construed in a number of ways. The phrases are ambiguous and taken out of any meaningful context. Once again, as with the above quote, it strikes me as very odd that US intelligence can tap into so many calls, and be precise enough in their tracing to identify the people speaking and the sites they are referring to, yet cannot convey this information to inspection teams who would have - if the allegations are correct - ample time to catch the Iraqis with their pants down. If this really is evidence that the Iraqis are moving large amounts of weaponry, then surely the US could have instructed the UN to visit these sites as quickly as possible (you cannot dispose of evidence pertaining to chemical and biological weaponry overnight) and would have long found the "smoking gun" they seek by now.

The third message seemed irrelevant to me, with one official telling another to take the phrase "nerve agents" out of a report. Taken out of context, the phrase is meaningless and could have been referring to anything. I'll leave it to your own judgement though.

The second part of the speech dealt with supposed evidence pertaining to Iraqs production of chemical and biological weapons, and most of it was heavily dated and skewed so that Iraq could be allowed no right of reply. For instance, Powell accused the Iraqis of possessing large amounts of biolgical agents "before the Iraq/Iran war" and then challenged Iraq and suggested that the fact that it had not been accounted for was evidence enough that Iraq was guilty of this material for 20+ years and that it was up to Iraq to prove that it had been destroyed. And if I may side-track for a moment, that was another main thrust of Powell's speech - that the burden of proof is on the Iraqis rather than the Americnas. That is, that the Iraqis are guilty until proven innocent. Quite what you can do to prove that you don't have any WMDs apart from saying "I don't have any WMDs, come in and take a look" is beyond me, and severly subverts my own conceptions of justice - but then maybe that's just me.

Anyway, Powell made a long list of substances that Iraq used to have, and punctuated these statistics with graphic references as to how potent these materials really are, using his pen-lid, at times, as a point of reference. Nonetheless, throughout all the statistics he provided, none, from memory, were more recenent than 5 years old (i.e. 1998 or earlier, the time, he said, when Hussein "booted out the inspectors" when it was actually Bill Clinton who kicked out the inspectors at that point in time). Once again, he made numerous assertionst that Iraq did have this that or the other at some point in time (most of which was supplied to it by the US anyway if you would care to do some research) and once again demanded that Iraq prove that - post 7 years of inspections - it no longer had these materials. Once again, Powell and his government are the protagonists, the ones pressing for a war, so why should the burdern of proof be on the Iraqis? Could I justly accuse a man of murder and assert that he prove otherwise, especially given that I am the one determining the merit of the evidence he presents in the first place?

The only present (i.e. post 1998) evidence he presented on the issue was that of satellite photographs taken of Iraqi sites supposed to be producing chemical/biolgocial weapons. By his own admission, the photgraphs require expert analysis to be made meaningful, but I'm sure that we can examine them and do our own analysis:



Once again, this image is from the BBC website. It was a lot more clear in the presentation, but essentially what Colin Powell was trying to show was a site busy with activity in November and then being bulldozed in December. In the first image he presented (you can't see it on the image above) he showed a warehouse (the big square thing in the image on the left) being surrounded by trucks, tents, personnel and other things that, in his view, demonstrated that the site was active. No I have no qualms with the summation, the site was active (which seemed to be the point Powell wished to stress the most - that something was happening there in November) but I still see no proof that this site was a production site for WMDs. Perhaps you need to have a better trained eye than I do, but to conclude that the site was used to store/produce weapons merely because there were trucks/security there, you would - in my eyes - need to draw quite a long bow indeed. If the site was being monitered so closely, after all, surely they would have noticed massive missles being loaded into the back of the trucks? Or, if it's not quite that simple, but if they were so sure that the site was producing weapons, then surely they could have traced the trucks to wherever they were headed, passed the information onto the UN and demanded a thorough search of the relevent complexes? Surely this would have provided the excuse for a war that they were looking for?

