No WMD? Can these people read?

Great Debates
1

Okay - this thread isn’t about Bush, and it isn’t about whether we should have invaded Iraq. It’s very simply and plainly about the people (gobear was the most recent I’ve seen here) that insist there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I saw this in an anti-Bush TV commercial last night.

What planet are these people on?

Did “Chemical Ali” (Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid) kill tens of thousands of people with tap water? Every news outlet I ever saw, from CNN to the BBC, reported that Ali used chemical weapons, which are defined as weapons of mass destruction. Why has it become convenient, only a year after Ali was captured, to forget about this? Why are people believing such a transparent lie when it’s so easy to verify?

I know lies are an integral part of political campaigns, but I’ve never seen something so blatant. Why aren’t people in both political parties screaming to the DNC to pull that ad?

2

Since I don’t feel like slogging through every thread on this board, how about showing an instance where someone has claimed that there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, rather than simply that there were none left at the time of the U.S. invasion? I’ve read an awful lot of Iraq-related threads, and haven’t seen anyone do so.

(And yes, I’ve read all sorts of independent human rights reports on Iraq, too – I know how nasty a place it was. I’m certainly not denying that.)

3

Is this supposed to be a pit thread?

But anyway, I think most people assumed when the administration claimed that Saddam had WMD, that they were speaking in the present tense…

4

The latest report stated that there were no WMDs in Iraq after 1991, nor were there any WMD programs after that time. Before then, it is a fact that there were, being that they were used against the Kurds and the Iranian forces during the Iraq Iran war.

5

Definitely pit bound. Again, no one (that I know of) is claiming there never were WMD in Iraq. The question was, were there WMD (or the PROGRAMS to make WMD) in Iraq prior to in invasion? Because THATS one of the key reasons the administration used for the invasion, and its pretty appearent NOW that there were no vast stores of WMD in Iraq just prior to the invasion.

-XT

6

The most glaring way to reconcile these things is to pay attention to the time frames referenced.

If the time frame is since th dawn of time, then you’d be absolutely right.
If the time frame is a bit more specific, then the other guys have a point.

7

InvisibleWombat,
You do get the distinctiobn that I’m making here don’t you?
I mean, when I get in my car and go some place else, there’s no SimonX in my house.
This is of course is different than saying that since the dawn of time there has been no SimonX in my house.
**
Are you contending that there have bveen WMD in Iraq within the time period covered by the statements that you (apparently) find objectionable? If so, on what basis?**

8

There are no WMD’s in Iraq. Every reliable source says so.

Ali did use chemical weapons. But they aren’t there any more. Sanctions imposed on Iraq made them impossible to produce.

However, over 1,000 American servicemen have died because the current administration thought there were, in fact, WMD’s, and that sanctions weren’t working. Also, over $120 Billion of your tax money has been lost on this erroneous assumption. And we don’t know how many Iraqi civilians have been killed, it would be kind of funny (in a sad way) if our invasion has killed more of them than Chemical Ali. Is your outrage a little misplaced?

9

I would have a hard time finding an italicized “never” in any of the claims, but there have been plenty that didn’t have a disclaimer.

Like I said in the OP, I’m not defending Bush, or the invasion of Iraq. I’m just saying, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and everybody knows it, so why are so many people lying about it?

No. I really want to know how people can justify saying this without adding “recently” or something to their statements.

Look at it this way: Assume Saddam is your neighbor. He has a gun. He shoots some dogs. Time passes.

Now, a different neighbor–we’ll call him “George” for convenience–says that Saddam wasn’t supposed to have a gun in that neighborhood. He calls the cops, who ask to inspect Saddam’s house. He tells them to piss off. Time passes.

Eventually, Saddam gets a warning. A month from now, George and a group of cops are going to break into his house and find the gun. There is much blustering, wailing, name-calling, and rhetoric-slinging by all involved. More time passes.

Then, after several more warnings, George and the cops break into his house. No gun. DUH! Nobody ever said Saddam was an idiot.

There are plenty of possibilities. Perhaps he destroyed the gun. Maybe he got rid of it right after shooting the dogs. Maybe he handed it to one of his other neighbors and said, “Here. Hold this for me.” Maybe he has it buried in the yard. Either way, two things are clear:

a) He had a gun
b) Nobody can find the gun, so he probably doesn’t have it anymore

How can people say he never had it???

