BS: Well, looky here... (Iraqi WMDs)

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 01:51 PM

". . . you lefties . . ."

Real easy for some folks to catagorize other folks and dismiss what they say on that basis. Makes thinking unnecessary.

(I woke up cranky this morning)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 03:20 PM

"...the best estimates were that Saddam did have WMD"

oh, he had WMMMD! that's Weapons of Moderate, Medium and/or Minor Destruction. Back 10 years or so, he had more,(especially gas) and no doubt craved more--but NO ONE had serious evidence that he had anything 1½ years ago worth staring THIS mess over. Those who wanted an excuse to get rid of him all talked in circles, believing any flawed bit of gossip and ambiguous reports, slowly convincing and supporting each other until their circular reasoning let them justify themselves in their own minds!

Sorry, but the ability to lie to yourself convincingly does not constitute justification for spending mulit-billions and thousand of lives and running your country's reputation into the dirt...If all he had done was authorize commando teams to 'get' Saddam, I might have even had grudging respect for the goal.

...so, what's next? N. Korea? Kim Jung Il seems to REALLY have some big toys, and is actually making threats....oh...right...Kim has no oil.

What, me? Cynical? naaawwwww...

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 05:24 PM

Maybe it -is- a bogus story - I don't know any more than the rest of you - but a lot of people also thought the idea that the world was round was pretty bogus too.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:14 PM

bruce:

"Having no choice does not make it "just" "

Declaring war in self-defense makes it just. I think everyone is entitled to defend themselves.

"Iraq declared war on Kuwait, who had treaties with the US. Thus, we had no choice there. Are you now saying that this is a just war?

I'm saying it was ok to declare war on Germany in 1941.Iraq declaring war on Kuwait is different from Iraq declaring war on the US, and a whole lot different from Germany declaring war on the US. Even GWB never said "They attacked Kuwait; therefore we are forced to invade."
I cannot believe anyone would support this US war in Iraq just because of the invasion of Kuwait.

I'm not talking law; I don't know if the war is legal or not. I'm talking ethics or maybe morality. I believe the war is wrong, and I've been trying to say why in these many posts.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Nerd
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:20 PM

The best part of Casual Observer's orignal document is that it's such a farcically bad attempt at fraud that even Fox news won't touch it. Just look at it. It makes the claim that Saddam Hussein was shipping weapons out of Iraq only in the headline and lead. After that, no supporting evidence for this claim is given. All the editorializing--that part written with no attribution to a writer--talks about WMDs and the like. All the parts that are attributed to experts of any kind (the evidence) are clearly speaking about scrap metal and dual-use items like fermenters, which every pharmaceutical lab has.

The existence of scrap metal in other countries is actually evidence that Saddam Hussein DID dismantle his WMD facilities. What the UN team was obviously talking about in its quotes was the danger that the materials of Iraq's KNOWN WMDs and dual-use items that WERE inspected by the UN and dismantled according to UN and US demands, would end up being reassembled elsewhere. This would be bad, but you can't really blame Iraq. In fact, as some here have suggested, this material getting all over the world is quite probably a direct result of the war.

Remember, thinking people on the left do not deny that Saddam Hussein once had WMDs. The question is when he had what. Did he have any significant WMDs at the time we invaded? Scrap metal in Holland can't tell us that.

There is significant sleight of hand going on in the editorial material, too. For example, the words WMD are used to describe, for example, "ballistic missile sites." What does this mean? Silos? Launch sites? Factories? None of these are WMDs. Ballistic Missiles themselves are not WMDs unless fitted with nuclear, chemical or biological warheads. Once again, it starts with claims about WMDs but quickly equivocates toward WMD programs and sites and materials and delivery methods.

The bottom line is: No nuclear weapons were found. No biological weapons were found. No chemical weapons were found.

In other words, no WMDs were found in Iraq, and none were found to have been exported.

(By the way, this story's nonsensical thesis is that Saddam Hussein exported WMDs out of Iraq Before, During and After the war. A war which is still going on. While Saddam sits in a prison cell. What the hell does this even mean?)

Here are just the quotes:

"the only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap,"

"It's being exported. It's being traded out. And there is a large variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal. The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks."

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for. You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax."

"The problem for us is that we don't know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere. We can't really assess the significance and don't know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq's neighbors."

Notice that EVERY quote but the first is about scrap metal from dismantled missiles and items like fermenters, found in other countries. The first quote makes it clear that these are NOT WMDs, because there ARE checks at Iraq's borders for explosive or radioactive materials.

NO quote even SUGGESTS that a bona fide Iraqi WMD was found in Iraq or anywhere else. The one item that they are specific about was scrap from a missile "replete with UN tags." So how can you claim this was a WMD that Hussein concealed from inspectors?

Then Beardedbruce pulls out the "dodgy dossier," in which the UK's intelligence services quoted a college student's research as though it were by their own agents, causing a scandal which may yet help to bring down the Blair government. Bruce cites the dossier as if it is the gospel truth. When it's pointed out that it's not the truth? "It doesn't mater if it was the truth! It's what the UK government believed at the time!"

Hey, guys, in 1800 the British government believed that Irish people were inferior; that Jews were inferior; that all Catholics were traitors unless they took loyalty oaths, etc. etc. Why? Because they wanted to believe that ideologically.

The point? It DOES matter if it's true! The dossier is based on terrible undergraduate level research, and its claims, like the infamous claims about uranium from Niger, were already known to be false by many in the UK intelligence community. Hence the widely publicized scandal.

In the end, this whole thread is pretty ridiculous, and people on right AND left are just too wound up. Hey folks, we aren't going to all agree! Let's not get nasty about it! And let's also not dredge up bargain-basement "evidence" for our claims.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,clint
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:33 PM

Teribus :

"By the bye, Clint, you mentioned that you were in the First Infantry in 1956 and in the Reserves in 1962."

