I don’t think that Powell’s** belief** strengthens his statement one iota. I’m beginning to get the belief that Powell will say anything that he is paid to say.
I agree that it would be best if we could debate the actual evidence but alas none of us are in the CIA or are privy to it. What we do have though is a person that has all the information availible and he came to the conclusion that there was a connection. We must now either accept his conclusion or reject it by judging his qualifications and credibility. Now Powell’s qualifications are not in question but his credibility is.
The way I judged it was that in my opinion it is logical that a crazy dictator that hates the U.S.A. would help a crazy terrorist that hates the U.S.A. I harbor no illusions that politicians are completely honest but being the Secretary of State has to count at least a little bit for credibility. Therefore I beleive that Al Qaeda and Iraq had some sort of working relationship. It however is reasonable to question the source of this information and believe it to be false so I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this point.
It does not change my original assertion that it is possible that Saddam would sell weapons to terrorist orginizations. He has known ties to Palestinian terrorist orginizations and it is possible that in the future that there would be a group that wishes to purchase chemical/biological weapons and use them in a terrorist attack.
If the CIA actually had evdience supporting the points you’re claiming, treis, the Administration would have brought it forth eons ago and silenced all of the skeptics.
The fact that the Administration continues to play the “we have no proof, just a lot of suspicion” game even now should be a big blinking neon clue sign for you that there is no such evidence.
I haven’t seen any evidence, other than simple assertion, that Saddam was at all insane. Yes, he was brutal. Yes, he seemed to be insensible of the consequences of defying the United States. But nothing he’s done has been insane. He was a secular despot, with no reason to do anything but distrust Al Qaeda, a fundamentally extreme religious organization that generally considered the Baathist regime in Iraq to be too Western and too secular.
His reasons for invading Kuwait were sound, from the Iraqi point of view. The region was once part of Iraq, and it had been implied (by the US diplomats in Iraq) that the US didn’t give a flying camel fart if he invaded. He hedged on the disarmament at least in part because he still had enemies in the region and to basically declare that he had no way to retaliate for an attack was an invitation for Iran to move in.
I’m not excusing Saddam or justifying his regime. I’m just presenting reasoning that is not insane for his actions, because his actions were not insane. Ill-advised, from the standpoint of hindsight, but not insane.
So can we put the “crazy Arab dictator” angle away, please? Thanks.
Why? If the Secretary of State gets credibility points just because of his job, the President should get even more. Yet presidents do lie, as with Eisenhower denying spy plane flights over the USSR.
The argument that “We have the information but it is too classified to reveal.” is not only tired, by now it is tiresome.
Going to credibility, how’s their track record looking?
If North Korea violates their 1954 cease-fire with the UN and attacks the South, is the South supposed to wait for the UN to get involved because the UN, not SK, negotiated the cease-fire?
I submit that bringing in a mediating third party does not mean that one of the original parties give up their rights. They do, of course, if the mediation is binding and authoritative: If I file a restraining order against someone, and the cops decline to enforce the restraining order and the guy keeps harrassing me, I’m still limited in my ability to take matters into my own hands. But the UN is a talking shop, not a governing authority.
**It never was the UN’s problem. Allowing the UN to mediate and foster diplomacy does not make it “the UN’s problem.” In point of fact, the UN found, on multiple occasions, that Iraq was in violation of the 1991 cease-fire. They didn’t do anything about it themselves, which is a shame, but ultimately irrelevant since Iraq was not their problem to begin with.
Meh, this has been debated endlessly and I don’t have the desire to go over it again. Suffice it that after 9/11, the US was pissed off and not inclined to put up with crap from anyone any longer. So we told SH that yeah, we’d let him slide for 12 years, but that that was over. Time to get your shit together, or else we’ll finish that 1991 deal.
Was it “really” about 1991? Of course not. It was really about the the US was looking to send a message to the Islamists, looking for a way to take the war to them rather than being passive, looking for a way to remake the entire balance of power in the ME and destablize the autocracies there. I’m not in love with the whole neo-con strategy, but in any event, that’s another thread.
Funny how we “sent a message to the Islamists” by removing a non-Islamist regime from power. Go figger…
Hey, but now those Shiites are pushing for one man one vote style elections even harder than the Coalition Provisional Authority is prepared to allow. Maybe they can teach us something about freedom and democracy! 
Let’s see, first you said:
Then I pointed out that there were no such treaties between the US and Iraq.
