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ooops ....WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz (pg. 4)
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| Galapidate |
| True, plus I think Gore could've worked on his campaign a bit better. |
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| Shakka |
| A good start would've been to stick a hot poker up Bill Daly's ass and send him on his way. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
Ummm....the majority of those Americans are smart and educated and no that Bush in an ass. The people that DID suppourt the war and think that there were WMD's in Iraq were the stupid, inbreeding, hicks. |
Ok ... first of all, many of us thought that Iraq did indeed possess massive stocks of WMDs ... even those of us that were anti-war ... ask vesa if he ate his hat :). Even if there were absolutely no intelligence at all about Iraq since the 1996 I would still hedge my bets that they possessed WMDs. I base my assumptions upon the UNSCOM reports that documented how much material was unaccounted for. Second of all, I supported the war ... not for the sake of WMDs alone. Rather, I thought Iraqis would benefit from regime change in addition to the rest of the world following disarmament. Would I still be anti-war knowing what I know today? I don't know. It depends how Iraq turns out one year from now. If its citizens are grateful and benefit then yes. If they don't then obviously no. However, I'm not going to be a and pretend that I didn't think the way I did because I was proven wrong and I'm not going to change my beliefs until I'm proven wrong.
So call me a stupid, inbreeding, hick. I had legitimate reasons for my methadology and I'll stick by them to accept the criticisms or the successes. |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Ok ... first of all, many of us thought that Iraq did indeed possess massive stocks of WMDs ... even those of us that were anti-war ... ask vesa if he ate his hat :). Even if there were absolutely no intelligence at all about Iraq since the 1996 I would still hedge my bets that they possessed WMDs. I base my assumptions upon the UNSCOM reports that documented how much material was unaccounted for. Second of all, I supported the war ... not for the sake of WMDs alone. Rather, I thought Iraqis would benefit from regime change in addition to the rest of the world following disarmament. Would I still be anti-war knowing what I know today? I don't know. It depends how Iraq turns out one year from now. If its citizens are grateful and benefit then yes. If they don't then obviously no. However, I'm not going to be a and pretend that I didn't think the way I did because I was proven wrong and I'm not going to change my beliefs until I'm proven wrong.
So call me a stupid, inbreeding, hick. I had legitimate reasons for my methadology and I'll stick by them to accept the criticisms or the successes. |
UNSCOM? What a farce. If Iraq had WMD's do you really think they would have been sitting in a bunker somewhere? C'mon, for Christ's sake. They wouls have used them against Israel or Iran, or Kuwait. And what possible WMD's did they have? Anthrax? Nuclear devices? Either UNSCOm are blind, or the Iraqi's are really good at hiding MASSIVE labs and weapons. And I can see that the Iraqis are REEALLY benefiting from the absence of Hussein. No more dictator, instead imminent genocide. :rolleyes: |
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| LiquidX |
| - I always said that the WMD was just an excuse.. I did say that IF there is any, yes it is good to do something about it, but, that IF is not part of my sentence anymore... cause IF there was any WMD in Iraq, for 1,000 some american experts and military, plus all the super sophisticated equipment, its not hard to find them, if so, we are in so much trouble if is so easy to hide those weapons.. wouldn't it? |
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| Shakka |
| Well they did admit to having thousands of litres of nerve agents and chemical weapons in 1998 before they kicked out the weapons inspectors. Even if they did destroy that (yeah right), they would have some records of where it went. You don't just misplace 25,000 litres of anything. Especially weapons grade chemicals. If you believed more than a few pages of that 12,000 dossier of b/s you must be loony not to see it for what it was. Instead of simply answering the questions that were posed (Simply: Where is the proof of the destruction of said weapons?) the Iraqi regime chose to skirt it's way around the issue and try to point the finger elsewhere. I believe that the undestroyed weapons are there, and I hope for everyone's sake that they're found. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by DrummeRaver86
UNSCOM? What a farce. If Iraq had WMD's do you really think they would have been sitting in a bunker somewhere? C'mon, for Christ's sake. They wouls have used them against Israel or Iran, or Kuwait. And what possible WMD's did they have? Anthrax? Nuclear devices? Either UNSCOm are blind, or the Iraqi's are really good at hiding MASSIVE labs and weapons. And I can see that the Iraqis are REEALLY benefiting from the absence of Hussein. No more dictator, instead imminent genocide. :rolleyes: |
Huh? UNSCOM was a united nations organization that found documents detailing Iraqi WMD programs which illustrated that there was a significant discrepancy between the number of weapons that were documented as being destroyed and the number of weapons that were listed as being in the inventory. Why would the presence of WMDs necessitate their use against the Israelis, the Iranians, or the Kuwaities? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
Here's an interesting article that helps explain some of the misconceptions on where all those WMD (i.e. chem. and/or biol. weapons) went:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world...sp?story=411300
| quote: | "Iraq claimed it had destroyed all its prohibited weapons, either unilaterally or in co-operation with the inspectors, between 1991 and 1994. Although the inspectors were able to verify that unilateral destruction took place on a large scale, they were not able to quantify the amounts destroyed.
