2wolves

What facts do you have to support your continuing faith in the existance of Weapons of Mass Destruction?

2Wolves

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Nation of the Cat. Forgive maybe, forget .... not quite yet.

ChrisJericho

Is anyone concerned about the 80+ BILLION dollars we are spending in Iraq?

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"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves nothing." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Liquor Dealer

Almost as good of ones as you have for saying they don't exist. You'd probably have trouble finding weapons of mass destruction in the US at this instance ifd someone didn't tell you exactly where to look and what to look for - But! If ya' really want to know come by and I'll show you where to look - they're about a hundred miles south of where I'm sitting right now.

Any one who can seriously deny that Iraq both had and used them is only kidding themselves. You don't possess something like that and suddenly wake up one morning and decide to turn over a new leaf and get rid of every single thing you had! Not unless you replaced them with something better. The stuff still exists - while it hasn't been found neither has any evidence that it was destroyed other than the small quanitities that were destroyed on television for public consumption just before the war started. I believe that when the fear of Saddam and his henchmen no longer exists that someone will have the guts to come forward and spill the beans.

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Life isn't always a bowl of cherries, sometimes it's more like a jar of Jalapenos --- what you say or do today might burn your ass tomorrow!!!

Superbelt

All the experts say they don't have them. Scott Ritter says they don't, so does Blix.
Atomic experts say they didn't even have close to the expertise to build a bomb.
Biological agents have a short lifespan and without support that program gets scrapped.
Saddam was severely restricted in chemicals he could bring in and we have ways of detecting if chemical weapons have been made in an area. Also chemical weapons break down over time. They have short lifespans as well.

Best explanation is that Saddam lost all his weapons abilities after Clintons "Desert Fox" campaign.
Scared of looking weak to his enemy, the Iranians, Saddam bluffed his way through resolutions to appear to still be a threat.

onetime2

So, by Bush taking these bluffs seriously, he is in the wrong? Choices were according to this theory: err on the side of caution and view Iraq as a potential wmd threat or just throw these bluffs out the window and ignore them with no solid evidence that they are no longer viable weapons. Seems like he made the right decision to me.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Superbelt

We had solid evidence that they had nothing.

Erring on the side of caution is to not invade and risk lives if you aren't anywhere near sure.

matthew330

If it was solid it was based on half-ass searching cause Saddam stood in the way at every corner for 10 years, and as such we had too take the position (again, why does everyone forget this) "It is not up to us to prove he has them, it's up to him to prove he doesn't."

Noone had a problem with that statement when it was made, and Saddam certainly made no efforts to prove he didn't have them...........so, here we are today.

onetime2

Solid evidence he had nothing? How is that possible?

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Superbelt

Why didn't Saddam use any of his vast storehouses of WMD on our troops when we invaded? Or how about use them after he was deposed? They would have really helped and we know he had a propensity for actually USING them too.

Maybe because he had nothing.

onetime2

So, the "solid evidence" came post invasion in the fact that he did not use them? Quite compelling evidence indeed.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

lordjeebus

A very interesting question.

On one hand, I'd agree that the US couldn't have had "solid evidence" that something didn't exist.

On the other hand, I seem to recall the US demanding that Saddam prove that he had no WMDs -- that failure to provide such evidence would be grounds for war.

onetime2

There was, at a minimum, evidence that wmds existed in the past. If it was, as proposed by superbelt, that these weapons fell into disrepair and the agents became inactive, why not present them for inspection? All the experts pointed to also say that they had not been presented with enough material to account for all previously known weapons.

So, in effect, the question was not "prove that you have nothing" but "prove that the weapons we know you had are no longer in existence".

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Superbelt

I don't do research in the morning. Perhaps I can get to some stuff tonight.

onetime2

You really needn't bother (but I'm sure you will **edit, okay, you won't as stated below** ) since the point I am making is one that we apparently fundamentally disagree on. You believe that we could risk the possibility that these weapons exist if there is a preponderance of evidence that says they don't. I believe that even a small amount of evidence that suggests these weapons exist and could end up being used against us outweighs any amount of evidence that it doesn't.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Superbelt

Ok, good. Cause that type of research is boring and tedious. I wasn't looking forward to it. That kind of stuff has been buried under all the other Iraq stories over the past year.

rgr22j

Resolution 1441 called for "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations," failure of which would result in "serious consequences." On January 30, 2003, Hans Blix determined that Iraq was indeed not fully compliant. On February 17, 2003, Hans Blix determined that Iraq was still not fully compliant. On March 7, 2003, Hans Blix could still not determine that Iraq was fully compliant. Shortly thereafter, the coalition inflicted serious consequences.

