The Conspiracy According to Dennis Kucinich

[BeAChooser]

This is not true. He allowed the UN Weapons inspectors into his country after UN Resolution 1441 was adopted unanimously by the Security Council in November of 2002. As the AP reported on 01/18/2003,

Sure, Saddam allowed inspectors back in ... but his regime obstructed their work repeatedly from day one.

First of all, Iraq was supposed to submit a declaration "of ALL aspects of its [weapons of mass destruction] programmes". It was supposed to provide information about ANY prohibited weapons activity since UN inspectors left the country in 1998 and resolve outstanding questions that had not been answered by 1998. As Blix stated early on, this was to be a guide for inspectors. He warned that inspections were not supposed to be a game of cat and mouse. That Iraq was supposed to cooperate ... to PARTICIPATE in coming clean. On December 7, Iraq submitted its declaration. But UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors told the UN Security Council on December 19 that the declaration contained little new information. The games of cat and mouse continued. Let me point out to you that UNSCR 1441 stated that Iraq was currently in material breach of its obligations and that “false statements or omissions in the declarations and failure by Iraq at anytime to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach.”

On January 27, 2003 Blix told the UN Security Council that "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace." There were only about 110 UN Weapons Inspectors in Iraq at the time - a country the size of France. They were outnumbered by Saddam's intelligence officers 200 to 1. And that army of intelligence officers continued their efforts to disrupt the inspection process and hide anything related to WMD.

Despite assurances from Iraq that it would encourage its scientists to submit to private interviews, no such interviews had taken place. Iraq continued to block inspectors from using a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, a tool that was deemed critical by inspectors. As Powell noted in February, inspectors were accompanied everywhere by Iraqi minders and slandered by Iraqi officials as spies. Through February, the issues of anthrax, VX and long-range missiles remained unresolved. Just prior to the February 14 briefing to the UN SecurityCouncil, Iraqi officials handed over documents on these topics but Blix and ElBaradei subsequently reported that there was little new information in them. On February 24th, even France and Russia had to admit that while Baghdad's cooperation was improving, it was not "yet fully satisfactory."

Blix's March 7 report complained that "Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programmes. Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections." Note that after the invasion, the US discovered a literal mountain of hidden documents ... many related to WMD. Documents which prove Iraq actually had an ongoing WMD program. Some of the documents were so detailed in topics like how to build nuclear weapons that they've been removed from the public eye and are closely guarded. Iraq had to have known these documents existed but said nothing. Likewise, Iraq had to have known about the underground labs that were working with prohibited materials ... labs that only came to light after the invasion. But Iraq said nothing. You'd have to be blind not to see that Iraq was playing a game of cat and mouse. Still.

In March, Blix issued a report specifying a number of questions that remained unsolved including that Iraq had not accounted for up to 10,000 liters of anthrax, Scud missile warheads, and drone aircraft that could fly past UN-allowed limits. In the very last stages of the inspection effort as war threatened, the Iraqis finally took inspectors to a site where apparently large amounts of anthrax and chemical munitions had been haphazardly dumped. But it was impossible to tell how much had been disposed of or when it had been buried. Because Iraq claimed to have no records.

All of the discoveries by UNMOVIC from November 2002 to March 2003 – empty chemical weapons shells not previously declared, thousands of pages of undeclared documents on uranium enrichment in a private home, biological agents in a refrigerator at a private home, undeclared remotely piloted vehicles with prohibited characteristics, cluster bombs that could be used with chemical or biological agents and many others were clear evidence of Iraqi noncompliance. Of Saddam treating the inspections like a game of cat and mouse. Like he always had.

And why are "empty" chemical shells important you say? Well empty is the only way to store these weapon parts. The warheads in question were not designed to store WMD agents for long periods. Separate storage of the agents was a standard practice in Iraq. And that's why accounting for the missing precursor materials was so important. And the documents that were captured after the invasion (not turned over to the UN as they were supposed to have been) show that even in 2002 Iraq purchased additional materials prohibited by the sanctions that could be used to make more chemical weapon agents. Cat and mouse.

Even as late as March 17th, Saddam's regime was still putting up obstacles ... preventing interviews and not coming forth with data the ISG later learned they had all the time. Instead, as the ISG later discovered, Iraq was systematically sanitizing files, computers and facilities related to WMD before, during and even after the invasion. That's not the behavior of a regime cooperating ... of one coming clean ... as was demanded by UN 1441. This was not supposed to be a game of cat and mouse and as a result of the games they played, the ISG after a year of post war inspections could not assure anyone that Iraq didn't move WMD to Syria before the war.

"In almost two months of surprise visits across Iraq"

They played tapes at the UN where Iraqis called other Iraqis to warned them that inspections were to take place the next day and to be sure that everything was cleaned up. We learned after the war that Iraq actually had moles in the UN inspection organization. Plus, most of those visits were to locations that the Iraqis already knew we would look. So why in the world, with all the time we gave them building up to inspections, would they not have moved any incriminating items out of those locations? In fact, General Sada states that he was told by Iraqis in the military that WMD related materials were moved out Iraq to Syria by aircraft in the fall of 2002 before inspections ever began, precisely because Saddam realized he wasn't going to be able to avoid them. Inspectors were coming.

Even so ...

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V123/N11/iraq_report_11.11w.html "March 11, 2003, U.N. Investigators Surprise Iraqis Trying to Dismantle Illegal Drone ... snip ... THE WASHINGTON POST -- Iraq tried to dismantle an undeclared new drone aircraft last week after it was discovered by inspectors from the United Nations, according to U.N. and U.S. officials. ... snip ... With a wingspan of almost 25 feet, the RPV could have a range far in excess of the 150 kilometers (93 miles) allowed by U.N. regulations." And in fact, it turns out the drone was actually tested to a range of over 310 miles. That's a clear violation of the sanctions and a clear attempt by Iraq to hide that violation from inspectors. And furthermore, Blix failed to mention this to the UN Security Council ... an effort on his part to downplay, as he did again and again, Iraq's non-compliance.

Hans Blix and his team were disarming Saddam's Al Samoud missiles. It is hard to say that Saddam was not cooperating when he was being defanged by the inspectors.

When the missiles and extra illegally imported engines were discovered by UN inspectors (as opposed to Iraq coming clean about their existence), Iraq's regime argued that they did not violate the limits set by the UN and they had no plans to increase there range. The ISG eventually concluded that they lied about BOTH. The missiles as configured did indeed violate the limits and they were in fact working on plans to build much longer range ones. And it wasn't until March that the regime agreed to start destroying these missiles. By then it was simply too late. The US had lost patience with Iraq's cat and mouse games.

Many countries may have the knowledge to build a weapons programs. Just because they have the knowledge and some rudimentary equipment does not make them a threat to the United States, or imply that we should invade their country.

