First get it scanned into digital for the archives! Don’t want to lose history for goofy symbolism.
Good God. Stop this now.
A mistake was admitted. That’s enough.
CNN is now reporting that tests on a warhead in Kirkurk have tested postitive for nerve agents, and a Major with the 173rd is saying that at least one Iraqi has come forward offering to provide info on chemical weapons at the base.
I completely disagree with skankweirdall’s politics. But this is what he said:
He never claimed to be a vet, and no part of his argument depended on his having been a vet.
If NPR is so mindlessly liberal, why have they been the (or a) source for two erroneous reports of WMDs? The first was by one of their embedded reporters, IIRC, saying that biologically tipped missiles or rockets had been found. The second was their playing of an interview with “an expert” who stated that he had been contacted about a significant find involving nuclear weapons.
having heard so many lies from the US government recently, if and when they say they have found WMD I am going to be very skeptical and will consider the evidence very carefully. I am getting the impression they might plant the evidence or spin something and blow it out of proportion. The fact that they may find (or “find”) some amount of chemicals means very little and is not proof that they had any significant program or capability. The UN inpector Blix has blasted the USA repeatedly saying they were determined to go to war and not interested in successfull inspections so they were torpedoing his work.
Up to now every attempt by the USA to insinuate they have found WMD has been a pathetic farce. Did you see that couple of dirty drums in a cave? Gimme a break. That is a viable program of bioterror? Come on!
And now they show us a pitiful, dilapidated, truck and tell us it is a mobile lab. Gimme another break. The US government is taking us for idiots. Or are they learning their techniques from Baghdag Bob?
That would be quite a spectacle: a debate on live TV between Badhdag Bob and Texas Bush. It would leave SNL in the dust.
UziI might take you up on your bet, but want to add a couple of conditions. First of all, I have to have sold you the bottle of liquid. Next, it can’t contain water. For the purposes of making this a fair analogy it has to contain milk or some other smelly liquid that I can build a detector for. Next, I have to have access to billions of dollars of equipment (including spy planes and satellites that can read bumper stickers from orbit). Also, you have to populate the land with people that hate you (oppress them all that you want) and any one of which might have seen where you put the bottle and/or you moving it and might be willing to tell me where. Finally, I have 12 years to find it.
I expect that the recently surrendered Iraqi science minister will soon be a source of all sorts of wild tales. However, now that Saddam’s gone, it really is up to the administration to offer conclusive evidence as to the existence of a WMD threat. Else we shall have to clone Saddam from his remaining cell paste, grow him up in the manner to which he was accustomed, apologize to him for our misdeeds, and reinstall him as the leader of the free democratic republic of Iraq. 
As to why the Iraqi military never used WMD. Perhaps they were never ordered to? I would imagine orders like that would have to come from fairly high up. As this article shows, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2941727.stm some units lost contact with command quite quickly.
Also, he expresses a desire not to damage their city and people
It is also stated that morale was very low with people deserting every day.
I think it is therefore reasonable to speculate that some had no interest in killing thousands of their own. Especially if they had no orders to do so.
Why didn’t they use the weapons outside the cities? I would guess that would for the most part be pretty useless. When you’ve got maneuvering room, gas attacks would be fairly easy to avoid or mitigate the damage, I imagine (though I’m no expert in these matters). All that would accomplish is to turn world opinion against you.
Why Iraq might have chosen not to use WMDs,
*Saddam planned to escape at the last minute all along. War crimes indictments for WMD would be inconvenient.
**Iraqi officers read the US leaflets and ignored orders to use them.
***Command and control broke down and everyone just decided to bug out at the last minute, not wanting to risk personal welfare for a dying regime.
****Iraq would lose any shred of international credibility with its apologists.
*****The WMDs were moved to other nations, Syria, before the war even started. Saddam’s plan being to drag the conflict on and force the US to withdraw through international pressure.
You can keep spinning them out.
OR
They still might be used in terrorist or guerilla style attacks when things calm down a little.
