Well they just discovered chemical weapons that the US had buried under Washington D.C. over 80 years ago! http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2001/so01/so01tucker.html
If it took over 80 years to find our own WMDs that we buried, how long will it take to find the WMDs in Iraq?
However, in all seriousness, I would expect us to find some WMDs in the next few months, or else I would have to know the reason why.
How 'bout becasue those that weren’t destroyed by UNSCOM would, in any event, have turned to sludge. But this we already know.
*P: What about chemical weapons?
R: Iraq manufactured three nerve agents: sarin, tabun, and VX. Some people who want war with Iraq describe 20,000 munitions filled with sarin and tabun nerve agents that could be used against Americans. The facts, however, don’t support this. Sarin and tabun have a shelf-life of five years. Even if Iraq had somehow managed to hide this vast number of weapons from inspectors, what they are now storing is nothing more than useless, harmless goo.
<snip>
"If no one were watching, Iraq could do this (produce chemical weapons) . But just as with the nuclear weapons programme, they would have to start from scratch, having been deprived of all equipment, facilities and research. They would have to procure the complicated tools and technology required through front companies. This would be detected. *The manufacture of chemical weapons emits vented gases that would have been detected by now if they existed. We have been watching, via satellite and other means, and have seen none of this.[b/] If Iraq was producing weapons today, we would have definitive proof, plain and simple. "
Same old, same old . . . the facts, rather than this strange manufactured ‘rerality’ of the Bush Administration, won’t go away.
Opps, the link.
Bush did lie, (or was severely mistaken), about the IAEA report saying that Iraq was within six months of the Bomb. Even the White House has come out and said that there was no such report.
If it took us eighty years to find out own buried weapons why should we expect Iraq to be able to find their’s any sooner?
Let us presume that one is a cynic. Let us further presume that one is a Republican. Add to that the stipulation that one is totally full of crap on this whole WMD issue. What might one do?
Mightn’t one bluff and bluster? Mightn’t one trot out some lame ploy, such as has been trotted out, to keep the issue out of the news for several months? One turns aside all questions with a reference to the team working diligently and feverishly to uncover the truth. That those invesigations are going splendidly, really splendidly, and boy, those naysayers are really going to catch it! Can’t tell you about it yet, national security, don’t you know, “sources and methods” mustn’t be compromised, top secret.
And, of course, if something should be found, and such news should “leak” to some “fair and balanced” news reporting agency, well, darn!
Failing that, then the Congress, dominated by the Party in Power, shall appoint a committee, dominated by the Party in Power, to investigate whether or not the Party in Power should remain the Party in Power.
Can’t get much fairer than that!
And we’re supposed to buy this load based entirely on the fact that this David Kay fellow looks really confident. No, make that really really confident. We just ignore the utter and unrelenting parade of half-truths, exaggerations, and outright bullshit because this previously unknown yodelfart looks confident.
Have mercy, Sam. I can only take so much.
Well, Sam…
…or should I call you Gorgonzola?
I just want to back up and respond to some points that I’ve missed along the way, and then briefly to summarize my objections to your position.
First off, you challenge us to come up with a statement made by the administration that has proven to be “100% wrong,” and try to support you argument thusly:
Now, as you know, the government has said exactly that, i.e., “They’re definitely there!” So certain were they that they launched a “preemptive war” to get at them. And in fact, prior to that war – as I’ve pointed out at least twice in this thread alone – you also made such claims. Clearly then, by your own words, the burden of proof for those claims lies with you, and with the current administration.
Those of us who mistrust the administration have been waiting patiently for at least 8 months, if not longer, for them to produce some of that proof. We demanded that the proof be produced, in fact, before the invasion was launched. We were met with scorn. We were told that the administration had already produced overwhelming proof to support its case, and that we would deny the existence of that evidence even if they rubbed our noses in it. And so on.
So this is my first question to you: what accounts for the sudden shift in your position? Why did you argue, before the war, that the administration possessed absolutely certain knowledge about Iraq’s weapons – such certain knowledge, in fact, that our only option was to go to war – only to now claim, afterwards, that it is impossible to possess such knowledge in the intelligence business?
On the contrary. Prior to the war, you argued that Bush had “presented the evidence for the weapons he claimed was there,” often over my vocal objections to the contrary. You only modified your position after it became undeniably apparent that there were no stocks of chemical/biological weapons where Bush claimed there were. These “protestations of innocence” you present now are little other than an act of shameless historical revision, Gorgonzola.