Irrelevant. Iraq started a war of aggression in 1991 and lost it. In the cease fire ending the fighting, Iraq agreed to destroy everything connected to WMD and long range delivery system, including all documentation and research facilities. They violated that agreement and thus the FIRST war was not over. THAT alone gave us the right to invade the country and depose the regime.

If Saddam did begin to rebuild these weapons on a mass scale they would be detected. The weapon inspectors could disarm him as they did in the 1990's under Scott Ritter, or we could bomb Iraq's production facilities.

Here's some of what Scott Ritter told Congress in September of 1998 when he left the job after Iraq threw inspectors out:

"I can say is that we have clear evidence that Iraq is retaining prohibited weapons capabilities in the fields of chemical, biological and ballistic- missile delivery systems of a range of greater than 150 kilometers. And if Iraq has undertaken a concerted effort run at the highest levels inside Iraq to retain these capabilities, then I see no reason why they would not exercise the same sort of concealment efforts for their nuclear programs. ... snip ... There is no question that Saddam Hussein is the problem here. All decisions pertaining to his retention of weapons of mass destruction in direct disobedience of international law, are made by him and him alone. And he is the only one who can make the decision to comply with Security Council resolution. ... snip ... What we have today is two things. One, the cease-fire resolution is being violated on a continual basis by Iraq. And if we do not take action to turn this around, we will have, in fact, lost the gulf war. We will have, in fact, dishonored those Americans who died in the gulf war and those Americans who paid a heavy price, personal or physical, through the conduct of the gulf war. ... snip ... I believe within a period of six months Iraq could reconstitute its biological-weapons and chemical-weapons capability. ... snip ... We know in fact that Iraq has a plan to have a breakout scenario for reconstitution of long-range ballistic missiles within six months of the "go" signal from the president of Iraq."

And a few months later, writing in the New Republic (http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ritter-nuke-new.htm ), Ritter was even more specific:

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production.

Meanwhile, Iraq has kept its entire nuclear weapons infrastructure intact through dual-use companies that allow the nuclear-design teams to conduct vital research and practical work on related technologies and materials. Iraq still has components (high explosive lenses, initiators, and neutron generators) for up to four nuclear devices minus the fissile core (highly enriched uranium or plutonium), as well as the means to produce these. Iraq has retained an operational long-range ballistic missile force that includes approximately four mobile launchers and a dozen missiles. And, under the guise of a permitted short-range missile program, Iraq has developed the technology and production means necessary for the rapid reconstitution of long-range ballistic missile production.

Iraq supports its retained prohibited capabilities with an extensive covert procurement network operated by Iraqi intelligence. While images of starving Iraqi children are beamed around the world by American television, Iraqi front companies have spent millions of dollars on forbidden material related to all weapons categories, in direct violation of existing sanctions and often under the cover of the humanitarian "oil for food" program.

Finally, Iraqi security forces have kept critical documentation, including the vital "cookbooks" that contain the step-by-step process to make chemical agent, outline the procedures for producing weapons-grade biological agent, detail the final design of the Iraqi nuclear weapon, and provide the mechanical integration procedures for long-range ballistic missiles.

These capabilities may seem paltry compared with what Iraq had before the Gulf war. But they represent a vital "seed stock" that can and will be used by Saddam Hussein to reconstitute his former arsenal."

Yes, I like Ritter as a source too.

"My fundamental belief is that weapons weren't moved to Syria because ISG found no evidence that they had been produced.

Everyone keeps focusing on completed weapons when that wasn't Iraq's usual method anyway. Kay's statement does not rule out empty shells and containers of agents from which to quickly make warheads. Also, finding evidence in this case may very well have been hampered by Iraq's deliberate and systematic effort to sanitize all files, computers and facilities thought to be related to WMD. The truth is that we simply do not know what documents were destroyed. They have found documents in those discovered after the invasion that clearly indicate Iraq was purchasing large quantities of precursor chemicals even as late as 2002 and that Saddam ordered "special" materials to be hidden. "Special" was the code word in Iraq for WMD.

If Saddam had WMD then where were they being produced? It seems that many of the defenders of the Iraq invasion seem to believe that Saddam could conjure WMD out of thin air. This is not a chicken and the egg problem, which came first? For Saddam to have WMD he needed to have a facility to produce them first. Where were these weapons being produced? If you don't have an answer, then you don't have any evidence.

http://www.thevanguard.org/thevanguard/columns/040618.shtml "June 18, 2004 ... Late last week, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) briefed the Security Council on Saddam's lightning-fast dismantling of missile and WMD sites before and during the war. UNMOVIC executive chairman Demetrius Perricos detailed not only the export of thousands of tons of missile components, nuclear reactor vessels and fermenters for chemical and biological warheads, but also the discovery of many (but not most) of these items - with UN inspection tags still on them -- as far afield as Jordan, Turkey and even Holland. Notably absent from that list is Iraq's western neighbor Syria, ruled by its own Baath Party just like Saddam's and closed to even the thought of an UNMOVIC inspection. Israeli intelligence has been reporting the large-scale smuggling of Saddam's WMD program across the Syrian border since at least two months before the war."

Saddam produced some chemical weapons during the 1980's when we supported him. It is likely that someone would eventually find left over weapons and junk from the Iran-Iraq war. Left over junk from the Iran-Iraq War hardly gives us a casus beli for war.

I note your attempt to link the US to the WMD while ignoring the fact that almost all of Iraq's arms (including WMD components) came from the nations that did not want us to invade Iraq. The shell in question was not of US manufacture, nor did the US supply Iraq with the technology and materials to make binary sarin warheads. Nice try. Furthermore, this wasn't a type of shell ever used in the Iran-Iraq war. It wasn't junk. It was Saddam's best and still viable. Still very dangerous ... if insurgents had known what it was. You see it was unmarked (which was one way Saddam hid his WMD from inspectors). So you really haven't answered my question. Where did the insurgents find it? And what are the odds that if they just picked a shell at random, they would have picked one of Saddam's best WMD weapons rather than one of the tens of millions of similar looking conventional shells that were lying around unguarded in Iraq after the war ... if this was the only shell out there?

Quote:
And what was in those trucks that were seen moving to Syria before the war? There are number of well connected individuals, including the #2 General in Saddam's Air Force, Syrian Journalists, the Israelis, and members of the US Armed Forces who entered Iraq looking for WMD after the invasion who say the evidence points towards those truck containing WMD related materials. Isn't this cause for at least a little doubt on your part?"

David Kay has stated that he doubted they were WMD

The final ISG report stated that they had a credible source who told them WMD related materials were moved to Syria before the war. And David Kay wasn't 100% certain they didn't contain WMD. So why are you 100% certain that Iraq had no WMD? You fault Bush for expressing no doubt about Iraq having WMD when there were voices of doubt in his administration and the intelligence community yet see no problem with doing the same thing ... expressing 100% certainty about something for which there are credible voices expressing doubt. Hypocrisy.