I brought that up because you asked (rather condescendingly, I thought) "- ever heard of a certain period of the last century known as the 'Cold War'?"and you said "US and the USSR squared up to each other on a number of occasions." I thought it would lend more weight to my words when I told you that indeed I do know all that; I was around then.


"What training were you given in the storage, handling and arming of chemical or biological munitions. Can you remember what the colour codings were for US/NATO Chemical/Biological weapons?"

None. I was a radio operator in charge of a three-man communications group for a combat engineer company, and I don't remember a whole lot of technical details about that - that was nearly a half-century ago, and we were still using WWII commo equipment, like the notorious "Angry Nine" radio.

Now spring your trap.

clint

--that was very good, Nerd

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 10:42 AM

No trap Clint, my reference to the "Cold War" was in response to something you said to the effect that President Reagan had the same justification to attack the USSR as your current President had for attacking Iraq.

My question relating to chemical/biological weapons was asked out of interest. Quite a number of people posting to Iraq related forums are firmly of the belief that the US supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical/biological weapons during the Iran/Iraq War.

I have asked ex-service members here the same question I asked you regarding US/NATO chemical/biological weapons - the result resounding silence. You see, I have stated in other threads regarding this issue that, in the entire time I spent in the forces at NO time were we EVER given any training in the handling, arming, storage or deployment of any chemical/biological weapons. Probably for the very good reason WE didn't have ANY. We caried out plenty of exercises regarding operating in a "chemical" environment, damage control exercises, citadel tests, exercising cleansing stations and parties, again for a very good reason, we KNEW that the USSR; China and the forces of the Warsaw Pact DID have such weapons - they sold the weapons and the technology to their "client" states in the middle-east, not the US.

Now perhaps some of those who spout this rubbish about the US supplying Saddam Hussein with chemical/biological weapons can tell me how you can supply something that you neither use or have?

Nerd, 14 Jun 04 - 06:20 PM

From the tenor of your arguement are you categorically stating that nothing was shipped out of Iraq? Please Nerd, don't get hung up on the WMD thing, for I must admit that I have not got the foggiest notion what you would define as a WMD, or a WMD capability, as being.

In my understanding it encompasses the following:
- The ability to manufacture, test and store the agent itself.
- The capability to "weaponise" that stored agent.
- The design and manufacturing capability to produce the warheads/bombs/rockets/shells to deliver that "weaponised" agent.
- Possession of weapons systems capable of delivering the aforementioned munitions.

Now, have I left anything out - Oh, yes - the research and development teams and facilities to undertake the above and enhance the ability and efficiency of those weapons systems.

The point Nerd seems to miss, is, that according to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi's who submitted their formal, full and final declaration relating to WMD, stocks of agent, weapon systems, programmes, etc, as defined in UNSC Resolutions, on December 7th 2002, THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY OF THESE - That is what THEY said.

What was there and known about, dual-use equipment included, had been tagged by either UNSCOM (pre-1999) or by UNMOVIC. The instructions are clear, do not tamper with it, do not re-assemble it, do not remove it, do not transport to any other location, pending their destruction. That was the requirement - not met of course, very few UNSC requirements were ever met by the Ba'athist regime of Saddam Hussein.

Now to Nerd, "..scrap metal and dual-use items like fermenters," don't seem to amount to much - well they're pretty harmless aren't they, not indicative of anything untoward - Really? Your stance is idiotic and incredibly naive. All I can say is thank Christ you are not looking out for, or responsible for, anything even closely related to the security of your country.

Then, without barely pausing for breath, Nerd, re-examines all this scrap that he has just dismissed as not being evidence of the existence of Iraqi WMD, and comes out with the following:   

"The existence of scrap metal in other countries is actually evidence that Saddam Hussein DID dismantle his WMD facilities."

Sort of begs the rather obvious question "Then why didn't he tell the UNMOVIC inspectors", after all sold for scrap, he could have shown them the receipts, transport dockets, everything - no problem - but he didn't.

Sorry chum, what kind of weird ass-about-face logic is that - it (the scrap metal) either has something to do with WMD, or it hasn't - you cannot argue it both ways - and remember Nerd the Iraqi's were not supposed to have had ANY of this.

Then we get the classic:

"What the UN team was obviously talking about in its quotes was the danger that the materials of Iraq's KNOWN WMDs and dual-use items that WERE inspected by the UN and dismantled according to UN and US demands, would end up being reassembled elsewhere. This would be bad, but you can't really blame Iraq."

YOU CAN'T REALLY BLAME IRAQ - who the hell else are you going to blame? It was the clearly defined responsibility of the Iraqis to destroy this stuff, just as it was the clearly defined responsibility of the UNSCOM and UNMOVIC inspectors to supervise, witness and verify its destruction.

UNSCOM reported what WMD were in existence but unaccounted for in January 1999, that report was based on information supplied by the Iraqi authorities themselves. Did he have any significant WMDs at the time we invaded? His declaration of 7th December, 2002 didn't shed any light on that according to Dr. Hans Blix, who voiced his dissappointment at the content of that declaration. The "scrap metal in Holland" does tell us that equipment the Iraqi's should not have had had been moved out of the country by the Iraqi regime. Now if they moved "scrap metal", why is it so inconceivable that other things were not similarly exported? Oh yes! Nerd says that couldn't have happened because loads were examined for traces of radioactivity or explosives. A question for you Nerd, exactly what radioactive, or explosive trace signature would you expect to get from chemical/biological warfare agent, in either its weaponised or component form? I'll be interested in your response to that one.