Besides, I think that the subsequent slides (and the commentary provided by Mr Powell) actually end up working aginst the US in their assertion that Iraq are moving weapons around at will. Look at the dates separating the pictures: one month. That is, going by this case study, it takes one month from the point at which weapons are removed from a factory, to the point at which it is demolished "and the top soil removed" (Powell's own words) to remove any evidence of weapons from the site. Remember, as I said earlier, you can't just sweep chemical/biolgical/nuclear weapons production under the carpet overnight. Toxins and radioactivity have the habit of staying around long after the responsible materials have been removed, and the UN inspectors aren't stupid. They aren't just looking for boxes labelled "Weapons of Mass Destruction", they are thoroughly analyising the sites thought to have housed weapons production plants. If there had been large scale chemical/biological weapons production plant at a particular site, it would take a long time to clean it all up. You couldn't just throw everything into a few boxes, drive them away and then deny everything. Even if the Iraqi officials had a few days warning prior to UN inspections (which, most of the time, they don't) disposing of the evidence isn't that easy, it's a long process (a month in the above case) and I'm sure that with the US's satellite monitoring capabilites, sneaking large amounts of chemical weapons around the country would be pretty damn difficult.

The third part of the speech had to do with Saddam Hussein's attempt to build a nuclear weapon, and it failed to tell us anything that we don't already know. Basically, Powell ran through a long list of items that Hussein had either procured or attempted to procure, and how these may be tied in with the aim of building a nuclear bomb. Yet, even by Powell's own admission, Hussein does not yet have all the components necessary to build one, even if he wanted to. He went on at length about the "aluminium tubing" that could be used in the production of a nuclear bomb, despite the fact that this issue had been addressed by the IAEA several weeks before. Taken from the BBC website (an article concerning the allegations made against Iraq, written on 20/01/03):

"There was better news for Iraq on the mystery of its attempted import of thousands of aluminium tubes.

The suspicion was that it wanted these for centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb but Mr ElBaradei's report to the Council said that the IAEA analysis "indicated that the... tubes sought by Iraq... appear to be consistent with reverse engineering of rockets" as Iraq had asserted."

So on the nuclear front, much as we had suspected. Saddam doesn't have a nuclear bomb, and couldn't make one even if he wanted to.

The fourth part of the speech concerned Iraq's links with Al Qaeda, and was even more spurious than the preceding parts of the speech. The entire argument rested on the assumption that Hussein had links with a man named "Abu Musab Zarqawi" which I don't remember Colin Powell going any way to verifying. Basically Powell made out a great case as to why this "Zarqawi" is a threat to global security (making sure to specifically spell out the threat he posed to the nations present at the council - Spain, Italy, Russia etc) but his ties to Hussein were weak. Apparently the fact that he and some of his factions were working within Iraq (within the Northern Kurdish areas outside of Husseins control - by Powell's own admission) and that he had met with some Iraqi officials were enough to suggest that Hussein had ties with Al Qaeda, but, needless to say, there was no evidence presented to support this assumption. If Zarqawi is such a threat, then it is he who needs to be stopped. If these threats are coming out of the Kurdish part of Iraq, then I fail to see what Baghdad has to do with it. Also, he asserted that "Iraqis visited Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided training to al-Qaeda members" in the early 1990s and that this was grounds to condemn Hussein. But Collo, mate, didn't the US do exactly the same thing? Did they not fund and train Al Qaeda and Bin Laden? "Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al-Qaeda together" Powell said, barely acknoledging the fact that the Secularism of Hussein and the theism of Bin Laden drive them further apart than a common hatred of the US ever could bring them together.

The last part of the speech (which was much shorter than the other parts) was essentially a moral condemnation of Hussein's human rights record, which - while being technically accurate - was rife with hypocracy, and as much a justification for a pre-emptive stike on the US as it was justification for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. Firstly Powell cited Iraqi violation of UN resolutions and treaties, which - while they may be valid, do not excuse the fact that many other countries are guilty of violating many more (and much more serious) resolutions than Iraq, and the fact that the human rights record of the US (as well as their violation of similar UN treaties/resolutions) has been, for a western country, quite abysmal. Secondly, Powell condemned Hussein for gassing his own people in 1988.

