We now control Iraq and there’s still no evidence of “weapons of mass destruction”. What will happen if we never find any? Will the American people start to realize what a dangerous and foolish path Bush is leading us down? Will the administration plant and then “find” chemical weapons? Will we invade Syria, Iran, and who knows where else in a desperate search to find the phantom menace?
My predictions:
We will never find any evidence of mobile chemical facilities like the ones Bush claimed to have evidence for. We may find some small amounts of chemicals, which the administration will loudly declare to be the “stockpiles” they were looking for. Unsubstantiated claims that weapons were sent to Syria will continue.
Tony Blair will be forced to resign. Bush will be resoundingly re-elected.
This congressional authority to go to war was, after all, to get rid of the WMD of Iraq. 'Twould be interesting to watch the domestic political fallout if the president led the country into war on dubious pretense.
That said, Iraq is a huge place. Surely there would be a place to hide.
Nearly every interview of an Iraq/WMD/Middle-East expert I see or listen to follows this pattern:
Interviewer: “So where are the weapons?”
Expert: “The military seems to be looking for them”
I: “But they’ve been there for weeks!”
E: “Iraq is a big place, and the government was taking active steps to hide the weapons and their evidence for years”
I: “But they’ve been looking for weeks!”
E: “Well, like I mentioned before…”
I: “What would happen IF THEY DON’T FIND ANY?”
E: “Well, insofar as most experts in the field agree…”
I: “Will that deligitimize the war?”
E: “As I was trying to…”
I: “Thank you for your insights, that was…”
I pretty much don’t think WMD are there either, but give it a few weeks. No need to jump to conclusions or worry about when SARS hits your town in a big way. If WMD are there in strategic quantities, then they will be found. If not, then we can cross that bridge and hopefully remember it long enough during the next elections.
Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (hereafter known as “The Weapons”) are currently on a world tour. The Weapons have finally shot out of their home in Baghdad for a few pounding weeks in Damascus, with quick drops possible in Tehran and Tripoli, flyovers in Chechnya and Kazakhstan, followed by a two week retreat in Indonesia. The Weapons will continue this explosive tour in Singapore, Beijing, Pyongyang, and Tokyo. Finally, The Weapons will burst over America, stunning the West Coast, wowing the Heartland, and ending their Reign of Destruction in New York and Washington.
To parrot some of the others, give it some time. Right now, the military is more concerned with actually securing the country and establishing order. Once that’s taken care of, we can begin a systematic nation-wide sweep, hopefully pushed along by intelligence from Iraqi scientists and the like. And that sweep could take awhile - weeks, months, who knows? There were reports and speculations that Saddam was hiding weapons in bunkers, in palaces, in public areas - hell, in people’s homes. And there’s always the possibility that the weapons have been shifted, at least in part, into Syria. If that’s the case, it’ll take some finagling (and more than a little strong-arming) to get Syria to give them up.
And if we never find any? I’ll be hard pressed to shed a tear for ol’ Saddam. If he didn’t have any, then he certainly went out of his way to look as suspicious as possible. If a guy is waving around something that only looks like a gun, and refuses to put it down, it’s his own damn fault if he gets shot by the police.
Jeff
That said, we do have the word of former Iraqi scientists who defected, we have detected strong traces of Nerve Agents, and not in pest-control varieties, in some rivers in Iraq, and we haven’t finished studying the facility discovered early on.
My understanding is that some nerve agents are chemically very close to pesticides. Many seem to think that when a suspected chemical weapons site contains “only” pesticide residue, that the coalition forces are barking up the wrong tree. I think the opposite is true – finding pesticide residue strongly suggests to me that nerve agents were, in fact, being manufactured at those sites. Circumstancial, but not insignificant, IMHO.
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FriendRob, I think it’s unreasonable to affirm that B&C weapons stockpiles should have been found by now. YMMV.
Take a look at the website of The Iraqi Foundation. This is a non-profit corporation started by Iraqi exiles. Follow some of the links and you will find some interesting info on WMD and other issues as perceived by people who have first-hand information. One in particular, The Iraq WMD Dossier Statement might be of particular interest.
In addition to the WMD issue, you can find a great deal of info on the human rights abuses as well as the ecological devastation wreaked by Saddam Hussein and his cohorts.
The only quote I’ve heard from a captured Iraqi scientist is that Iraq doesn’t have WMDs. Since I can’t imagine offhand what motivation he’d have to lie(*) at this time, I can only surmise that it doesn’t look too good for the war hawks.
(* = On the other hand, a defecting scientist has lots of reasons to tell the U.S. anything it wants to hear, to increase his value to the FBI/CIA/etc.)
I still think that there are some WMDs in Iraq, but not a whole lot, and definitely not enough to justify this damn fool war.
Not why i oppose the war, chief, but thanks for playing. So i’ll just counter by saying you support murder in Cuba/Congo/Zimbabwei/Most of Africa/Pakistan/Iran/China/North Korea since i don’t see you harping for us to invade them. Your logic…
You’ve gotta remember that these WMDs may not be stored in large evil compounds that can be detected just by driving up to them. Rather, they may exist as the last row of 55 gal drums in the back of an oil storage facility, or be buried in a large pit, or hidden at the bottom of garbage dumps or whatever. We don’t know what extent the regime went to to hide them.
Many of the production facilities were probably represented as dual use, and it will take experts some time to analyze the equipment and determine what could possibly be made there.
Eventually, the stuff will be found. But if no one comes forward to lead the military to it, it’ll be a lot harder.
Of course, there could be the huge evil facilities, too. In which case we’ll find them very soon.
So why haven’t they? Rows upon row of evil dreadful nerve toxins ready to be installed into intercontinental drone aircraft for easy trasport to suburban Akron, hundreds of people must know about them, mustn’t they?
And those same people must know that the best ticket in town for a green card, a million bucks and a lap-dance from Lauren Bush is snitching out just one of those toxic palaces. Rummy was just on tv couple days ago, extolling the rewards that await the snitch in time…
So what’s stopping them? Fear of reprisals? From the Undead Saddamite Fedayeen Zombies?
Or could it be that they have nothing to sell? Is it time to think the unthinkable, that an Evil Old Bugger was telling the truth, and its Fearless Misleader who was fibbing?
Hell, Sam, huge evil facilities or teeny tiny ones craftily built into VW minibuses, we should have found them weeks ago. Many motivations are not reliable. Greed and self-interest are not on the list.
Satellite images that point to exactly where they were, and where they have been transported have said as much.
This is undeniable proof.
I have a few stupid question:
During a time of war, when we have our own soldiers fighting on Iraqi soil, wouldn’t it have been prudent to keep track of where these WMD’s were being transported?
Did our informants go on vacation?
Did our satellites crash?
If WMD’s are of strategically/militarilly valuable quantities, why do we need locals to help us find them?
If no WMD are not found, the administration and the media will forget that was ever an issue and focus very heavily on new and more exciting headlines, like invading Syria perhaps.
If WMD are found, many will understandabley wonder if they were planted. President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld will gloat extensively at press conferences and use the validation as political ammunition to invade Syria.
I guess no-one cares if the issue of WMDs is relevant or not. You don’t have to invade a country to be safe from it.
Then that begs the question Sam if these are weapons of mass destruction. Yep, they would be weapons, and they might even be quite toxic, but are they mass and/or strategic? Finding a couple of vials of anthrax doesn’t qualify in my book.
What’s your take? A trace amount of something toxic is okay or does it have to be “strategic” however that may be defined?