Some dopers have to really calm down, ** skankweirdall ** made a mistake (if had wanted to lie he could have made a better one). He was called on it and he apologized, end of problem.
As many have already said the issue is no longer if Saddam had WDM, the fact is that he had the ultimate reason to use them and he didn’t. Two weeks of war showed that the biggest threat to the planet wasn’t Husseim but Bush. The man lied, his lie cost at least hundreds of lives. In my book he has a resemblance to Hitler (after all the Fuhrer also lied in order to get his war)
In other threads we discussed how this war was long prepared (if not by Bush then by his “inner circle”), there was nothing Saddam could have done to avoid the war short of leaving his country and also his power. When Bush issued that Ultimatum he knew the consequence, no one leave power easily specially if that no one happens to be a dictator.
“Seed winds and you’ll harvest storms”, remember that.
So you are saying that Saddam would rather lose his country and his life rather that whatever international credibility he had? Does that make any sense? How about “Because they didn’t have any”? Is that a possibility?
I find that Alternet.org presents a fairly unbiased compilation of news stories and articles from around the world. You might try it and see for yourself.
Bob
Sorry, but you missed the second test which showed no signs of chemicals. Another case, IMHO, of soldiers jumping the gun (see reference to ‘Nuclear Weapons found’, above).
Bob
Here’s my guess: there was “secret evidence” quite possibly on a par with the laughable “Nigerian uranium” hokum. History has shown that “intelligence” tends to be the rumor that is most attractive. So, somebody (as yet unnamed) cooked up so bullshit stew and served it to the Bushistas. Mmmmm-good!, they cried in unison. They served a couple of bowls to the UN inspectors, and they came back and said “Hey! That’s bullshit stew! Where’d you get this shit?”
And GeeDubya blushed and said “Can’t tell you. National security. Gotta protect my source.” But heres the catch: they already believed that Saddam had WMD’s, believed it all the way down to thier toes. "Well, we can’t prove it, but we know he’s got 'em, so we’ll just go ahead and when we get there, we can prove we’re right then.
Ooopsy.
Uh, no.
If you check the date on the CNN piece, you’ll see that it’s today’s date.
Personally, I would guess it wouldn’t matter whether a newssource was liberal, conservative or commie pinko as regards the WMD.
It would be a big story and whoever gets a lead on it will run with it
elucidator: By the way, the U.S. is now saying that that badly faked report about Nigerian urianium purchases was planted into intelligence channels by… Ready?.. FRANCE.
Gee, I wonder if they had an incentive to have the Bush administration get caught with a forgery?
Another thing - all those false positives are not evidence of U.S. lies, or incompetence, or anything else. The reason for them is that field detection kits are intentionally designed to over-discriminate. There are all kinds of fertilizers that will set those detectors off. Lots of chemicals of various kinds. In a combat situation where you are putting soldiers into potentially dangerous places, it’s much better to give off false positives than false negatives. So the equipment is set up to give positives with wide margins for error.
And the military knows this, and keeps telling the media this. But the media thrives on sensationalism. So, a soldier tells an embedded reporter, “My field kit just tested positive for a dangerous chemical.” The reporter contacts his bureau and says, “possible WMD found!”. Bureau writes it up as, “Military detects nerve gas in shell!”.
Then the sample goes to a mass spectrometer and gas chromatograph for exact analysis, and it turns out to be residual ‘Tilex’ used to clean the thing. And the military goes, “Okay, not that one. Test the next.” - and everyone else screams, “FAILURE! SCREW UP!”
Time sensative link, but if you scroll down on Debka’s site you can see a description about where rumor has it most of Saddam’s WMD are to be found (if they exist) and why Coalition forces haven’t attempted to crack it as of yet.
I know this was already said by sailor on the front page, but since everyone seems to be ignoring his good point, I think it’s worth repeating here.
Does it really matter if Iraq has WMD? Since even if they have them they don’t use them? If Saddam didn’t use the WMDs in this war, when would he ever have used them?
You might as well condemn the USA, the UK, and all the other countries that have WMD. By that reasoning it would be justified for another country to invade the US to remove our nuclear warheads.