According to the debriefing of Dr A. Q. Khan, he stated that he assisted with the removal of items transferred from Iraq to Syria and on to Pakistan by air - wonder exactly what that consisted of? What was Dr. Khan's area of expertise again? Could be we are not talking about anything that was radioactive here, what about computer hard drives, files, etc, relating to an Iraqi nuclear programme? Possible or not?

Whatever cock-eyed definition Nerd uses to describe what he would call WMD. Based upon what he contends they are not, I would say that you would have no WMD without research and development programmes, you would have no WMD without manufacturing facilities, you would have no WMD without the delivery systems.

And no Nerd, the bottom line to date is this:
- No nuclear weapons have been found and I don't think they will be. Whether or not there was a programme running to ressurect Iraq's nuclear programme is still open to question.
- Chemical/biological weapons in the form of unfilled munitions have been found by both UNMOVIC inspectors and Coalition Forces.
- Delivery system development programmes (post 1998) for proscribed weapons were discovered.
- Missiles that were prohibited by UNSC Resolutions were discovered by UNMOVIC.
- In the face of supposedly tight UN sanctions 384 illegally imported rocket motors were discovered by UNMOVIC.
- A shell, rigged as IED, containing Sarin was discovered by Coalition Forces.

In other words, while the stockpile of WMD agents, munitions and delivery systems as stated by UNSCOM have not been found. It is clear that items have been exported from Iraq during the run up to the invasion, the exact extent and nature of the complete list of items exported is not known at present.

You see Nerd, there is nothing nonsensical in the story's suggestion that Saddam Hussein exported items in the run up to the invasion, his good friends, the French and the Russians, ensured that he had plenty of time to do that. Remember the U-2 Surveillance, required under the terms of UNSC Resolution 1441, that Saddam effectively blocked from day 1 of the UNMOVIC inspections? Now I wonder why he did that?

Oh, yes, Nerd turns his attention to the "dodgy dossier" - the very same "dodgy dossier" that stated that on evaluation of work being carried out at a missile testing site it was probable that Saddam Hussein was developing missiles of a range longer than that allowed by UN Resolutions - dead "dodgy" that wasn't it Nerd - turned out to be perfectly true, but that probably didn't suit your arguement to make mention of it - oversight?

Now, let's look at this college student's research. Which was in actual fact a post-graduate thesis, written in the aftermath of "Desert Storm". The post-graduate students work related to Iraqi security services, misinformation, concealment programmes and means of deception. The research material for this thesis consisted of some 3,000,000 documents captured after "Desert Storm". The author was disappointed that HM Government hadn't credited him with the work, but stated when asked, that the content of the dossier, and his thesis, were still relevant, he did comment on the fact that the British intelligence agencies had taken some departments of a single Iraqi Security/intelligence unit and mistakenly identified them as being seperate organisations, apart from that everything was pretty much spot on. You see Nerd the post-graduate student's work had nothing to do with detail relating to WMD, only their concealment, Iraqi Security Forces and the disemination of false information regarding WMD.

Nerd then has the gall to come out with: "The dossier is based on terrible undergraduate level research,"

Who on earth told you that Nerd. What trendy kule left-wing rag did you grab that line from. Hate to say this Nerd, but its your own research that's terrible. The author wasn't an undergraduate at all was he? Do they hand out Masters Degrees to post-graduate students submitting terrible undergraduate level work as their Thesis? Is that how good universities are in the US? The work was rather well received if memory serves me correctly from what I've read about it - pity Nerd didn't have the sense to do the same. Yeah, well done indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:15 AM

Here's a casual observation from my POV.

Whenever there's a story that supports the right wing in any way, it's immediately jumped on, by the left, as being propaganda. Granted, sometimes it is. We know that. But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the facts are right there and people will still deny them.

In reverse, anytime there's a story that bashes the left, again, it's propaganda, regardless of the facts. On the other hand, stories that support the left are immediately embraced by the left as fact without any further exploration, while extolling the virtues of questioning the government, the media, etc. And of course, right-wingers do the same.

What if you all just reserved judgment until you found the facts?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:25 AM

Ah, let's add sweeping generalization into the mix, eh, Casual Observer? It's just as odious as anything else you've suggested in that recipe for agrument. There is no neutral stance in these discussions, so self-appointed privileged positioning is out.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:27 AM

At the end of the day, with all this bickering going on, no Nuclear, Biological or chenical weapons have been produced by either Bush or Blair to justify the invasion.

BeardedBruce, can you give more information on the missile borne chemical weapons attacks your friends suffered, dates places etc, I'd like to know you are not just making it up.

As for a scud being armed with a conventional explosive warhead being called a WMD, can I have your source for this.

As you seem so fond of facts, you now have the chance to provide some yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:45 AM

It is neither odious nor privileged. It's simply an observation, nothing more. That's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:09 PM

Stilly River Sage 15 Jun 04 - 11:25 AM

"There is no neutral stance in these discussions, so self-appointed privileged positioning is out."

SRS, a question, is that quote of yours above a sort of way of saying:

"You are either with us or against us"?

Seemed to recall somebody saying that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and being slated for it.

I would have thought having introduced the thread to provoke discussion under the name "Casual Observer", CO has adopted a very neutral position, as is his/her right.

Another question SRS, reading through most BS threads related to US politics, Iraq, GWB (I insist on capitalising his initials) what CO states appears to be fairly accurate - in other words an impartial casual observation. So why are you attacking CO for it?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Nerd
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:11 PM

Teribus

You really can talk a blue streak. Your ad hominem attacks (calling people naive and stupid) are tiresome, even I'm sure to people who generally agree with you. I shall not respond in kind.