Quote:
And what about the contents of the many Iraqi documents the Coalition discovered after the invasion ... documents that clearly suggest that Iraq did continue efforts to acquire or hide WMD right up until the start of the war?"

Many of the documents that attempted to give legitimacy to the invasion were forged.

You've ignored the question and are throwing out a red herring. There isn't any expert, even on your side of the fence, claiming these millions of pages of documents that the ISG found hidden away in Iraq are forged. They appear to be totally authentic. Even the logistics of forging that many documents would seem insurmountable. Yet you appear to totally ignore them. Are you even aware of the contents of the documents or does the possibility that they might create doubt in your mind frighten you and keep you from learning about them?

I am not an Obama supporter.

So who are you going to vote for in this election? Because either Obama will win or McCain. So choose because there is a difference.

One of the reason's I liked Bush was his non-interventionist beliefs, he was against nation-building and he wanted a more humble foreign policy.

Too bad Islamic extremists made that impossible.

 

[Brainster]

I dislike Bush intensely but I just don't see that he's done anything really impeachment worthy. I feel people are too eager to vilify those they disagree with and this just reeks of that sentiment. Impeaching Presidents because you dislike their policy decisions sets a dangerous precedent itself IMHO.

It's a "get even for Clinton" thing. The good news is that the mainstream Democrats saw what happened to the Republicans when they overreached in 1998, and have no desire to repeat the mistake.

 

[WildCat]

Republicans ought to horrified at the prospect of a future Democratic president using signing statement to effectively nullify legislation they passed.

Could you please explain to me the legal weight a signing statement has?

 

[Travis]

It's a "get even for Clinton" thing. The good news is that the mainstream Democrats saw what happened to the Republicans when they overreached in 1998, and have no desire to repeat the mistake.

I'm pretty sure that has a lot to do with it.

 

[tanabear]

Sure, Saddam allowed inspectors back in ... but his regime obstructed their work repeatedly from day one.

This is not true as the previous quotes by Hans Blix show. You are now merely repeating neo-con talking points.

programmes".

Iraq released a 12,000 page dossier on their WMD programs. As the UN reports,

"On 7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome."

There were only about 110 UN Weapons Inspectors in Iraq at the time - a country the size of France. They were outnumbered by Saddam's intelligence officers 200 to 1. And that army of intelligence officers continued their efforts to disrupt the inspection process and hide anything related to WMD.

There were no WMD programs at this time. What evidence do you that Iraq was hiding WMD materials?

Through February, the issues of anthrax, VX and long-range missiles remained unresolved. Just prior to the February 14 briefing to the UN SecurityCouncil, Iraqi officials handed over documents on these topics but Blix and ElBaradei subsequently reported that there was little new information in them. On February 24th, even France and Russia had to admit that while Baghdad's cooperation was improving, it was not "yet fully satisfactory.".

Those issues were largely resolved in the 1990's when the inspectors destroyed 90-95% percent of his WMD and related production facilities. There was never any evidence that Saddam re-constituted such WMD programs.

What evidence do you have that Saddam was producing and stockpiling WMD in 2002 and 2003? This was the reason why invaded. Fortunately, this issue has already been investigated. The Robb-Silberman Report looked at these issues in detail. Here are some of their conclusions:

On Nuclear Weapons:

"Based on its post-war investigations, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991."

"The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991. It concluded that Iraq's efforts to develop gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment ended in 1991, as did Iraq's work on other uranium enrichment programs, which Iraq had explored prior to the Gulf War. The ISG also found no evidence that Iraq had taken steps to advance its pre-1991 work in nuclear weapons design and development."

"The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991. With respect to the reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ISG interviews with Ja'far Diya Ja'far, the head of Iraq's pre-1991 enrichment programs, indicated that Iraq had only two contacts with the Nigerien government after 1998--neither of which was related to uranium.

On Biological Weapons:

"Contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments, the ISG's post-war investigations concluded that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its biological weapons stocks and probably destroyed its remaining holdings of bulk BW agent in 1991 and 1992. Moreover, the ISG concluded that Iraq had conducted no research on BW agents since that time, although Iraq had retained some dual-use equipment and intellectual capital. The ISG found no evidence of a mobile BW program."

"The Iraq Survey Group found that the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments about Iraq's BW program were almost entirely wrong. The ISG concluded that "Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent" shortly after the Gulf War[/B]."

On Chemical Weapons:

"After the war, the ISG concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad had resumed production of CW thereafter."

"Still, given that, of the dozens of CW munitions that the ISG discovered, all had been manufactured before 1991, the Intelligence Community's 2002 assessments that Iraq had restarted its CW program turned out to have been seriously off the mark."

On Delivery Systems:

"Following its exhaustive investigation in Iraq, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had indeed been developing small UAVs, but found no evidence that the UAVs had been designed to deliver biological agent. Instead, the ISG concluded that Iraq had been developing and had flight tested a small, autonomous UAV intended for use as a reconnaissance platform, and had developed a prototype for another small UAV for use in electronic warfare missions."

"The Iraq Survey Group concluded that, although Iraq had pursued UAVs as BW delivery systems in the past, Iraq's pre-Operation Iraqi Freedom program to develop small, autonomous-flight UAVs had actually been intended to fulfill reconnaissance and airborne electronic warfare missions. The ISG found no evidence suggesting that Iraq had, at the time of the war, any intent to use UAVs as BW or CW delivery systems."

Irrelevant. Iraq started a war of aggression in 1991 and lost it. In the cease fire ending the fighting, Iraq agreed to destroy everything connected to WMD and long range delivery system, including all documentation and research facilities. They violated that agreement and thus the FIRST war was not over. THAT alone gave us the right to invade the country and depose the regime.

Wrong, UN Resolution 687 gave us no authority to overthrow the Iraqi regime and occupy the country indefinitely. How did they violate the agreement if they didn't have any WMD program since before the first Gulf war? Iraq was a country plagued by corruption. Going to war over some minor accounting errors hardly seems legitimate. Our own government probably can't keep perfect track of it's weapons and finances.

You've ignored the question and are throwing out a red herring. There isn't any expert, even on your side of the fence, claiming these millions of pages of documents that the ISG found hidden away in Iraq are forged. They appear to be totally authentic. Even the logistics of forging that many documents would seem insurmountable. Yet you appear to totally ignore them. Are you even aware of the contents of the documents or does the possibility that they might create doubt in your mind frighten you and keep you from learning about them?.

How do these documents create a casus beli for war? Would a President make a case for war based on this issue? Hans Blix noted "Documents are not WMD." nor "evidence of WMD." These documents pertained to pre-1991 programs. These programs and weapons had since been destroyed by the UN weapon inspectors. So pieces of paper regarding WMD programs from the 1980's are good reasons to go to war?

