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<p>So that’s why people have over and over and over said that there were NO WMD’s in Iraq, huh? Guess they better check their stories.</p>
<p>The truth is we found them. Like it or not, they were or are there. </p>
<p>I make no claim to know what they were for or what was in Saddam’s mind with regard to them or other WMDs.</p>
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That’s grossly intellectually dishonest, P2N, and beneath your usual standards. The artillery shells in question were abandoned. Our military determined that they were ineffectual as weapons and at best “hazardous.” By the time they were found they weren’t even “Weapons”, let alone “of Mass Destruction.” For you to suggest that there was anything more to their continued existence after the Gulf War other than typical Saddam-era Iraqi incompetence simply demonstrates either dishonesty - if you recognize the actual lack of “political significance” of the discarded munitions, or credulousness worthy of an adolescent, if you honestly think there’s any significance to them.</p>
<p>“So why do think we went to war? Oil?”</p>
<p>For reasons Paul Wolfowitz stated publicly and quite candidly. The U.S. was kicked out of Saudi Arabia (and Reagan ran tail from Lebanon in 1982), and needed a forward military base in the Middle East to protect “our strategic interests”. </p>
<p>“So that’s why people have over and over and over said that there were NO WMD’s in Iraq, huh? Guess they better check their stories.”</p>
<p>Which “people”?</p>
<p>If you want to destroy illegal WMDs, and WMD programs, please come to my state, and I’ll give you a tour.</p>
<p>I do not believe it’s dishonest to state a lack of knowledge as to some 500 pieces of chemical munitions found half a world away. Maybe some were abandoned, maybe some were stored for effective military use. I am allowing for conditions as related in the declassified report, linked above, which I consider best evidence.</p>
<p>I see no need to to use hyperbole or exaggeration to discuss this set of facts.</p>
<p>Pretty reasonable conclusion, mini. ;)</p>
<p>btw- How many of our (U.S.) chemical munitions are older than 25 years? I suspect most. They are still dangerous, even if they are somewhat degraded from efficient military-deployable condition. I think you understate the risk.</p>
<p>There were weapons found in the 90’s. Lots of weapons. There weren’t working weapons found after 9/11.</p>
<p>I don’t really understand the semantics of saying well…they weren’t producing weapons in the 90’s… First of all…that isn’t clear. Second of all, what difference does it make? If the weapons were made in the 80’s and they work in the 90’s, those weapons can kill you just like weapons made in the 90’s.</p>
<p>[PBS</a> - frontline: gunning for saddam: saddam hussein’s weapons of mass destruction](<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/arsenal.html]PBS”>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/arsenal.html)</p>
<p>“How many of our (U.S.) chemical munitions are older than 25 years? I suspect most. They are still dangerous, even if they are somewhat degraded from efficient military-deployable condition. I think you understate the risk.”</p>
<p>Plenty. But I am also talking about active, though supposedly secret, biological weapons programs as well. (They are often dressed up, in contracts, as means to “protect us” against biological attack.)</p>
<p>“There were weapons found in the 90’s. Lots of weapons. There weren’t working weapons found after 9/11.”</p>
<p>Why, of course! That’s why the U.N. had weapons inspectors in Iraq. To search out and destroy WMDs. Saddam Hussein was never going to say he had got rid of them all for fear of invasion by Iran - precisely who, with the Rumsfeld Handshake, he’d used them against. </p>
<p>But there isn’t a shred of evidence that there was any production, any program for producing them, any plan for a program for producing them, or any plan for using them in “imminent attack”. This was all ginned up by Clinton/Tenet after the failure of the genocide, the failure of the two coup attempts, the failure to make a deal with Chemical Ali so that U.S. troops could march in freely. And because they couldn’t get the weapons inspectors to go along with the story, Clinton kicked them out, and then massively bombed the country.</p>
<p>They were SO happy when they found Curveball.</p>
<p>parent2noles, I think we’ll all stipulate that chemicals were found, but this begs the question: Do you think the people of the U.S., Iraq, the Middle East, and the world are better off for our having invaded Iraq? Have the deaths and the destruction of a country been worth finding these old chemicals? Do you find this question worth answering?</p>
<p>Were the intelligence at the time reflective of this present fact, vossron, the answer would be simple. The Kurds would disagree, of course.</p>
<p>Mini - a bit more grist for your mill is the fact that Saddam tried to kill GWB. While small in the scheme of things, I think this plan ticked our president off.</p>
<p>“What drove you to repost the link, FF?”</p>
<p>Wow, I haven’t even posted on this thread and I still get referenced. Kluge your obsession is really getting the best of you.</p>
<p>“But there isn’t a shred of evidence that there was any production, any program for producing them, any plan for a program for producing them, or any plan for using them in “imminent attack”. This was all ginned up by Clinton/Tenet after the failure of the genocide, the failure of the two coup attempts, the failure to make a deal with Chemical Ali so that U.S. troops could march in freely. And because they couldn’t get the weapons inspectors to go along with the story, Clinton kicked them out, and then massively bombed the country.”</p>
