Weapons of Mass Destruction

None found.

This means that Saddam Husein has to go down in history as one of the dumbest leaders of all time.

If he didn't have any, why not full and complete cooperation with weapons inspectors, get sanctions removed and get on with life?

If he thought Bush was bluffing, he was the only one.

 

Well so far:
(1) Saddam has not been found (dead or alive)
(2) No weapons of mass distruction found
(3) His gold plated toilets are now in the hands of looters.
(4) Iraq in ruins
(5) The future of Iraq is uncertain

 

But on the other hand:

(a) The Baath Party is no longer in control of Iraq.
(b) Saddam Hussein is either dead or in hiding.
(c) Sanctions are in the process of being lifted.
(d) U.S. troops will finally be able to leave Saudi Arabia.
(e) Mass graves have been uncovered, and the victims of Baathist policy can finally be given a proper burial.
(f) The Fedayeen have been abolished.
(g) The Baathist torture chambers have been closed.

I'm still iffy on this war, but there was a definite plus side to it.


Cheers,

 

re "Iraq in ruins"
As Tom Friedman reported, after touring central Iraq, Saddam ran the country into the ground after the Gulf War.

What's amusing but sad is that in the country's penury and in the face of a dictator's demands, scientists may have shut down their WMD programs (presumably from lack of funds), yet curried to Saddam's self-delusional seclusion and demands that they be kept ready.

Maaning that all the suffering of war and sanctions could have been avoided but for the dictator's fanatical, out-of-touch mind.

(Hmmm. How much did CNN's captive reporting contribute to and feed these delusions of Saddam's effectiveness?)

--Orson

 

How many mass graves must be uncovered before Baathism qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction?

 

Just because they haven't been found, doesn't mean that the do not exist.

It's certainly possible that some WMD could have been smuggled out of the country. It's certainly possible that some are still hidden. Many of the suspected hiding places are known or suspected to be booby trapped. The military is having to use remotely operated robotic vehicles to explore them. This takes a lot of time.

Not that I intend to defend the administration on this one. Wolfowitz has said that in his opinion, this was about oil and about being able to remove our troops from Saudi Arabia. However others in the administration didn't agree. So "for reasons that have a lot to do with the US government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on: weapons of mass destruction."

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,970334,00.html

He has since backtracked, of course, saying that this was about WMD, Saddam's ties to terrorists, and the mistreatment of the Iraqi people:

http://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=03060207.elt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

It is truly unfortunate that although this war went quite well militarily, it has been a complete diplomatic disaster. (Though I do have to give the administration credit for not planting WMD, which they easily could have done.)

 

It's at the point where US intel agencies can't be trusted much anymore!

thus, now it's time to do what open societies do best--congressional investigation on the intel behind the WMD charges of the Bush Administration. The Wash Post reports (7 June):

"The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war.

"'What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say," said Greg Thielmann, who retired last September. "The area of distortion was greatest in the nuclear field."

"Thielmann was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research....

"The evidence of a renewed nuclear program in Iraq was far more limited than the administration contended, he said.

"'When the administration did talk about specific evidence - it was basically declassified, sensitive information - it did it in a way that was also not entirely honest,' Thielmann said."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27772-2003Jun7.html

Prior to the war, an interview with an Iraqi scientist, linked via FAIR, purported to show that Iraq'a bio/chem weapeons had been destroyed! But even the interviewer was doubtful, asking if so, where were the waste by-products? The scientist was not forthcoming on this point, and so the claim struck me then as dubious.

But now that this possibility looms large, followup investigation is required.

Can you say "what did you know? and when did you know it?"
Sure ya can.

--Orson

 

Now that George and Tony (with some assistance from John Howard) have destroyed Saddam's Empire they need to sort out that other infamous dictator Mugabe - formally a 'man of the cloth', or really the devil in disguise! Certainly one of the most evil men still surviving.

 

Mugabe is--but sins these friend's of the US are otherwise engaged, could the UN do something...? I'm not holding my breath!

--Orson

 

Actually, I think it was less backtracking and more the original article taking things out of context. They soon came forth admitting that they had misquoted Wolfowitz.

clint

 

Give them time. Remember, the CIA is good at some things. If this goes on long enough, I have little doubt that it will happen.




Tom Nixon

 

I must admit that I'm very surprised that WMD have not been found. An even stronger argument for there being WMD than the CIA position was the fact that Saddam was dragging his heels with the U.N. inspectors. It seems absolutely stupid to me to take that position if there weren't WMD left.

 

Here's an interesting article on the subject:

John Dean says WMD scandal worse than Watergate

 

WMDs were found, weren't they? At least the plant

poll results

Opherus

 

I don't think so.

As an illustrious Canadian leader once said - Polls are for dogs.

 

Why would anyone be surprised by the government lying in order to do what they want. I would be more surprised if we actually had one that told us the truth, but maybe we can't be trusted with such important information. In the past few weeks American soldiers have been coming under increased attacks. The deaths can quickly mount up to an unacceptable level. If our soldiers are to be asked to give up their lives, we need to know if we were lied to about WMD.

 

The whole thing is simply a clerical error. It's supposed to be Weapons of Mars Destruction.

 

... or Weapons of Math Destruction, given the weird arithmetic where zero is a very large number ...

Opherus

 

Unfortunately for Saddam, some of his loyalists were also contaminated when he used these weapons. Witness the Iraqi Information Minister: "There are no Americans in Baghdad!"

 

Possibly. Saddam's regime is reputed to have ties with the terrorist group Al Gebra.