He said on March 07 ‘in the last month’ Iraq has become proactive in cooperation.
That means inspections had been working and unfettered for the previous four weeks.
I have been saying that since I got here - it was a hideous amoral godforsaken mistake
because Bush decided to end inspections and all hell broke loose against what I was saying.
Don’t you wonder why I was attacked for such a thought?
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He said on March 07 ‘in the last month’ Iraq has become proactive in cooperation.
That means inspections had been working and unfettered for the previous four weeks.
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Except that in your quote he doesn’t say either. Again, he’s cautiously optimistic, though concerned that it might be too little too late…and he clearly states in the part you quoted that it’s the threat of violence that has gotten the level of cooperation he’s seeing.
By this point…or even 4 weeks before this point, even if he said what you seem to think he said or felt even though you have yet to so any sort of proof for it…it was too late. Once we started positioning troops overseas and building up logistics it was too late to halt the inevitable, especially since it was Bush’s decision. Congress had put the decision completely in his hands, he had moved the troops over, and nothing short of an outright surrender was going to prevent the war by this time.
Well, that’s just because this is a really right-wing message board. It’s very brave statement to voice one’s displease with George Bush around these parts. No wonder you get so much flak!
What was too late? Did what you are talking about as ‘too late’ occur prior to the actual threat to invade which forced what to come to an end?
Your last two statements are not backed up by the Secretary of State who at some time around New Years Day 2003 Colin Powel told the nation that war was not inevitable if the cooperation received that early continued.
Do you think the cooperation got worse after New Years Day 2003 or if it improved according to Dr Blix?
Do you have an explanation why the Secretary of State would say the continued cooperation could make war inevitable
Why is war inevitable just because there is a troop build-up… Does there not need to be a justification to go around invading countries that are cooperating proactively with the UN?
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
Your last two statements are not backed up by the Secretary of State who at some time around New Years Day 2003 Colin Powel told the nation that war was not inevitable if the cooperation received that early continued.
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Dude, seriously…HE LIED. What part of that don’t you get?
No, you obviously didn’t understand what I said there. Cooperation got better because of the threat of force, at least according to your own cite.
Because it was the politically expedient thing for him to say, obviously. They had to maintain the fiction that war COULD be averted, even if the reality was that once we started deploying significant forces and logistics it was inevitable, with the caveat I’ve already given, namely Saddam et al could always surrender.
Man, this all happened in the past. There WASN’T a freaking justification and we DID invade. Weren’t you following events??
If you can turn This:
The Iraqi side was indeed becoming more proactive in tackling unresolved issues. At the meeting of the security council on 7 March 2003, I said:
"There is a significant Iraqi effort under way to clarify a major source of uncertainty as to the quantities of biological and chemical weapons that were unilaterally destroyed in 1991 … A site was being re-excavated … inspection work is moving forward and may yield results.
“How much time would it take to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks? … It would not take years, nor weeks, but months.”
into obstruction of inspections… .then I’d like to see how you go about it.
Thank you.
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into obstruction of inspections… .then I’d like to see how you go about it.
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Why should I since that’s YOUR strawman?? I asked you to back up a specific statement YOU made, and you have failed to do it. Trying to put words in my mouth isn’t going to change that fact.
So you agree with me and Dr Blix that Iraq’s cooperation ‘got better’ prior to Bush’s decision to attack and invade Iraq, however you do not believe that Dr Blix said anything that would lead one to conclude that the 2003 inspections in Iraq ‘were
working’ according to Dr Blix, to see Iraq disarmed peacefully ‘within months’ as he said.
SH had to allow unfettered inspection for cooperation to get better don’t you think? Do you think Dr Blix would mention proactive cooperation if SH was blocking access to sites or up to old tricks do you?
[QUOTE=NotfooledbyW]
So you agree with me and Dr Blix that Iraq’s cooperation ‘got better’ prior to Bush’s decision to attack and invade Iraq, however you do not believe that Dr Blix said anything that would lead one to conclude that the 2003 inspections in Iraq ‘were
working’ according to Dr Blix, to see Iraq disarmed peacefully ‘within months’ as he said.
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Here, let me refresh your memory as to what you said and what I was actually responding too, since you’ve again attempted to shift the goal posts AND hand wave away your comments (although why you think no one can, you know, just scroll up and see what you said is beyond me):
Do you know, by chance, what the actual definition of ‘unfettered’ is? Do you understand that no where in anything you’ve quoted does it back up your assertion that the inspections WERE ‘unfettered’ OR that ‘SH was cooperating more than necessary to avert war’? That’s YOUR projection onto Blix, because he never said anything like that. In fact, he said he hoped that it wasn’t too late, and that he still had reservations and STILL THOUGHT THERE WERE WMD IN IRAQ THOUGH THERE WAS NO PROOF???
No, he hadn’t actually. He had allowed less fettered inspections, and probably by the end there he really did want to be seen to be cooperating as much as possible to avert the inevitable war that was pretty obviously about the wipe him out of power.
Well, that’s your strawman, so if you want to defend it feel free. I never said anything of the kind.
You tell me why my original comment that you picked to natter about my pushing my thoughts onto what Dr Blix thought about his work is not correct or accurate
Unfettered inspections are those that are not obstructed as to access to sites. That is a phrase that Blix generally and often referred to as ‘cooperation on process’ .