-- Alvin

Kurant

You hit the nail right on the head. People seem to forget the REAL reason we went to Iraq, to find these weapons, and 9 months later, to this date, we haven't found a single one. People are still dying for a cause they don't understand, one I'm not even sure if our own President understands.

Getting Saddam is the last saving grace Bush had in this political disaster known as the War in Iraq.

lordjeebus

A question (because I don't remember): What specific actions on Iraq's part were demanded for it to be "in compliance?"

EDIT: nevermind, I decided to befriend Google.

Liquor Dealer

Cooperation with the UN inspectors would probably have been enough. The made it appear as if they had something to hide by their refusal to allow inspection - Now there are two ways you can look at that - you can assume they had them and were hiding them, or, you can assume they were such total dumbasses that they would allow their government to be brought down by trying to create the illusion that they had them - either way - it was and is quite obvious that they had no intention of complying with anything.

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Life isn't always a bowl of cherries, sometimes it's more like a jar of Jalapenos --- what you say or do today might burn your ass tomorrow!!!

smooth

lordjeebus,

While you're googling around, you will hopefully pull up the stories right before the war in regards to the so-called uncooperation of the Iraqi's.

That is, the inspectors were claiming that they were receiving the most cooperation that they had ever had before, the US government was giving them shitty intel, and they wanted more time.

The US admin stated that we couldn't wait, we were in too much danger, and we knew exactly where the weapons were. Subsequently, we moved the timeframe up and declared a new demand: Saddam had to not only give up the weapons, he had to leave.

It's interesting to speculate what would have happened had Saddam given up the weapons he supposedly had. Then the atrocities we are so inflamed about now would have never even come into public discourse and he would have continued to rule in whatever fashion he chose. It wasn't until after he decided to thwart the will of the US that he became the boogeyman--we were going to let him do whatever the hell he wanted as long as it didn't bother us.

So, you know, what can you do...

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

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rgr22j

Or perhaps he thought he could escape and wait for anti-war activists to force the US out of Iraq. Otherwise known as the Vietnam (or Somalia) strategy.

Then he could loudly proclaim that he was unjustly ousted from power and snicker behind the world's back, while still retaining WMD.

Hans Blix said they were not even trying to fully disarm on January 30, February 17, and March 7. Scott Ritter appeared on Saddam's payroll.

In 1997, the IAEA wrote about Iraq's nuclear expertise: "Iraqi programme documentation records substantial progress in many important areas of nuclear weapon development, making it prudent to assume that Iraq has developed the capability to design and fabricate a basic fission weapon, based on implosion technology and fueled by highly enriched uranium." (IAEA, Fourth Consolidated Report of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency under Paragraph 16 of Security Council Resolution 1051 (1996), October 8, 1997, S/1997/779,)

Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security."

Hillary Clinton, September 24, 2003:

"The intelligence from Bush 1 to Clinton to Bush 2 was consistent" in concluding Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was trying to develop a nuclear capability, Clinton said this morning. And Saddam's expulsion of weapons inspectors and "the behavior" of his regime "pointed to a continuing effort" to produce WMD, she added.

-- Alvin

Superbelt

Bullshit, Scott Ritter was never on Saddams payroll, where did you hear that? Newsmax?

1997 IAEA was before Desert Fox. After Desert Fox that assessment was revised. Clinton done blew it all up.

Hillary Clinton is not my goddess and there is no substantiation to what she said.

rgr22j

Scott Ritter himself. From Slate:

"By his own admission, Ritter accepted $400,000 in funding two years ago from an Iraqi-American businessman named Shakir al-Khafaji. Ritter used the money to visit Baghdad and film a documentary purporting to tell the true story of the weapons inspections (which in his telling were corrupted by sinister American manipulation). As Hayes has reported, al-Khafaji is openly sympathetic to Saddam and regularly sponsors anti-American conferences in Baghdad. Al-Khafaji seems to have gotten his money's worth: The documentary was so anti-U.S., says one of Ritter's former U.N. colleagues, that Iraqi officials were passing out copies of it on CD-ROM at a recent international conference."

And yes, I do equate taking money from a curiously pro-Saddam businessman who regularly sponsors anti-American conferences in Baghdad with being on Saddam's payroll. Methinks this businessman may be getting more than a little cash from the deposed dictator.

You asked for expertise. You can't blow that up.

You would think Hillary would know something about it. But okay, how about Bill Clinton?

"Clinton also said Tuesday night that at the end of his term, there was 'a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for' in Iraq.

"So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say, 'You got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions.'"

Clinton told King: "People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons."

"it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons." -- Bill Clinton, July 22, 2003.

-- Alvin