In response you bring up this scenario of self defense:
Which is, at best, a non-sequitur. I’ll assume that you’re simply carried away and not being intentionally disingenuous. There’s still no one denying the right of self defense. Or are you trying to assert that Iraq attacked the US?
We deposed a secular government that was despised by Islamists. I’ll assume that you came by this non-sequitur honestly as well.
While you may indeed think that Iraq was a matter of compelling national interest, you’ve still have yet to provide the reasons for your assessment. Iraq definitely was not the threat to the US that it was presented as.
The CIA says there’s no evidence of Hussein trying to arm aQ. If you have evidence to the contrary, you are legally and morally obligated to share such with the CIA.
It’s your right to trust politicians. It’s your right to decide that it is okay for these politicians to predicate a venture costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of casualties on a belief that has no concrete evidence behind it.
Personally, I favor more realistic and responsible foreign policy. You know, the kind based on facts and rational analysis rather than feelings, beliefs and hunches. Since the stakes are so grave, it just seems inherently sensible that the underpinnings of the venture should be serious as well.
I suppose that, in part, it icould* come down to value that one assigns to the lives of our soldiers. When their lives are held in high regard, the use of the military becomes a matter of grave concern and requires careful analysis and a high level of certainty. When their lives are held cheap, then the quality of the case for war doesn’t matter too much, and beliefs w/o solid evidence can be seen as sufficient justification for the inevitable deaths of our military personel- sort of a “discretionary-war-for-sport” mentality.
But that’s just me, YMMV.
It’s interesting that your conclusion’s dependent both on the “logic” of the action and the “craziness” of the actors. (three words)
How does the evidence that “crazy terrorist” bin Laden despises “crazy dictator” Hussein fit into your conclusion, logically?
What we have here is:
it is possible that Saddam would sell weapons to terrorist orginizations
Hussein has known ties to Palestinian terrorist orginizations
it is possible that in the future that there would be a terrorist group who’d wish to purchase chemical/biological weapons
What’s most sorely missing here, of course, is an assessment of probability.
It is possible that US would sell weapons to terrorist orginizations.
The US has known ties to Palestinian terrorist orginizations.
It is possible that in the future that there would be a terrorist group who’d wish to purchase chemical/biological weapons.
Sure fails to make the case that the US is likely to sell NBC weapons to terrorists. YMMV.
You’re own friggen cite stated that Iraq was training AQ in posions and gases. It takes some kind of debater to attack the credibility of the cite they provided.
Does the CIA have indisputible evidence that AQ and Iraq have connection?
Absolutely not.
Does the CIA have some evidence that AQ and Iraq are connected?
Absolutely.
Do I want to see the evidence that they have?
Of course but I understand the nature of their business in that revealing information might compromise the source.
Do I always believe everything the CIA/Government says without proof?
No way no how but in this case the burden of proof in my mind is not very large. For example if the CIA/Government tried to claim that France is selling AQ illegal weapons I would require something on the order of a reservation for the Hotel Paris for one Osama Bin Laden with his reason of visit as “buying illegal weapons”. This is becuase there is no reason at all France would sell OBL weapons in fact it would be against their interest to do so.
Iraq on the other hand has reason to help AQ in the form of a mutual enemy. AQ and Iraq both hate the U.S.A. and would love to see a biological/chemical weapon go off in the middle of New York. In my mind it is likely that that they would have some sort of working relationship. In this case the director of the CIA saying that Iraq trained AQ in the use of WMD’s is good enough for me.
Just becuase someone is crazy doesn’t mean that given a situation we can not make an educated guess about their actions.
I never claimed that they were lovey-dovey one does not need to like another to work towards a common goal.
Al Qaeda and Iraq share a common goal in the destruction of the U.S.A. therefore it is probable that they would work together to achieve this.
What utter rot. By no stretch of the imagination was it in Saddam’s interest to aid and assist Al Queda to attack the US.
Osama is a religious fanatic, he has no interest nor concern with consequences of his actions. In his case, anything that hurts America is a good thing, regardless of American response.
Saddam is a secular cynic, which is a whole different kind of animal. He is concerned with consequences. Now, if Osama could come up with a terrorist attack that would cripple American military power and thus render him invulnerable to revenge, he might well have been interested. But all Osama can do is infuriate America without substantially weakening it. He doesn’t care, he’s going to Paradise. Saddam ain’t, and he knows it.
