Okay, WTF are the WMDs?

[LethalWolfe]

Back in Feb or March I told nay-sayers to be patient and that it would take time to comb a country the size of Iraq for WMD. I also said that if in 6 months nothing gets turned up I'd started a thread asking where the WMD's are. And, well, here I am. I backed GWB, I backed the war, and I'm slightly irritated that, for me, the only justifiable cause for the invasion of Iraq (WMD's and the associated UN violations) have yet to be unearthed.

I made a promise and here I am.


Lethal

[mcrain]

And here I am, someone who did not support GWB, and was very skeptical of the WMD claims and rhetoric leading up to the war.

I have to respect your willingness to at least now consider the possibility that GWB lied to you at worst, or at best, spun very, very, very weak facts to look like there was an immediate threat that had to be dealt with.

[mactastic]

I'm sure there's a meth lab, or someone with a bleach-ammonia combo in their cleaning supplies Dubya could point to. Heck they sell ciggarettes there, those could be chemical weapons.:D

Lethal, I appreciate your candid and timely return on this issue. I just wish others were open minded enough to realize that polititians need to be held to their statements, and that shifting the issue to one of human rights is disingenuous.

[toontra]

Wolfe,

I appreciate your re-evaluation of the basis for the war with Iraq. It's not often that people admit that they might have been wrong!

Blair and Bush misled their citizens, simple as that. For what reason is debatable, and whether they will have to pay for their deceit is not yet clear.

Personally, as a former supporter of Blair, I am now totally disillusioned with this government. Millions of people demonstrated on the streets this year saying the evidence for war was not sufficient. Blair chose not to listen. They have been vindicated. He has been proven a liar.

[kuyu]

In 1995 Saddam's nephew and son-in-law (same guy) defected to Iran. His job was the equivalent of Colin Powell's here. Uday discovered that he had been exagerating the price of Iraq's military weapons to fill his own pockets. While in Iran he spilled the beans on Iraq to the US about WMD's. CIA satellite imagery verified most of what he said. After a few weeks he was convinced to come back to Iraq. Saddam's daughter was ordered to sign divorce papers, and the "traitor" was brought back into Iraq. Once there, he engaged Uday and company in a lengthy shoot out from inside a building. Eventually Uday and company killed him, then filled his dead body with clip after clip of machine gun fire. They videotaped the whole thing to show Saddam.

We know there were WMD's in 1995, but they're gone now? I guess they did have 8 years to sell them to the highest bidder.

[Desertrat]

I believe I commented long ago that the focus on WMDs was a mistake; I believed long ago that even without them there was sufficient reason to take out Saddam's regime. Even without the never-followed UN Resolutions, Bosnia and Serbia set the precedent. And the fact that we haven't done likewise in some of the African equivalents is beside the point...

There are three legs on the WMD tripod. We know that Saddam had at least two of the legs stockpiled at one time. The problem with chemical and biological weapons is that having a stockpile isn't all that important. The time required to produce more is relatively small. The knowledge of "how to" is more important than the equipment, but the next problem is that legitimate equipment can be used for preparation of chem/bio weaponry. Nerve gas is but a variant of pesticides. Any medical laboratory can quickly shift from benevolent efforts to production of disease germs.

The nukes have always been problematical, although we know he bought materiel, technology and expertise from various European countries and Russia. While high-quality nuclear devices require an expensive, complex technology, the requirements for low-yield devices are fairly easily met by use of the resources of an entire country--particularly when a country such as France has been a willing business partner.

So I'm back to my position that the right thing got done, but some dumb PR was used to garner political/public support.

'Rat

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by kuyu
We know there were WMD's in 1995, but they're gone now? I guess they did have 8 years to sell them to the highest bidder.

Saddam had no reason to sell chemical and bio weapons to anyone. He was already diverting enough of his country's oil revenue into his own pockets and those his family and cronies to make everyone fat and happy. Among all the charges leveled at Saddam, I've never heard a single suggestion that Iraq had become a weapons exporter. Chem and bio weapons have a limited shelf-life. Chances are, whatever WMDs Saddam had (probably not nearly as much as our intelligence concluded) were used against his political and military opponents, and the rest became ineffective over time.

