The yellow cake and stores of chemical weapons was a lie.
No, just bad intelligence. Bush relied on what the intelligence communities was telling him. And the truth is that we still do not know what Iraq had in the way of WMD. If you want to claim we do, you need to tell us:
- the contents of those trucks that were observed going to Syria before the war (that a "credible" source told the ISG was WMD related)?
- the contents of the concrete bunker that was built under the Euphrates in 2002 (that locals said contained WMD) and that was looted before the CIA (in all it's *wisdom*) decided to take a look at it in 2006?
- why Iraq selectively sanitized files, computers and facilities thought related to WMD? What were they hiding?
- where that binary sarin shell that turned up as an IED actually came from and how you *know* it was the only one?
- what the documents dated 2002 from Saddam that were found in Iraq but not translated until recently meant when they ordered "special" materials to be hidden ("special" materials was the way Iraq referred to WMD)?
- and, of course, why you think invading Iraq was only about finding completed WMD munitions, and not precursors and the means to produce WMD as well (you see the ISG concluded that Iraq had not given up it's pursuit of WMD and that Saddam planned to reconstitute his chemical munitions within six months to a year after the UN gave Iraq a clean bill of health and sanctions ended)?
But you aren't able to explain any of that, are you?
bush had stated while he was governor of Texas that he wanted to invade Iraq toi gain political capiutal.
Challenge. I'd like to see your proof of this claim. Or is this another claim you won't be able to back up?
Quote:
We also, importantly, went in because Saddam wasn't coming clean with respect to WMD and long range delivery system programs and had not given up his ambitions to acquire more of both as he had agreed to do back in 1991 in order to end that Gulf War attacks on his regime. And that is precisely what the ISG found after the invasion.
Not so. Saddam was destroying the missiles that had a range 15 miles too great. The rest is utter BS.
I see you didn't actually read the ISG final report, lefty.
Because the ISG did indeed conclude that Saddam had not given up his ambitions vis a vis acquiring WMD. It's there in black and white. They said they believe Saddam had every intention of reconstituting his chemical and biological weapon arsenal as soon as the UN gave Iraq a clean bill of health and sanctions ended. The ISG said that Iraq had retained the equipment, materials and personnel needed to reconstitute his mustard gas warheads within 6 months of an order from Saddam to do so. They concluded nerve gas warheads could be in production in one to two years.
They also said Iraq violated more than just the allowed range limit on the one missile they were FORCED to destroy. Iraq agreed not to even research delivery systems with a range more than 150km. But quite clearly they did and they hid the mere existence of any documents that might lead to that conclusion. They provided none of them. Yet the ISG found many ... even complete CAD drawings of such systems dated 2002. Saddam was pressuring his scientists to start production of intermediate range missiles within a few years and was trying to purchase them from abroad. You did hear about his deal with North Korea, didn't you? Or are you just willfully uninformed, *general*? According to the ISG, they found “written evidence of a contractual negotiation” between North Korea and Iraq for the purchase of 1,300 km-range No Dong missiles. Iraqi documents indicate that Baghdad made a $10 million down payment in late 2002 for a single No Dong missile but North Korea failed to deliver the missile allegedly “because they were being watched too closely by the Bush Administration”. The ISG also uncovered Iraqi plans or designs for three long-range ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 km and for a 1,000 km- range cruise missile, although none of these systems progressed to production and only one reportedly passed the design phase. So don't try to claim that Iraq wasn't trying to seriously violate its agreement not to research, develop, test or stockpile long range delivery systems. They clearly did. And if we'd not invaded Iraq in 2003, they might by now be testing or even fielding those systems. And I'd bet you they'd be tipped with WMD. To believe anything else would be supremely naive given Saddam's history, *general*.
By the way, the ISG also quotes the head of the UAV program saying that he expected that the UAV program was to be used to deliver WMD. And it is incontrovertible that Iraq violated the agreement it signed not to research, develop, test or deploy UAVs beyond a certain range. The UAVs that Iraq was discovered to be actively working on in 2003 had already been tested to well beyond that range. In fact, they'd been tested out to a range of 500 km — 350 km beyond the UN-permissible limit. In short, they lied about that to the UN in their declaration. So what else did they lie about, lefty?
Just keep digging the hole for your and Obama's credibility. Our side thanks you.