Now I've already run through this before in another topic, so I won't labour the point, but essentially the chemical weapons used by Hussein against the Kurds in 1988 were supplied by the US and after the event, the US government (headed by Bush snr, and of which Powell - unless I am very much mistaken - was a part) actually increased the export of such weapons to Iraq. Thus, to spell it out more bluntly, Powell condemns the Iraqi president for murdering his own people when it was his government who supplied him with the means to commit such an action, and his government who - being so outraged by these "humanitarian attrocities" - increased the supply of such weapons after the event. I'm not sure what else to add, as the US begging along the "human rights" angle really does speak for itself.

Anyway, overall, having said all that I have, I believe that Powell came across quite confidently and spoke forcefully and passionately. I am proud that he has - or at least has been shown to have - convinced Bush to pursue the UN angle as far as possible. I doubt that any of the other individuals holding Bush's strings would have come across quite so convincingly, so in that sense, at least Powell presented a semi-reputable argument and presented the bare, necessary justification for a war on Iraq. Having said that, though, much of the information was aged and outdated, and virtually all of it relied on "human accounts", or - to put it another way - "things that people told us". In a court of law, that would count as hear-say and conjecture, and I'm not sure it would be enough to convict Hussein of the crimes with which he has been charged. I'm fairly certain I've addressed most of the substantiated points (in the sense that there is evidence supporting the claims that reaches beyond mere hearsay and conjecture) and if I haven't, then I'd be happy to address it should you remind me of it (as my memory ain't what it used to be).

Nonetheless, I would be interested to see how the other nations address the speech in the coming days (as they all read pre-prepared remarks today) as well as how Hans Blix and his team consider the evidence presented, but - for me anyway - the speech did little to convince me that a war on Iraq is the right thing. Powell did not address the many deaths certain to occur from such an action (and this is by far the most major issue to be considered in the justification for war) nor did he address what would happen once Hussein had been deposed as leader. The speech did moderately well in justifying why the US might be legally justified in going to war, but did nothing to clarify why war is the best available option, or why other diplomatic avenues have necessarily been depleted.

But still, I would like to hear what the rest of you thought about it, especially since I wrote most of this several hours after having watched the actual speech.

renegade,

although the evidence did not prove 'a smoking gun' (powell even said that it wouldnt days before the actual speech) as many people would have loved to see, i was under the impression that it was not the UN's job to find them. i thought this was Saddam's last test to see whether he will fully cooperate with the the international body and start a trusting relationship where as he could be called a partner in showing the world he is of no threat. call me paranoid, but when i hear and see cover ups like that which were presented by powell, i begin to lose trust in who i am dealing with. for example, the least iraq could have done (with regards to the satillite pic case) was say to the UN, "see that warehouse which was once active, we are now going to demolish it, would you like to inspect it before we alter its present state?"

quote:

at least Powell presented a semi-reputable argument and presented the bare, necessary justification for a war on Iraq. The speech did moderately well in justifying why the US might be legally justified in going to war

i know i am taking this comletely out of context, but i appreciate the fact that you admit there is a real (legal) justification for war on iraq. although we may differ as to whether going to war in this case is still morally right or wrong and may or may not be the best solution, such opinions are for to the individual to decide and im glad we can respect each others viewpoint.

wow renegade excellent post. i'd like to put that up on my website if you would let me!

as for my thoughts, i haven't read the whole transcript, does anyone know where i could find it? a quick search on google didn't turn up anything..

but one quick thing, the burden of proof is on the UN here, not on iraq.

it's true, saddamn must co-operate, but i don't see how he hasn't. the inspectors are crawling all over the country, including in his personal palaces. the only possible issue is the refusal to allow U2 spyplanes, i'm surprised powell didn't mention that. actually maybe he did, i'm not going to comment further till i read the transcript.

quote:

Originally posted by JohnSmith as for my thoughts, i haven't read the whole transcript, does anyone know where i could find it? a quick search on google didn't turn up anything..