For example, they were able to detect that anthrax growth media had been burnt and buried in bulk at a site next to the production facility at al-Hakam. There was no way - and there never will be - to tell from the soil samples the amount destroyed. As a result, UN inspectors recorded this material as unaccounted for: neither verified destroyed nor believed to still exist.
Translated into statements by the British and US governments, it became part of "stockpiles" that they claimed Iraq was hiding from the inspectors. Both governments knew UN inspectors had not found any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq since at least 1994, aside from a dozen abandoned mustard shells, and that the vast majority of any weapons produced before 1991 would have degraded to the point of uselessness within 10 years.". |
And for those who do not know what Vesa is talking about with PNAC, here's a couple of links to keep you up to date:
http://www.sundayherald.com/27735
- Where the whole story broke about PNAC and it's obvious desire for invasion into Iraq long before we actually did (Actually, Cheney asked Clinton for invasion in 1998, but Clinton turned him down).
http://www.guerrillanews.com/globalization/doc1147.html
-Good summary of PNAC's intentions
http://cryptome.org/rad.htm
Complete documentation on PNAC: Rebuilding America's Defenses
(kinda seems like a good offense is the best defense - wait, is that where we got our "pre-emptive" policy to strike first because countries like Iraq pose an "imminent threat"? Hmmmmmmm......) |
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| DrummeRaver86 |
Occrider, lemme arrange my thoughts for you, my last post was a little irratic. I'm sayig the UNSCOM report was farcical. From what I heard, they were trying to also use past reports to help write the last report. The WMD's might not have been there for all we know. Just because something like UNSCOM comes around and publishes a report doens't mean that Iraq has all the weapons UNSCOM says it has.
Secondly, I meant to say that if Iraq did have those WMD's, they would not keep them lying around for inspectors to see. They would have been already used. The Iraqi regime did not care about it's reputation witht the world. They would have used those WMD's the second they had finished manufacturing them. |
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| Mental Exodus |
This was a straightforward argument, set against stern and unrelenting prophesies of doom from Bush administration officials, and from Bush himself. Americans are funny. They fall for Hitler's maxim on lies over and over again: "The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." Over and over and over and over and over again, the American people were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction practically falling out of his ears. The American people were told that Hussein was giving away these weapons to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda the way you and I might give away birthday presents.
Feast for a moment, on this brief timeline:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, August 26 2002
"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."
- Ari Fleischer, December 2 2002
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
- Ari Fleischer, January 9 2003
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
- Colin Powell, February 5 2003
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
- Ari Fleischer, March 21 2003
"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."
- Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22 2003
"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30 2003
"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found."
- Ari Fleischer, April 10 2003
"There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country."
- Donald Rumsfeld, April 25 2003
"I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction."
- Colin Powell, May 4 2003
These are the words of administration officials who were following orders and the party line. It has been axiomatic for quite a while now that the people behind the scenes, and not the Main Man Himself, are running the ways and means of this administration. Harken back to the campaign in 2000, when the glaring deficiencies in ability and experience displayed by George W. Bush were salved by the fact that a number of heavy hitters would be backstopping him. Yet a Democrat named Harry Truman once said, "The buck stops here." What did the man in receipt of said stopped buck have to say on the matter?
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
- George W. Bush, September 12 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
- George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28 2003
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
- George Bush, February 8 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
- George Bush, March 17 2003
"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."
- George Bush, April 24 2003
"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."
- George Bush, May 3 2003
"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program."
- George W. Bush, May 6 2003
It has become all too clear in the last several months that the horrid descriptions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were nothing more than the Big Lie which Hitler described. The American people, being the trusting TV-stoned folks they are, bought this WMD lie bag and baggage. Imagine the shock within the administration when Lieutenant General James Conway, top US Marine Commander in Iraq, said that American intelligence on Iraqi WMDs was "Simply wrong." Conway went on to state about the WMDs that, "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there." |
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| Shakka |
There are an equal number of quotes from the Clinton administration acknowledging that Saddam had weapons and would use them. Give me some time to find the sources--I don't have them handy right now.
| quote: | WMDs: Don't Change the Ground Rules
June 4, 2003
Remember: The United States did not have the burden of proving Saddam Hussein was still manufacturing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction to justify attacking Iraq. There is no reason the ground rules should suddenly change now that the war is over.