[mactastic]

Problem is, of the 3 legs, the C and the B are not considered strategic weapons. Only the nuclear leg was justification using the National Security reason. Chem and bio are tactical weapons, but most military analysts would tell you that they aren't a threat to our national security.

And FWIW, I agree we did the right thing in Iraq for all the wrong reasons. Problem is I see those wrong reasons messing up the right thing that we did.

[Desertrat]

No real argument, there, mac.

Odd-funny: Of all the information that's come out from Iraq since the start of the war, one thing really startled the heck out of me: The fact that the oilfield infrastructure was in such poor shape. The productive capability before the war was, apparently, less than half of what was allowed under the UN sanctions.

That's $25 million a freakin' DAY! For YEARS!

Weird.

'Rat

[vniow]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
I made a promise and here I am.


Actually, you've got a month before that promise runs out..

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=318691#post318691

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by Desertrat
Odd-funny: Of all the information that's come out from Iraq since the start of the war, one thing really startled the heck out of me: The fact that the oilfield infrastructure was in such poor shape. The productive capability before the war was, apparently, less than half of what was allowed under the UN sanctions.

Shortly after Wolfowitz (I believe it was) first made the claim that Iraq's reconstruction could be financed out of oil revenue, an article appeared in the LA Times saying essentially that it wasn't bloody likely. I posted the article here, if memory serves, and it was dismissed by several as just more Bush-bashing liberal tripe from the Times.

[SPG]

The Kay report that was promised for mid september release has now been delayed indefinitely (read never to be released, let alone completed) because no WMD's have been found and even proof of WMD programs has not been found.

kuyu, there have been many defectors from Iraq over the years and many of them had said that there are WMD's and many have said the programs and weapons were gone. Often defector's claims would cancel each other out and both claim the other was misinformed or lying. The reliability and knowledge of both the "has" and "has not" claims were in serious doubt. It was suspected that some were fed little bits of false information while in Iraq that they believed to be true when repeated to the CIA. Short of physical evidence these claims that there were WMD's just don't hold up. In the early '90s we knew for a fact that there were WMD's and programs in place to produce more. There were two reasons that we knew. First, we sold them many of the weapons! Second is that after the first Gulf War the UN inspectors found them and destroyed them. Say it with me, The UN found them and destroyed them.
Remember the massive cruise missile and bomber attack of 1998? That was supposed to take out any remnants of a WMD program. From what we know now, it was good enough to shut down the whole thing and keep Saddam from trying again. So after all that how much could be left? How much could be reconstituted undetected with daily overflights, satelite intel, and spies?
Conventional wisdom should have indicated that Iraq could not have posed a threat to the US.
However there is another reason to invade Iraq as stated by the PNAC, which is to establish an Israel friendly state in the Middle East and to provide the US a better basing opportunity than Saudi Arabia (incidentaly the US bases in Saudi Arabia were one of Bin Laden's stated reasons for attacking the US). So we have a motive for the neo conservatives to invade Iraq. Let's add fuel to that fire with Ahmed Chalabi, who wants to run a post Saddam Iraq, providing bogus intel claiming all sorts of WMD capability.
Could you imagine an interest in moving Air Force bases and creating an ally to Israel being enough to get our country to back a war? Of course not, and that's why it didn't happen between 1991 and 2003. But guess what happens post 9/11? The citizens of this country are scared, W doesn't like Saddam, PNAC members are in all the right cabinet positions, Chalabi is pumping up the bogus WMD claims and the White House then starts to reinterpret the intel that mostly said no serious threat from Iraq to just read the parts that fit it's goal. And so the nation slid down the slippery slope to find itself in the muddy quagmire at the bottom wondering where the WMD's are.

