Perhaps I’m overly pessimistic, but this philosophy seems to have worked rather poorly for the Russians in Chechnya.
I personally have not seen any evidence that Saddam intended to share his arsenal with Islamist terrorists, and have seen plenty that he did not. For one thing, if he really intend to do so, why on earth has it taken him so long? It’s not like he didn’t have the opportunity before the war.
Rather, I would say the risk depends on whether chemical or biological weapons existed in Iraq in the first place. If they did, as the Administration maintains, those weapons have now been left unsecured for about three months. Whether Saddam intended to share his weapons with the likes of al-Qaa:ada or not, if those weapons do in fact exist then they at the moment they would seem to be anyone’s for the taking.
It will be seen that they did in fact find and destroy very large quantities of WMD. Scott Ritter is on record as saying afterward that in his opinion it amounted to Iraq being ‘effectively disarmed’. While most of the weaponry was found and destroyed under UN supervision, a proportion of known or suspected WMD could not be accounted for. Some of that missing proportion was destroyed during Gulf War 1 by US bombing, and there is one revealing UNSCOM comment in the report that it was impossible to determine the fate of some rockets stored in a hangar destroyed by bombing due to the extent of the destruction. Some of the WMD had been unilaterally destroyed by the Iraqis and evidence presented to this effect. Some of it was claimed to have been destroyed by the Iraqis without evidence or without convincing evidence.
Anyway I have often heard it said that the UN inspectors were incompetent or couldnt be trusted, “they had 12 years and did nothing etc” which is a propaganda lie told for a political end. They did a good job and found most of what they were looking for despite Iraqi attempts to mislead them.
My own view is that most of Iraq’s WMD were found and destroyed by UNSCOM. After Karmel defected he revealed that what remained has been ordered destroyed by Saddam.
If any still remained even after that I suspect they also would have since been destroyed by Iraq. It surprises me to hear people ask why would Iraq destroy them. Why wouldnt they? They were faced with an administration in Washington that was looking for any old excuse to invade them and prepared to lie and use forged evidence to justify it. Any sudden declaration ‘yes we still have a few WMD’ would have been regarded as proof that they had even more. Far better from their perspective to quietly destroy them and pray.
Ace_Face—Thank you. I knew I couldn’t be the only one who was losing his mind over what Senator Levin said on the News Hour tonight. Jesus, I used to have faith in this man, and now he’s coming up with this crap. What the hell’s going on? The administration wasn’t duped, for Chrissakes! There was already skepticism as to the legitimacy of the Niger papers well before the invasion of Iraq. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) announced that he was going to call for an investigation of the Niger “intelligence” back in March, but as soon as he began making rumblings about it in Congress, Bush declared war. Seriously. Less than a week after Senator Rockefeller brought it up. If anyone doubts me, it was in the New Yorker magazine, in one of the March issues. If I still have it lying around, I can provide an exact cite, but I’m sure it was in a March issue, or an April issue, at the latest.
The intelligence community never said this proof was definitive. In fact, they said it probably wasn’t reliable. I have no doubt they were sure it was unreliable. This is a fucking joke. If the Bush administration ever thought the Niger papers were legitimate, then we’re dealing with the most incompetent administration in history.
I don’t know what Levin’s doing or why he’s doing it, but this whole thing stinks like a beached whale carcass. What doesn’t Senator Levin know, and why doesn’t he know it?
Damn, I wrote this guy complimentary letters before. I believed in him. And I’m not even a Michigander, nor was I ever. I can’t believe that he’s embracing this fraud.
Northern Iraq?, like the northern region that was out of reach from Saddam since the Gulf War and under the protection of the no-fly zones, that northern Iraq? Just checking… :rolleyes:
I find quite depressing that this hasn´t reached a point where trials are held; such an abuse of power cannot happen in a democracy. No wonder the USA (goverment) wants immunity from the ICC. Bush starts a “preemtive” war disregarding the UN charter the US signed and co-authored, preemtive sounds to me that there´s a very imminent danger, but there never was such a thing; this is all wrong from the begining, to the hell with WMD, even if Iraq had them why on Earth would Saddam do a suicide attack? I mean, the guy had golden plated toiletts! He likes to live a good life, he was filthy rich in spite of the sanctions.