Yes. I cannot, however, prove that to 100%. What I can do, on the other hand, (and what I have done, in my opinion) is construct a very strong case for the claim. I won’t bore you with a reiteration; anyone who has followed this discussion must be familiar with it. I just want to stress one point: by December 2002, the DOE – that agency within the government that possesses “virtually the only expertise on gas centrifuges and nuclear weapons programs in the United States government,” according to the ISIS report I cited earlier – had concluded that the tubes were unsuitable for use as uranium centrifuges. They stated as much in the NIE, supported by the State Department’s own BIR. The administration chose to simply ignore this assessment, relying instead on the assessments of “agencies specializing in electronic surveillance, maps, and foreign military forces.” As Albright notes, scientists who dissented with the government’s view were expected to simply remain silent.
These facts indicate to me that the administration was well aware that the tubes were probably not intended for use in a nuclear weapons program, but they nevertheless continued to argue that they were. Only now, months after the invasion, have we been able to uncover the details of a controversy that should have been brought up, and thoroughly resolved, BEFORE the US invaded Iraq.
I also want to repost Albright’s conclusion:
By this I take Albright to mean that even if the administration gets lucky and stumbles over evidence that the tubes really were intended for centrifuges, such a discovery would have no real bearing on the deceptive practices it employed with regard to these tubes prior to the invasion.
But you are correct. I cannot prove with 100% certainty that the administration has willfully deceived the world. I can only construct what I believe to be a very strong case for that assertion. I believe that the case I’ve constructed against the Bush government, in this and other threads, is much, much stronger than the case Bush & Co. was able to construct against Iraq; and I ask again (no doubt once more in vain): why is it that you are so willing to go to war against Iraq on such scanty evidence, but so unwilling to pass judgement on the administration in the face of such strong evidence?
Continuing:
Oh yeah. Well, that certainly isn’t very much, is it?
But I can’t believe you would make this statement in the face of so much other evidence we have produced beyond the conspicuous lack of “WMDs.”
None? Nothing at all, Sam? Nothing in Powell’s presentation to the UN, or in the SOTU, or in the numerous public statements made by members of this administration? You mean that we have absolutely no reason to be suspicious?
Are you actually bothering to read what your debating opponents have posted?
As I have clearly demonstrated, such information did surface, and the administration did know it.
*To repeat: while some agencies regarded the “tubes as centrifuge” theory as plausible, those best qualified to make the assessment – at the DOE – did not. They’re “unanimous” conclusions were shared by experts at the IAEA. The Bush administration was aware of these facts – the dissention of the DOE was included in the NIE published after the war.
I think all of these factors, taken together, argue strongly for the probability that the administration overstepped its limits, and moved from “spinning” information to outright lying with regard to the tubes. And the tubes are only one of a number of questionable assertions made by the administration in the run-up to the war.
I could be wrong, of course; but wouldn’t a congressional investigation help us figure that out?
And this just in:
They say, they’re confident, yada yada. Heard all that before.
Finally we’re getting somewhere
Waffling already? Didn’t you say your guys are confident?
Sure it will. The troops will still be there. The place will still be a mess. US credibility, not just Bush’s will suffer. It’ll be the next administration’s problem no matter what happens, and no matter who it is. It certainly matters to a whole lot more people than just the US electorate, ya know.
Cite? Evidence? Any?
They “cautioned” the administration about this, too, and even more strongly than about anything else - perhaps you missed that.
And on those who uncritically accept whatever they say.
No. The people claiming that’s there’s evidence of some connection have the responsibility to present their evidence. They have not done so. In fact, the little “evidence” that has been produced to date has been shown to be a crude forgery, and that such was known to the administration before they claimed it was real. If “real” evidence exists, then there is no reason not to present it. Yes, that is a categorical statement, and it has been proven true by events. Your denial is simply irresponsible.
That’s what I’m saying. You say you agree - but not with the “time running out” part, as discussed above.
For pity’s sake. You really haven’t kept up with the news at all. The picture is of the intelligence agencies providing accurate, honest assessments, and being pressured and overruled by the administration ideologues to present something that supported a decision already made. That’s how you “fault an administration”. It was not a “conclusion” of the agencies - that’s yet another, oh, shall we call it “misstatement of fact” on your part, but a minority opinion appended to the main report which concluded that the exact opposite was most likely true. Now, why did you feel the need to say the falsehood that you did?
Exactly. You ain’t got diddly. You haven’t added anything factual here. Anything at all. In fact, you’ve tossed in, and vociferously defended, quite a few nonfactual things, things you should of do know to be nonfactual. There are words for that.
Nah, I just didn’t want you to think that your arguments have actually convinced me into silence, or something silly like that. As I wrote before, others here have made the same points I would have made, but in far more detail, so I’m content to just pull up a chair, dig into my popcorn, and watch the show. 
Oddly enough, that’s what some of us have been saying about your evasive replies.