So who are you going to vote for in this election? Because either Obama will win or McCain. So choose because there is a difference."

I am still weighing my options. I might vote for Bob Barr but as yet I haven't come to any decision. I know that I won't vote for either McCain or Obama.

Too bad Islamic extremists made that impossible.

How many people have we killed in Iraq who were responsible for killing Americans on 9/11?

 

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Sure, Saddam allowed inspectors back in ... but his regime obstructed their work repeatedly from day one.

This is not true as the previous quotes by Hans Blix show. You are now merely repeating neo-con talking points.

ROTFLOL! It was Hans Blix who told the UN security council, on January 27 (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/sprj.irq.transcript.blix/index.html ), more than 2 months into that last round of inspections, that "Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace." He said that because Iraq was not fully cooperating with inspectors or the intent of the inspection process. The truth is that it was still hiding materials that it had to have known it had, preventing interviews with people who could have led us to those materials and perhaps even more incriminating stuff, intimidating inspectors, and playing cat and mouse games with an intent to deceive the world.

As Blix pointed out in that January 27 speech, Resolution 1441 "emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active." And as that speech showed, as of January 27 it had not been any of those three.

Originally Posted by First of all, Iraq was supposed to submit a declaration "of ALL aspects of its [weapons of mass destruction
programmes"

Iraq released a 12,000 page dossier on their WMD programs. As the UN reports,

"On 7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome."

ROTFLOL! You very selectively quoted a couple sentences from Blix's January 27th speech. But here's the rest of what that section of the speech said:

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1441 states that this cooperation shall be "active." It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

On 7th of December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441, and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward.

This is welcome.

One might have expected that in preparing the declaration Iraq would have tried to respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the UNSCOM documents 9994 and the so-called Amorim report of March 1999. These are questions which UNMOVIC, governments and independent commentators have often cited.

... snip ...

They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq, rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM.

Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that will eliminate the questions or reduce their number.

Even Iraq's letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the president of the Security Council on 24th of January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered

... snip ...

When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. All existing relevant documents have presented, we are told. All documents relating to the biological weapons program were destroyed together with the weapons.

However, Iraq has all the archives of the government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports and how they have been used. They should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports and production and losses of material.

In response to a recent UNMOVIC request for a number of specific documents, the only new documents Iraq provided was a ledger of 1,093 pages which Iraq stated included all imports from 1983 to 1990 by the Technical and Scientific Importation Division, the importing authority for the biological weapons programs. Potentially, it might help to clear some open issues.

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the lacing enrichment of uranium, support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side which claims that research staff sometimes may bring papers from their work places.

On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.

So what you quoted did not give a fair presentation of Blix's concerns at the time. You are deceptively attempting to rewrite history by hiding the fact that 2 months after inspections began Blix was saying Iraq was still not forthcoming about what they had or what they had actually destroyed. Blix was clearly complaining ... not saying all was well in that speech as you wanted readers to think.

I quoted Blix complaining several weeks later in March, a full 2 months after Iraq was supposed to have provided all information on it's WMD programs that "Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programmes. Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections." That's not a neo-con talking point. That's a direct quote of Blix to the UN Security Council just 12 days before we invaded showing his unhappiness with their cooperation. And it is a fact that the ISG, after the invasion, found numerous WMD related documents that Iraq's regime must have known about because they were deliberately hidden by that regime, that it should have declared back on December 7th, and that it did not declare at any time prior to the invasion. That is not the false picture that you are trying to paint for our readers due to your blind hatred of Bush and "neocons" (whatever those are).

Quote:
Through February, the issues of anthrax, VX and long-range missiles remained unresolved. Just prior to the February 14 briefing to the UN SecurityCouncil, Iraqi officials handed over documents on these topics but Blix and ElBaradei subsequently reported that there was little new information in them. On February 24th, even France and Russia had to admit that while Baghdad's cooperation was improving, it was not "yet fully satisfactory.".

Those issues were largely resolved in the 1990's when the inspectors destroyed 90-95% percent of his WMD and related production facilities.

If they were resolved, then why did Hans Blix make an issue of them? Why did Scott Ritter when he quit in 1998 say that those were issues and that Iraq was still a serious threat?

There was never any evidence that Saddam re-constituted such WMD programs.

But clearly, based on both Ritter's assessment and the ISG's post-war assessment, Iraq retained the ability to re-constitute much of its WMD program in short order ... largely because Iraq retained prohibited documents, equipment and materials ... as well as the desire to do so. And in the post 9/11 environment, given the friendliness that Saddam had shown terrorists and their activities including the 9/11 attacks, that was not something we could continue to simply ignore. It was too much a risk to allow Iraq to continue violating the agreements it had signed regarding WMD. It was too much a risk to let Iraq continue to support terrorists.

What evidence do you have that Saddam was producing and stockpiling WMD in 2002 and 2003? This was the reason why invaded.

That was not the only reason. Not even the major reason. Perhaps you should go back and re-read (assuming you even bothered to read it the first time) Bush's State Of The Union speech in January of 2003 where he laid out the case why Iraq was a problem that we needed to do something about to the public. But I'm not holding my breath that you will.

"The Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991. It concluded that Iraq's efforts to develop gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment ended in 1991, as did Iraq's work on other uranium enrichment programs, which Iraq had explored prior to the Gulf War. The ISG also found no evidence that Iraq had taken steps to advance its pre-1991 work in nuclear weapons design and development."

Sorry, but an audio tape discovered after the invasion (http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1503 ) has Saddam and his top WMD advisors in a meeting held sometime after 2001 (because the year 2001 is mentioned in the past tense on the tape) "discussing a progress report on a laser enrichment system for uranium, one of the more advanced methods to make a nuclear bomb." And "the names of the two Iraqi individuals in charge of Saddam’s uranium enrichment were not previously known either to the UN weapons inspectors or to the intelligence community." Now this tape was only translated in 2006, after the ISG drew it's conclusions so obviously the ISG's conclusion that your source noted was wrong. Iraq was clearly still continuing with work that would lead to the development of a nuclear weapon. And it's also worth mentioning that in the documents discovered (which again I should note Iraq was supposed to have declared to Blix and turned over but did not) they found detailed plans for building a nuclear weapon once the nuclear material was available. Those documents are so detailed that the government has withdrawn those documents from public view. Do you see why those 35,000 boxes of tapes and documents (most of which are still untranslated) are so important and why it's so foolish (and should I add dangerous) to simply ignore them as you are doing?

"Contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments, the ISG's post-war investigations concluded that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its biological weapons stocks and probably destroyed its remaining holdings of bulk BW agent in 1991 and 1992. Moreover, the ISG concluded that Iraq had conducted no research on BW agents since that time, although Iraq had retained some dual-use equipment and intellectual capital.

