't least I tried to nice about it.
You’re right. That’s the least.
A cordial invitation to Mr Moto
Team Bush and “Best Info Available @ the Time”
I’m sorry? What have I missed? I’m pretty much an information omnivore, but I’ll admit I miss things from time to time. Can you show me some sort of citation which supports the claim that WMD, using the pre-war definition of the term, were actually found. By whom, and where?
Enjoy,
Steven
That section is available in the web version. Beneath that section there are two mentions of Yugoslavia.
[quote]
Preserving and Restoring WMD Infrastructure and Expertise
…
[ul][li]According to a mid-level IIS[Iraqi Intelligence Services] official, the IIS successfully targeted scientists from Russia, Belarus, Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, China, and several other countries to acquire new military and defense-related technologies for Iraq. Payments were made in US dollars. The Iraqi Government also recruited foreign scientists to work in Iraq as freelance consultants. Presumably these scientists, plus their Iraqi colleagues, provided the resident “know how” to reconstitute WMD within two years once sanctions were over, as one former high-ranking Iraqi official said was possible.[/ul][/li]…
Iraq’s Other Security Concerns
…
[ul][li]Huwaysh instructed MIC general directors to conceal sensitive material and documents from UN inspectors. This was done to prevent inspectors from discovering numerous purchases of illicit conventional weapons and military equipment from firms in Russia, Belarus, and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia.[/ul][/li][/quote]
Those sections also contain the only instances of “Poland”, “Bulgaria”, and “Belarus” in Chapter 1 of the document. Most of the references to Russia were about economic matters and Russian attempts to lift sanctions. References to China were sparse, but also economic except for noting that Saddam expected China to lean on North Korea and Japan to stifle their nuclear arms programs.
The part which bugs me about this assessment is that “presumably”. We have no evidence here that those scientists and other foreign experts were working on illicit WMDs or training Saddam’s people to do that. They claimed to be working on conventional defense technologies. Why couldn’t they have been? Iraq’s armament, even conventional stuff they were allowed to have, was in sad shape. None of this adds up to anything approaching the pre-war claims of “massive stockpiles” of ready-to-use, already-produced WMD. “Resident ‘know-how’ to reconstitute WMD within two years once sanctions were over” is a really shitty justification for a shooting war.
Enjoy,
Steven
Right, and I allowed as how such a thing could be legitimately debated. But these activities, and the things mentioned in the Hitchens article and the New York Times piece that it referred to all point to a program that existed at some level. It wasn’t zero, and claims that Iraq had no weapons and no programs seem just wishful thinking.
We didn’t go to war because of “development-related programs”. Claims that they not only existed but represented a “grave and gathering threat” that might become a “mushroom cloud” were the purported reasons. That goes beyond “wishful thinking” and into the realm of simple lying, and a defense of it cannot be a matter of “legitimate debate”.
Would you care to keep on qualifying all the way to “program-related-activities”?
A cordial invitation to Mr Moto
Team Bush and “Best Info Available @ the Time”
Iraq had no weapons of the type and/or quantities referred to by Colin Powell before the UN or by George Bush before the electorate in his nationwide addresses. No active programs were discovered. All that was discovered was a desire for such weapons and a theoretical capability to produce them if certain conditions(which were not the prevailing conditions at the time of those presentations) were met.
The Hitchens article talked about one offical’s speculation about what machinery may have been present at some sites and what those machines could theoretically do to start a program. Nothing in it whatsoever demonstrates active production, let alone massive stockpiles of WMDs.
Enjoy,
Steven
I don’t want this thing dragged up again, nor am I a Bush supporter, nor am I particulary proud of this 
, but will you read this?
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=7564
Frans van Amraat was in Iraq untill 2003.
It says here he made 36 shipments. It doesn’t say whe he stopped shipping mustard gas, etc. to Iraq.
I would think it highly unlikely - knowing the Dutch bussinessman spirit - that he would simply stop making money just because he was arrested once.
He was released and back in Iraq when the war broke out.
Why wouldn’t he keep supplying Sadam with weapons?
Yes, I know nothing has been found. But weapons like these can be hidden almost everywhere, can’t they?
N.B. I’m glad they got him now and that he’s been charged with genocide.
Because he didn’t have any to sell?
In 1989 he was arrested and had to flee to his former buddies to keep from going to jail in Italy or the Netherlands. He was on the lam from 1989 to 2003. He was out of business because he had been busted.
Enjoy,
Steven
So, then, would it be wrong for me to encapsulate the OP as “While the Bush administration may be peeing down our collective necks, we can’t really be sure it’s not raining?”*
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Anything else is bullshit, empty “trying to save my ass and shift blame” verbal diarrhea.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Where are the weapons. Where is Osama.
Have you ever considered posting in The Pit?
Invitation noted. I’ve been lurking there.
I think they are very reasonable questions. Bush and friends seem to have done every lamebrained thing they can EXCEPT deal with the two big supposed reasons for the war, patriot act, attempted overhaul of government, attempted scrapping of social security, “borrower responsibility rules”, “every sperm is sacred” grandstanding, and every other moronic thing they are doing. When pressed, they claim it all was triggered by weapons and Osama. So again I ask, where are these weapons? Where is Osama? Valid questions. Nothing but garble for “answers”.