We don't have the burden of finding WMDs now -- not because hindsight vindicates our action as a humane liberation of the Iraqi people, which it was -- but because we never had the burden in the first place.
Don't you recall U.N. Resolution 1441? It was not a unilateral edict of the United States but a unanimous corporate statement of the 15-member Security Council. It was passed Nov. 8, 2002, not at some distant point in the past. What did that multilateral resolution provide?
It affirmed the world's absolute certainty that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. It declared that Iraq had repeatedly breached its obligations under U.N. Resolution 687 of 1991 by failing to disclose fully and accurately its WMD and long-range missile programs. It stated that Iraq had repeatedly obstructed U.N. inspections and finally terminated them altogether.
It gave Iraq a final chance to comply with its treaty obligation to disarm, but warned that Iraq would be considered in further material breach and face serious consequences if it made false statements or omissions in its required declaration as to disarmament.
What did all that mean in English? Simply that Iraq would either show the good guys where they were hiding the weapons or produce a comprehensive and credible paper trail proving it had disposed of them.
But on Dec. 8, Saddam produced a bogus 12,000-page document full of lies and disinformation. Right then and there Saddam sealed his own fate. For though some on the Security Council had lost their resolve -- or were never sincere in the first place -- George Bush was dead serious that he wasn't going to permit any further criminality from this terrorist-enabling tyrant.
While we permitted the post-Clinton era doves to characterize our military enforcement of Resolution 1441 as an act of preemption, technically, it was not -- not if we care anything about the words we put on paper following a war.
The gist of it is that Saddam Hussein was on probation following Gulf War I. For 12 years he repeatedly violated his conditions of probation with virtual impunity. Sure, he absorbed a few cruise missile volleys, but their limited scope did more to strengthen his defiance than deter it. He knew Clinton wasn't serious. He surely thought after 12 years of this fecklessness that George W. Bush wasn't going to be either.
Though the U.N. ultimately abdicated its duties as Saddam's probation officer, the United States and the coalition did not. We took it upon ourselves to revoke his probation. Not because we had definitive proof that he still had WMDs -- though we sincerely believed and still believe he did (we've already found the two mobile weapons labs) -- but because he failed to satisfy his conditions of probation showing us the banned goods or proof he had disposed of them.
He had more than a dozen chances. And sane people are supposed to believe he didn't have the weapons when all he would have had to do to remain in power and riches was to walk us through the process whereby he destroyed them?
The only way Saddam didn't still have the weapons, which we know he earlier had and used to slaughter his own people, is if he destroyed them. So what Bush's perennial war detractors are necessarily saying is that he made the great sacrifice (in his mind) and went to all the trouble of disposing of the WMDs, yet refused to benefit from it? That would be like a convicted bank robber, after being promised no jail time if he returned the stolen money, burning the cash and losing both the loot and his liberty. Right -- it's unthinkable.
I don't expect Bush's detractors -- whose goal is to discredit him -- to be logical or intellectually honest. But I do expect others to analyze this clearly. We are not required to find these weapons. We know Saddam had them, or he wouldn't have repeatedly obstructed the inspectors, filed a flagrantly false declaration or permitted himself to be ousted from power. He gambled against the wrong guy. And that guy, President Bush, did the right thing, and the Iraqi people are better off, and America is a safer place because of it. |
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| Shakka |
This was a little schpeil from Neil Boortz.
| quote: | Wait! Let’s try this! We haven’t found any WMDs in Iraq yet. Oh, we’ve found those mobile biological weapons labs. We discovered chemical weapon residue in the Euphrates … but we haven’t actually found the weapons! So, how about we say that Bush lied! Let’s say that George Bush knew there were no weapons but he said that there were weapons just so he could get us into a war! Oh, we’ll have to ignore the fact that the U.N. said those weapons existed, and that Britian, France, Germany and Russia also acknowledged that those weapons were there. We’ll also have to conveniently forget that our own Tom Daschle said “We do know that Iraq has weaponized thousands of gallons of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. We know that Iraq maintains stockpiles of some of the world’s deadliest chemical weapons.”
We’ll also have to forget that our favorite Democrat, Bill Clinton, said “Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he’ll use the [chemical and biological] arsenel.”
The Democrats know that they can count on the mainstream media NOT to remind the public about those statements from Democratic leaders … especially not now while these very same Democrats are trying to convince the American people that George Bush lied when he said the very same things. |
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