After the fact, we see that A) WMD weren´t used when most needed, B) WMD are nowhere to be found (I´m quite impressed by this, I would have expected at least some vials or shells with toxins or whatnot)
I can´t understand how people can give a positive spin to the actions of Bush and company, as I´ve said before, Bush apologists should suffer some kind of Beatten Wife Syndrome; “yeah he abuses me, but he does it because it´s the right thing to do and I deserve it; and in the bottom I know he loves me and takes care of me.” It´s pathetic.
No, it shouldn’t. The intelligence committee’s in Congress get briefed by the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, Treasury, and other agencies which collectively make up “The Intelligence Community”. The administration does not control them, and in fact there is often hostility between the White House and the various intelligence agencies. And there are efforts made to keep a distance between the current occupants of the White House and the intelligence community, so that it CAN’T be manipulated. For instance, the director of the FBI is appointed to a 10 year term so that he’s guaranteed to last through at least one full presidential term so he can’t be intimidated.
The intelligence community as a group was convinced that Saddam had WMD. So were the intelligence agencies of most other western nations. Do you think Britain, Australia, and a bunch of other countries just came along with the U.S. on a whim? No, their intelligence agencies were telling them the same thing. Even Canada’s CSIS concluded that Saddam was a threat and posessed WMD, and Canada was opposed to the war.
Unless you think that a year-old Bush administration had some sort of svengali powers over the intelligence agencies of the world’s democracies, you might consider a better explanation: The ‘intelligence community’ WAS convinced that Saddam had WMD. They differed in some details, and certainly the had different ideas about how big a threat it posed to their own interests. But they were ALL surprised that no WMD turned up in Iraq (so far).
And interestingly, most professional spooks and intelligence analysis are still sounding surprisingly confident that some WMD program will be found yet. That surprises me, and makes me wonder what’s going on.
We leads me to suspect one of the following things:
The U.S. has found evidence that it hasn’t released yet. All the intelligence committee members have been hinted about unreleased evidence for a while now. Maybe it’s thin, and the U.S. hasn’t released it because they’re trying to find a way to spin it, or they’re still looking for additional information that will corroborate it.
The U.S. has found evidence, but they can’t release the details for security reasons. Perhaps it would compromise an in-place source, or it would alert terrorists to its existence (say, if they had evidence of hidden weapons, but didn’t have a precise location. Don’t want the bad guys getting to it first). But given the heat the U.S. is taking over this, it would have to be a damned good reason.
Everyone’s confused. This result doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, so they’re flailing about trying to figure it out. Bush’s opponents were wildly wrong about the results of a war - perhaps Bush’s side and the intelligence community were simply fooled by Saddam or mistaken. I think this may still turn out to be possibility. Saddam may have been intentionally trying to ride a dangerous fence by allowing the west to believe he had WMD, in order to give him a deterrant. The west got fooled, and Saddam miscalculated the severity of the threat of war.
There’s a large conspiracy of governments throughout the world that conspired together to trump up evidence of a nonexistant weapons program, so that they could invade Iraq and pay hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild it, so that their cronies in the oil industry can make money by buying oil from Iraq at world prices.
Boy, now that you put that last one all together like that, it sounds whacked.
That’s not much of an argument. You are not the only nation that is having this debate about politicans distorting intelligence assessments and misleading the public you know. My own nation had a senior analyst resign in disgust over it before the war. That other nations came along doesnt necessarily mean they believed you or the ‘threat’, it means you are a superpower we do not want to offend and in our case most of ‘our’ intelligence came from you anyway.
