Well let's see, GUEST,Lily - 01 Jan 07 - 05:59 PM

"I doubt very much if Teribus and Beardedbruce will ever be convinced when the proof is there for all to see,"

OK what about all this proof.

Sale of "dual purpose" materials. Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture approaches the US for chemicals required to make fertiliser, do you sell it to them? Iraqi Ministry of Health approaches a German Company for X-ray machines, do you sell them to them?

Of course you do, those sales taken at face value are entirely innocent, everything appears to be in order. Doesn't alter the fact that Saddam used the first to assist in the manufacture of WMD, and the latter could be modified to provide triggers for nuclear weapons.

Now Iran/Iraq War started when, good people?

US's first approach, by means of a unofficial "civilian" contact was when? - The Rumsfeld meeting with Saddam Hussein - No official diplomatic links existed between Iraq and the USA from 1967 to this date.

The samples, "the U.S. Government provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly diseases. According to the letter from Dr. Satcher to former Senator Donald Riegle, many of the materials were hand carried by an Iraqi scientist to Iraq after he had spent 3 months training in the CDC laboratory."

Absolutely correct, they did, the entire consignment was shipped to Iraq as the carry-on cabin luggage of one Iraqi scientist. The purpose of the shipment, was to bolster Iraqi defence against Chemical & Bacteriological/Biological attack by Iran, who also were armed with such weapons. CDC, remember good people, those initials stand for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - it is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, apart from being a Government Department it has no link or official tie-up to the Pentagon. The technical support and assistance, received by Iraq to produce these agents and the means to weaponise them coming from Soviet Russia. Let me recap again between 1973 and 1990 Russia supplied Iraq/Saddam with 68.9% of his weaponry while the USA supplied 0.5%. Very convincing figures indeed if it happens to be proof you want to consider.

Another great left-wing, anti-war, anti-Bush myth, relates to "Shock and Awe" that Ifor seems to be so worked up about. While a "Shock and Awe" campaign was unleashed in 1991 against Iraqi cities and infrastructure, no such campaign was used in 2003. I can remember vaguely Bobert quoting some article written by a guy with a weird Doctorate of Divinity stating that the US were going to use nuclear weapons as part of a "Shock and Awe" bombardment of Iraq, in which tens of thousands of Patriot Missiles were going to rain down on Iraq. Never actually happened of course, the statistics just don't back it up. But it does explain one thing. coming to think of it:

- If you have managed to convince yourself that there was indeed a "Shock and Awe" bombardment, when in actual fact there wasn't

- Then you might just believe that the figures given out as a very shakey estimate by John Hopkins might just be real, even when those responsible for drawing up that report state that they providing estimates not factual figures.