Probably? Tell me, how could they have destroyed their holdings of BW agents in 1991 and 1992 when in 1995, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the man who was in charge of Iraqs WMD program, defected to Jordan and Iraq was forced to admit that it had concealed a huge biological weapons program? Don't you remember the chicken farm? Are you unaware that in one of the captured tapes your side of this debate simply chooses to ignore, Saddam and his senior aides discuss the fact that UN inspectors in late April or May of 1995 had uncovered evidence of Iraq's Biological Weapons program—a program the existence of which Iraq had previously denied. At one point, Kamel can be heard on the tape, speaking openly about hiding information from the UN. "We did not reveal all that we have," Kamel says in the meeting "not the type of weapons, not the volume of the materials we imported, not the volume of the production we told them about, not the volume of use. None of this was correct." Yet, here you are willing to simply trust them now as well as the effectiveness of the current inspectors.

You are apparently unaware (http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/08/990817-in1.htm ) that in September of 1997, according to Richard Butler, "during a routine inspection at what Iraq had described as a food-testing lab, the chief of our biological team glimpsed two Iraqi officials trying to run out the back door. She seized a briefcase from one, inside were biological test equipment and documents linking the headquarters of the Iraqi Special Security Organization to what appeared to be a biological weapons program. After the Iraqi generals in charge dodged my requests to explain these materials, I ordered a no-notice inspection of the Special Security headquarters building to be led by Scott Ritter, the head of our concealment staff. A small convoy of vehicles set off toward this destination. But about a half mile from the building, the convoy was stopped by armed Iraqi guards. I telephoned Aziz, telling him to allow my people to move forward. He refused, claiming that the building in question was a "presidential site" and was therefore off-limits. It was an entirely new concept to deem these sites sanctuaries. Nothing-not even "sensitive sites"-was off-limits according to the deal Saddam had signed to put an end to the Gulf War. Besides, I pointed out, the U2 aerial picture I had on my desk in preparation for our conversation showed that the presidential palace was a mile down the road from where our motorcade had been stopped. We were still denied access. Fearing for its safety, I withdrew our team." Yet you would have us believe that Iraq stopped it's biological weapons programs in 1991 or 1992.

You need to understand that the discussions on the tapes that were discovered AFTER the invasion clearly indicate that Saddam and his associates thought the 1991 war was still ongoing even in the late 1990s. They can be heard on these tapes discussing the possibility of using terrorists as surrogates to deliver biological and chemical munitions to the US. Of course, they deny on the tape that Iraq would do it but then they knew the tapes were running, didn't they. As former UN weapons inspector Bill Tierney concluded, "Listening to the tapes, you are left with one of two choices: you either believe Saddam was a self-important (though largely internationally impotent) iron-fisted ruler who posed no threat to the US, for all his bluster to the contrary; or else you believe him to be precisely the man he’s always been: a murderous tyrant who would use whatever means at his disposal—including alliances of convenience—to attack the US and its interests." Now I know which you'd choose but the President of the United States had to be more prudent and take no chances.

"After the war, the ISG concluded--contrary to the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments--that Iraq had unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad had resumed production of CW thereafter."

And again, they've found documents deliberately hidden by the Iraqis and not declared during the latest inspections, that are as recent as 2002 and which prove Iraq was violating the sanctions and buying specifically banned materials from which chemical agents could be manufactured. Now you can stick your head in the ground where those documents are concerned but that won't make them go away. It will only make you look ridiculous and blinded by your obviously partisan hatred of Bush.

The truth is that because of the willful destruction of files, computer and facilities thought to be related to WMD before, during and even after the 2003 invasion of Iraq (a fact the ISG admits occurred), the ISG cannot be confident of anything with regards to what Iraq's WMD status was prior to the war. But make no mistake. The Iraqis hid those documents and selected pieces of equipment (like biological seed materials) for a reason. The Iraqis destroyed those files, computers and facilities for a reason. The truck convoys seen traveling to Syria before the war were doing so for a reason. The threats against anyone who would speak to the ISG occurred for a reason. And NONE of these actions on the part of Iraq are consistent with your repeated claim that Iraq cooperated with the inspectors in late 2002 and early 2003.

"Still, given that, of the dozens of CW munitions that the ISG discovered, all had been manufactured before 1991, the Intelligence Community's 2002 assessments that Iraq had restarted its CW program turned out to have been seriously off the mark."

That binary sarin shell that magically turned up as an IED was a still viable munition. Something that in the hands of skilled terrorists who knew what they had could have killed thousands. And it's a fact that Iraq was purchasing large quantities of materials that were specifically banned because they could be used to produce chemical agents like nerve gas. It's also a fact that Iraq had demonstrated previously a preference for loading chemical munitions with the agent just before use. So the fact that no recently manufactured munitions were found with agent in them is rather moot. The fact is those bunkers under the Euphrates river were built in 2002 FOR A PURPOSE. And there is good reason to suspect that purpose had something to do with WMD that were NOT manufactured before 1991. You can stick your head in the ground only so long before you begin to look gullible, naive and blind to anything but hatred of Bush.

By the way, regarding the ISG's search for chemical munitions, do you know that the ISG fully evaluated less than one quarter of one percent of the over 10,000 weapons caches throughout Iraq, and visited fewer than ten ammunition depots identified prior to OIF as suspect CW sites? And they used two criteria for identifying the sites ... the presence of a nearby water truck and a artillery unit ... that Saddam had to have known they'd look for. Why, if he were trying to hide this stuff, would he put it exactly where he figured the UN would look? You see why claiming with 100 percent certainty that Iraq had no WMD is silly?

"Following its exhaustive investigation in Iraq, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had indeed been developing small UAVs, but found no evidence that the UAVs had been designed to deliver biological agent.

Yet the ISG 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?

Well for one thing, 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” and also apparently did not refund Iraq its $10 million. 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.

The ISG found no evidence suggesting that Iraq had, at the time of the war, any intent to use UAVs as BW or CW delivery systems.

Does that mean that Iraq couldn't have quickly adapted them to that use if they'd been so ordered? No. Does that mean that Saddam had given up his WMD ambitions or desire to have the capability to strike his distant enemies with WMD? No. Furthermore, I seem to recall that the head of the UAV program is quoted somewhere in the ISG report saying that he thought the UAVs were ultimately for that purpose ... whether Saddam said they were or not in his orders to build the things.

Quote:
In the cease fire ending the fighting, Iraq agreed to destroy everything connected to WMD and long range delivery system, including all documentation and research facilities. They violated that agreement and thus the FIRST war was not over. THAT alone gave us the right to invade the country and depose the regime.

Wrong, UN Resolution 687 gave us no authority to overthrow the Iraqi regime and occupy the country indefinitely. How did they violate the agreement if they didn't have any WMD program since before the first Gulf war?