As someone pointed out on this thread, there are portable backpack nukes. Thus you simply cannot define any system capable of delivering a WMD to be a WMD itself. ANY system, including a person, is capable of doing that. Rockets are NOT WMDs, they are just delivery systems, like a truck or a backpack. Even if they were banned materials, or had longer ranges than allowed by the UN, it is inaccurate to say, as this article says, that WMDs were shipped out of Iraq.

Here is the upshot of what even YOU said, ungrammatical though it may be:

In other words, while the stockpile of WMD agents, munitions and delivery systems as stated by UNSCOM have not been found. It is clear that items have been exported from Iraq during the run up to the invasion, the exact extent and nature of the complete list of items exported is not known at present.

So what you're saying is: "No one knows." "Items" have been exported, but no one knows what "Items" they were. Does this not strike you as a little thin to pin a headline of "WMD exported from Iraq" on? The TRUE headline would be "we still have no conclusive evidence that WMD were exported from Iraq in the run-up to the war."

Not a very good headline, that.

When I said we can't blame Iraq I meant that it's OUR ATTACK that has destabilized Iraq's borders. I meant that even in the Saddam days, the Iraqi government was not in full control of its borders. You might as well blame the US government for anything smuggled in or out of the US.

Perhaps I was wrong about it being an undergraduate student. Sorry about that. (Everyone makes mistakes, but luckily I didn't invade a foreign country based on mine!) But it having been a grad student doesn't change the upshot much.

I don't know if you have a post-graduate degree, Teribus, but to someone who does [Masters and PhD], the claim that a student covered three MILLION documents in his thesis, or even read them en route to his PhD, is obviously farfetched. I could just as well claim that "the research materials for my dissertation consisted of the Research Libraries Information Network," since I had access to all that through ILL, or that it consisted of "everything in the English Language," since the linguistic parts of my thesis were relevant to the whole language. It's a meaningless claim. How many of these documents did he actually read? And as to the question of whether undergraduate level research has ever resulted in a Masters degree, you should read some of the theses I have seen.

A graduate student's research is generally not considered ready to cite broadly. Here's why. In academia, the way research is vetted is through the publication process, not the PhD granting process. When a paper is submitted to a journal, it is given to three (or so) of the top experts in that particular field, who decide if it is worthy of publication or not. They don't know who the author is, and their own identities are protected, so they cannot be affected by personal feelings about the author and they don't have to worry about the author knowing who said what. When a book is submitted to a publisher, the same process ensues (though sometmes the author's name is revealed).

When you are getting a PhD, your thesis is read by whichever people YOU selected as your committee: generally, the faculty members at your university who would be the most sympathetic to your arguments (this does vary from place to place, but my description is a common model). A Masters thesis is often read by just one faculty member, but often by two or three. All these people know you very well personally and have a personal stake in your success. They know that any harsh criticism will hurt your feelings and that you will know it came from them. Furthermore, the level of scholarship they expect is lower. Practically all PhDs get the comments "this is good enough to graduate, but if you publish this you'll want to do this, this and that before you submit it."

So the difference: a PUBLISHED work has been read anonymously by some of the world's top experts, and judged good enough to be published. A THESIS has often been read by whoever is most sympathetic at your own University, usually your personal friends and mentors, and judged good enough for you to graduate--usually the same as "not quite good enough to publish."

Finally, the post-graduate researcher (what we would call a grad student in the USA) "was disappointed that HM Government hadn't credited him with the work." In other words, the dossier was plagiarized! From a "not quite good enough to publish" thesis, which was, incidentally and by your own admission, about ten years old.

Now, why wouldn't they credit him? There's only one reason I can think of: it would be immediately apparent to anyone in the academic or intelligence communities that an unpublished piece of student work was NOT conclusive enough for the intelligence community to count on.

Sure the student who wrote it said it was still relevant, but this is hardly evidence. ("This just in: Ashcroft claims Ashcroft never lied.") What do you think he's going to say? "No, it was crap then and it's crap now?" And if it was such good and relevant research, how come he didn't publish it in ten years? Even academic publishing isn't THAT slow!

Finally, as to your point that the dossier wasn't dodgy because it contained ONE verfiable fact, well, I applaud the author. He got something right. Champagne for everybody!

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:42 PM

GUEST, 15 Jun 04 - 11:27 AM

"At the end of the day, no Nuclear, Biological or chenical weapons have been produced by either Bush or Blair to justify the invasion."

Was that ever a requirement? The objective from the point of view of the United Nations going back over the last 14 years was to effect the total elimination of the WMD possessed by Iraq, in a verifiable manner, in order that that country would no longer pose a thread to the peace and stability of the region.

That process was clearly defined to include:
- Elimination of all Iraqi WMD, both nuclear and chemical/biological.
- Elimination of the munitions and weapons systems that could deliver them.
- Eradication of all research and development programmes relating to those weapons.
- Destruction of all proscribed munitions and weapons systems
- Destruction of all precursor chemicals and chemical/biological agents.

Now the stocks, WMD agents, weapons systems, etc were detailed by UNSCOM in 1999. Now let's see how far down that list the international community has progressed in the last 15 months:

1. Does Iraq possess any nuclear weapons - No it does not.
2. Does Iraq currently have any research and development work related to attaining a nuclear weapons capability running - No it does not.
3. Does Iraq possess, in being, or in development, weapons systems capable of deploying nuclear weapons - No it does not.
4. Does Iraq possess any chemical/biological weapons - No it does not.
5. Does Iraq currently have any research and development work related to attaining a chemical/biological capability running - No it does not.
6. Does Iraq possess, in being, or in development, weapons systems capable of deploying chemical/biological weapons - No it does not.

Seems to me that we are a fair way down that road? Thanks to the US.