I share a common goal with the Socialist Workers Party, I should very much like to see Bush turned out of office. Does that make me a Wobbly? Maybe in your world.
Korea was meant as an illustration of the point: bringing in a mediating third party does not mean that one of the original parties give up their rights. I fail to find anything in Resolution 678, which created the ceasefire, that says UN approval was required for the resumption of hostilities. In fact, 1441 and other resolutions clearly said that SH was violating the 678 ceasefire. IMO when one party breaks the terms of a cease fire, the other party is released also.
Sorry, I forgot that enemy-of-my-enemy alliances never happen. For example, a capitalist democracy would never ally with a communist dictatorship to fight a mutual threat. Could never happen.
As I indicated, I’m not willing to engage in a hijack. There are dozens of threads discussing why toppling SH was in the US’ interests. Read some of them and post there if you are still unclear on the case that was made. I gave a quick summary of my own reasons for supporting it. There have been many, many reasons given why Iraq was a problem that had to be solved and why “regime change” was a goal of both the Clinton and Bush administrations; a couple of them – WMD and the possibility of a AQ connection – have been cast in bad light by subsequent events, but others have been very clearly vindicated. You may not agree with those other reasons given justified a resumption of hostilities, and that’s fine. But they exist and have been debated endlessly. Doing so here and now is not something I wish to do. Start a thread on that question if you want answers
Such as attacking an American naval vessel?
Of course not. Saddam is not an Islamic terrorist and Bin Laden is not a secular dictator becuase they worked together.
The CIA and Colin Powell among others have said that there is evidence that Al Qaeda and Iraq had some sort of working relationship. You may scream that there is no connection till your blue in the face but I have read two posts of yours, in one you tried to mislead me by quoting Powell out of context and the second you contradicted yourself, I know who I trust more right now.
Well, my fellow-travellers SimonX and elucidator, you have to admit that treis has us there. After bin Laden crippled the entire U.S. military by attacking that naval vessel, I am sure that Hussein was quite impressed and decided he’d better join the winning side pronto!
Well, treis, I suppose one could say that you and I have some sort of working relationship too. In fact, we’ve engaged in several online meetings at this point. Some of us actually believe that basing an entire war on some vague claims like this is…how shall we say…irresponsible. This sort of stuff can be used by nearly any country in the world to attack any other country. And, now that the U.S. has set such a shining example, I have little doubt that we will see this happen with greater frequency.
The fact remains that CIA Finds No Evidence Hussein Sought to Arm Terrorists.
And, how many of these dozens of reasons are actually internationally-lawful reasons for one sovereign nation to attack another? Or, do you subscribe to the idea that the only useful international law is those that have the might make the rules?
“Dozens of threads,” not reasons. Please read carefully.
Now follow closely, it’s complicated:
- Iraq agrees to ceasefire with a US-led coalition.
- The UNSC agrees to pass a resolution codifying that ceasefire and what Iraq must do to comply with it.
- Iraq soon violated those terms, and continued to violate the terms for a decade; numerous UNSC resolutions were passed acknowledging this.
- Violation of ceasefire terms is justification for resumption of hostilities.
What makes you think that my justification for the war was based on this vague claim?
If these claims were correct the war was good for the world in that we prevented an impending disaster.
If these claims weren’t correct the war was good for the world in that we know for sure Saddam won’t be giving weapons to terrorists and a brutal dictaor won’t be able to continue to kill hundreds of thousands of his citizens while raping the country of its wealth.
Whats your point? Intelligence information gathered after we have control of Iraq has no bearing on whether we were justified to go to war. Up until now the things that Bush has said that were in Iraq weren’t and the terrorist links appear to be less than to non-existant of what he claimed. There are two options either he lied about them or all of the intelligence was wrong. Either of these options is unacceptable and Bush deserves to be fired for these blunders.
This however does not change the fact that signs before the war pointed to Saddam possibly producing wmd’s and arming terrorists with them. In fact it appears that some biological weapons research programs were still in effect.
From the article jshore posted:
From the article jshore posted:
From testimony on Iraqi dual use facilities:
It’s hardly surprising that there are lyophilizers at Ag facilities in Iraq. We have them in America too. After all the fuss over Iraq’s supposed 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, we are left with the reality of one old vial of botulinum culture in a scientist’s fridge, and uncorroborated, unverified stories about secret weapons programs. Which is exactly where we came into this story a year and a half ago.