We’re not talking about anything. We’re talking about precisely the information provided.
But thanks for demonstrating that rather than judging based on evidence, you are willing to jump at anything confirming your opinion. It is funny that you would even go as far as to use my point that there is no such thing as ‘a scientist’ as an argument. May I ask what your scientific qualifications are to assess such an issue?
The existence of WMD material. It’s very easy. You see, there happen to be scientific detection methods which can show even traces of WMD material, and which can even allow to draw conclusions as to where it came from. Unfortunately, all ‘proof’ for WMDs so far turned out to be fabricated.
That is precisely your line of argumentation. You are willing to accept even proof from sources that have been demonstrated of misrepresenting evidence and using forged documents.
For exactly the same reasons that I, a mid-level Department of Commerce statistician, wouldn’t know diddly about policy decisions that the Secretary of Commerce was considering.
Actual weapons of mass destruction would be nice. Or banned bio/chem substances that could be turned into practical mass weapons with generally available knowledge and technology.
Other than that, who knows? I can hardly foresee what permutations of evidence might be produced, so it’s kind of hard for me to say which ones I’d find convincing. But from my POV, it’s up to the Administration to produce clear and convincing evidence that Saddam recently had a functioning WMD program. This was our casus belli, our skimpy fig leaf of semi-legitimacy under pre-Bush Doctrine standards for starting a war, which our Administration claimed to have piles of evidence about. Now that we have Iraq, put-up-or-shut-up time is on its way.
As to Shodan’s valid question, as I posted in another thread previously, certainly a “smoking gun” cache of bio/chem tipped missles would suffice as proof. But I will even acknowledge the far-fetched possibility that all such weapons have been (recently) destroyed or transferred outside the country. For acceptable proof, I would expect to see multiple independent corroborated interviews with Iraqi scientists, conducted by a neutral third party. To be effective, the US needs to quickly sequester these individuals, and bring in a neutral third party (the UN or even France could meet this criteria) and begin these sorts of interviews. Too much time in US military control will begin to dilute the effectiveness of such an approach.
This is beginning to sound more like fundamentalist faith than reasoned opinion based on credible evidence.
Could any of the hawks offer reasoning why the US would not want independent third party (UN or otherwise) weapons inspectors in Iraq?
If we are so confident that WoMD evidence remains, why wouldn’t we want third party verification?
As I understand the situation, Iraq is losing billions of dollars each day that oil production is curtailed. In an interview I heard yesterday, the reason that production hasn’t restarted is based mostly on the UN sanctions. That is, the oil wells could be pumping, but right now all the storage facilities and pipelines are full, and until the flow outside the country begins, the pumps can’t be restarted. It would appear to me that the quickest way to restore the wealth of Iraq would be to quickly accommodate UN inspectors in order to remove the UN sanctions. Why isn’t this being done? What’s the downside?
Am I wrong in thinking that you do Feith and the author of the article an injustice in taking that quote out of context?
If you read only the quotes you took from the article, one might get the impression of an administration that is losing faith that WMDs exist. But if you read the article, the impression is more that “it’s pretty clear that this stuff is not where it was, so we’re probably going to have to spend a lot of time interviewing people and sifting through documents to figure out what happened to it.”
As for your question about why not allow third-party UN inspectors – I’m not particularly a hawk, but if you’re sifting through evidence, do you really want another group competing with you for this evidence unless it’s clear that they will coordinate well with your teams?
Well, there is not really a need to compete. If the U.S. simply stood out of the way and let Blix and company do all the work, there would be no competition–and no need for the U.S. to expend their energy in looking.
Simple: Because people with a specific intent to generate a certain result are the worst possible people to search for evidence, and because regardless how well they coordinate, the result should be the same as any other group would receive. Scientists are used to compete with other groups for evidence, and they are also used to providing the evidence they found to others. It’s how the scientific community works.
The way things are standing whether WOMD are found or not is a moot question and the answer is also of no value. With the USA having an interest in finding them in order to justify its actions and having barred Blix and any independent observers, if and when the USA says it has found the WOMD the whole worrld will laugh and snicker and no one save the US fundamentalists will believe the US government. OTOH, it may be that the US government really is preaching to the choir and could not care less about the reast of the US population or the rest of the world.
A near perfect drive by, Athelas! Loaded with sarcasm and devoid of content. For my part, I would be quite happy to accept the existence of WMD’s as proof of development. Such is not, as you may have noticed, forthcoming.