Left to the UN and UNMOVIC 4, 5 & 6 above would still be "black holes", I believe that Dr. AlBaradei was well on the way to establishing points 1 to 3 above.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 01:02 PM

Bush, Blair and their various minions spent a great deal of effort trying to convince the world that Saddam was on the cusp of using WMD and still had huge stockpiles ready. So while Terribus may be right in his quotes above, for me and many others the existence of these weapons has become probably the most important issue. If I am to be asked to support what has happened in Iraq I Demand to see the huge stockpiles of WMD and I bet quite a few others do as well.

Since GWB's efforts to stabilise the region we have seen an upsurge in violence, too many deaths and injuries, widespread destruction in a country in a country that can ill aford any further damage, Torture and a blatent disregard for human rights on the part of the coalition, Money being fed to GWB's croney companies in the oil industry, the good name of the US and UK beeing damaged in the eyes of many around the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 01:12 PM

Well Nerd, I am pleased to see that you are beginning to grasp the type of threat, perceived by the US intelligence services, that Iraq potentially posed with Saddam Hussein in power - others have not.

No, the TRUE headline would be: "No conclusive evidence exists as to whether, or not, WMD were exported from Iraq in the run-up to the war."

Still doesn't duck the fact that all that has been found was "stuff" that the Iraqi's said they did not have, were not supposed to have - but they did didn't they.

The Thesis was critically reviewed, and as stated previously, fairly well received. The research material was classified, i.e. not in the public domain, so your comparison is not really relevant. I will find out if it was "published" and get back to you, although with a security classification, the distribution would be rather limited. If memory serves me correct it took something in the order of five years to write.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 02:00 PM

"at NO time were we EVER given any training in the handling, arming, storage or deployment of any chemical/biological weapons. Probably for the very good reason WE didn't have ANY"

I never got any training in arming, storage or deployment of atomic weapons either. Doesn't prove we didn't have any.

Not long ago I read a report in the paper about stocks of nerve gas slated for destruction and the concern of the people living nearby. This is the same stuff that was accidentally released some years ago & luckily killed only a flock of sheep. In Nevada, I believe. I'll look up dates & places when I get time -- busy day today -- but maybe someone else can be more specific. I believe there have been problems with the storage & disposal of chemical & biological weapons in the past. We must have had some to dispose of.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 02:04 PM

The objective from the point of view of the United Nations going back over the last 14 years was to effect the total elimination of the WMD possessed by Iraq, in a verifiable manner, in order that that country would no longer pose a thread to the peace and stability of the region.

If they've only been moved around a bit, they haven't really been eliminated, have they?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Nerd
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 02:31 PM

Come on, Teribus. Jack Straw, the foreign minister, publicly admitted that using this dossier was an "extremely embarrassing" error, yet some people just can't let it drop.

As I understand it, if a graduate student wrote his thesis on it, the thesis is available from the University in unpublished form. There sould not be classified materials in the thesis itself. And if the materials it was based on were classified, then how did he get access to them as a mere grad student?

Anyway the fact that you are pissing around in the dark with statements like "classified, i.e. not in the public domain" proves you haven't a clue. "Public domain" is a copyright distinction, and has nothing to do with the information being classified.

Your bald assertion that it was "critically reviewed, and fairly well-received" is meaningless on two counts. What counts as "critically," and what counts as "fairly well"? THIS is why publication in a referreed journal is required before someone will take claims seriously. Almost anything can claim to have been "critically reviewed" and "fairly well received."

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 04:09 PM

Picking a fairly sizable nit:

Lemme see, now. Covering three million documents. That's quite a daunting task.

Let us assume that each document is no longer than one typewritten page, although many documents, particularly government or academic documents can run many pages, sometimes up to book length. Nevertheless, let us assume one page per document. Let us further assume that each page contains no more than 250 words. If one types single space with one inch margins on a normal 8 ½ by 11 inch letter size sheet using one of the common fonts, 500 or more words per page is not unusual, but let's be generous and assume no more than 250 words per page. The average person (no dyslexia or anything like that) manages to read an average of about 250 words per minute, therefore it follows that the average person could read one of these documents per minute.

At that rate, 3,000,000 documents would obviously take a total of 3,000,000 minutes to read. That's 60 documents per hour; 1,440 documents per day ; 10,080 documents per week; 524,160 documents per year. We find that it would take 5 years, 8 months, 3 weeks and some change to cover all those documents.

And this assumes that our intrepid student takes no time out to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or take notes. He or she would be pretty gaunt and hollow-eyed by then, n'est-ce pas?

'Course documents in Arabic might not take quite that long to read.

Shall we get real?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Nerd
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 10:31 PM

Well, before Teribuws returns in triumph to tell us that the student's work WAS published, it turns out that it was...but not in an actual academic journal. It was published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs, a vanity internet publication of a single professor, Barry Rubin, which in addition to the journal offers several of Rubin's self-published books.

In academia, internet journals are generally taken less seriously than actual paper publications, and thus attract less reliable research. Journals "owned and operated" by one person, as MERIA claims to be, are accorded even less respect. The fact that our student chose to publish there strongly suggests he could not publish elsewhere.

No disrespect to Professor Rubin, who by all accounts is a serious scholar, but one person should not have that much power over a journal's contents--especially since Rubin is also a right-wing Israeli hawk who writes a conservative column for the Jerusalem Post. A political perspective is fine, but not when you have autocratic authority over the contents of what is ostensibly an objective scholarly publication.

BTW, while in grad school I did not even bother to publish in internet journals because it does your career no good--no one takes it seriously. I did, however, publish in some one-man operations--though none where the editor was so clearly positioned politically--and those papers have much less impact on my CV than the ones published in serious journals. So our student, Ibrahim Al-Marashi (who still seems to be a student as far as I can tell, not having graduated yet) apparently couldn't get this into a real journal.