[3rdpath]

cheers to you lethal...just for being open-minded.

obviously this administration truly believed that the wmd existed...even to the point of showing satellite pictures of plants/stockpiles etc. i really have to question how our intelligence(ironic name, huh?) could be so incorrect.

or maybe the administration was just going to find the "proof" they needed...regardless of the actual facts. it's a pretty normal human tendency to see the basis for our beliefs when justifying our actions....though you'd hope the friggin government would be objective enough to overcome emotional/pavlovian responses.

anyone else hear cheney on meet the press? i was amused( i'm just too old to get incensed...) by his whole "everything is going as planned" song and dance. he even stated matter-of-factly that we had recovered 2 mobile bio labs...that's news to me. and probably news to the many journalists/chemical experts who have written that the 2 trucks were NOT bio labs.

wmd, my arse...

follow the money( or oil in this case...)

[toontra]

Originally posted by 3rdpath
anyone else hear cheney on meet the press? i was amused( i'm just too old to get incensed...) by his whole "everything is going as planned" song and dance. he even stated matter-of-factly that we had recovered 2 mobile bio labs...that's news to me. and probably news to the many journalists/chemical experts who have written that the 2 trucks were NOT bio labs.

3rdpath,

When was Cheney on Meet the Press - was this recently?

[mactastic]

Originally posted by toontra
3rdpath,

When was Cheney on Meet the Press - was this recently?

He was on this past Sunday... for the hour.

[toontra]

And he was talking about finding 2 mobile bio labs? You are joking! Tell me you're joking!

This has been PROVED to be untrue. How the hell can he carry on this stance in the face of ALL the evidence.

This goes beyond interpretation or spin. This is out-and-out lying. Why the heck don't your journalists pull people like Cheyney up on crap like this. In the UK, no matter how flawed our media, politicians simply wouldn't get away with this kind of thing. If they're caught out on a straight lie they would be hounded mercilessly!

[Ugg]

Rummy now sees no link between 9-11 and Iraq.

Rumsfeld Sees No Link Between Iraq, 9/11
Tuesday September 16, 2003 9:49 PM

By ROBERT BURNS

AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday he had no reason to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a hand in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

At a Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld was asked about a poll that indicated nearly 70 percent of respondents believed the Iraqi leader probably was personally involved.

``I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that,'' Rumsfeld said.

He added: ``We know he was giving $25,000 a family for anyone who would go out and kill innocent men, women and children. And we know of various other activities. But on that specific one, no, not to my knowledge.''

The Bush administration has asserted that Saddam's government had links to al-Qaida, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden that masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks. And in various public statements over the past year or so administration officials have suggested close links.

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday, for example, that success in stabilizing and democratizing Iraq would strike a major blow at the ``the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.''

In an appearance on NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' Cheney was asked whether he was surprised that more than two-thirds of Americans in the Washington Post poll would express a belief that Iraq was behind the attacks.

``No, I think it's not surprising that people make that connection,'' he replied.

Cheney said he recalled being asked about an Iraq connection to 9/11 shortly after the attacks, and he recalled saying he knew of no evidence at that point.

``Subsequent to that, we have learned a couple of things,'' he said. ``We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s; that it involved training, for example, on BW (biological warfare) and CW (chemical warfare) - that al-Qaida sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems, and involved the Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaida organization.''

At his Pentagon news conference, Rumsfeld reiterated his belief that U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq are making satisfactory progress in stabilizing the country.

He said it was an ``open question'' whether the United States would get the 10,000 to 15,000 additional international troops it seeks to create a third multinational division for security duty in Iraq. The Pentagon has been hopeful of getting at least that many additional troops from Turkey, Pakistan or other friendly countries to beef up security and possibly to allow some of the 130,000 U.S. troops there to go home next year.

``It would relieve some of the pressure on our forces,'' Rumsfeld said. ``Whether or not there will be a (United Nations) resolution and whether or not - even if there were a resolution - we would get that number of troops is an open question.''

Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who appeared with Rumsfeld, said there are more than 210,000 coalition forces in Iraq: 130,000 American troops, 24,000 British and other international troops, and 60,000 Iraqi police, border guards and civil defense forces.

[pseudobrit]

Originally posted by vniow
Actually, you've got a month before that promise runs out..

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=318691#post318691

I actually remembered it being October and was going to hold him to it myself.

I guess 5 1/2 months and an ABC report confirming it was enough though:

* There are no WMD.

* There were no WMD (in 2003).

* Saddam was not a threat to the US or its interests.

* Bush and his administration lied to the American people, the UN and the world, using a systematic effort of fraud and deceit and using all the tools and people available to him.

* He led the US to a war based on false pretenses. We have agreed to and perpetrated the ultimate sin: an unjust war. Murder multiplied.

* He needs to be held accountable for his lies and his actions be it in a Congressional investigation or at the polls in 2004. Preferably both.

P.S. Good on you, Lethal, for having the balls to admit when you were wrong. I hope that you and all the others whose main objection in March was "give it time" remember that the war was a sham next November.

[mactastic]

Here's what Cheney said on Sunday to Tim Russert on Meet the Press when asked about WMDs

Transcript (http://www.msnbc.com/news/966470.asp?0sl=-10)

_ _ _ _Same on biological weapons—we believe he’d developed the capacity to go mobile with his BW production capability because, again, in reaction to what we had done to him in ’91. We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We’ve, since the war, found two of them. They’re in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack.
(emphasis mine)

I'd like to see them brought out for inspection.

[pseudobrit]

Cheney is a liar.

A goddamned liar.

This is to the Lewinski scandal as a murder conspiracy is to a speeding ticket.

[mactastic]

Oh there's lots of good stuff in that transcript. Here's another gem:
_ _ _ _MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
_ _ _ _VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
_ _ _ _MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
_ _ _ _VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know.
_ _ _ _MR. RUSSERT: Now, Ambassador Joe Wilson, a year before that, was sent over by the CIA because you raised the question about uranium from Africa. He says he came back from Niger and said that, in fact, he could not find any documentation that, in fact, Niger had sent uranium to Iraq or engaged in that activity and reported it back to the proper channels. Were you briefed on his findings in February, March of 2002?
_ _ _ _VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I don’t know Joe Wilson. I’ve never met Joe Wilson. A question had arisen. I’d heard a report that the Iraqis had been trying to acquire uranium in Africa, Niger in particular. I get a daily brief on my own each day before I meet with the president to go through the intel. And I ask lots of question. One of the questions I asked at that particular time about this, I said, “What do we know about this?” They take the question. He came back within a day or two and said, “This is all we know. There’s a lot we don’t know,” end of statement. And Joe Wilson—I don’t who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.
_ _ _ _I guess the intriguing thing, Tim, on the whole thing, this question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa. In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their British claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa. What was in the State of the Union speech and what was in the original British White papers. So there may be difference of opinion there. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that, but I guess—like I say, I don’t know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn’t judge him. I have no idea who hired him and it never came...
_ _ _ _MR. RUSSERT: The CIA did.
_ _ _ _VICE PRES. CHENEY: Who in the CIA, I don’t know.
_ _ _ _MR. RUSSERT: If they were wrong, Mr. Vice President, shouldn’t we have a wholesale investigation into the intelligence failure that they predicted...
_ _ _ _VICE PRES. CHENEY: What failure?
_ _ _ _MR. RUSSERT: That Saddam had biological, chemical and is developing a nuclear program.
_ _ _ _VICE PRES. CHENEY: My guess is in the end, they’ll be proven right, Tim. On the intelligence business, first of all, it’s intelligence. There are judgments involved in all of this. But we’ve got, I think, some very able people in the intelligence business that review the material here. This was a crucial subject. It was extensively covered for years. We’re very good at it. As I say, the British just revalidated their claim. So I’m not sure what the argument is about here. I think in the final analysis, we will find that the Iraqis did have a robust program.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by vniow
Actually, you've got a month before that promise runs out..