http://tester.tranceaddict.com/foru...02&pagenumber=4
i posted a fox news link to the whole adress near the bottom of the page (in the middle-ish of the report, sorry for being fox, but its the straight up speech, no 'spin' added )

quote:

it's true, saddamn must co-operate, but i don't see how he hasn't. the inspectors are crawling all over the country, including in his personal palaces. the only possible issue is the refusal to allow U2 spyplanes, i'm surprised powell didn't mention that. actually maybe he did, i'm not going to comment further till i read the transcript.

in that page i also argue how iraq hasnt cooperated. as i also stated here, powell presents a case not for proof of smoking guns but rather proof that iraq is not cooperating

To Powell's Speech.
-First of, with Bush's speech on the State of the Union, he said that the evidence that Powell was going to present today, would be enough to prove that Iraq was a danger and is lieing .
-Secondly, many sources said before hand that Powell would present a case so strong, that it would be compared to the evidence of when Cuba had missiles and weapons, which made and gave the support to the US in order to stop that problem with Cuba .
-Thirdly, as I watched Powell's speech, he did comment and defend the point on why the US and the World should get Saddam out, and what the evidences ment. Really, I was expecting more, moreso, I was expecting to be surprised to what Powell would have brought, but really, the evidence that he showed was more like Human evidence, satellite pictures, there was nothing concrete, just assumptions. Also, the tapes, its something you have to look closer in a case of starting a war, its not enough to back up Bush's ATTACK IRAQ tactic, really.
And I think what France and the rest of the UN said is the best to now, hence the fact that Powel did not show the ENOUGH evidence in order to start a war.

Also, today, Saddam Hussein will be in ABC or CBS or something like that for an interview, or they will be airing yesterdays interview, Im not sure, but I will be looking forward to what he has to say.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Once again, it could be construed as evidence of the Iraqis cleaning out evidence of WMDs in anticipation of UN inspections, or it could be construed in a number of ways. The phrases are ambiguous and taken out of any meaningful context. Once again, as with the above quote, it strikes me as very odd that US intelligence can tap into so many calls, and be precise enough in their tracing to identify the people speaking and the sites they are referring to, yet cannot convey this information to inspection teams who would have - if the allegations are correct - ample time to catch the Iraqis with their pants down. If this really is evidence that the Iraqis are moving large amounts of weaponry, then surely the US could have instructed the UN to visit these sites as quickly as possible (you cannot dispose of evidence pertaining to chemical and biological weaponry overnight) and would have long found the "smoking gun" they seek by now.

the reason they didn't do that is because there are no "weapons of mass destruction", or if there are, they are old, rusted, and useless. of course, if there WERE, then the U.S. would have, as you said, informed the inspections teams ASAP. the fact that they didn't shows that there was nothing to hide on the Iraqi part. just think about it... if they DID have that kind of information, and told the inspectors who would have, like you said, have subsequently caught the iraqis with their "pants down", then that would have been TREMENDOUS evidence for ANYONE. but hey, they didn't, surprise surprise.

also, those photos of that chemical factory or whatnot, could be absolutely anything. notice the "STUNNING" attention to detail? three labels in total on the left photo... they labelled the SECURITY building for christ's sake. WOW! that will convince me to go to war with iraq!!! a security shed!!!!!!! what a flagrant violation of UN mandate!!!!

what is this, the pre-industrial age? where is the technology? where are the zooms of photos taken from $billions+ satellites? where are the infrared photos showing heat signatures that could only be made by massive chemical factories? where are the radar shots? where are the heuristic analyses? where is any of that? instead, they give us a black and white photo of a few buildings that, for all we know, could be photos of a damn 50 year old soviet bunker in siberia.

and furthermore, where is the ground intelligence? i recall reading the words of some U.S. intelligence expert, who said (paraphrasing), "though we can get accurate photos, no one can see through walls. for anything conclusive, you have to have people down there collecting concrete evidence firsthand." i totally agree with this. what has the U.S. done in this regard?