Al-Marashi, by the way, has had some interesting things to say on the matter. He complains that his research was "sexed up," by which he means that Downing Street lied about Iraq supporting terrorist groups like Al-Qaida, which he claims they did not, and about numerous other matters in his work. I quote him:

These two dossiers have undermined serious research conducted by think-tanks and policy centres. Number 10 should leave the publications of such reports to professionals who have devoted their careers to such work.

The September 2002 dossier stated that 45 minutes is all Iraq needed to arm and deploy a chemical or biological weapon. Publishing such a figure only proves that Downing Street is not a proper research institution.

No professional analyst would publish a figure such as this, based on only one source. This time span does not take into account the complicated Iraqi chain of command and the technical requirements needed to prepare and launch such a weapon.

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/06/05/do0501.xml)

In fairness, Al-Marashi says that more time is needed to assess whether Iraq had violated relevant UN sanctions concerning WMDs. In other words, while Al-Marashi may be more hawkish than some of our leftists, he too disagrees with the article Casual Observer posted here.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: freda underhill
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 10:56 PM

Meanwhile, back in 1974, an Iraqi delegation "led by Dr Mohammed Al Shukri of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry, but operating under the cover of representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, visited Pfaulder Corporation of Rochester, New York, a specialist in chemical plant manufacture."

Saddam Hussein, The Politics of Revenge, Said K Aburish p 137

goes on to describe the tooing and froing between Iraq and the US that led to the US passing on to the Iraqi government blueprints for their first chemical weapons plant. The author cites letters, and documents which involved both the US government and MI5.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:11 PM

Good work, Nerd! Saves me the trouble of going looking for that--it can require a good-sized block of time to track this stuff down (one first has the read the darned thread to find the reference and backtrack. . .) We owe you one!

In graduate school I was fortunate to have a couple of essays published in print journals in my field. But I went the peer review route you describe. Regarding the publication of theses and disseratations, my university routinely puts them on the web now, but I think you need to be in the university domain (or by proxy server) to access them. They still also go to Michigan for the microfiche route, but many schools are choosing to do both now.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 07:29 AM

CarolC:

"If they've only been moved around a bit, they haven't really been eliminated, have they? "

TRUE- and that is a result of the delay and attempt to get a consensus in the UN. If the US had acted unilateraly, without months of debate and warning, we might have found them still in place- but that is not how we do things.... I wonder why?

*************


As for many of the conmments here, I find that the idea of free speech and people presenting opinions that are not in agreement with some posters seems to be quite a threat to some of you. Personnal attacks do not help to determine the truth of the situation.

If those who believe that WMD have not yet been found, and that Iraq did not have prohibited material that could be used to develop WMD, in violation of the ceasefire, would please define WHAT they would consider as a WMD that WOULD have justified the US attack, I would appreciate it.

As for my friends, they are Israelis, who cameunder SCUD attack during the 1991 war. I guess that means they are not human enough for you folks to consider.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:32 AM

Geeze, BB, do you believe crap like that? I also have friends who are Israelis, but that doesn't mean a SCUD consitutes a weapon of mass destruction in the sense normally used in this kind of senseless debate.

I believe it was you who said something about personal attacks. What do you think a remark like that is??

Take a chill pill.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:37 AM

Amos,

A SCUD with chemical warhead is, by definition, a WMD, in spite of what you might want us to believe.


"that doesn't mean a SCUD consitutes a weapon of mass destruction in the sense normally used in this kind of senseless debate."


Geeze, Amos, do you believe crap like that?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:46 AM

TRUE- and that is a result of the delay and attempt to get a consensus in the UN. If the US had acted unilateraly, without months of debate and warning, we might have found them still in place- but that is not how we do things.... I wonder why?

Not quite, beardedbruce. The UN inspectors were doing a good job of containing and eliminating Saddam's weapons. They wanted to finish the job they started. They warned that an attack on Iraq by the US (and the coalition of the coerced) before they finished the job, would probably accomplish the exact opposite of the results the US said it wanted (elimination of WMDs), and that, instead, whatever WMDs still existed would probably end up in the hands of the wrong people, including terrorists. And this appears to be exactly what has happened.

I'd say the UN inspectors were right about this one. We should have let them finish their job.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:51 AM

I'm sorry. I don't think I have ever read of chemical warheads being used on SCUDS although I know they can be fitted to them. Can you provide me with some information on this practice? It was not used by Iraq against Israel, I am fairly sure.

A

A couple of references:

""The Iraqis had four versions: Scud itself (180-km range), longer-range Scud (half warhead weight, extra range attained by burning all propellant immediately rather than steadily through the flight of the missile), Al Hussein (650-km, attained by reducing warhead weight to 250 kg and increasing the fuel load by 15 percent), and Al Abbas (800-km, achieved by reducing warhead weight to 125 kg, with 30 percent more fuel)." http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/YuenWong.shtml

The Iraqis developed four versions: Scud, longer-range Scud, Al Hussein, and Al Abbas. Apart from the almost unmodified weapon these were not successful missiles as they tended to break up in flight and had small warheads.


General Characteristics
DIA SS-1b SS-1c SS-1d SS-1e
NATO Scud-A Scud-B Scud-C Scud-D
Deployment Date 1957 1965 1965 1980s
Withdrawn 1978
Range 130 km 300 km 575-600km 700 km
CEP (NATO estimate) 4,000 m 900 m 900 m 50 m

http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/s/sc/scud.html

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:59 AM

CarolC,

I respectfully have to disagree with you. If the UN inspectors were doing such a good job, where did the stockpile of chemical warheads found come from? Why were they finding new prohibited material right up to when they left?

Amos,

"I'm sorry. I don't think I have ever read of chemical warheads being used on SCUDS although I know they can be fitted to them. Can you provide me with some information on this practice? It was not used by Iraq against Israel, I am fairly sure."

