Well, thats one heck of a post there, Sam Mercifully cite-free, which I assume was in deference to my “reading-challenged” state. I am quite certain you can back each and every one of those points.
Most people? Well, theres a hard nugget of pure fact, if ever I’ve seen one. I do truly hope you are not referring to the non-existent study that Our Churchill recently brandished? You do recall that little dust-up, yes?
Nonetheless, this is conjecture piled upon conjecture, and each conjecture relying on the previous for support.
So most of the material captured has been “around Iraq”. Well, that’s certainly damning evidence to be sure. I don’t know why you didn’t drop that rhetorical blockbuster already.
There are at least five statements of dramatic fact in that last paragraph. Larger than the area of Paris? Killed everyone who knew? Unknown number (but presumably a ghastly number) of underground complexes? And so forth.
Chastened as I am, due to you scornful derision of my debating skills, I can barely muster the self-confidence…
You’re setting up straw men, elucidator. I never said that disinformation was outside of the realm of the Bush administration. They have SAID that disinformation is useful. Rumsfeld himself has said, “Sometimes the truth is so precious that it has to be protected with a bodyguard of lies”. That’s an old quote from someone else, but I can’t remember who.
But there is a huge difference between disinformation meant to confuse your enemy, and an outright conspiracy to plant nuclear materials in another country in order to convince your own citizens.
In other words, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the the U.S. said, “We’re willing to wait two months for Iraq to agree to inspections” - and then invaded the day after saying that. It wouldn’t surprise me if a large buildup of troops in, say, Bahrain turned out to be a smokescreen to cover a covert operation out of Jordan. It wouldn’t surprise me if the U.S. said that they had hard information about something in Saddam’s government in order to destabilize it and get Saddam paranoid about his inner circle of officers.
What WOULD surprise me would be a large disinformation campaign designed to fool the American public. The former is simply good strategy. The latter is an impeachable offense.
In particular, if the U.S. WAS willing to lie to the American people on substantial matters, they wouldn’t choose this particular ham-fisted way of doing it, with all the risks it entails. They’d simply manufacture documentation or imagery or something to show a danger that doesn’t exist. They’d do something unfalsifiable, like claim that they had an unnamed source deep in Saddam’s inner circle passing information to them about Saddam’s hidden weapons or something. That doesn’t require a large conspiracy of outsiders, and could never be proven wrong, especially if that source turns out to be someone who was unfortunately killed during the war.
It’s not about being credulous and buying everything the government says, hook line and sinker. It’s about engaging your faculties of reason.
Afraid I don’t agree, Mr Art Critic. I look at the same picture and see a bunch of warmongering right-wingers frothing at the mouth to drop some bombs for yet to be determined reasons. Might just do them well to lose the nose-ring that this administration is so apt at pulling.
This whole story is yet another case of trying to make a smoking gun out of a wet noodle.
I must say that I’m getting a little annoyed with your argument-by-cite-demand. Cites are important when assertions are questionable or controversial, but does ANYONE think that Saddam couldn’t build a bomb fairly quickly if he had enough fissile material? He’s got 20,000 nuclear technicians, for God’s sake. You just aren’t debating fairly, elucidator, and I have to believe it’s because you don’t have a substantive rebuttal to what I’ve said.
As for the size of Saddam’s palaces, this too is common knowledge, and not something I figured I’d have to go on a cite-hunt to get. But now I have, and they back up what I said. And besides, the cites I posted in my earlier messages described the size of those palaces, so I guess you didn’t read them, huh?
Gee, Sam that first cite was a doozy! The Iraqi Foundation, eh? Never heard of them before, but I strolled about on thier site a bit, and, well, Sam just between you and me, looks like they are rather committed to an agenda. An agenda that, purely by circumstance, I am sure, is entirely in agreement with your own.
And yet you expect me to debate on your terms? I must accept your propositions as gospel as a precondition? Please.
And “bigger than Paris”? Bigger than Paris? I will be quite understanding if you want to ditch that particular embarassment. But if you’re going to insist, you’re really going to have to cite that puppy.
