Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

joshbaumgartner · 03-23-2006, 10:06 AM

The potential of WMDs from Iraq existing in other parts of the world would seem to be a significant security item which should be getting an appropriate response.

However, I have to see it in the light of Administration's claims directly prior to the war that they had actionable intelligence on exact locations of the chemical infrastructure in Iraq, and that if the bumbling UN would have just let the US in, we would be able to take them right to the exact locations. Like many things stated about WMDs prior to the war (45 minute deployment times; chemical belts around Baghdad; etc.), this proved to be nothing but fancy.

If the Administration was right about Iraq's WMD capability, and they were honest about the WMDs being the rationale for war, then it would follow that the fate of those WMDs would remain an important aspect of our policy. Only certain paths would thus make sense. If the weapons left Iraq long before the war, then we were wrong about them having WMD capabilities. If they left Iraq shortly before war, then we would have found the remains of the chemical infrastructure (maintaining stockpiles of chemical weapons involve a lot more than just the weapons themselves). In either case, the tracking of the stockpile should have been a high priority for our intelligence system, and losing track of them would have been an extreme failure. I somehow doubt that the Israelis would have allowed them to come closer to their state without at least having clear knowledge on their status at all times. Thus we have no excuse for not at least knowing what country they are in. If they are in an unstable place, then why aren't we going after them, as they are no less threat in Syria or Yemen or wherever then they were in Iraq?

Now it is possible that we do know where they are, and just don't have the military capacity to do what we did to Iraq to this other country right now, mainly because we've bogged our military down in a conflict in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Of course this would lend credence the idea that the Iraq war has made us less safe, as it didn't get its target, while it has made us less capable of responding to future threats.

03-23-2006, 10:06 AM	#15 (permalink)
joshbaumgartner Insane	The potential of WMDs from Iraq existing in other parts of the world would seem to be a significant security item which should be getting an appropriate response. However, I have to see it in the light of Administration's claims directly prior to the war that they had actionable intelligence on exact locations of the chemical infrastructure in Iraq, and that if the bumbling UN would have just let the US in, we would be able to take them right to the exact locations. Like many things stated about WMDs prior to the war (45 minute deployment times; chemical belts around Baghdad; etc.), this proved to be nothing but fancy. If the Administration was right about Iraq's WMD capability, and they were honest about the WMDs being the rationale for war, then it would follow that the fate of those WMDs would remain an important aspect of our policy. Only certain paths would thus make sense. If the weapons left Iraq long before the war, then we were wrong about them having WMD capabilities. If they left Iraq shortly before war, then we would have found the remains of the chemical infrastructure (maintaining stockpiles of chemical weapons involve a lot more than just the weapons themselves). In either case, the tracking of the stockpile should have been a high priority for our intelligence system, and losing track of them would have been an extreme failure. I somehow doubt that the Israelis would have allowed them to come closer to their state without at least having clear knowledge on their status at all times. Thus we have no excuse for not at least knowing what country they are in. If they are in an unstable place, then why aren't we going after them, as they are no less threat in Syria or Yemen or wherever then they were in Iraq? Now it is possible that we do know where they are, and just don't have the military capacity to do what we did to Iraq to this other country right now, mainly because we've bogged our military down in a conflict in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Of course this would lend credence the idea that the Iraq war has made us less safe, as it didn't get its target, while it has made us less capable of responding to future threats.