Well, I just found an article on MSNBC
“In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.”
So, do you believe this story? Or do you need more proof that al qaeda did indeed have an Iraqi connection??
Same reason Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and Media Matters for America can – i.e., they’re patently more credible than their RW counterparts.
The accusation that Iraq was on the path to obtaining nuclear weapons was pure bombast.
However, it would be easy for the uninformed to believe they had large stockpiles of chemical or biological agents. Who doesn’t? Any industrialized country could get those, if they wanted. So it was surprising to some people that Iraq didn’t have any of that stuff, especially since they had them pre-Desert Storm. What was responsible for their disappearance?
I would recommend reading anything of Scott Ritter on this topic – books, editorials, speeches, whatever. He goes into quite the detail on this. Post 1998, there was ample evidence that Iraq had lost its bio/chemical capabilities and little to no evidence that they had restarted it.
The more interesting topic is why would you want to invade a country which had chemical or biological weapons? I think this speaks more to the heart of our problem. If we’re itching to invade and conquer, any excuse will do, so whether this bit of intelligence is wrong or not is in the end meaningless. Terrorist ties? WMDs? Spreading democracy? Stopping genocide? Protecting American interests in the region? Keep working down the line until something sticks.
This is what they call moving goal posts. Saddam wasn’t convicted of using chemical weapons on his people, he was convicted of killing 148 people with bullets after an assassination attempt on his life. He never stood trial for chemical weapons. So once again, your claim that he was hanged for it is wrong.
Also, the Kurds hated Saddam and were in open revolt, siding with the Iranians during the Iran - Iraq war. So it was not exactly “His own people”, and saying so is dishonest.
What does this have to do with anything? US officials claimed they knew that Iraq had active programs for production of chemical and biological weapons and stockpiles of such weapons ready for use, assertions that were quite simply false. If these officials did not have conclusive evidence that these weapons existed, it would therefore be a lie to claim that they “knew” of their existence. As the information was clearly incorrect, anyone that “accepted” such bogus information was incorrect as well, so your statement has no relevance.
They can show integrity by reporting factual information accurately. I, like others who have posted to this thread, await your demonstration that the organization in question presented information that is factually incorrect concerning this subject.
And in response to this (often repeated and always debunked) claim from Bush apologists, I will note that the al Qaida camp in Northern Iraq was in the region where the Iraqi Army was prevented from going by declarations of the U.S. government enforced under the no-fly zone. In other words, there was no connection between al Qaida and the Iraqi government; al Qaida was using the USAF as a shield to allow them to set up camp in a hostile country (Iraq) with U.S. protection.
Once again you have outrage because you’re ignorant of the actual facts. We imposed a no-fly zone on Iraq. The Kurds protected by the zone were in open revolt and Saddam had no ability to project force there. It was our buddies the Kurds who allowed an Al Queda training facility to be set up.
Cite: Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory - Wikipedia
Emphasis mine.
Cite: Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence - Wikipedia
In other words, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
If you intend to use this construction in the future, you had better make it much more clear that you are referring to a third party not on the SDMB and not to a poster, here.
[ /Moderating ]
You should look for a cite after 2004, like this one.
Or this one..
A couple of points. Your own cite says that Bush rejected an attack on the terrorists because it would undercut his reasons for the war. What do you think about that?
Second, this camp was in the territory Saddam didn’t control, in the north. Saddam basically kept his part of Iraq al-Qaida free, which is better than we did.
You really have to do better than this.
I’m honestly a little bewildered. When I posted that, no one in the thread had even used the word “know.” How was it not absolutely obvious that I was referring to Bush and co.? Who exactly did you think I was ambiguously referring to?
Given the the close emotional connection between the OP and the adminstration’s pronouncements in conjunction with your address in the second person, it would not be difficult to construe your statement as an attack on the OP.
I did not so construe it and issued no Warning, but I am noting that a bit more care will avoid any interpretation that might be personally hostile to you.
We have been subjected to this bit of bait-and-switch polemic from Bush apologists since the summer of 2003. Unfortunately, those claims, (probably deliberately) conflate two separate situations. It is quite unfortunate that you are repeating things that have been debunked numerous times over the last five years.
In the 1980s, Hussein used chemical weapons, first against the Iranians and later against his own people.
Following the First Gulf War, he was ordered to destroy his stockpiles and to dismantle his production of those weapons.
This he apparently did, although he hindered the UN inspection teams in ways that made it appear that he had continued to hold and produce such weapons. (Speculation: By making it appear that he still had the weapons, he felt that he had a useful bluff to prevent his neighbors from rising against him.)
When it was discovered that the U.S. had planted spies within the ranks of the UN inspectors, the UN pulled those inspectors out of Iraq in embarrassment, further making it appear that Hussein still had such weapons.
Up until the summer of 2002, it was the general opinion of the various intelligence agencies and world leaders that Hussein still had WMD.