Blix stated often that c.o.p was active from the start.
What you and many other Bush defenders have done have latched onto Blix’s separate specific type of cooperation which he calls cooperation on substance.
The c.o.p was present from the beginning with a few minor issue that needed settling, so Blix offended referred to c.o.p as immediate or present at the start.
Bush war hawks and his defenders realized at the time that c.o.p was working thus suggesting that the often used phrase (unfettered inspections) were also being completed starting in December and never regressing according to Dr Blix’ reports.
So invasion supporters and Bush defenders to this day have glommed onto Blix’ statements about cooperation on substance and make the case that inspections were failing because as Tony Sinclair pointed out that Bush and war hawks saw that Iraq’s cooperation was not immediate.
And it is unfortunate that Blix’s c.o.s phrase has been used by invasion sympathizers to support the Bush version and rewrite of history that Iraq did not cooperate sufficient to avoid war.
It is worse to me that very strong anti-war folks have glommed onto non-immediate c.o.s to mostly use as a cudgel against the millions of Americans including members of Congress
myself included that believed in October 2002 that our government was correct to confront Iraq by threat of use military force if necessary until it became evident that Iraq would be willing to cooperate with the UN and be verified disarmed of WMD and be brought into compliance with international law.
This statement of mine is not opposed in any stubstantial or meaningful way to what Blix said during while doing his work during The run up to war.
So make a case that Blix did not believe prior to invasion that his inspections although unfinished were not working.
He told Blair that it would be absurd to invade and find no WMD.
Absurd! If that is not an argument for keeping inspections going I do not know what could be.
And when you try to make the case you want to make against me for what I wrote please try to include c.o.p in your documentation of facts.
I am referring to that when I use the phrase unfettered inspections.
Try not to do what Bush defenders do which is focus entirely on c.o.s.
Cooperation on process explained by Dr Blix in Jamuary 2003 as access to sites which is unfettered inspections.
“It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access. A similar decision is indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion, through the peaceful process of inspection, and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course.”
Let’s see your cite of what Blix told us about SH not allowing full access to sites from the very start. SH did not start allowing better access to sites at the end he allowed it at the beginning.
Your Honor!
I object, your triple posting style is badgering the witness!
The witness has charged that NTFBW has unjustifiably imposed an ‘inspections are working’ frame of mind onto Dr Hans Blix views of the work he oversaw.
The witness has admitted that Iraq’s cooperation ‘got better’ during the course of Dr Blix’s work.
I find it hard to believe XT’s contrary viewpoint that Dr Blix did not believe the inspections were working if even XT admits that Iraq’s cooperation all along ‘got better’.
Getting better cooperation pretty much means that the inspections were working or that Blix was not inclined to believe that they were.
So Kearsen what is you view on the disagreement and explanations before you since you have shown your interest in the matter.
I love to hear all viewpoints on issues such as this since that appears to fulfill the purpose of forums such as this.
Do you understand the difference between cooperation on Process and cooperation on Substance?
Would you like to know if you are not sure.
There is quite a bit of lack of knowledge on those two Blix phrases and it may to a few posts to fix that.
It is not badgering it is educating.
Of course his first choice was diplomacy, he didn’t have troops in place to make his first choice a military one. Time was needed for preparation and deployment, and during that time diplomatic means were attempted to get Saddam to back down and comply. Heck, just the act of talking to him while openly moving forces is a diplomatic tactic - do what we’re asking or all these troops will be put to use. If Saddam had done as asked, there would have been no invasion. Same as in Afghanistan - they were told to hand over BinLaden and other associates or there’d be hell to pay. They refused, and you know what happened next.
Why do you think we invaded Iraq since clearly you think all of the stated reasons were lies? Was it for oil? How’s that working out for us now (especially since Saddam was offering us cut-rate oil prices in an effort to avoid invasion)? Do you think that if Saddam had done every single thing asked and everyone from Inspectors to intelligence agencies had said “yup, he’s doing what we asked” that Bush would have invaded anyway?
Thanks for your comments and questions. I will get to yours ASAP but I need to find out what you think SH failed to do that was asked of him, and by whom, and in whose judgment SH did not comply.
That seems to be a basis for your argument and I think it best that everything is clear before moving on with a discussion.
You asked a question, I answered it. Then I asked a question, now you answer it. That’s how these things typically go. However, I’ve observed your work in other threads before wading into this one so I’m somewhat prepared for this complex dance.
I’ll make it easier by going one piece at a time, then I’ll answer your next question, etc. etc. Note that I admit freely that I may be wrong - I’ve slept since 2002, unlike some people who seem to keep things evergreen in memory.
Why do you think we invaded Iraq since clearly you think all of the stated reasons were lies?
Bush told us in his final days of decision culminating on March 17, 2003 that invading Iraq was absolutely necessary to protect the national security of the USA because at that moment in time Bush claimed that he had intelligence, and we must assume some fresh 2003 intelligence, that ‘left no doubt’ that Iraq was concealing ‘the most lethal weapons ever devised’ from the UN inspectors that were over 200 strong on the ground peacefully searching for evidence that those ‘most lethal weapons’ actually existed at that time.
That is why we invaded Iraq.