I was not there, so I must depend on my friend's statements that there were chemical warfare warnings because of the chemical warheads on SCUDs that impacted near their home.

And your figures prove only that 125KG of chemicals, biologicals, or nuclear weapons could be delivered 800 km.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: TIA
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:02 AM

Clint Keller - You are absolutely right in your recollections. Fact is, there are eight chemical weapons disposal facilities newly built or being built in the US (to dispose of US chemical weapons). The army has a Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (CSDP), which, of course, would be a silly thing to have if we didn't have a chemical weapons stockpile.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:05 AM

I respectfully have to disagree with you. If the UN inspectors were doing such a good job, where did the stockpile of chemical warheads found come from? Why were they finding new prohibited material right up to when they left?

The vast majority of Saddam's WMDs had already been accounted for, and in most cases, dealt with accordingly. But the UN inspectors themselves said that they were not finish with the job. They said that they needed more time. They had a very good track record, and should have been given that time to finish the job. Had they been given the opportunity to do so, we wouldn't be worrying about these materials having gotten into the wrong hands.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:13 AM

IMO, that conclusion is subject to (valid) debate. But I agree that there should be concern about where all these "non-existant" WMD components and prohibited material are going.

What I do not understand is how those people who say it did not exist are now saying that it is spreading uncontrolably due to the attack:

IF it did not exist, it cannot go anywhere

IF it did exist, the US was justified in attacking Iraq, IMO.

So what is it to be?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Nerd
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:30 AM

Where you're wrong, beardedbruce, is that it's the warhead, not the missile, that is a WMD. Finding missiles is not finding WMD. You put in one of your posts up above that there are backpack nukes. Thus if you truly defined "systems capable of delivering WMD" such as SCUD missiles as WMD, every Iraqi truck, car, moped, plane, chopper, wheelchair, and citizen was a WMD. The media, like CO's original article, like to exploit people's ignorance about this so they can say "WMD found" when all they have found is a delivery system which can be used to deliver conventional weapons, chemical weapons, or even propoganda bombs. When you find the actual warheads, you have found a WMD.

As for there being a chemical weapons alert in Israel, this is not the same thing as there actually having been chemical weapons used there. I went to a school in NYC that endured about one bomb threat a year, and was evacuated accordingly, but there was never a bomb there. So, can anyone corroborate chemical weapons used in Israel? Just wondering....

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:31 AM

During the attacks on Israel by Iraq with Scud missiles during the first Gulf war there were several initial reports that chemical warheads had been used, these reports were later found to be in error, only conevntional explosive warheads were used, producing as far as I recollect no Israeli fatalities even though they fell on built up areas.

If 125kg of nerve agent had fallen on any built up area then there would have been enourmous numbers of casualties, only a few miligrams of Sarin, GB, VX or Tabun is needed to kill, and if a persisntant agent had been used then the Israelis would have had large areas that would have been rendered uninhabitable for months while they attempted a clean up operation. No reports of that happening that I can find.

Beardedbruce your information in this case is in error, while the panic and terror caused by the first reports was real enough, the reports of chemicals were in the end not true.

The US president had a hard time convincing the Iraeli Prime Minister at the time, not reatliate to the HE warheads, do you seriously think he would have been successful if chemmical warheads had been landing on Tel-Aviv?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:39 AM

IF it did exist, the US was justified in attacking Iraq, IMO.

That just doesn't make any sense. If attacking Iraq is likely to produce the exact opposite result from the one you say you want, there really can not be any justification for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 12:08 PM

I have been looking into the SCUD issue a bit further. From what I have found so far, there is a no official record of SCUD-Bs carrying chem warheads being used.

During the Gulf War under Bush Sr., there were recorded instances of soldiers being affected with symptoms consistent with chem weapons. There were instances reported of soldiers later being told not to report it; nbeing told it was hemmorhoids; and even, in a couple of cases, reportedly dying from symptoms that began. Most of these center around an Iraqi artillery attack that occurred on January 22. I have no way of confirming any of this. However, the anecdotes I have read sound genuine enough.

There is a report that Syria developed a chemical warhead for the SCUD-B.

It should be noted that SCUD missiles have notoriously poor accuracy and using one to deliver a chem or bio warhead would practically guarantee civilian deaths, as there is no way to aim it with any precision.

As far as I know, there is no evidence of Iraq presently possessing any chemical warheads, whether for SCUDS or other delivery systems, except the one Sarin shell that was reported recently. If I understand it correctly that shell was not part of a stockpile of current weapons but was left-over from the Gulf War I era.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:06 PM

Amos:

In regards to the SCUD having a chemical warhead, I was told that the sensors indicated a chemical attack. I could certainly be wrong- but I have more faith in the testimony of my friends than I do of a press ( and government) trying to reduce the tensions over the attack.

As I keep repeating, the Iraqi stockpile of empty warheads, which were designed specifically for chemical weapons, and would have been filled just prior to use, were found. I state again:

If the specialized container is not the WMD,
and the actual chemicals are so easy to make that anyone could do it, and the (prohibited) material required to make it was in Saddam's possesion,

WHAT WOULD YOU ACCEPT as a WMD?

"It should be noted that SCUD missiles have notoriously poor accuracy and using one to deliver a chem or bio warhead would practically guarantee civilian deaths, as there is no way to aim it with any precision."

Exactly... I do not see that there was any other intent. And don't say he would not have used them: Hitler used the V2 with even less accuracy.