No offense, but I’m going to trust experts like Robert L. Hutchings Chairman of the National Intelligence Council more than I trust some guy on a message board.
Well we did leave tons of uranium laying around for a couple of weeks. Some of it was looted. We have had to blow through various suspect sites only to secure them later after they’d been looted.
Since some unknown actors got a hold of uranium, I’d say that the chances of the uranium falling into the hands of bad actors has increased.
Do you have a cite for this? I’d only heard of the finding of castor beans. Apparently, there are some legitimate industrial uses for castor oil.
CIA estimates were that he was unlikely to do so in the forseeable future, UNLESS we invaded Iraq. We invaded Iraq. So, again, I’d have to say that the chances of terrorists getting their hands on whatever banned WMD that Hussein had have increased. No offense, but I’m going to trust the estimates of the CIA more than I do yours.
Yes, but we have increased the pool of potential terrorists and increased the availability of variuos components of WMDs. More terrorists + more anger + more available WMD = greater chance of terrorist attack.
We know that he had a chance. The invasion didn’t happen by surprise. The question is did he.
Again, according to CIA estimates, we increased the likelihood of this happening by invading. If you have better intel estimates than the CIA you have an obligation to share them w/ the CIA.
Well, this is all well and good, except that what Ace_Face was talking about was this:
If you’ll notice, where A_F highlighted “intelligence community” it was in reference to the Hussein-al Qaeda alliance, not WMD.
I direct you this telling news piece:
CIA response:
Regardless of the relative validity of the estimates of banned WMDs, what A_F was talking about was the Iraq-al Qaeda alliance that in fact has not been represented as “a very strong link” by the intelligence community.
Isn’t this whole discussion based on how bad the US’ intelligence was? If you think they’re so faulty, why do you agree with them when it suits your purposes?
In any event, guesses as to what will motivate people are just that, guesses. How many times did you hear about the mighty “Arab Street” and the likelihood of “moderate” Arab leaders like Mubarek being overthrown due to the US invasion of Afghanistan/US invasion of Iraq/Israel claming down on Palestinians/sunspot activity/whatever? How often did these things actually happen?
Uranium makes a crappy dirty bomb, as it isn’t terribly radioactive, especially the stuff that was looted. The radioactive cobalt that can be found wherever medical waste is dumped is a far greater danger for dirty bombs.
Now, it’s possible that there could be a secret Al Qaeda uranium processing program somewhere, but it’s not too likely. And even though the uranium isn’t too radioactive, I still wouldn’t want to sit next to it for a few hours, much less schlep it around the world looking for a buyer. My lack of skin, teeth, and hair might be a problem.
Sure thing:
The factory was in Kurdish territory, and they were unable to take out the factory by themselves, as it was heavily guarded by terrorists with good weaponry. There have long been suspicions that Saddam and/or Al Qaeda was supporting this group in their war against the Kurds. That’s one of the possible Al Qaeda-Saddam links, BTW.
As for legitimate uses of castor beans, I belive that it was claimed that they were processing the castor beans into brake fluid or something like that. It’s the problem with dual-use technologies, really. The issue become intent rather than ability or current stocks. Do you doubt that Saddam had the desire to get WMD? Do you think that the sanctions were going to last forever? How long could the US keep 150,000 troops sitting in Kuwait? The fact is that if the sanctions were lifted (or if they crumbled, as they had started to, when Clinton was in the White House), Saddam would have likely been making chemicals for his next invasion of Iran, Kuwait, or an attack on Israel or Saudi Arabia. He could have passed them on to his agents in the US or to terror groups. Now, no matter what Saddam wants, he can’t make more poisons. That’s a net positive for a peaceful world.
And you are free to.
And if they are going to attack, I think they’re going to strike at the Army in Iraq rather than grandmothers and grandchildren in McDonalds.
Well, do you think that ALL CIA estimates are correct? Or just the ones that you agree with?
