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.