# How long should it take to find the WMDs in Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2003, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133 "2003-05-09T16:11:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![OliverH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/278dde/32.png) [@OliverH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OliverH)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/41 "2003-05-10T10:10:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\* > Also, it does disturb me that the evidence presented before the war was portrayed as being above doubt, and showed very large complexes and large scale activity. Now it seems the hunt has turned into trying to track various flotsam and jetsam of a weapons program. That doesn’t really match MY expectations based on the evidence presented. \*\* Could it be that is because you were all too willing to believe it? The evidence was always more wishful thinking than real evidence. The complexes and large scale activity were demonstrated to be misrepresented and bogus. > [@](#): > > [b[ > However, it’s still early. Saddam had a long period of time to hide his stuff. And he was a brutal man. Witnesses to the burial of WMD could have been killed to prevent them from spilling the beans. Witnesses who are left could be afraid to come forward for fear of being implicated and charged with war crimes. So the jury is still out. > \*\* a)What precisely do you think burial is supposed to accomplish? Mass eradication of Saddam’s followers and the civilian population of the entire country when the containers start to leak? b)How precisely is burial going to avert detection of trace contamination? > [@](#): > > \*\* > As someone who was in favor of the war for reasons other than WMDs, it’s really irrelevant to me whether they are found or not from the standpoint of determining if it was a just war. Of course it was. Saddam was a tyrant who murdered millions, and was continuing to do so. His ouster was a good and just thing for the Iraqi people, and could be a catalyst for true middle east peace. > \*\* WMDs were the official reason stated by the administration for the war. As for the war being a catalyst for true middle east peace, that is plain wishful thinking. So far, it has merely served to fuel hatred rather than reducing it. > [@](#): > > \*\* > That said, if no WMDs are found, there should be a serious investigation. It is important to find out if, A) Bush lied to the people, in which case he should be impeached, B) The intelligence community lied to Bush, in which case a house cleaning is in order, C) The intelligence community was just wrong, in which case it needs to be reformed, or D) The weapons were there, but aren’t there any more, in which case it’s critically important to find out what happened to them. \*\* You are too late, my friend. It has already been demonstrated that Bush lied to the people. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Given that the U.N. itself believed the weapons were there, and Saddam’s behaviour was consistent with that, and that every major intelligence agency in the world believed the weapons to be there, then if if they aren’t found the most likely reason would be D) above. \*\* Hardly, since no such thing is the case. Neither the UN itself nor ‘every major intelligence agency’ believed that the weapons were there. Quite simply because there was no evidence. They believed that it cannot be ruled out that they are there, because there was no evidence for their non-existence either. Which is precisely why everyone insisted on more inspections. The US and Britain were the ONLY countries who claimed to be convinced that these weapons are there. The evidence they produced, however, turned out to be fabricated. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/42 "2003-05-10T12:31:20Z")
All that ‘evidence’ that the US had, remeber that France and Russia both have plenty of contacts at all sorts of levels within Iraq. They surely had good intelligence, it beggars belief that they did not have their own intelligence agencies operating there, and they consistantly voted against war based on the infromation that was available. The anti French rhetoric by the US, which continues even now, was merely a distraction, almost racist in tone, it was just smoke to blind the US public. As for Blair, was he niaive or complicit in the US illegal war ? We Brits seem to have gone a bit quiet in our own press about why we just had to join in, we don’t seem to want to know because we might not like the answers. It was portrayed that tracing and destroying those WMD was so urgent and now we are led to believe that we can stroll around Iraq in a liesurely manner taking maybe a year or more to verify the existance or not of them.Given that original urgency one would have thought it was time critical and that a very intensive search would be going on. All the extensions to discovery times are just the venal Bush adminisration trying to fend off the questioning critics. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/43 "2003-05-10T12:46:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > I had this discussion w/ Randy Spears quite awhile back and we agreed on a compromise position of 4 months. Roughly the amount of time that the UN inspectors were looking before Bush started the war. But that’s somewhat political, since it relies on a fairly arbitrary time frame. Still, I think something in the range of 4-6 months should be enough. With pretty much open access to the whole country, and the help of some Iraqi scientists, we should be able to turn up something substantial if it exists. Agreed. Why ? Historical precedent. Prior to Iraq, the one case I can think of where “inspectors” were searching for an enemies’ WMD programme on the ground was the Alsos Mission during WWII. Run as part of the Manhatten Project, this involved a unit of soldiers and scientists searching for any German nuclear bomb research in the wake of the Allied invasion of Western Europe. Aside from a preliminary trip to Brittany earlier in the month, the team wasn’t deployed in France until 19th August 1944. They then followed the front across the country, obviously zeroing in on Paris (particularly to see Juliot-Curie, the leading French nuclear physicist). They interviewed French and German scientist, searched labs and read any surviving paperwork. During the course of the investigation, a visit to an optical plant of no great significance threw up the lead that a particular, very obscure, German nuclear physicist was based in Strasbourg and was doing research there, possibly in conjuction with the better-known theorist Carl von Weizsacker. That city fell to the Allies in mid-November and some of the Alsos team reached it at the end of the month. Von Weizsacker had fled, having tried to destroy or hide all the paperwork, but they found some of the other German physicists pretending to doctors in the main hospital. Interrogating them yielded virtually nothing, but the everyday letters and memos found in the lab did. The chief scientist on the mission, Samuel Goudsmit, was later to write: > [@](#): > > The papers were not even secret. They were just the usual gossip between colleagues, here and there a minor indiscretion, a hint, nothing objectionable from a secrecy point of view - just ordinary memos such as we had all sent to our own friends and colleagues when we were in the U.S. (_Alsos_, Schuman, 1947, p69.) From them, however, Goudsmit was able to conclude that the German nuclear programme existed, but was of very limited extent and not a threat. The mission’s military commander agreed (Boris Pash, _The Alsos Mission_, 1969; Award, 1970, p157). Note that the principal scientists and the uranium didn’t fall into Allied hands until the following spring, at the end of the war, but that was mainly because they were behind the front line until then. It thus took Alsos about three months on the ground to accurately establish the state of the German nuclear programme. Granted the level of deliberate concealment was less than one would anticipate for any Iraqi equivalent. On the other hand, the main delay in Alsos’ efforts was not having access to people and places. Once the cities and sites involved were reached, the evidence in them could be located and assessed within days. ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/44 "2003-05-10T13:38:39Z")
I think it is appropriate to wait until the first Wednesday that follows a Monday in November of 2004 before we make out final judgement on this issue! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/45 "2003-05-10T13:53:19Z")
Quite right. Stability and continuity, those are the important things. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/46 "2003-05-10T13:59:08Z")
\>\> Why didn’t Saddam open up the country and stop the sanctions? He did. Do you remember the USA declared some site as a manufacturing facility for WMD and the very next day the Iraqi government took a bunch of foreign journalists on a tour of the place. At that point the situation was clear: the USA was going to invade and it did not matter at all what Saddam Hussein had or din not have, did or did not do. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/47 "2003-05-10T20:10:23Z")
I agree with \*_elucidator_ that the deadline’s come and gone. I’m kinda stunned that there were no WMDs, but at this point, I think there’s little doubt. As ' **luci** said, nobody’s claiming the reward money. And it boggles the mind that, when faced with the prospect of an imminent US invasion, Saddam suddenly decided to de-weaponize, bury, and/or destroy his weapons. His people _had_ to have better things to do to prepare for our invasion, even if using the alleged weapons on US/Brit troops wasn’t one of them. It’s not really very conceivable that, in the hurried circumstances of late March and early April, all WMDs and all evidence of any WMD program was so thoroughly destroyed or hidden that none of it can be found, even by those Iraqis who have a $250K stake in finding it. _The things they say their purple prose just gives them away the things they say they’re unbelievable_ ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/48 "2003-05-11T02:39:15Z")