<p>Mini, it is many years later now and looking back, you may be right. But at the time, which is what counts, the Iraqis were not being truthful. At the time, we had no idea what Iraq was doing.</p>
<p>“For the first few years, Iraqi officials failed to disclose much of their special weapons programs to the inspectors. In 1995, Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law Kamel Hussein defected. He had been in charge of the bioweapons program and revealed to UNSCOM that there was a vast arsenal of weapons they had failed to uncover, including biological weapons, and described how the Iraqis were hiding them. This was a breakthrough for the inspection teams, and they continued their work until 1998, when Iraq blocked further access and expelled UNSCOM.”</p>
<p>The link I provided has many details and the picture that was painted is not the picture I see you painted.</p>
<p>In spite of what we know today, McCain thinks it was not a mistake to invade Iraq, and Obama thinks it was a mistake. In terms of potential future actions by the next president, this provides a clear choice on the issue of the propensity to invade another country. This is not the only issue for the coming election, but it’s a big one, IMHO.</p>
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<p>YES. I do believe so.</p>
<p>“But there isn’t a shred of evidence that there was any production, any program for producing them, any plan for a program for producing them, or any plan for using them in “imminent attack”. This was all ginned up by Clinton/Tenet after the failure of the genocide, the failure of the two coup attempts, the failure to make a deal with Chemical Ali so that U.S. troops could march in freely. And because they couldn’t get the weapons inspectors to go along with the story, Clinton kicked them out, and then massively bombed the country”</p>
<p>Mini, I see that showing you direct UN documents that contradict what you keep saying does not stop you from continuing to say it. Who was that who said that if you keep telling people a lie, sooner or later they will begin to believe it?</p>
<p>If Saddam was such a threat w/ old (abandoned) chemical weapons - why didn’t he ever supply the PLO, Hamas or Hezbollah w/ them against “evil” Israel?</p>
<p>This whole Saddam = threat to the US was a total sham.</p>
<p>Captured documents show that Saddam regarded Iran has his no.1 threat and enemy.</p>
<p>“YES. I do believe so.”</p>
<p>I guess I should have already asked: In what way(s)? Considering just the U.S., we are now less safe (there are more terrorists than before), we have over 4,000 dead, we are way more in debt, we have fewer friends in the world. How did invading Iraq actually help us? (This is different from how we thought it might help us.)</p>
<p>“Less Safe”: untrue. There have been no terrorist attacks in the US in the last 7 years. Who takes a census on terrorists anyway? Even if there are more, they are less effective.
“over 4000 dead”: actual combat deaths are about 3300, and don’t forget the 20,000 enemy insurgents dead. Compare to a similar period in the Vietnam War… say 37,000 deaths. Vietnam War deaths averaged much more in a single year than in all of the Iraq War so far.
“way more in debt”: because we spend so much to minimize casualties
“fewer friends”: friends who won’t help us anyway. Who needs such ‘friends’?
So called friends that value peace over freedom. Obviously, any conflict will cost you friends. They will all come back when success is achieved.
“How are we helped?”: Because the world knows that the US is the only country willing to fight against tyranny and despotism and alien ideals, the only country that won’t appease evil but will meet it with determination.
In the words of JFK “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty…Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.
Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation’—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself…
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility…” (Inaugural address, 1961)
I might add: “The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are–but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high–and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.
Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right- -not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom…” (JFK, October 1962).
What is a stable middle east worth? Trillions. But more important than dollars are the future lives saved by standing on principle and winning the peace.
Finally, it is obvious that the UN could never enforce anything. Not in Iraq, not Iran, not North Korea.
What is really ridiculous is that liberals are still arguing about the start of the war, even as it may be winding down. The last thing they apparently want is victory.
Iraq appears to have believed it had WMDs, our intelligence was limited, so best guess was that they did. They didn’t, but Sadam needed to be taken down in either case.</p>
<p>“There have been no terrorist attacks in the US in the last 7 years.”</p>
<p>How many terrorist attacks were there in the US in the 7 years prior to 9/11?</p>
<p>Keep clapping those cougar sticks together, folks. It’s worked perfectly so far, right? ;)</p>
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<p>Can we amend that to discuss the attacks on our interests, embassies, ships?</p>