Yeah, you know every time someone writes a message on this board, my first thought is, Ooh, I wonder what rjung thinks about this???
Mr. Svinlesha: After reading the latest links and info about the aluminum tubes, I will concede that the administration’s case looks weak. With one caveat: The difference between the DOE and the CIA may be the other intelligence information that the CIA has. The art of putting together intelligence estimates involves connecting the dots between large amounts of data, none of which by itself is very compelling. They may have concluded that the tubes were destined for a centrifuge because they also have other purchasing records, inventories, human intelligence, or other sources that suggest it.
On the other hand, it could be the opposite as well. Other information may have led the CIA to the wrong conclusion, when the real answer was staring them in the face.
In any event, let’s put this in the category of “Information the Bush Administration has to answer for.”
That would be “misinformation the Bushiviks have to account for.” Still, pretty close.
That could be it. But if you want an opinion about safe houses, mail drops and honey traps, you ask the CIA. Questions about nuclear technology, you ask the DOE.
I dont know if it has been cited yet, given Mr. S’s Javert-like cite hunting skills, I 'd be surprised, But its such a lovely little cite that it bears repeating:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html
Of special note, tube-wise…"…In fact, there was just such a rocket. According to knowledgeable U.S. and overseas sources, experts from U.S. national laboratories reported in December to the Energy Department and U.S. intelligence analysts that Iraq was manufacturing copies of the Italian-made Medusa 81. Not only the Medusa’s alloy, but also its dimensions, to the fraction of a millimeter, matched the disputed aluminum tubes…"
(Emphasis gleefully added)
But enough. Mr. S is doing such a splendid job reducing Sam’s arguments to goo, one can safely spend the afternoon picking wild flowers, knowing the matter is in good hands.
What isn’t clear, elucidator my smug friend, is whether or not the dimensions mentioned are those of the FIRST tube shipment, or the second, more sinister-appearing shipment.
See, this is what I think got the CIA’s hackles up: Iraq imports a shipment of tubes, which are inspected and found to be a 7000-series alloy of a shape and size consistent with the Medusa rocket. Later, another batch of what appears to be the same tubes appears. But on inspection, they are a much harder, 6000 series tube of different construction. Over-spec’d for the rockets mentioned. So the question is, was this a shipment of tubes destined for a nuclear program, using the earlier shipment of rocket tubes as cover? Why the specification change? It is, at the very least, puzzling.
But I will admit that the administration has not made their case on this, at least with material released to the public.
The crucial phrase here is “over-spec’d”. I assume you mean that the second set of tubes fit within a tighter, more narrow range of specifications than did the tubes clearly destined for rockets. But, and this is a big “but”…they are still perfectly useful for thier presumed function as rocket parts.
But why spend the extra money for deluxe when plain ol’ will do? This must be what you mean when you say “…at the very least, puzzling…” (Nice bit o’ spin, by the way, duly noted. Neatly implies that it infers something Truly Dreadful.)
Whats wrong with stupid? Howzabout a corrupt kickback deal, buying needlessly expensive equipment for a consideraton? OR perhaps a mistake, as they were more or less stealing the design for the rocket, they might have got it wrong.
Those are all reasonably plausible, in comparison to the leap of faith required to believe that these are destined for a nuclear program in a country that, so far as we can tell, did not even have a nuclear program. Thats a stretch, “at the very least.”
But to then turn around and claim that suggestive evidence, evidence quite worthless without substantial support, can be magicaly transformed into proof… Ah, that, my obdurate friend, calls for a faith that Surpasseth All Understanding.
Sam:
Spoken like a true gentleman.
This issue could be easily resolved if, in making their case, the CIA would simply state what other pieces of evidence led them to their conclusion. They have not, thus far; they’ve attempted to argue that the tubes were intended for centrifuges from a purely technical basis (i.e., that they’re over-specified, and so on). And, as far as I can tell, they’ve merely rejected alternative explanations without even countering them.
You asked for one example of misinformation on the part of the Bush administration, and I gave you the aluminum tubes. But in my opinion, the administration’s claims that the tubes were evidence of a covert Iraqi nuclear weapons program is not the most blatant example of misinformation in their case for war. When one reflects back upon it, one sees that the administration’s record is full of manipulation, misdirection, rhetorical sleigh-of-hand, and outright falsehoods. Another of the most egregious examples, to my mind, is the Powell’s plagiarization of a 12-year-old, readily available graduate research paper in his presentation to the UN. (Remember that one?) In addition, since even the White House and the CIA have admitted that the “yellowcake claim” should never have been in the SOTU in the first place, it’s hard for me to understand how you can still defend it. Simon X has repeatedly brought up the OSP, and much has been written about its role in producing questionable intelligence that supported the administration’s agenda. And then there are all these assertions of absolute certainty on the part of the administration; assertions that there was “no doubt” that Hussein’s regime possessed “WMDs”, and so on. Obviously, to try to justify the invasion on the basis of “murky” intelligence now, after the fact, is to give the lie to the claims of absolute certainty made by Bush & Co. before the war.