and that conversation between two Iraqis. what a joke. what, based on two men sharing some fears for the inspection, you're going to build evidence for WAR? for all we know, they could be arguing how the inspectors will wag their fingers at them, because "the vehicle" they were referring to didn't have seat belts, or working brakes, or something. christ.

this reminds me of the gulf war. even then, the "evidence" that the U.S. had was laughable. indeed, the "conclusive evidence" that was used to justify the war, saying that the iraqi tanks were on the saudi arabian border, was total b.s. they claimed this based on "top secret" satellite photos (which are to this day classified). in actual fact, however, the tanks had retreated long before, which was physically confirmed afterwards by commercial russian satellite photos. but the U.S. went to war anyway. the fact that their "evidence" was horrendously flawed was only brought about later, and heavily glossed over.

and you know what? the same thing will happen this time. if this war goes through (which i think it will, U.N. or not), eventually it will be proved that the U.S. had flawed or fabricated evidence. and they'll gloss it over again. and then after another few years they'll make up a new war to feed the military machine. repeat ad nauseam.

who is the U.S.? what business do they have, half a world away, trying to discipline a country that they know nothing about? all attempts of the west to shape the middle east have FAILED and failed horribly. obviously, this is just a bid for oil. controlling the world's second largest source of oil is a valuable commodity.

i'm sure many will disagree with all this. but mark my words, just as the U.S. has to this date failed to show "conclusive" evidence, or to have presented a REAL reason to justify any of their previous aggressions and wars to date, this war will be no different.

quote:

Originally posted by Izzy http://tester.tranceaddict.com/foru...02&pagenumber=4 i posted a fox news link to the whole adress near the bottom of the page (in the middle-ish of the report, sorry for being fox, but its the straight up speech, no 'spin' added )

thanks izzy, i printed the transcript for review.

here it is for others:
Transcript

quote:

Originally posted by JohnSmith the only possible issue is the refusal to allow U2 spyplanes, i'm surprised powell didn't mention that.

actually the regime allowed a week ago U2 planes to fly over iraq


oh and Renegade! impressive post!

really? where did you hear that? i got this from the transcript, haven't finished reading though.

quote:

Iraq also has refused to permit any U-2 reconnaissance flights that would give the inspectors a better sense of what's being moved before, during and after inspections.

would be interested to hear what your source is malek, every bit helps.

it was on tv the other day...where will i find it now? :-/

i found it, its in french, so bare with me

excrept from the interview of Tarek Aziz (questions are in bold).

M. Blix vous a �galement demand� de coop�rer sur les avions espions U2, la possibilit� d'interviewer des scientifiques irakiens en priv� et le vote d'une loi constitutionnelle interdisant � l'avenir la production d'armes de destruction massive.
Sur ces trois points nous allons coop�rer avec M. Blix. Il viendra ici le 8 f�vrier, mais je pr�f�re lui laisser la primeur de notre r�ponse. Je voudrais simplement vous faire remarquer, en ce qui concerne les U2, qu'il est fondamentalement injuste de nous demander d'accepter le survol de notre territoire par ces avions espions au moment m�me o� l'Am�rique programme ouvertement une invasion de notre pays.

-->>M Blix also asked you to cooperate on the questions of the U2 spy planes, the possibility of privatly interviewing iraqi scientists and a vote on a law forbidding any productionf of WMD in the future

Answer: We will cooperate on these 3 points with M. Blix, he will come here on feb 8th, but i want to leave it to him for the announcements of our answers. I wish to add about the U2s, it is fundamentally unjust to ask us to accept that our territory be flown over by these spy planes at the same time where the USA are openly preparing an invasion of our country.

Mais vous avez bien accept� le survol de votre territoire par ces avions avant 1998...
Oui, mais c'�tait � une �poque o� les �tats-Unis ne pr�paraient pas l'invasion de notre territoire. Cette exigence des avions U2 est vraiment scandaleuse, mais, encore une fois, je ne veux pas pr�juger de ce que donneront nos entretiens avec M. Blix.

--->> But you let these planes to fly over your territories in 1998...

Answer: yes, but it was at a time where the USA weren't preparing an invasion of our territories. This demand is really scandaleous, but again, i don't want to prejudge what our meeting with M. Blix will result in.