In the Fall of 2002, with the U.S. administration hell-bent on having a war, Hussein permitted the inspection teams to re-enter Iraq in the hopes of staving off a war. The UN teams found increasing evidence that Hussein had gotten rid of his WMD by around 1992. However, the Bush administration began seizing on the most flimsy bits of evidence to deny what the UN inspectors and their own intelligence groups had already discovered–that there were no longer any WMD in Iraq.
They even went so far as to set up a special “intelligence” group in the Department of Defense, the Office of Special Plans, manned by analysts untrained in genuine intelligence, to recast all intelligence reports in a way that favored the administration opinion, regardless of actual evidence.
By the time of the March, 2003 invasion, every intelligence agency in the world–including the consensus opinion of U.S. agencies–recognized that Hussein no longer had WMD capability. There were limited departments within different agencies who still suspected that there might be WMD in Iraq, but they were minority groups (who, in retrospect, were clearly mistaken or were propaganda groups who were not interested in the accuracy of their statements).
The Bush administration demonstrated that they were aware that Hussein had no WMD when they ordered Army and Marine units moving through Iraq to bypass the purported locations of WMD storge or production. If they believed that those sites posed a risk, they were criminally negligent in ordering them to not be secured. If they knew that those sites presented no risk, they demonstrated that they were aware that their casus belli was a lie.
Really? That is not the impression that others have:
The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq Christian Science Monitor, March 14, 2003
Bush Defends Assertions of Iraq-Al Qaeda Relationship Washington Post, June 18, 2004
And, of course, if we note that most people would tend to accept a statement from the Vice President as having been vetted by and in accordance with the beliefs of the president, we have:
Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked By Cheney
9/11, Iraq: Cheney again claims tie
Cheney Lectures Russert on Iraq-9/11 Link
I am always floored when people pretend that the administration did not expend enormous resources to falsely plant that lie in the minds of the public.
Er, but it *is * about you, as you’re the one employing cheap rhetorical tricks. Are you not the one wondering “how a fund for Independence in journalism, an extension of the Center for Public Integity which just happens to be heavily funded by George Soros, a well known Bush critic, can claim any integrity in their reporting.”?
Pretty much. Arguments stand or fall on their own merits.
If you recall, Saddam’s own actions were suspect. If he wasn’t harboring any wmd’s, than why all the secrecy or occassionally kicking out the weapons inspectors, etc. If he was bluffing, as he apparently was, he played the hand of his life and lost big time.
alright, that would be like me posting the Weekly Standard or Townhall.com and claiming they are more credibile then the LW counterparts. You’re stating an opinion… oh, and I disagree with you. Media Matters is a Hillary with an agenda site. The other site is all for fairness and accuracy in reporting mainly only right-slanted stories.
the fact remains that Saddam did indeed use chemical weapons on the Kurds and Iranians. “Chemical weapons” is the key here. So when the administration made any kind of claims against him, they weren’t fabricating anything. another fact is there were terror training camps throughout the Middle East including Iraq. What do you think, the terrorist camp coordinators made a point of saying, “lets place our camps eveywhere except Iraq”?
Bush Jr. had a hard-on for Saddam, that’s no secret. And he got his way, the guy is dead and so are his two goon sons. The point is, this report in question is biased against the bush administration; they’ll try to discredit Bush by claiming a huge number of statements were fabricated. I just think they’re more into discrediting him than stating the truth. They’re rationalizing to fit their agenda. And I’m questioning their integrity.
Actually, it seems so. Saddam didn’t like anything he couldn’t control, and Iraq had inspectors running around, so it wasn’t a good place for a terrorist training camp. Afghanistan on the other hand, was, and very few people doubt invading them was justified.
For your first point, his use of gas was not in dispute. If Bush were honest, he would have used that as the major justification for the invasion - and would have gotten very little support. He instead needed to lie about WMDs and the imminent danger.
Then you need to show where the report is incorrect. Instead you keep on bringing up the same old discredited points. Do you admit that you were wrong about Bush not tying 9/11 to Iraq, given Tom’s links?
Look, back then Bush mentioned 9/11 hundreds of times… and this was around the same time that he just happened to be looking for trouble with Saddam. If people confused the two different scenarios, I can’t help them. I never thought Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, so I’m not sure why 45% of Americans (according to your link) had this perception.
Even if 9/11 never happened, Bush was going to pick a fight with Iraq. He wanted Saddam’s head on a platter. 9/11 only delayed his actions.
The article says, " In his prime-time press conference last week, which focused almost solely on Iraq, President Bush mentioned Sept. 11 eight times. He referred to Saddam Hussein many more times than that, often in the same breath with Sept. 11.
Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was “personally involved” in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago."
Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president… and if there was an overall perception that he did, and if this was his motive, well than I never bought into it.
No, I never thought Iraq had any connection with 9/11… but I’d be pretty naive to state that al qaeda never had any kind of presence in Iraq, and not just Northern Iraq. What would make al qaeda not want to recruit Iraqi’s?
http://mosulfamily.blogspot.com/2005/10/saddam-never-gassed-his-own-people.html
Even the story of Saddam gassing is not beyond question. I have read a few sources that he was not responsible. I do not know for sure. neither do you.