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=318691#post318691


Yeah, I couldn't remember if it was Sept or Oct and I was too lazy to go back and confirm it. :)


Lethal

EDIT: I don't know if Bush/the adminstration was out-and-out lying, but I definetly think they were seeing what they wanted to see and acted accordingly. I feel that way a lot regarding the current president. Almost like a father who wants the best for his kids, thinks he knows what's best for them and acts accordingly. And instead of helping his kids he is actually hurting/hindering them.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe

I made a promise and here I am.


cool. just two days ago i was trying to remember when your 6 months started.

"irritated" is a good start ;-)

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by zimv20
cool. just two days ago i was trying to remember when your 6 months started.

"irritated" is a good start ;-)


Damn, I'm surprised so many people remember what I said. Okay, 3 isn't exactly a lot of people but it's more than I thought would remember my "6 months" ultimatum<sp?>.


Lethal

[zimv20]

Originally posted by LethalWolfe
Damn, I'm surprised so many people remember what I said.

there weren't a lot of pro-invasion folk who left themselves any wiggle room.

and when i say "not a lot", i mean "one".

[toontra]

I think those expecting Kay to find any WMD are going to be disappointed - LINK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3135932.stm)

[IJ Reilly]

Originally posted by toontra
I think those expecting Kay to find any WMD are going to be disappointed - LINK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3135932.stm)

We've been seeing the rhetoric shifting recently from actual weapons to "programs" in anticipation of a negative WMD finding from the Kay report. Of course Saddam's programs were never in dispute, but the invasion was predicated on his his actual capabilities, not on his fondest hopes or desires. Very likely, a fog campaign will now be waged to make us forget what was being said about Saddam a year ago.

[shadowfax]

if anyone wonders where the WMDs are, i should probably confess that I ate them.

all of them.

this really is scandalous. i don't have any issues with a war in Iraq--saddam needed to go. but this is beginning to take a turn towards the Spanish-American War:

go in shouting "For the Maine"

and realize post facto that we probably blew up the damn thing ourselves... in order to... start a war?

tsk tsk.

[toontra]

More just in. It appears there is evidence that Bush knew there were no WMD in Iraq all along, but used 9/11 as a pretext for military action in order to get control of the oil supply - LINK (http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7350504%5E2,00.html).

[zimv20]

Originally posted by toontra
More just in. It appears there is evidence that Bush knew there were no WMD in Iraq all along, but used 9/11 as a pretext for military action in order to get control of the oil supply - LINK (http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7350504%5E2,00.html).

ooh. shock. surprise. amazed. be interesting to see if the majors in the US pick up on this.

this deserves its own thread.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by 3rdpath
cheers to you lethal...just for being open-minded.

obviously this administration truly believed that the wmd existed...even to the point of showing satellite pictures of plants/stockpiles etc. i really have to question how our intelligence(ironic name, huh?) could be so incorrect.

or maybe the administration was just going to find the "proof" they needed...regardless of the actual facts. it's a pretty normal human tendency to see the basis for our beliefs when justifying our actions....though you'd hope the friggin government would be objective enough to overcome emotional/pavlovian responses.

anyone else hear cheney on meet the press? i was amused( i'm just too old to get incensed...) by his whole "everything is going as planned" song and dance. he even stated matter-of-factly that we had recovered 2 mobile bio labs...that's news to me. and probably news to the many journalists/chemical experts who have written that the 2 trucks were NOT bio labs.

wmd, my arse...

follow the money( or oil in this case...)

as the war gets more and more unpopular, people are starting to look at the possibility that oil was the original reason for attacking iraq

with general wesley clark on the political horizon, bush loses military credibility...bush had his chance when he attacked iraq successfully and he could have said, "i did this to get rid of a brutal dictator", but his reasoning about WMDs backfired on him and now we have troops stuck in iraq with no real exit plan

unfortunately, it sounds a little bit too much like vietnam