He's accepting it, but at the same time, he's waiting for m blix to come over so they can discuss about it. Aziz's position is understandable, you don't want to give everything to your enemy when he'll attack in the coming weeks. Thats' really asking him to bend over so he can get royally fucked.

What Aziz wants, is that the result of these spy missions are shown to the whole UN security counsel. Not only kept to the US (but then again he's dreaming in color).

http://www.figaro.fr/international/...05.FIG0122.html

thanks malek. i wish i could read french. heck, i wish i could read arabic or farsi!

anyway, it seems he "will" concede to those planes, but hasn't yet. which does not make rumsfeld a liar when he says that he "hasn't" allowed the planes to go over.

i see why he wouldn't though, what with an imminent attack, and the former use of UNSCOM as spies.

quote:

i know i am taking this comletely out of context, but i appreciate the fact that you admit there is a real (legal) justification for war on iraq.

Yep, there is a very good chance that Hussein is in violation of 1441 (I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure if the US allegation that the Iraqis are preventing UN access to scientists - one of the few independantly verified parts of the speech - constitutes, in itself, a direct violation of the resolution) but I'm not sure that that in itself is justification to go to war. From the looks of it (i.e. from the date of the photographs and intelligence reports), the US have been monitoring Iraq heavily over the past 12 months, and have still yet to identify a serious material breach of resolution 1441. There was the missile that travelled longer than it's allocated 150 mile range (though still no where near far enough to be of any threat to any country other than the sympathetic Arabic countries surrounding Iraq) and those crop dusters - or whatever they were - that "could" be used to deliver anthrax, but I feel that it's still important to note that not one solid piece of evidence has been uncovered in the time that the inspectors have been there.

Given this fact, even if - with the evidence presented today - Powell has shown Hussein as being in violation of Resolution 1441, there is still a big difference between Hussein violating a single resolution (like I've said many times before, he's not the only leader in the world flaunting resolutions at the moment) and Hussein posing a genuine threat to the world. Powell failed to address any of the moral concerns regarding this war, and it certainly came across as an excercise in trying to find any excuse possible to march into Bagdhad, rather than a genuine demonstration of Hussein's threat to the global community.

Remember, thousands of innocents will die should this war go ahead. For this to be in any way justifiable, the evidence is going to need to be solid and the threat very real - we can't cheapen the value of human life by demanding anything less.

quote:

although we may differ as to whether going to war in this case is still morally right or wrong and may or may not be the best solution, such opinions are for to the individual to decide and im glad we can respect each others viewpoint.

Ditto.

quote:

wow renegade excellent post. i'd like to put that up on my website if you would let me!

Thanks, and yeah sure, I'd like that very much. Give me a few hours to rewrite parts of it (as now I can refer to the transcript instead of just doing everything from memory) but apart from that you're welcome to post it whenever you like.

besides the general knowledge that this world is ridiculously corrupt, i dont see why everybody has to keep on pointing out how hypocritical the US has been over the years. Who cares, everybody knows this, and what country has not played there hands under the table? exactly my point. none. sorry about all the pessimism, but personaly, i just think this world is fucked, and that its the godamn masons that have caused most of this shit (haha no im not insane, look at how many presidents of the US have been masons! and not to mention they (bloody masons) control the g-7 also). bleh, im not making sense here, but i am content with my puritanical misanthropia.

ps: the United Nations is just as useless as its predecesor, the league of nations. The UN always takes action to late, and has never been affective enough in my opinion, and there are a million and one more reasons i could state, but being that its past my bedtime, i am going to hit the sack. ( And that bastard mason started the league of nations which then became the UN, so yes the UN was a mason creation also.)

I was always against the war, because I saw no real evidence of The "threat" of Iraq. I only got to see part of the UN meeting in school today, but what I saw seemed fairly convincing. My oppinion on the Iraq issue will change, depending on what unfolds the next few days. I don't like like war, but if this threat is real and nearly as bad as they've been saying, we need to do what we have to do.

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