CarolC:

"That just doesn't make any sense. If attacking Iraq is likely to produce the exact opposite result from the one you say you want, there really can not be any justification for it. "

True- but I have never said that it would produce the exact opposite result: THAT is the claim of those who deny that the WMD even exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:20 PM

Nerd:

"Where you're wrong, beardedbruce, is that it's the warhead, not the missile, that is a WMD. Finding missiles is not finding WMD"

I have never said otherwise. I have referred to WMD ( weapons ) and prohibited materials ( including the manufacturing facilities and the delivery systems. PLEASE read what I posted! I have tried to be careful in my statements.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:27 PM

I just knew beardedbruce would pull in Hitler and his V2 program as a way to divert the error of his previous posts, he does this all the time, mention Hitler that is!

THERE WERE NO CHEMICAL WARHEADS DROPPED ON ISRAEL DURING THE FIRST GULF WAR, IN THIS YOUR FRIENDS ARE WRONG.

The news reports at the time show many Israelis wearing gas masks but no other protection during this period, if they had been attacked by nerve agents that would have provided very little protection as such agents are quite capable of passing through the skin to attack the victim, normal street clothes would have been of no use either.

If you need reminding of the effects of even a low grade chemical weapon attack, remember the Tokyo subway attacks, several dead and many injured, we saw nothing like that in Israel.

Surely any such act would have given GWB the undeniable ammunition he needed to quell almost any critic, yet he never did, it never happened. The Prime minister of Israel would have reatliated, lets face it, they retaliate in the face of world opinion whenever they like anyway.

False alarms happen all the time with electronic detection equipment, that they did so then is no suprise surely, it has happened several times in Iraq since when coalition forces have found chemical weapons only to state later (usually rather quietly) that it was a false alarm.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:28 PM

True- but I have never said that it would produce the exact opposite result: THAT is the claim of those who deny that the WMD even exist.

No it's not. It's the argument that is being made by the article in the opening post of this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:36 PM

I don't think anyone is claiming that chem warheads were used on Israel. The locations where the chem alarms were reported to have gone off, and the subsequent maximum MOPP alarms sounded, and the anecdotes of serious symptoms, were during Gulf War 1, not in Israel but in Iraq or Kuwait. There is no information indication that SCUDs were involved -- they could have used artillery shells, for all I know.

BB, I hear you about first-hand information. Especially where the military is ocncerned.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:39 PM

So, you concede the article is true?

"The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared. "

How do the weapons shipped out prior to the attack reflect on proliferation caused by the attack? And that goes back to my point:

"TRUE- and that is a result of the delay and attempt to get a consensus in the UN. If the US had acted unilateraly, without months of debate and warning, we might have found them still in place- but that is not how we do things.... I wonder why?"

So what is it? The inspectors were doing such a great job, but the attack would spread out all the WMD and prohibited material, even before the attack, although we should have given the inspectors more time?

It seems to me that the spread could only have been stopped by uimmediate, unannounced action. Like a Nuclear strike. Is that what you think we should have done? Or given more time for Saddam to ship things out? Or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 01:58 PM

BeardedBruce, I would rather that the inspectors had been given a year or two extra to do the job, rather than the 750+ list of US dead that you seem to accept as a price worth paying, not counting god knows how many others who died or suffered serious injury.

A quick hint from history about how well airborne photographs can be manipulated to show just what the interpreter feels needs to be shown. The British employed a Magician to fool the Germans throughout the war, he developed blow up rubber tanks and a whole range of other fake weapons, the Germans accepted that they were real and reacted as they thought was appropriate, wasting time and resources. When the British first got pictures of the V2 at Penemunde it was first thought to be a giant torpedo, its easy to see what you want to see no matter how good you are.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: kendall
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 02:04 PM

All this tap dancing around the facts is boring.
No one died when Clinton lied.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 02:06 PM

And your explaination of why Saddam, under UN sanctions, would WANT to have a fake site?

I regret all the casualties- but I can see the possible use of WMD as causeing far more. Should we just wait until the WMD were used, then nuke the entire region? THAT is what I suspect the previous administration would have done, after more than decimating US force levels, and from the use of cruise missles to attack suspected targets.

My contention is that no matter how long we gave the inspectors, we would not have gotten rid of the WMD. In 12 years, they kept finding more... how long before you say enough? I do not want the next generation having to deal with the failure of the US in 1991 to finish the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 02:16 PM

kendall:

"No one died when Clinton lied. "


1. just when he used cruise missles on aspirin factories to get everyone's mind off his lies

2. Noone died when Nixon lied, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 02:26 PM

beardedbruce, as far as I can see, that article does not in any way show or even suggest that WMD were being moved out of Iraq during the time when the UN inspectors were still in Iraq doing their job. Perhaps you can find some verification for this assertion of yours.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 02:32 PM

Between the first and second gulf wars No scuds etc. were launched at neighbouring states, so what makes you think he was going to do it anyway, you make it sound inevitable. WE all saw how he operated when cornered, make a lot of noise but do nothing, rather than loose his position he would have preffered to remain the big fish in the little pond, a similar situation to Ghadaffi.

If over 12 years the inspectors kept finding more material then at least that was 12 years that the Iraqi's were not using them. No casualty list arose from their admittedly slow inspection work.

It was the interpreters who said it was a missile site not Saddam, they drew their own conclusions, maybe with a little pressure from above. If the site was photographed in May 2003, then I am actually amazed there was much of anything to see after the rather intensive air campaign had already hit just about everything of military value.
We can both be shown a picture but we may see different things in it according to our own preconceptions. It was not so long ago that US intelligence saw a dangerous group of armed Islamists getting ready to fight, Shame those at the wedding had to pay the price for poor interpretation.

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 05:07 PM

No one died when Clinton lied... except for his career...

Didn't that pesky Somalia thing happen on his watch?

Subject: RE: BS: Well, looky here...
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 05:59 PM

And how did Clinton lie to us about Somalia?