Um, you are paying attention to what’s going on in NK, right? They just fired up a nuclear power plant because we won’t send them fuel oil. They are reprocessing plutonium to make bombs, on top of their uranium enrichment processing to make even more bombs, which they threaten to fire at the US, Japan, and South Korea unless the US meets with them, sends them food, money, fuel, and signs a non-agression pact. I’m not providing a cite, because you can spend 2 minutes on Google News and find all of this information. What definition of blackmail does this not meet? And if Iraq had gone nuclear, do you think that the sanctions would have lasted? Do you think that WHEN Iran goes nuclear, most nations will stop paying attention to student protestors? Stopping people who loudly proclaim that they have the intent of getting terrible weapons and using them is a good thing.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Publius *
Perhaps I’m overly pessimistic, but this philosophy seems to have worked rather poorly for the Russians in Chechnya.
[quote]
Well, Chechnya is a bit closer to Russia than Iraq is to the US, as they share a border and all. And all the countries that are home to these just-minted terrorists are also pretty far away.
Secondly, even as piss-poor as US border controls are, they are better than Russians. I don’t think that Arabs and Muslims are able to get into the US as easily as Chechens can get into Russia.
Given the choice of coming to America and likely ending up in a steel cage at Gitmo or going to Iraq to free captive Arab land from the infidels and worst-case getting those 72 virgins, what do you think terror wanna-bes are going to do?
Yes, I agree. This is really dangerous. We need to find them. Rather than hectoring the Bush administration and pretending that these weapons never existed, you’d think that there would be pressure to find them. But no, it’s all political posturing. I’m sure that if it was the Democrats in power, the Republican sniping would be just as bad. A pox on both their houses.
…And if that poor use of intelligence can be shown to be deliberate, it may very well be considered to be improper manipulation of government agencies and Congress by the President of the United States. That would be a charge very similar to the impeachment charges drafted (but not adopted) by Congress against Nixon just prior to Nixon’s resignation.
And that, in turn, would be a fiasco not seen since, and perhaps larger than, Watergate.
JB:Andrew Sullivan has pointed out that it also makes attacks against the US mainland less likely, as the terrorists now have a target in their backyard that is pretty easy to get into: US-occupied Iraq. Think of Iraq as a lightening rod for terror.
:eek: I know you didn’t mean that as any sort of justification for the Iraq invasion, but even considering it a sort of “fringe benefit” sounds pretty appalling. We made ourselves safer by sending thousands of brave men and women someplace where they can serve as the tethered goat for the tiger? That is not my idea of an acceptable trade-off in fighting the “War on Terrorism”.
Yes, sometimes we have to expose our armed forces to extra risks, but it should be in the course of achieving other necessary goals, not just using them as a “lightning rod” to deflect danger from ourselves. And the crucial “necessary goal” for the Iraq invasion that was originally shoved down our throats—namely, neutralizing an imminent and severe threat to US security—is apparently turning out to be a fiction.
Well, usually blackmail involves the threat of harm. If NK was threatening toi nuke Alsaka or Hawaii unless the US did “X” then it might be more like blackmail. However, they seem to be saying that they won’t cooperate with us unless we cooperate with them.
Btw, how’s it working for NK? Have they gotten us to send them fuel oil yet? Have they gotten us to send them food yet? Have they gotten us to send them money yet? Have they gotten us to sign a non-agression pact yet?
Well, from your Cite (which is a good one, BTW), Iraq still had items which the Commision had great doubts as to have been “destroyed unilaterally” by Iraq. "These include 15,900 unfilled and 100 filled special munitions, the CW Agent VX and 50 tonnes of a precursor for th eproduction of VX. (they did accept some verification ofr other weapons, however) .
They also said “The Priority should be given to the resolutions of the most important outstanding issues. These includesw: material balance of chemical munitions (inluding the verification of… the accounting of 550 artillery shells filled with mustard, verification of the unilateral destruction of R-400 chemical & biological aerial bombs) accounting for the production of the chemical warfare agent VX, and verification of …the balance of CW production equiptment removed from the Muthanna State Establishment prio to the UNSCOM inspections”.