10

They’re not. They’re saying he didn’t have it at the time that the Bush administration claimed that he had it.

11

It’s called “frame of reference” and it’s really a very nifty concept.

12

Well that’s all very nice like, but first you have to actually have some people who have, as you say, ‘lied’.

And seen as you have chosen to post this in GD, we’ll be asking you for cites. Cite?

Next week from InvisibleWombat: people who say there are no dinosaurs in the world are all liars :rolleyes:

13

Quite true. But the DNC-sponsored ad I saw didn’t say that there ARE no WMD in Iraq. It said that there WEREN’T any. No time frame. No “since 1991.” No “at the time of the invasion.” Just, “There weren’t any weapons of mass destruction.” That’s blatantly false.

No. I have no way to know that. If there had been, Saddam would have gotten them out of there before the inspectors arrived. He may be a reprehensible human being, but he’s not an idiot. I’m just saying that saying, “Iraq had no WMD” without qualifiers is misleading at best and lying outright at worst.

14

Hans Blix said there were no WMD a long time ago, and he was the head U.N. Weapons inspector. We want there to be WMD there so much, that we invent them over there in our heads.

15

So it wasn’t in relation to the decision to invade Iraq then?

16

haha! the whole premise of the OP is incredibly flimsy.
The CIA report makes it clear that there were no WMDs in Iraq at the time that there were claimed to be WMDs.

17

Unless you understand what everybody understands quite easily: that it refers to the time just before the invasion.

18

Nobody’s lying about anything, you’re just being obtuse.

Please find me one instance where anyone has ever said that Iraq never, in it’s history, had WMD. Just one instance. Please. Find it. I’ll be here all day. And tomorrow.

The fact is that nobody has ever said any such thing. The question is, at the time of the invasion, did Hussein have WMD? The answer to that is no. According to the UN, according to the CIA, according to everyone.
No. I really want to know how people can justify saying this without adding “recently” or something to their statements.

A completely ignorant analogy.

Here’s a better one. Hussein has a gun and shoots a few dogs. The cops come, fine him and then tell him he needs to get rid of any weapons he has in the house. Hussein says fine, he does it. The cops then say that they need to search the house and verify that they’re all gone. Hussein says fine, and the cops search the house continuously looking for these weapons without finding them. Hussein then finds out that the cops are actually being paid by George to go through Hussein’s medical files illegally while they look for the weapons. Hussein objects to this, the cops then leave and say they won’t come back until Hussein lets them continue digging through his medical files, too, even though it has nothing to do with weapons. Hussein refuses. George then complains that Hussein still has weapons and he knows where he’s hiding them. The cops say, well, he probably doesn’t but we’re not 100% sure. Hussein insists that he doesn’t have them anymore.

George says that Hussein had better let those cops back in or he’s going to burn Hussein’s house down. Hussein says fine, he’ll let them back in, but only for another few months to check out the places George says he’s hiding them. The cops check them out and say there’s nothing there. George insists he does and asks the cops for permission to knock down Hussein’s door, kick him out and rummage through his stuff. The cops say no. George goes in anyway with a few buddies, kills Hussein’s kids, burns his down, gives the rubble to some friends of his (guys who had been trying to get a hold of Hussein’s house for some time now and were the ones who told George that there were weapons there), kidnaps Hussein and locks him his basement.

After looking around the wreckage, George says, “Oops, Hussein was telling the truth all along. But he was still a threat.”

19

You want cites? The ad that upset me:

This TV commercial from the Democratic National Committee says, “No one can tell him he’s wrong, even though there were no weapons of mass destruction. The deficit has…” Nowhere does this ad state or imply that there were no WMD only during a certain time period. It says, flat-out, that they didn’t exist. That’s simply a lie.

The posting that prompted this post was by Gobear in [post=5340563]this post[/post], where he said: “The GOP faithful continue to insist that Saddam had WMDs, that Bush and Chenye were telling the truth about yellowcake in Niger, that there was no torture in Abu Ghraib, that the Iraqi war was well-planned. . . in short, in the face of all the evidence against them, they lie.”

Again, there’s no mention of timeframe. Even as Gobear accuses others of lying, he’s misleading those who read his post.

So, Avenger, why allow them to play semantic games to mislead people, and then jump me for calling them on it? There are your cites.

20

Perhaps they thought they were addressing people who were less obtuse than you?