The agreement specifically forbade Iraq from retaining WMD related documents or researching WMD and long range delivery systems. And as I've demonstrated, there is plenty of evidence to prove they did both after 1991 and even into 2002, and any claim by you that they didn't will only make you look foolish.

These documents pertained to pre-1991 programs.

That is absolutely false. Either you haven't bothered to try and learn anything about the contents of those 35000 boxes or you are trying to deceive our readers. So will you admit to being ill informed or a liar?

 

[Travis]

Holy mega long posts Batman!

 

[Ziggurat]

The impeachment proceedings might be able to define what actions Bush has taken are perrogatives of the presidency and which are illegal.

Actually, it would do nothing of the sort. The supreme court is where battles regarding the power of congress vs the Executive are properly fought - and have, in fact, already been fought a number of times during this administration.

Republicans ought to horrified at the prospect of a future Democratic president using signing statement to effectively nullify legislation they passed.

Yeah, well, a prospect in the minds of democrats is all it's ever been. Courts do not need to consider signing statements, and it's the courts which determine what laws mean.

While impeachment might be over other details, it is this core concept that would really be on trial.

No, it wouldn't. Just as Clinton's impeachment didn't end up being about obstruction of justice either. The only time we've had the prospect of a non-politically motivated impeachment was with Nixon, who was smart enough to resign before it reached that point. You're fooling yourself if you think an impeachment against Bush, regardless of what you hope it could be, would actually turn into anything better than Clinton's impeachment.

 

[tanabear]

ROTFLOL! It was Hans Blix who told the UN security council, on January 27 (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/sprj.irq.transcript.blix/index.html ), more than 2 months into that last round of inspections, that "Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament that was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace."

Hans Blix said that in January of 2003 just as the inspection process was getting warmed up. Hans Blix initially believed somewhat in the claims made by the Bush Administration and was giving them the benefit of the doubt. This would change as he later discovered that there was no real evidence regarding WMD programs in Iraq. In his book, "Disarming Iraq" Hans Blix wrote,

"In Now. of 2002, a new round of inspections had been initiated to resolve key remaining tasks in the disarming of Iraq. Although the inspection organization was now operating at full strength and Iraq seemed determined to give it prompt access everywhere, the US appeared as determined to replace our inspection force with an invading army."

"We went to a great many sites that were given to us by intelligence, and only in three cases did we find anything - and they did not relate to weapons of mass destruction. That shook me a bit, I must say."

"The path of inspection had been blocked by the US, the UK and Spain."

Hans Blix's opinion would change as he realized that the "evidence" for WMD was nothing but hype.

And it is a fact that the ISG, after the invasion, found numerous WMD related documents that Iraq's regime must have known about because they were deliberately hidden by that regime, that it should have declared back on December 7th, and that it did not declare at any time prior to the invasion. That is not the false picture that you are trying to paint for our readers due to your blind hatred of Bush and "neocons" (whatever those are).]

We didn't go to war to find documents. We went to war to disarm Saddam and destroy his WMD programs. As it turned out there were no WMD programs, and there was no evidence of them when Bush decided to invade.

If they were resolved, then why did Hans Blix make an issue of them? Why did Scott Ritter when he quit in 1998 say that those were issues and that Iraq was still a serious threat?

Scott Ritter said this in an 2002 interview,

"...since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability has been verifiably eliminated. This includes all of the factories used to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles..."

"I believe the primary problem at this point is one of accounting. Iraq has destroyed 90-95% of its WMD. Okay. We have to remember that this missing 5-10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat. It doesn't even constitute a weapons program. It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons program which in totality doesn't amount to much...just because we can't account for it doesn't mean that Iraq retains it. There is no evidence Iraq retains these materials."

Iraq could potentially attempt to reconstitute some sort of WMD program but that could be easily detectable. Iraq was not friendly with terrorists. He actually fought them. In the 1980's we supported him against a radical fundamentalist version of Islam that was emerging from Iran. Iraq used WMD during the 1980's against the Iranians. We didn't seem to lose any lose any sleep over it then. So in the 1980's when he actually had WMD, what terrorist group did he give them to?

That was not the only reason. Not even the major reason. Perhaps you should go back and re-read (assuming you even bothered to read it the first time) Bush's State Of The Union speech in January of 2003 where he laid out the case why Iraq was a problem that we needed to do something about to the public. But I'm not holding my breath that you will.]

The WMD issue was the legal case for war. One country can't merely invade another country because it disagrees with the type of government that it has, or if it wants to "liberate" its people. If these reasons established a legitimate case for war, then practically any country could find any excuse to invade another country. Ari Fleischer stated this on April 10, 2003: "We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."

The Bush Administration also made its case for war in a letter to the Security Council delivered by UN Ambassador John Negroponte. This letter contains no mention of regime change, democracy, liberation or any other neo-con propaganda slogan. The legal case for war was that Iraq was in material breach of its disarmament obligations and this gave us permission to use military force against the Iraqi regime.

Sorry, but an audio tape discovered after the invasion (http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1503 ) has Saddam and his top WMD advisors in a meeting held sometime after 2001 (because the year 2001 is mentioned in the past tense on the tape) "discussing a progress report on a laser enrichment system for uranium, one of the more advanced methods to make a nuclear bomb." And "the names of the two Iraqi individuals in charge of Saddam’s uranium enrichment were not previously known either to the UN weapons inspectors or to the intelligence community." Now this tape was only translated in 2006, after the ISG drew it's conclusions so obviously the ISG's conclusion that your source noted was wrong.

An audio tape is not evidence that Iraq had acquired any of the necessary materials to create a nuclear weapons programs or that it even had any type of program. Scott Ritter said this regarding Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Program,

"When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection program ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There's no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor-both from the vehicles and from the air-the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We neve found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated."

"There is concern, then, that the Iraqis might intend in the long run to re-establish or reconstitute a nuclear weapons programme. But this concern must be tempered by reality. That is not something that could happen overnight. For Iraq to reacquire nuclear weapons capability, they would have to build enrichment and weaponization capabilities that would cost tens of billions of dollars. Nuclear weapons cannot be created in a basement or cave. They require modern industrial infrastructures that in turn require massive amounts of electricity and highly controlled technologies not readily available on the open market...None of this can be done on the cheap. It’s very expensive, and readily detectable."

So if Iraq did intend to build a nuclear weapons program this would be obvious to the international community. As well, with the inspectors in Iraq, his production capabilities could be destroyed as they were in 1990's. An audio tape hardly constitutes a threat to the United States.