In the Amorim UNSCOM report, under “current status/remaining questions” they say: “In the chemical weapons area it was noted… that satisfactory resolution is required with regard to: discrepencies with Iraq’s declarations… b) evidence of 550 artillery shells filled with mustard… c) acounting for 500 R-400 bombs… d) Iraqi declarations on the production and weaponization of the chemical agent VX… and e) the material balance of CW production equiptment . 24. In the Biological area, Iraq’s Full, Final and Complete Disclosure has not been accepted by UNSCOM as a full account of Iraq’s BW Programme” They also said that: “It has been repeatedly pointed out that UNSCOMs current inabilty to implement their mandates in Iraq renders them unable to provide any assurance that Iraq is in complaince with its obligations under Security Council resolutions…The current absence of inspectors has exponentially increased the risk…”.
The UNSCOM’s official reports do show a lot of ordance was destroyed- but also that much remained unaccounted for. Including the facilities to make more. The UN did not state that they “destroyed it all” by any means.
I do agree that they might well have destroyed some after Blix and Bushes ultimatum. More likely, SH moved the stuff to Syria.
As to the “a few labs” that I stated we have found, surely you remember the “mobile labs” found and all the media coverage they got? Sure- we can’t prove they had been used- yet.
Of course, you can just simply take Saddam’s word that he unilaterally destroyed all that stuff, and didn’t make any more during the time of no inpsections. :dubious: :rolleyes:
Cite? You’ve been tossing out a fair bit of “Iraq did have WMDs!” around the SDMB lately; I’m curious as to what evidence you have to support that view.
Saddam is a potential threat. Not only to America but to the rest of the world. Practically every major western country all agreed that he needed to be controlled and thus many UN resolutions were made to limit his power. Many Arab nations objected to the violation of the sovereignty of Iraq not to Saddams rule. He is a clear and present danger because he is the only arab leader who publicly call for the destruction of America and its people, who actively look for ways to impliment that plan, who has been undeniably uncooperative with all UN measures to verify his disarmament. there is enuf justification found after the fact with the brutality, conventional weapons arsenal, documentation of weapons programs and plans to twart UN inspections, the issue of WMD, which may not be minor, is not the totality for justification to go to war. It may have been the flashy issue that swayed public opinion, but there were plenty of other arguements that have at least brought it to the point of ponderance.
Saddam was two faced beyond even his comical information minister. The difference being Saddam was dead serious in his actions. His western face shows a beaten and helpless leader of a conquered and repressed nation asking for sympathy and understanding but proud to the end. His other face shows the arab world, he will not be bowed by the common enemy, the US. He challenges the UN authority with every turn and even small defiances are considered great moral victories. He blows himself up greater and greater up to the point where a challenge is set and the one who blinks loses. Bush didnt blink. This might have been just a staring contest to Saddam, but the US was dead serious.
Im sorry, nothing in those last paragraphs shows any deliberate lying, any incompetence in decision making. They followed intelligence information they believed were reliable. Current facts does not support that. It is not incompetence to make decision based on your best information you have. It would be incompetent and highly irresposponsible NOT to act when there might be a chance of impending danger. I would rather have a leader who says, “Wups didnt find any bad stuff, I guess they didnt have any after all…” than to have one say, “My fellow americans, we regret to inform you that a recent sarin attack has been traced to operatives of the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussien…”
we removed a guy who, given any opportunity, is willing to buy, construct or finance any operation that would hurt america and its interest. This guy would starve his own people to do this and has done so for decades. Removing his ability to use Iraqi money already lowers the threat immensely. Removing him from power, lowers his threat value even more, keeping him on the run would mean he is on the defensive rather than sitting with impunity on his throne with ample time to plot and scheme. Chaos may have its own dangers, but is far less that organized violence.