Oh, and before you jump on the Paris comparison, I just tried to find out if my assertion that Saddam’s palaces were about the size of Paris is correct. I’ve had a hard time finding an exact area of Paris, no doubt because a lot depends on exactly what you are measuring. But overall, it looks to be about 200-300 sq km, so Saddaam’s palaces are maybe 1/5 that size. My bad. But it doesn’t change the essential fact at all, which is that there is an area of 45 square kilometers of dense industrial area inside Iraq that is completely off-limits to inspectors.
Again, this should be of no surprise to anyone, because inspection of the palaces has been one of the key items in a new resolution for an effective inspection regime, and Saddam has flat-out refused. Clearly, both sides feel the stakes are high in that regard.
I wouldn’t be so niggling in my demands for cites if you would just stop making so many bald statements of “fact”. Saddam’s palaces are dense industrial areas? Says who?
And please, not the Iraqi Foundation again, if you don’t mind. It would be more credible to cite Jews for Buchanan
Point one: AFAIK, this is approximately correct. However, there is the small matter of Clinton and Blair’s Christmas present delivered to Saddam on 16-19th December, 1998. Given this began to happen a few hours after UNSCOM was withdrawn, one assumes the intelligence was about as fresh as it could be.
“Over a four-day period, reports U.S. Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, who oversaw the Iraq attack, 300 strike fighters, bombers and support aircraft flew 600 sorties, more than half of them at night. Another 40 ships took part in the attack, with 10 of them firing cruise missiles. More than 600 bombs were dropped, 90 cruise missiles fired from the air and another 300 from ships at sea.”
Remember, Operation ‘Desert Fox’ wasn’t limited, Clinton and Blair bombed 'til they thought/believed/knew they had everything covered.
Would they have targeted anything other than the most likely hiding places, those UNSCOM hadn’t been able to get to…like the Palaces, and the buildings inside the Palaces which raised most suspicion (satellites having revealed who went where, traffic numbers in and out, etc):
Quote two (It’s a BBC one, just closed the link…): "Mr Robertson insisted Operation Desert Fox had destroyed or damaged 87% of its targets and “put his capability to threaten his neighbours back by one, certainly, and maybe up to two years”.
read: 87% of everything we could possibly think of that we and UNSCOM thought looked even remotely suspicious.
Point two: I have no idea what else you need beside ‘weapons grade uranium’ to get serious although I do suspect you need some serious infrastructure which Saddam can’t have without rebuilding. And we’ve watch every damn move made in that country – I guess it’s possible there’s infrastructure but why wouldn’t that have been in the Blair Dossier ? Just doesn’t make sense.
Simple question: Where is the evidence ?
And just for the record, remember ‘Desert Fox’ (above) came immediately after seven years of identical work by UNSCOM - ‘Desert Fox’ was the full stop at the end of an entire era of destruction of Saddam’s capability. Not some kind of half-hearted hit an’ hope jobbie.
It is a known fact that all of Al Queda’s nuclear scientists are in Iraq, men who can manufacture a gas centrifuge out of sand and old tennis shoes in about a week.
If Saddam sets off a nuke, his ass is grass. In all probability, if anybody sets off a nuke, his ass is green glass regardless. Who is going to believe him? He uses the bomb, he’s dead, Jim. He gives the bomb to somebody else to use, he’s dead, Jim. He brandishes the bomb as a threat. Dead.
He might, just might, wait for a major concentration of allied troops to gather, and nuke that. That is the only remotely valuable use for such a weapon. Hell, he’s better off not having the bomb than having it! Now he has to worry about some subordinate doing something really, really stupid. If he has such, which remains in doubt.
Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, I’m supposed to call you Shirley
London_Calling: I don’t have time to go on another cite hunt, but there is plenty of evidence that Saddam has rebuilt much of what was destroyed. He also spent over 1 billion dollars in the last four years on his ‘palaces’.
Your opinion is that Iraq is under a microscope and can’t achieve much without us knowing. That’s not what the inspectors are saying - they say that we really don’t have much of a clue what he’s been up to in the last four years, and we won’t know without on-the-ground inspections.