You are apparently unaware (http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/08/990817-in1.htm ) that in September of 1997, according to Richard Butler, "during a routine inspection at what Iraq had described as a food-testing lab, the chief of our biological team glimpsed two Iraqi officials trying to run out the back door. She seized a briefcase from one, inside were biological test equipment and documents linking the headquarters of the Iraqi Special Security Organization to what appeared to be a biological weapons program. After the Iraqi generals in charge dodged my requests to explain these materials, I ordered a no-notice inspection of the Special Security headquarters building to be led by Scott Ritter, the head of our concealment staff. A small convoy of vehicles set off toward this destination. But about a half mile from the building, the convoy was stopped by armed Iraqi guards. I telephoned Aziz, telling him to allow my people to move forward. He refused, claiming that the building in question was a "presidential site" and was therefore off-limits. It was an entirely new concept to deem these sites sanctuaries. Nothing-not even "sensitive sites"-was off-limits according to the deal Saddam had signed to put an end to the Gulf War.

This was a lie frequently repeated by Richard Butler and others. He knows full well it had nothing to do with a biological weapons program. Scott Ritter explains what actually happened,

"In September 1997 Diane Seaman, biologist and investigator extraordinaire, did a no-notice inspection of the Iraqi national standards laboratory, where they do food testing. She went in the back way, and ran into two gentlemen with briefcases coming down the stairs. They panicked when they saw her, and tried to run away. She chased them down, grabbed them, and seized the briefcases. She handed the briefcases to one of her subordinates, told him to get it out of there, then held off the Iraqis while the guy escaped with the briefcases...We were thinking we’d hit a home run. We rapidly began to translate - and I mean rapidly - and saw things like ‘botulinum toxin reagent test kits’, and ‘clostridium perfingen reagent test kits.’ Both of these are agents developed by Iraq for weapons. We organised a meeting with the Iraqis, telling them we wanted to talk about this. The Iraqis refused, saying it had nothing to do with our work...But then we started a detailed translation of the document and found it wasn’t about biological weapons at all, but about testing food: these are reports of the samples that people take of every piece of clothing, every bed linen, every piece of food, anything that comes into contact with the president and his inner circle. They have botulinum toxin reagent because botulinum toxin is a food poisoning. Same with the clostridium perfingen. The whole document, the ‘special biological activity’, was about presidential security.

Truth matters little to how the story continues to be spun. This incident is still cited on national television and radio as an example of Iraq’s continued work in biological weapons."

Bill Tierney concluded, "Listening to the tapes, you are left with one of two choices: you either believe Saddam was a self-important (though largely internationally impotent) iron-fisted ruler who posed no threat to the US, for all his bluster to the contrary; or else you believe him to be precisely the man he’s always been: a murderous tyrant who would use whatever means at his disposal—including alliances of convenience—to attack the US and its interests." Now I know which you'd choose but the President of the United States had to be more prudent and take no chances.

When did Saddam attack the US and our interests? The idea that this is something he wanted to do was largely neo-con propaganda. He served our interests in the Iran-Iraq War. The neo-con desire to attack Iraq pre-dates 9/11. The attack on Iraq was part of the neo-con imperial agenda. It had nothing to do with 9/11.

Now you can stick your head in the ground where those documents are concerned but that won't make them go away. It will only make you look ridiculous and blinded by your obviously partisan hatred of Bush.

We didn't go to war over documents. We went to war over WMD programs. If we were going to war over documents then Bush and the neo-cons should have stated this before we invaded. They didn't, therefore, the war was built on lies.

That binary sarin shell that magically turned up as an IED was a still viable munition.

The binary sarin shell killed no one. Neither has any of Saddam's fictional WMD's since we invaded. Something can hardly be called a "weapon of mass destruction" if it hasn't killed a single American soldiers since we invaded. Our soldiers have been killed by conventional weapons. As Scott Ritter wrote regarding the matter,

"...A 10 percent dud rate among artillery shells isn't unheard of - and even greater percentages can occur. So there's a good possibility that at least 15 of these sarin artillery shells failed and lie forgotten in the Iraq desert, waiting to be picked up by any unsuspecting insurgent looking for raw material from which to construct an IED."

David Kay stated this regarding the sarin shell,

“I think all of us have known that because of the sheer volume of artillery [containing agents like sarin that were in the Iraqi arsenal prior to the Gulf War] ... that there were likely to be some of these still around Iraq, But [the discovery] doesn't speak to the issue of whether weapons of mass destruction were still being produced in Iraq in the mid-1990s.”

The agreement specifically forbade Iraq from retaining WMD related documents or researching WMD and long range delivery systems. And as I've demonstrated, there is plenty of evidence to prove they did both after 1991 and even into 2002, and any claim by you that they didn't will only make you look foolish.

You have provided zero evidence that Iraq had any type of WMD programs in 2002 and 2003. If they had such a program then you need to tell me where these WMD's were being produced. For Saddam to have WMD's he needed a place to manufacture them. Where were these WMD's being manufactured? If you don't have an answer, then you don't have any evidence.

 

[BeAChooser]

Hans Blix said that in January of 2003 just as the inspection process was getting warmed up.

Blix said at that time that all the things that South Africa did to come clean were essential if Iraq was to come clean. Even as late as March, 2 weeks before the invasion, Blix was still complaining that Iraq was withholding data and documents ... that it wasn't acting like South Africa had. I provided the quotes. The truth is that Iraq had been given plenty of time and opportunity to comply ... and to accept that it needed to disarm. And had failed on both counts. Indeed, after the invasion the ISG found clear evidence that Iraq was still trying to hide the scope and nature of its WMD work. They found documents, not translated until after the final ISG report (and over 90 percent of those documents are still untranslated), that clearly show Iraq was still pursuing WMD. Purchasing chemicals that were specifically prohibited under the sanctions because they could be used to make chemical agents. Trying to buy a long range missile from North Korea, with a range far in excess of the allowed limits. Sorry, but you are spinning.

It doesn't matter what Blix claims in his book ... the facts are the facts. We found clear evidence after the invasion that the UN inspection team was compromised. We found clear evidence that Iraq had been deliberating sanitizing files, computer and facilities thought related to WMD just before, during and even after the invasion. We found clear evidence that Iraq was still purchasing items used in the production of chemical munitions and working on long range delivery systems. We found clear evidence that Iraq had retained all the documents needed to restart their WMD programs, including plans on how to build a nuclear weapon. In short, we found clear evidence that Iraq wasn't cooperating with it's disarmament as was demanded of it by the UN. And to this day you STILL cannot tell us the contents of those trucks that went to Syria right before the war. You STILL cannot tell us the contents of the bunkers that were built in 2002 under a river, that locals said contained WMD, and the CIA found had been looted by the time they got around to checking them out in 2006. You can't tell us these things because even after the invasion and fall of the Saddam, the people in Iraq who participated in those things have not come clean. They are still hiding something ... AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS.

We didn't go to war to find documents.

FALSE. We went to war to make sure that Iraq was abiding by the agreement it made to end the first Gulf War. And that agreement specifically forbade Iraq from retaining ANY documents related to WMD and long range weapon systems.

We went to war to disarm Saddam and destroy his WMD programs.