**Deadline: The Fourth of July Two-thousand-ought-three.** Now that that’s decided, let’s decide what is a\*\* Weapon-of-mass-destruction\*\*… **Semantically:** A device or method of destroying a large measure of property or people. \* Are commercial airlines considered **WMD** ’s, United Nations? Huh?\* **Special Definition:** Missiles ( only those capable of an arbitrairy number of miles, with delivery of any kind of ordinance ) or otherwise, weapons that by their area of detrimental influence on some property or some people might reasonably be considered extensive and offensive. **Exclusions:** Mass murders by strangulation. Execution by automatic hand weapons wereas recipients are buried en masse in sand pits. Localized tortures and the gasings of Kurds. Mmm…after some thought I like to extend the deadline to **9-11**. Bastards. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/49 "2003-05-11T03:53:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Semantically: A device or method of destroying a large measure of property or people. Are commercial airlines considered WMD’s, United Nations? Huh? Seeing as how the Bush Administration didn’t proclaim that commercial airplanes were the reason they invaded Iraq, one can probably forget about them. > [@](#): > > Exclusions: Mass murders by strangulation Right. We went into Iraq for the explicit purpose of cutting off all thier hands. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/50 "2003-05-11T06:50:30Z")
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40212-2003May10.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40212-2003May10.html) The main task force in charge of hunting WMD is going to leave Iraq soon. This is startling news. Does this meant that the administration is basically giving up on finding WMD? BTW this reporter Gellman deserves a lot of credit for this series of stories on the WMD hunt. The WaPo is definitely beating the Times on this story. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/51 "2003-05-11T07:10:34Z")
Wow. A couple of quotes, if only to prod the Usual Suspects into reading this article. "…They said they expected to find what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 – hundreds of tons of biological and chemical agents, missiles and rockets to deliver the agents, and evidence of an ongoing program to build a nuclear bomb. Scores of fruitless missions broke that confidence, many task force members said in interviews…" [snip] “…Task Force 75’s experience, and its impending dissolution after seven weeks in action, square poorly with assertions in Washington that the search has barely begun…” They’re gonna get away with it. They’re gonna wave the flag, show the statue toppling video on endless loop with GeeDubya landing on the flat-top for the Gloat on the Boat… And they’re gonna get away with it. God, how I would love to believe that we’re not this fucking _stupid!_ ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/52 "2003-05-11T14:49:34Z")
Sadly we are this fucking stupid. The American public at large doesn’t really care about WMDs and Iraq any more, and doesn’t need to find them to justify the war. After all, if half of the American public is convinced that there were direct ties between Al-Queda and Hussein, what’s the lack of evidence have to do with proving that Saddam had WMDs? ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/53 "2003-05-11T16:25:39Z")
Some more choice quotes: “By far the greatest impediment to the weapons hunt, participants said, was widespread looting of Iraq’s government and industrial facilities. At nearly every top-tier “sensitive site” the searchers reached, intruders had sacked and burned the evidence that weapons hunters had counted on sifting. As recently as last Tuesday, nearly a month after Hussein’s fall from power, soldiers under the Army’s V Corps command had secured only 44 of the 85 top potential weapons sites in the Baghdad area and 153 of the 372 considered most important to rebuilding Iraq’s government and economy.” A quote from McPhee( a combat officer assigned to the WMD hunt: " "You’ve got two corps commanders being told, ‘Get to Baghdad,’ and, oh, by the way, ‘When you run across sensitive sites, you have to secure them,’ " he said. “Do you secure all those sites, or do you get to Baghdad? You’ve got limited force structure and you’ve got 20 missions.” " So the bottom line is that there weren’t enough troops assigned to secure the sensitive sites quickly and by the time the task force got there they were looted or burned. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/54 "2003-05-11T16:53:23Z")
Well, that certainly clears that up! There really _were_ massive stockpiles of Nasty Stuff, but we didn’t have time to prepare enough troops to secure them. We only had about, what, nine months of lead time and barely 200,000 troops. Yes, that must be it. In our eagerness to free the Iraqi people, a trivial matter like desperately dangerous weapons kind of fell through the cracks. Are you going to stick to that story, or would you like to cook up something plausible? So now all of these barrells and barrells of nerve gas, etc., now they are all being sold on the black market in Baghdad as flower planters? Or they were all burned up, leaving not a trace? All of them? Vanished. Disappeared. Poof! Remember Mr. Campone, and his list of 600 sites? Now, lets just pretend that we are intelligent people, sensibly concerned with securing these very dangerous things, so that they not fall into the wrong hands. Remembering, of course, that this rationale of self-defense is our _casus belli_. Would we not have plans in place before hostilities began to secure these sites, seeing as we have several hundred thousand troops and entirely adequate means (helicopters, etc.) to transport them where needed? So why didn’t that happen? Incompetence? Are you suggesting that _all_ of these 600 sites were looted and burned? _All_ of them? What an extraordinary coincidence! How very remarkable! Did the Special Iraqi Fedayeen for Looting and Burning have that list? Or did they loot and burn 100,000 random sites and just get lucky? They weren’t there, **Cyber**. That is the stark fact staring us in the face. GeeDubya stood there and told us—absitively, posolutely-- that they _were_ there. Secret intelligence, can’t see it, trust us. We must go to war to protect ourself from these “massive stockpiles”. Can’t wait for inspectors, can’t hesitate a moment, urgent and immediate threat. Can you give me any plausible reason to believe there was a grain of truth to any of this? What did the President know, and when did he know it? Hell, does he even know it _now_? ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/55 "2003-05-11T17:12:00Z")
