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Originally Posted by daswig
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daswig, either you are disingenuous or you have not considered that if there
was anything in your example that would vindicate Bush & Co, they would
not leave it for you to offer here. It would have been cited before Scott McClellan's Jan. 12, 2005 admission..................
First, I'll re-quote your evidence:
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Exploitations of Al Muthanna
ISG conducted multiple exploitations of the
Al Muthanna site to determine whether old chemical
weapons, equipment, or toxic chemicals had been
looted or tampered with since the last UN visit to
the site. ISG is unable to unambiguously determine
the complete fate of old munitions, materials, and
chemicals produced and stored there. The matter is
further complicated by the looting and razing done
by the Iraqis.
An exploitation of the facility reconfirmed previous
imagery analysis that the site remained inoperable
from bombings and UNSCOM compliance, including
destruction of equipment and resources, and no
signifi cant production capabilities existed. Facilities
and bunkers revealed no evidence of production
since UNSCOM departed.
• The teams found no new structures or any construction
activities except for those declared by Iraq to
UNSCOM. The facilities appeared to be abandoned
prior to OIF.
• Several pieces of equipment that were once used
for CW production were found bearing no UN
tags, and the ISG was unable to assess whether the
equipment had been reused since 1994 or intended
for a future production processes and abandoned.
• The tag system used by the UN was known to not
be robust, and given the absence of inspectors
between 1998 and 2002, Iraq would have had little
incentive to maintain the tags in good condition.
• The extent of the looting and unaccounted for excavations
of bombed facilities makes it impossible
to determine what, if any, equipment was removed
after 1994, either for legitimate industrial use or a
renovated CW production process.
• ISG exploitations indicate that the storage area still
remains a threat despite testing. Chemical storage
containers fi lled with unknown hazardous chemicals
are showing signs of rusting-through and leaking.
• Key bunkers and facilities are currently scheduled
to be sealed or resealed.
<b>
Stockpiles of chemical munitions are still stored
there. The most dangerous ones have been declared
to the UN and are sealed in bunkers. Although
declared, the bunkers contents have yet to be con-
firmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard
to civilians and potential blackmarketers.</b>
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The reason that Bush & Co didn't cite your example is because Perle and
the pre-invasion Bush talking points, spin machine, tried to make Blix and
the UN inspectors look ridiculous, as Oliver North spun it......Keystone Kops,
because Blix's inspectors revisited previously sites, such as the one you
now cite, "Al Muthanna" instead of looking for new ones. You can't have it
both ways.....Bush mouthpieces like Perle and North announcing that
Al Muthanna was of no interest, and you now bringing it up as your sole
example of a possible, unexplored "smoking gun" !
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<a href="http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:XMjylSiw80wJ:www.iht.com/articles/92883.html+perle+blix+iht+interview+new+sites&hl=en&lr=lang_en">www.iht.com/articles/92883.html+perle+blix+iht+interview+new+sites&hl=en&lr=lang_en</a>There is no doubt that if some of the organizations that are determined to destroy this country could lay their hands on a nuclear weapon they would detonate it, and they would detonate in the most densely populated cities in this country with a view to killing as many Americans as possible. What would be the U.S. response if it found Syria was concealing weapons of mass destruction on behalf of Iraq? If we were to learn, for example, that Syria, had taken possession of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I’m quite sure that we would have to respond to that. It would be an act of such foolishness on Syria's part that it would raise the question of whether Syria could be reasoned with. But I suppose our first approach would be to demand that the Syrians terminate that threat by turning over anything they have come to possess. And failing that, I don’t think anyone would rule out the use of any of our full range of capabilities. Should UN weapons inspectors go back to Iraq?
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I certainly don’t think so. The UN inspectors failed and failed catastrophically not because they didn't find things but because they weren’t honest about their capacity to find things. What Hans Blix should have done when the Iraqi declaration came in on December 7 was announce that there was no reason for the inspectors to return to Iraq because Saddam had not provided the information it was the role of the inspectors to verify.
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It was never the role of the inspectors to scour the country looking for hidden weapons. They had no capacity to do that. They were a hundred in a country the size of France and Portugal put together and Hans Blix understood that perfectly well. What Saddam was supposed to haveWhat Saddam was supposed to have delivered on December 7 was a balance sheet and the inspectors were auditors, and when there was no balance sheet they should have said they had nothing to audit. <b>Great confusion was caused by inspectors returning to sites which we knew had been sanitized</b>
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/05/wirq05.xml">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/05/wirq05.xml</a>
UN team finds only ruins at nerve gas site
By David Blair at the al-Muthanna plant
(Filed: 05/12/2002)
............Ten inspectors paid a snap visit to the al-Muthanna chemical plant, 45 miles north west of Baghdad. This vast complex, covering about 10 square miles, operated under the front name of the State Establishment for Pesticide Production when it was making at least 4,000 tons of nerve gas agents every year.
Allied air raids damaged al-Muthanna in 1991 and UN experts destroyed it in 1994. When the five vehicles from Unmovic, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, reached al-Muthanna at 10am the inspectors were seeking to ensure that it had not been reopened.
Gaping holes had been torn in the perimeter fence, indicating the site had fallen into disuse. Only four bewildered soldiers, who admitted the UN team, stood guard...........
....Large warehouses had been sealed with heavy cargo crates placed against their entrances. In one corner lay nine artillery shells, perhaps designed for chemical warheads, defused, rusting and harmless. Critics of the inspections say Saddam will have ensured that nothing suspicious takes place in well-known installations such as al-Muthanna.
<b>
The American administration wants Unmovic to stop revisiting sites that were singled out in the 1990s and search new locations.</b>
But Hans Blix, Unmovic's head, has chosen to begin his work by ensuring that Iraq has not reopened crucial facilities dealt with by earlier inspectors.
Once this has been established and the number of UN arms experts in Iraq has grown above the present 17 he will start on new sites.
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<a href="http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,FreedomAlliance_120502,00.html">http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,FreedomAlliance_120502,00.html</a>
<b>Oliver North: Who ARE These People & What Are They Doing?
December 5, 2002
...............While the so-called inspectors and S&M aficionados wearing UNMOVIC ID badges bumble about the Iraqi countryside like the Keystone Kops, President Bush is talking tough.</b> “The inspectors are not in Iraq to play hide-and-seek with Mr. Saddam Hussein,” he declared last week. But that’s not the point. There is considerable question as to whether this gang that couldn’t shoot straight would even know what they were seeing if Saddam left it all on display...................
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Then, daswig, you can click on this google search link and see the list
of sites where the faithful, took Oliver North's "Keystone Kops" talking point,
and ran with it.......<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=inspectors+keystone+kops&btnG=Search">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=inspectors+keystone+kops&btnG=Search</a>
You're obviously intelligent, and you exhibit a lot of pride in your professional
abilities, education, etc. What motivates you to be more "Bush", than Bush
and his war criminal regime? You should be able to see right through their
bullshit.....everyday that passes, their crap continues to be refuted.
I'll leave you with Ollie North's "Chalabi and his freedom fighters" pump
ending:
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Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, is using this report to stimulate unity among other opposition leaders in the region. Scores of defectors from Saddam’s military arrive daily in camps along Iraq’s borders, professing a willingness to fight for liberty in their homeland. Contractors have been seen at the abandoned Iraqi embassy in Washington, preparing it for “new management.” And the American and British military build up in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean grows by the day. When the Iraqi opposition takes up arms against Saddam Hussein and calls for our help – as surely they will – are we going to sit idly by and wait for a pronouncement from Hans Blix? Let us hope not.
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Only the closeminded can be more wrong than these assholes are, daswig...