When I look back at the statements made by the administration in the run-up to the war, I see a long pattern of deceit and manipulation. I suspect that, somewhere along the way, the administration simply lost sight of the fact that it was expected to tell the truth. The spin spun out of control. They figured that once in, they would undoubtedly stumble over some sort of cache of C/B weapons that could exploit to retroactively justify the certainty they claimed to have prior to the invasion. It was a gamble that didn’t pay off.
Perhaps they thought they were untouchable. When they made “Slightly outrageous claim no. 1,” scarcely anyone reacted; “Rather outrageous claim no. 2” hardly merited media attention; “Really outrageous claim no. 3,” despite a little bad publicity, barely affected their ratings; “Totally outrageous claim no. 4” was hardly challenged by their opponents; and finally, “Completely false claim no. 5” came back to bite them on the ass. Given too much rope, they hung themselves.
Now you want to wait until Kay’s report is published. If I were a member of this administration, considering the situation as is, I would try to make sure that the Kay report contained confusing information, I would spin the evidence as much as possible in favor of war, I would fill it with questionable, unsubstantiated claims – and then I would publish it and let the right-wing pundits tout it to the country, and the world, as an overwhelming vindication of the administration’s policies. Then I would let the skeptics argue over it, doggedly, and I would try to stonewall them, delay them, until hopefully everyone would simply grow tired of the issue.
And maybe, after another 80 posts about this damn fool war, you and I would again come to the conclusion that, like its claims regarding the aluminum tubes, the administration had a weak case for invading Iraq. Unfortunately, most people aren’t as passionately interested in this issue as you and I are.
elucidator:
Aw, shucks.
Can I have that bong now?
It’s in Syria. Or buried in the sand, somewhere out in the Godforsaken Desert. George Tenet’s got it. I’m diligently searching for it, ask me again in about six months.
That is simply how reverse-engineering works, in the absence of the actual OEM drawings. When all you have to duplicate a part is the part itself, you don’t know what the design tolerances were, and you’re not even dead sure that the part you’re copying even fell within them. When you’re not able to confirm mating-part dimensional tolerances or basic load conditions, using a tight tolerance on your own reverse-engineered drawings and hoping for the best is simply a prudent strategy in the face of ignorance.
The rest of elucidator’s dissection of this particular bit of self-delusion, no longer being promoted even by the people who did so most vociferously originally, is dead on target.
And this just in…
Since so much of our conversation has ricocheted off Dept. of Energy’s (alleged) concurrence and compliance with estimations of dread regarding Saddam bin Laden’s nukes program, we have this tidbit surfacing…
…from that esteemed and highly respected palladin of journalistic integrity, WorldNetDaily…
(yes, thats right, you heard me: I’m citing WorldNetDaily, the Pravda of the Tighty Righties…but I digress, albeit cheerfully…)
$20,000 bonus to official who agreed on nuke claim.
Energy Dept. honcho ordered dissenters at Iraq pre-briefing to ‘shut up, sit down’
"A former Energy Department intelligence chief who agreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program was awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Thomas Rider, as acting director of Energy’s intelligence office, overruled senior intelligence officers on his staff in voting for the position at a National Foreign Intelligence Board meeting at CIA headquarters last September. "
(emphasis gleefully added)
Oh, and the man’s experience in the field of Intelligence, this fellow who “overruled” and presumably contradicted the assessments of “senior intelligence officers”? Glad you asked that!
“Rider, a long-time human resources bureaucrat, served nine months as acting director of Energy’s intelligence office.”
Now, of course, this is the only report on this so far, no big media seems to be on this one yet. However, if your can’t trust WorldNetDaily, I mean, who can you trust?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34042
(Sometimes when things seem a bit drear, these minor epiphanies will drop from a kindly Providence to gladden the heart.!)
Holy crap, elucidator! Cherry picking is one thing, but the concept of cherry picking entails naturally growing “cherries,” some of which are picked and some of which are passed over for the point of advancing a certain line of argument. Now it appears that they weren’t even maintaining that painfully distressingly low level of ethical behavior (okay, the fabricating of evidence would be below that, yes). They were simply paying off people to put cherries there in the first place. Coercing official opinion through the use of monetary payoffs. It doesn’t seem like there is much farther for them to sink.
Oddly enough, under the circumstances that attitude makes you an optimist.