And every inspector I’ve heard recently has brought up the issue of Saddam’s palaces, and they are apparently the #1 target of a new inspection regime. So clearly not everyone shares your certitude about Saddam’s palace life and what it might be hiding.
elucidator: Have you actually read about Saddam? Studied his way of working? Your ‘rational actor’ scenario might comfort you, but it has little to do with reality.
I’ve mentioned this before, but here goes - Saddam has a history of insane recklessness. His attack on Iran was nuts, and it almost cost him his regime. His attack on Kuwait, when he was only six months away from having a nuclear weapon, was also nuts. His assumption that the world would let him get away with it was also nuts.
His refusal to withdraw from Kuwait was nuts, especially after the allies started pounding him from the air. If he had withdrawn at any time up to Desert Storm, he might have survived that conflict with most of his military infrastructure intact. Instead, he chose to bluster and scream about the ‘mother of all battles’.
His current intransigance in the face of almost certain destruction by the United States is also nuts.
Saddam is not suicidal. But he is surrounded by cronies and yes-men who are afraid of saying anything other than what he wants to hear. Disagreeing with Saddam is a quick way to getting a bullet in the head.
So for decades now, Saddam has been essentially disconnected from reality, and his ‘advisors’ that are supposed to guide his actions have instead turned into a mirror supporting every hairbrained scheme he may have.
Such men may not be suicidal, but they ultimately make suicidal decisions. History is replete with such examples.
And I think I’ve described the likely scenario under which Saddam would want to use his nukes, but I’ll do it again. No, Saddam isn’t stupid enough to just blast away Tel Aviv or drop a nuke on Qatar or a carrier group. But he WILL use the THREAT of that to try and keep the Americans away. He sees a nuclear weapon as being the great equalizer. With the Bomb, he can join the world of powerful nations, re-establish a new Caliphate in the Arab world with Iraq at its center, control the oil in the Gulf, and be the glorious leader that restores the Arab world to its rightful place of honor in the world.
That’s the kind of thinking that he engages in. It’s the kind of thnking most expansionist tyrants eventually go to their graves over.
Your thesis that Saddam would be nuts to want the bomb flies in the face of reality. Saddam wants the bomb so badly that he built up a huge nuclear weapons research program with 40,000 scientists and engineers in it. He wants it so badly that he has suffered hundreds of billions of dollars in economic sanctions and bomb damage rather than give it up.
And you think that if he gets it, it won’t be used to threaten us? Now THAT is nuts.
Boy - do you produce a lot of self satisfied Racist and Self Serving Drivel.
It may have passed your attention and the Attention of the White House - CIA and a few other institutions, but Iraq is an Arab Country and Saddam is an Arab Man.
You seem to believe that your characterisation is acceptable - it is not. It is racist - and It may have escaped your notice but many Arabs and Arab States are getting real pissed at American/Western racist attitudes where their culture is concerned.
If you want to talk about insanity and nasty traits - don’t forget the Saudi’s - they execute princesses you know - and have quite a few non American attitudes and attributes too! They even arrest drunks and have them deported!
As for folks being surrounded by Yes Men - isn’t that the white house your talking about???
Why, gosh, no, Sam, why would I bother to read anything when I can frolick in the daisys with my other deluded liberal cohorts? Certainly I have no insight into the inner workings of Saddam bin Laden’s mind as you have. Hell, I have kinfolks whose minds I don’t understand as thoroughly as you do his. Whats your cite on that? Miss Cleo?
But if he’s as much a whack job as you say…how come he’s been so quiet for 10 years now? All these ghastly weapons being churned out in the rumpus rooms of his various palaces. And he’s suicidally reckless, and all. So how come he hasn’t done anything provocative for 10 long years? Is he quietly suicidally reckless? Or just very very shy?
And didn’t he sound out the American ambassador before the Kuwait fiasco? Didn’t he, in fact, get what he interpreted to be a “green light”? Now, my memory is hazy on Iran/Iraq but are you quite sure he started that one?
