Sorry Coldy but thats a laughable assertion. Effective diplomacy?Oh please! You mean the effective diplomacy that allowed Sadamn to go unchecked for the last 4 years with no inspections whatsoever? I know how much Sadamn fears those terribly deadly European diplomats.What changed during that time? Was it a sudden push by the Europeans for him to disarm? Yea right dont make me laugh. What changed was the Clinton Administration, replaced by President Bush who is in fact willing to put his army where his mouth is. He straigh forwardly called Iraq an axis of evil and made it quite clear that he was willing to do something about it. THATS what made Iraq jump. Not “effective diplomacy”. The only thing Dictators understand is force and they laugh at diplomats.
*Connection suddenly got really bad…sorry if this double posts
Iraq has 30,000 chemical warheads with the ability to hit Turkey. In fact we have found 18 of them in the last month alone. That leaves 29,982 left by my count.
Not trying to be obtuse Coldy but cite what? The fact that the Bush administration is clearly willing to risk war for Iraqi compliance when the Clinton Admin wasnt?
I’m not suggesting the ball wasn’t dropped on Iraq for the past 6 years. I’m also not suggesting that the US pressure to go to war didn’t speed the UN (and its diplomats, who are not all European, of course) up - it did. But had 9/11 not happened, how keen would Bush have been to engage in war speech at this stage? The logical question is then: would Clinton have done the same, had he been president during 9/11?
The answer is: most likely, yes. I’m just trying to say that comparing the Bush administration now to the Clinton administration in a pre-9/11 world isn’t entirely fair, in that it’s only logical GWB is sharpening the knives. Not just because he’s a republican, but because the world has vastly changed from two years ago.
Well fortunatly for us, according to UN resolution 1441 we dont HAVE to prove he has 30,000 chemical warheads.IRAQ has to prove that it in fact no longer has these warheads, which according to Mr Blix they have not done so. If you require a cite for this i will be happy to oblige you, however i dont think its nessesary.
So, are you saying mr. Blix and his inspectors found those warheads?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bit of a Devil’s Advocate thing. I too suspect Saddam is hiding weapons. The thing is, I don’t think “we” or even “you”, as the case may be, should go to war based on mere suspicions.
What im saying is that Mr Blix doesnt have an obligation to find a single weapon. Iraq does indeed have an obligation to account for massive numbers of WMDs that were VERIFIED to be in thier possession that they have catagorically refused to do so.
We’re up to 18 empty warheads, according to CNN this morning, Coldie. The first 12 in a dump that didn’t exist prior to the Gulf War, and the others scattered around god knows where.
What im saying is that Mr Blix doesnt have an obligation to find a single weapon.His job is to moniter Iraqi compliance with resolution 1441. If indeed he finds weapons thats just simply a more direct way of confirming a violation. Not finding “hot evidence” does not give Iraq a get out of jail free card. As Powel clearly demonstrated and im sure there is MUCH more evidence that we havnt seen it seems quite clear to me that indeed Iraq is violating its agreement “hot evidence” or not.
On the otherhand, unlike Mr Blix that DOES NOT have an obligation to find a single prohibited weapon, Iraq does INDEED have an obligation to account for massive numbers of WMDs that were VERIFIED to be in thier possession that they have catagorically refused to do so.
What im saying is that Mr Blix doesnt have an obligation to find a single weapon.His job is to moniter Iraqi compliance with resolution 1441. If indeed he finds weapons thats just simply a more direct way of confirming a violation. Not finding “hot evidence” does not give Iraq a get out of jail free card. As Powel clearly demonstrated and im sure there is MUCH more evidence that we havnt seen it seems quite clear to me that indeed Iraq is violating its agreement “hot evidence” or not.
On the otherhand, unlike Mr Blix that DOES NOT have an obligation to find a single prohibited weapon, Iraq does INDEED have an obligation to account for massive numbers of WMDs that were VERIFIED to be in thier possession that they have catagorically refused to do so.
<Editing note> hey cold sorry but could you clean up my posting mess?? my 2 last short posts that say the same damn thing and basically have the same content as my *evil hampsters last post? Sorry bout that…bout ready to throw my comp out the window Thanks
Chemical warheads might not be stored with the agents inside. It’s safer to keep them in a more secure location than a warhead, which are designed to disperse the agents not contain them for long periods of time.
Why keep chemical warheads - in direct violation of UN resolutions going back over a decade - if there are no chemical agents to put in them?
Answer: no reason. Actually, there are huge economic incentives to get rid of them.
On a more fundamental level, I agree that if all Iraq has at its disposal are a few dozen Katuysha rocket chemical warheads, they pose little threat to anyone but their immediate neighbors.
HOWEVER, Iraq has* long-range missiles, and has tested over the UN range limit quite a few times. Given that, the possession of chemical - and especially biological - agents is a real threat to everyone in the region.
