http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6898651%5E401,00.html
Does this report prove that the attack on Iraq was necessary and appropriate? Or, is it insufficient to justify the war?
Well, I think we better not hold our breath.
One guy sez this happened, according to the White House. Article doesn’t say when he said it: before or after invasion of Iraq. Al-Queda has never carried out a terrorist attack using chemical or biological weapons. Apparently, no hard evidence exists that al-Queda actually has usable weapons of this type.
Nope, not enough justification for the invasion, IMO.
That depends. We need corroboration, and more details. Certainly, if Iraq was essentially providing formulas and blueprints for things like Vx, then sure, that justifies the toppling of Saddam’s regime.
That’s only another one of about a dozen justifications, as far as I’m concerned. The main one, however, was the possession of WMD. The jury is still out on that, but almost everyone ‘in the know’ seems awfully confident, from Bush and co, down through Bremer and the military commanders in Iraq. And most especially, David Kay.
So videotapes of Al-Qaeda gassing dogs isn’t hard evidence that they, at the least, possess deadly gasses and at least a crude means of dispensing it?
With absolutely zero evidence to corroborate this unnamed al-qaeda operatives words, and without specifying that this was told before the war instead of being just an ex post facto justification…
No.
You can make deadly gases out of household items, like chlorine bleach and urine, for goodness sakes. Doesn’t prove Iraq had a hand in it.
December , if this report had appeared on the BBC, would you be attacking the fact that it uses a statement in quote marks in it’s title that is not supported in the evidence given in the article, rather than recycling it for your thread heading?
This would be the same White House that’s sticking to it’s story on the Iraqi biological weapons trailers of mass destruction ? They’ve created a bit of a credibility problem for themselves there. Once bitten, twice shy.
You may be right, Avenger. I can’t see where the supposed quote in the headline came from the article.
However, it doesn’t matter much. Any degree of cooperation between Iraq and al Qaede involving WMDs would make more plausible the risk of future such cooperation. Whether that’s grounds for attack depends on the reliability of the report, as several have pointed out. Under Bush’s war-on-terror doctrine, any regime helping al Qaeda to perpetuate terrorism is subject to attack by the US.
What do you want to bet that you could find all that information without taking it from anybody in particular? If AlQueda possessed all this Bad Mojo, what prevented them from using it, aside from thier delicate religious sensibilities?
And what if it were stolen? Suppose we find a big pile of documents and blueprints at Al Quedas home office in Decatur. with Iraqi seals all over them. I suspect that certain persons will instantly claim they were a gift. How would you prove that, or would you even bother?
Yes, we heard. In a few months, the nattering nabobs, the truculent trodglodytes, boy, we’re really gonna catch it. Horsetrickle. If the Bushiviks have proof positive, it will be on Fox News quicker than you can say Achmed Robinson.
Your loyalty would be noble if it were not squandered on such unworthy men.
Where do you read ANYWHERE in my post anything that has to do with Iraq? I was merely countering El_Kabong’s mistaken observation that there is no hard evidence Al-Qaeda “has usable weapons of this type”, referring to Bio/Chem weapons.
Since Al-Qaeda has videotaped themselves gassing dogs, there IS hard evidence that they have somewhat usable weapons of the chemical variety. Whether or not they are made out of household items, it killed a dog in a minute or so. How lethal are chlorine gasses compared to, say, Vx or mustard gas?
Most likely it means somebody took the money, if it is in fact an accurate report. It also means that the person is so far down the food chain that the administration can’t even hype his position enough to make a claim that will stand up.
But it doesn’t, and can’t, change what Bush knew and what he said before starting the war. Post-hoc rationalizations are the order of the day, though. It’s curious, isn’t it, how those being judged “in the know” (despite evidence that they weren’t, in previous examples) are the same as those telling the apologists what they want or need to hear.
So another thing it means is that the Usual Suspects are personally loyal to the bitter end, facts or lack of facts notwithstanding. IOW, nothing’s changed.
Gassing the dogs is evidence that they could gas dog, nothing more. Do you seriously think that ammonia and bleach = WMDs? Give me a break.
As far as the OP is concerned. No it wouldn’t justify jack shit even if true (which is highly doubtful. The White House has all the credibility of the Iraqi Minister of Information at this point).
We would have had to have known about this stuff before the invasion to justify it. You don’t get to just invade other countries and then hope you can find a justification for it later. Nothing we find after the fact can justify it ex post facto. You have to know it…and prove it…beforehand.
According to Richard Brookhiser in the April 2003 Atlantic Monthly GW has several management traits that stand out. First off GW is not particularly imaginative and so he doesn’t follow through on working out possible consequences of his actions very well.
Next he tends to appoint as his aides those who are ideologically just like him, thus Ashcroft, Runsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle. He listens to their advice and acts on it, but since all in GW’s circle think more or less alike he seldom hears of possible difficulties in the way of implementing his overall grand schemes.
And finally, GW is supremely confident that he is right. So it isn’t surprising that those “in the know” seem awfully confident. If Brookhiser is right they spend their time in an echo chamber agreeing with each other.
The Washington Post = 2 credible sources (identified to a Deputy Managing Editor at minimum) per important fact
The White House = Some hazy guy saying stuff that’s unconfirmed.
You make the call.
Ah, Diogenes, you old yodelfart, you just don’t see the totality here, do you? The Leader is not an ordinary man, but a man with the vision thing, he is not limited by the mundane restraints of mere facts. As he has made abundantly clear in that definitive act of knee-pad journalism by Woodward (The President at War, Bullpucky Press, $19.95), The Leader, like so many great statesman of the past, make his decisions on his “gut feelings”. If he were a woman, this might be termed “intuition”, but as he is a manly-man, simply dripping with testosterone, such a term is not seemly.
Bet on it. Documents will be found. Nothing physical, no actual weapons, but the “weapons program” will be found, because nothing in the world is easier to produce than documents. If they find a damp cocktail napkin with the word “sarin” written on it in Saddams delicate hand, they will be trumpeting the smoking blueprints of a gun in one minute flat. And then, of course, they will move on. If they can latch on to the merest shred of evidence, they will inflate that smidgeon like inflating a Japanese condom into a Zeppelin. And there are those here among us who will state, with a straight face and no hint of irony, that the matter is now settled.
Leftists hate Bush and America so damn bad that they put saddam and even al qaeda on a pedistal.
It’s sickening.
Well, the first one that’ll be shocked to hear about Al Quada connections at this point is Wolfowitz:
Keep bailing water, december, ship’s listing something fierce. What’s next? Saddam himself gave the terrorists the box-cutters?
Could you just remind me who supplied Iraq with their chemical and biological weapons?
Would the White House know, perhaps?
Would that justify invading the country responsible?