We went to war for more than those reasons ... for a list of reasons outlined by Bush in his January of 2003 State of the Union Address. Too bad you apparently didn't listen to it.

Scott Ritter said this in an 2002 interview,

"...since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability has been verifiably eliminated. This includes all of the factories used to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles..."

And how did Ritter know this? The last time he held a security clearance was in 1998 when he left the job saying that Iraq still had all those things he now claimed it destroyed by 1998. In September of 1998 he told the US Senate this:

"I can say is that we have clear evidence that Iraq is retaining prohibited weapons capabilities in the fields of chemical, biological and ballistic- missile delivery systems of a range of greater than 150 kilometers. And if Iraq has undertaken a concerted effort run at the highest levels inside Iraq to retain these capabilities, then I see no reason why they would not exercise the same sort of concealment efforts for their nuclear programs."

... snip ...

"The Special Commission has intelligence information, which indicates that components necessary for three nuclear weapons exist, lacking the fissile material."

"I believe within a period of six months Iraq could reconstitute its biological-weapons and chemical-weapons capability."

"We know in fact that Iraq has a plan to have a breakout scenario for reconstitution of long-range ballistic missiles within six months of the "go" signal from the president of Iraq."

A few months later he published an article in the New Republic saying this:

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production.

Meanwhile, Iraq has kept its entire nuclear weapons infrastructure intact through dual-use companies that allow the nuclear-design teams to conduct vital research and practical work on related technologies and materials. Iraq still has components (high explosive lenses, initiators, and neutron generators) for up to four nuclear devices minus the fissile core (highly enriched uranium or plutonium), as well as the means to produce these. Iraq has retained an operational long-range ballistic missile force that includes approximately four mobile launchers and a dozen missiles. And, under the guise of a permitted short-range missile program, Iraq has developed the technology and production means necessary for the rapid reconstitution of long-range ballistic missile production.

Iraq supports its retained prohibited capabilities with an extensive covert procurement network operated by Iraqi intelligence. While images of starving Iraqi children are beamed around the world by American television, Iraqi front companies have spent millions of dollars on forbidden material related to all weapons categories, in direct violation of existing sanctions and often under the cover of the humanitarian "oil for food" program.

Finally, Iraqi security forces have kept critical documentation, including the vital "cookbooks" that contain the step-by-step process to make chemical agent, outline the procedures for producing weapons-grade biological agent, detail the final design of the Iraqi nuclear weapon, and provide the mechanical integration procedures for long-range ballistic missiles.

These capabilities may seem paltry compared with what Iraq had before the Gulf war. But they represent a vital "seed stock" that can and will be used by Saddam Hussein to reconstitute his former arsenal."

What changed in the year or so between him saying the above and claiming Iraq was disarmed? Could it be that Iraq helped fund a movie he was producing to the tune of half a million dollars? A movie where he partnered with a personal friend of Saddam? Could it be that Iraq discovered Ritter had some unusual associations with underage girls? Could it be that Ritter got oil vouchers? Documents found in Iraq, signed by the director-general of Iraqi intelligence, show that Iraqi Intelligence had Ritter targeted for compromise. They'd even bought jewelry for his wife and daughter. So his sudden change in views is rather suspicious, don't you think?

Iraq was not friendly with terrorists.

This has to be an outright lie. Iraq gave safe haven to several notorious terrorists, including one of the 1993 WTC bombers. That man not only got sanctuary, he got a home and job courtesy of the Iraqi government. And you'd have to have your head in the ground not to know that Saddam was funding the families of homicide bombers in Israel to the tune of $25,000 each. And we know he supported terrorists in the Phillipines. His Fedayeen were being trained to act like terrorists. We found suicide vest bomb making factories. We found camps where terrorists clearly trained. We saw them fight like terrorists during the invasion. We found friendly communications between his regime and al-Qaeda ... and the Taliban ... AFTER 9/11. This claim is one of the biggest lies promoted by the anti-war side in this debate.

The WMD issue was the legal case for war.

I suggest you reread UN 1441. It mentions documents, long range weapon systems, terrorism, and the ceasefire obligations. It further stated that "false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq’s obligation." So their behavior during the latest round of inspections was clearly a further material breach of their obligations. So you can add that to the list.

"When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection program ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There's no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor-both from the vehicles and from the air-the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We neve found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated."

Folks, just contrast that with the statements Ritter made to the Senate in 1998 and New Republic. It's like night and day. It's like two different people. Of course, by 2002, Ritter was busy "waging peace". Guess that's why he didn't want to discuss the children's prison he saw back in 1998, where children - toddlers up to pre-adolescents - whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein - were kept in conditions Ritter himself described as "horrific" and "horrible". But ask yourself, what motivated Ritter's sudden change of heart at a time when he had NO access to classified material and intelligence?

This was a lie frequently repeated by Richard Butler and others.

My my ... how Ritter's version changed from 1998 ... when he left the inspection team and spoke to the Senate, and wrote an article (under no duress, I might add) to the New Republic ... to 2002 ... when he was making a movie using Saddam's money.

The attack on Iraq was part of the neo-con imperial agenda.

The binary sarin shell killed no one.

Not the point. And it didn't kill anyone because whoever used it either didn't know what it was or didn't know how to use it's contents. The ISG, however, said it contained about 4 to 5 liters of agent. And experts from around the world have indicated that's enough agent to kill many thousands if properly dispersed. The point is that shell existed despite the fact that Saddam's regime initially claimed they'd never even researched binary weapons, then when that lie was caught claimed they'd never tested them, then when that lie was caught claimed ALL the shells they ever produced had been destroyed. Odd how you imagine lies by the Bush adminstration but can't even acknowledge or accept the ones staring you in the face.

"...A 10 percent dud rate among artillery shells isn't unheard of - and even greater percentages can occur. So there's a good possibility that at least 15 of these sarin artillery shells failed and lie forgotten in the Iraq desert, waiting to be picked up by any unsuspecting insurgent looking for raw material from which to construct an IED."

This is utter nonsense and spin. There was no reason for Iraqi insurgents to pick up a "dud" shell off the ground in an Iraqi desert when (according to your own side in this debate) Iraqi ammunition dumps containing TENS OF MILLIONS of non-"dud" shells were totally unguarded during that period of time. Furthermore, the ISG said nothing about this shell being a "dud".

You have provided zero evidence that Iraq had any type of WMD programs in 2002 and 2003.

I suggest you go read some of the documents they found in Iraq and finally got translated in 2004-2006. But I know you won't.

 

[Darth Rotor]

The CD theory is the best thing that ever happened to Bush and Cheney as it is taking all the energy away from the real issues.

The real conspiracy is what Dennis Kucinich presented last night.

Were you aware that there is a thread already begun about the impeachment filing by Dennis the K, begun at 12:03 AM of the day you posted your OP at 06:53 PM?

To Mods: recommend these two threads be merged.

DR