And he’ll use the threat to keep the Americans away? How might that be useful, pray? When America can use its very own *thermo-*nuclear arsenal to turn all of Baghdad and the surrounding Godforsaken Desert into green glass whenever it chooses?
Its a bit like Blazing Saddles where the sheriff took himself hostage.
An excellent point. Seven years of UNSCOM obviously couldn’t get all of the suspected WMD bits (or there would have been no need for Desert Fox), what is to make us think that another 7 years of inspections will be 100% (or close to it) effective?
But the uranium bomb would require so-called ”weapons grade” uranium, with a very high proportion of Ur 238, correct? Do you (or anyone else) know if ”enriched” uranium can be used in such a device instead? These newspaper reports don’t seem to differentiate between them.
As for the ”implosion-type” bomb, that would require plutonium rather than uranium, yes?
Sorry to ask such stupid questions, but I’m just trying to keep all of this stuff straight.
Now, with regard to your cites concerning seizures of uranium:
This first article is a little confusing. It claims that the captured substance (1.7 kg) is ”weapons grade uranium,” but then goes on to state:
This would seem to blow your theory that Iraq has been trying to acquire enriched uranium, wouldn’t it?
Further down, we find the following quote:*
So it would appear that, despite the article’s title, no one knew for certain that the recovered substance really was enriched uranium. Do you know if the material they recovered actually turned out to be what they suspected it to be?
Regarding your next piece of evidence, i.e., the 175 incidents of nuclear smuggling, we can actually locate this information itself at the IAEA website . There we read:
Disturbing, but not quite the smoking gun you’re looking for, I’m afraid. (Note: this entire article is really worth reading, for those interested).
Finally, your last cite, regarding 18 cases of smuggling in Turkey, is taken from precisely the same source as my quote, above: the quote makes it plain that none of these cases have been confirmed to involve highly enriched uranium or plutonium.
You claim:
*None of the evidence you’ve presented thus far supports the first assertion – that Saddam has been trying to buy weapons-grade material. In fact, some of the evidence flatly contradicts it – such as your first cite, which explicitly states that Saddam is not believed to be a buyer of such material, since he can already manufacture it. Most importantly, nothing you’ve produced above explicitly links Iraq to the purchase of enriched uranium or plutonium.
I know as well as you that there is a lot of dangerous radioactive stuff floating out there. Where it might be is anybody’s guess. But to convince me that it’s in Iraq, you’re going to have to do a better job than this, I fear. Simply pointing out that there’s a lot of smuggling going on won’t cut it – you’ve got to tie the smuggling to the culprit. Otherwise, your accusations have no real substance, no matter how serious they might seem at first glance.
bloomingpouf: RACIST??? Are you kidding me? What, saying that dictators are bad is RACIST?
Is this what passes for debate on the left these days?
And just what did I say that was ‘self-serving’? I’m not exactly an arms manufacturer, y’know?
Anyway, you know you’ve got some people by the balls when all they can do is go on a cite-hunt and/or whip out the old, tired ad-hominem attacks. Racist my ass.
By the way, I want to say that London_Calling does not fit in this category. I think he’s been debating fairly, and going for substance instead of silliness. We could use a little more of that, which is why I even asked for Collounsbury to join us despite the fact that I fully expect him to lambast me with lots of insults. Beneath the cheap shots, at least the man knows what he’s talking about and debates the issues.
elucidator: My ‘cite’ for Hussein’s behaviour, other than my own study, would be Kenneth Pollock. His book “The Threatening Storm” describes Saddam in EXACTLY that way. But this is not new stuff - this is almost SOP behaviour for dictators of Saddam’s ilk. Have a read about the inner workings of Hitler’s regime, for example. It’s almost a classic pattern. Dictators who hold on to power through fear and intimidation wind up surrounded by people who are afraid to tell them the truth, and as a result they become increasingly disconnected from reality and common sense.
Oh, and Kenneth Pollock was the chief Iraq advisor to the CLINTON administration. No right-wing zealot there. But he’s one of the foremost authorities on Iraq and Hussein, and my description of how Saddam plans to use the bomb is pretty much identical to what he’s saying.