“They weren’t there, Cyber” I hope you are right because the alternative is that the weapons were there but are now scattered all over the place out of anyone’s control. Either way it’s been a major failure for the administration. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/56 "2003-05-11T17:21:15Z")
> [@](#): > > And it boggles the mind that, when faced with the prospect of an imminent US invasion, Saddam suddenly decided to de-weaponize, bury, and/or destroy his weapons. His people had to have better things to do to prepare for our invasion, even if using the alleged weapons on US/Brit troops wasn’t one of them. I don’t know why you are so quick to dismiss this. Think about Saddam’s pre-war strategy: His strategy was clearly to try to build ‘fortress Baghdad’ and withstand the onslaught for as long as possible, while racking up many casualties on both sides. His only chance of survival was to arouse the world’s condemnation of the invasion and stack bodies in the streets. But for that to happen, it was critical that WMD not be found. Because if they were, world opinion would shift to the U.S. and Britain, and he’s done for. So it’s at least plausible to speculate that Saddam tried to hang on to his WMD until the last minute, and then when invasion was inevitable he ordered them all destroyed to deprive the U.S. of its causus belli. I’m not saying this is what happened. But the scenario is at least plausible, and not to be dismissed outright. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/57 "2003-05-11T18:26:40Z")
First off, **Sam** , commendations for the being the only one of the Usual Suspects to have the nerve to address this issue. Plausible? Perhaps, if a couple of glaring weaknesses can be patched. Your examination of Saddam’s strategy may be accurate, Heaven only know what went through the twisted alleyways of that man’s mind. But for that to be the case, all of the WMD’s must have been in Baghdad. If, as you say, finding the WMD’s would seal his fate (which, to my mind, was sealed the moment the invasion began…if international opinion didn’t stop us before, why would it stop us in mid-invasion?) then they couldn’t have been located anywhere but Baghdad, the last bastion to fall. Would _you_ locate vast stockpiles of deadly nerve and biological agents in your capital city, a city you are sure is going to be bombed? What assurance could you possibly have that none of these sites would be hit, spreading bad mojo over your own defensive positions? Further, if Saddam had no intention of using these weapons even in the face of an invasion to destroy him, when might he use them? If not applicable in the most desperate circumstances, when might they be applicable? If they aren’t to be used against an invading American army, what good are they? Your supposition could equally apply to Saddam destroying all his WMD’s after the first Gulf War. We have testimony to that effect from General Hussein Kamel, testimony that, I hasten to note, was pointedly excised from the Bushita’s account of his revelations. Finally, if Saddam had no intentions of using these weapons against America, what the hell were we fighting _about_! ---
**Author:** ![RandySpears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/858c86/32.png) [@RandySpears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandySpears)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/58 "2003-05-11T18:33:12Z")
**elu** , you are as always to modest. That article would be worthy of at least a couple of threads in **december** -land. “War proven wrong? US gives up weapons search” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/59 "2003-05-11T18:43:43Z")
Alas, too true. But one must have at least one character flaw, or have no occaision for the character-building practice of repentance. It also prevents one crossing the fine line between the odious and the insufferable. As my mother always told me… Mother? Mother! Shit! I forgot! Later… ---
**Author:** ![5\_time\_champ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/278dde/32.png) [@5\_time\_champ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5_time_champ)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133/60 "2003-05-11T20:28:10Z")
Thanks for showing up **Sam**. It is certainly possible that Saddam destroyed all his WMD before the war started. He certainly thought it better to have his regime destroyed, than us WMD against US-British forces. I wonder where the rest of **luc’s** Usual Suspects are? Are even aware of this news. Would they have learned the news on the Faux News Channel. The _We Distort- You Surmise_ news channel is too busy rehashing Laci Peterson coverage and showing footage of Saddam Hussein swimming to report on the fruitless search for WMD in Iraq. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-should-it-take-to-find-the-wmds-in-iraq/174133.md?page=4)