Did you read the links? Apparently, they ARE getting cooperation from Iraqis now. Many of those documents came from ‘walk ins’ - people with knowledge who offered it up. We have no idea what money they’ve been given.
And it’s a silly argument to say, “documents are not bombs”. Of course not. Documents are pieces of paper with writing on them, meant to convey information. Information such as where the bombs are. The administration is starting to strut around a bit over all this. David Kay says critics are in for a ‘big surprise’. I’m just sayin’ you might not want to get all gloaty over the WMD issue, lest the rug get yanked out from under you.
And I love how you turn the argument into a certainty, and then try to change the question into, “Who’s responsible for this failure?” The whole point is, we don’t know if it’s a failure yet. We don’t know where the WMD are. We don’t know what programs Saddam had, and what he was planning to do with them. That evidence is still being gathered. In the end, it may turn out that you were right. But you’re jumping the gun if you try to claim that it’s a closed issue. It’s not, and the Administration is making increasingly confident statements that they will be proven right in every major detail. Time will tell.
elucidator, have you considered that Iraqis are still scared of Saddam? Until he’s caught, they’ll hedge their bets. I originally thought there were WMD - after all, he’d used them in the past - but I do agree with Sam’s post about deception. Perhaps Saddam was playing the European game but forgot that Bush ain’t that clever?
Avenger your final paragraph missed the bit about Saddam not actually cooperating with thie inspectors.
Surely the inspectors were the appropriate people to determine this. IIRC, Hans Blix’s last report to the UN was that the situation was improving and that he was confident of getting the job done.
I say Sam, can you remember where you read about that? Could you provide a link by any chance? I know it’s a digression to the OP, but wow! That sounds like a story I’d really love to read about.
So they say. They’ve said lots of things, several of which have turned out to be true. For instance, in the SOTU speech, GW corrrectly identified Saddam Hussein as the leader of Iraq. Just about everything else turns out to be a load. Go re-read Colin Powell’s speech to the UN. Point out to me anything that he said that turned out to be definitely verifiable. I’ll wait right here.
“Apparently?” Please. Insult your own intelligence, if you insist, but not mine.
I’m not “gloaty”, Sam, I am outraged! People got killed over this crock of shit, and it pisses me off, big time and downtown. And now they come around with this crapola, how they’re going to really sock it to us in about six months, boy, just you wait! In the meantime, lets see that video of the statue being toppled a few more times. No, not that one, the one that makes it look like there’s thousands of people there. And then lets cut to the Gloat on the Boat. Good to hear GeeDubya got some more flight time in, he’s about a year short last I heard.
And that is the sum total of the evidence you have to offer. How, exactly, would you distinguish this presumed “confidence” from sheer bluster?
qts"…Perhaps Saddam was playing the European game but forgot that Bush ain’t that clever?.."
No doubt that is a distinct advantage, geopolitically. “Our Leader is a dumbfuck, you better watch your step!”
So I guess a bit of correction is in order: The airplanes have not been found - documents have been found which claim they are there. The earlier report I heard was a little more breathless about it. But if you read the rest of that link, it makes it clear that the bunkers were known to exist (discovered in 1993), and no one seems particularly surprised about this.
But man, wouldn’t that be cool if they were there? Especially if they were stored in a condition that preserved them? As a lover of WWII aircraft, this would be a big boon to the historical aircraft community. I guess the next question is whether or not they’d rip up the airport to dig them out.
Well, that’s a good thing, because it seems that the old ones didn’t pan out too well.
Whenever somebody puts something like paper in terms of miles, isn’t it obvious that they are trying really hard to sell you something? Seven-and-a-half miles of documents? Wow, that would fill like a whole airplane hangar! Or would it? 7.5 miles x 5280ft/mile x 12in/ft x 1 page/11in = 43,200 pages. Wow, its something like 85 metropolitan telephone books. Not quite so impressive that way, is it?
Really? Well, I guess I can’t debate you about what you consider to be an impressive amount of documentation (especially when it really is just a distraction from the lack of any findings of actual weapons). Yet, if you would have told me that after 4 months of searching, they would have turned up a filing cabinet and a half of documentation, well, “damned impressive” would not be my choice for description.
Well, I heard C. Rice on The News Hour recently touting the finding of those centrifuge parts that had been buried in a garden for 13 or so years as indicating the possibility of a “nuclear weapons program.”
A couple of filing cabinets worth of documents from a country the size of California ? It’s a little hard to get excited over your list of purported contents when the documents HAVE NOT BEEN TRANSLATED. Even when that obstacle is overcome, they still need to be dated and authenticated; preferably with a little more rigor than the Niger documents.
Ummmm…given that a week ago it was being reported that the US had discovered “millions” of documents relating to WMD, shouldn’t this be 7.5 miles x 5280 ft/mile x 12 in/ft x 250 pages/inch = 118,800,000 pages or about 230,000 metropolitan telephone books? Pretty damn impressive, IMHO.
Well, they’re not translated so we don’t know. Could be the quartermasters reports on camel dung purchases for the month of February, 1998. Might include the expense sheets for the Republican Guard’s annual Christmas party. Or the plans for the Iraqi Death Ray. Well, you don’t know that Iraq wasn’t producing a Death Ray, now do you?
So we’re supposed to be silent and content for six months. Any questions will be met with the same line, can’t tell you now, too busy investigating, busy, busy, busy. Investigating. Very secret. Can’t tell you anything.
Unless, of course, they actually do find something worth hearing about, then I suspect that it will find a way to leak out. Funny how things like that work, huh?
The question’s been settled as to whether Iraq was a threat or not. It wasn’t. Regardless of what they find in the next six months, one year, two years, or sixty years.
Absent a threat, there was no reason to invade. Certainly no reason to occupy and now have to administer the country.
It’s a distraction from finding Osama and dealing with al Qaeda. Those were and are the real threats.
I mean, Saddam has killed less Americans in two wars, one of them started by us, than Osama killed with a single attack on a single day. This is just ludicrous. Stupid. And lethal in its consequences to U.S. citizens.
We Bush supporters hope that the Democrats will NOT remain silent. We hope they will continue to make a fuss about no WMDs and the war being unjustified. When a large body of evidence about WMDs is released, the Dems will be in trouble. And, it won’t matter whether it’s evidence of WMDs or evidence of WMD programs. Only Democratic partisans are concerned about that distinction. The average American sees WMDs or programs to build WMDs as equally threatening (or equally non-threatening). Furthermore, either the weapons or the programs would constitute a violation of Iraq’s obligations.
One of Bush’s strengths is his appreciation of timing. He understands that he can afford to look bad now. OTOH the Democrats seem not to understand that they are likely to look bad in November, 2004.
Their bio weapons program (assuming they had one, even one that only existed on a damp cocktail napkin) was less of a threat to us than the research/weapons/ or whatever the durned reason was that someone was piling up anthrax that a criminal got a hold of to kill some people with shortly after 9/11.
I know, only what relates to the elections count. The safety of the people, OTOH, counts for nothing, and their lives for even less. Got it.