IAEA: Not 377 tons, at least 138 less, maybe none

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

BTW, it wasn't the 101st who cleared/investigated Al Qaqaa, it was the 3rd ID.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in547667.shtml

He even murdered two prominent Shiite Mullahs who he thought were organizing Shiite rebellion against him. Now that hardly sounds like a man who was trying to cozy up to Al-Queda or the Islamic Jihadists, doesn't it?

You sure don't know much about Islam. The religion's history ( even the split between Sunnis and Shi'ites) has been marked by rulers/clerics on one side assassinating rulers/clerics on the other side.

So Saddam, who considered himself a modern day apostate, and claimed he would unite all of Arabia in one glorious "nation", killing a few leaders of religious sects, hardly registers as noteworthy in the history of Islam.

How that's supposed to prove that it would somehow prevent him from cozying up to Osama or IJ is beyond me. Osama wouldn't have given a flip, and IJ had bigger things to worry about than who Saddam was killing in his own country.

But again, leaders of countries/religions/sects killing others who opposed them in and around the Arabian Peninsula/Mesopotamia is hardly *shocking*.

But you wouldn't know this, because it's not on the Democratic talking points memo you got in email this morning, nor was it in the archives.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

The I.A.E.A. had it secured.

The IAEA's own report said that their seals could easily be cir vented via the ventilation shafts for the buildings at Al Qaqaa.

Try again.

[Nbadan]

That was in the 80s dumbass. You're just like Kerry, living way in the past.

So what? Cheney was there, so was Donald Rumsfeld, and who was President at the time? George H.W. Bush. Only a blind man could avoid seeing the correlation. They knew Saddam possessed WMD's at one time cause they had the receipts.

[Nbadan]

But again, leaders of countries/religions/sects killing others who opposed them in and around the Arabian Peninsula/Mesopotamia is hardly *shocking*.

That maybe true if Saddam was a religious man, but he wasn't. He didn't need to do anything to please his Baathists (Sunni) base cause they would have, out of fear, done anything for him anyway.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Try again dumb . Reagan was in office at the time, the Iran-Iraq war finished in '88. That was James Baker, Casper Weinberger, and Co. seeings you don't know your history.

Even blind men know when GHWB was elected, and when the Iraq-Iran war ended.

[Nbadan]

George Bush was director of the CIA at the time dumb . Not president, but still there.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

That maybe true if Saddam was a religious man, but he wasn't. He didn't need to do anything to please his Baathists (Sunni) base cause they would have, out of fear, done anything for him anyway.

You realize that the whole Iraq-Iran war started because Saddam deported or murdered the entire Shi'ite leadership in Iraq, right?

And BTW, Saddam was a religious man. He saw himself as a caliph, and his grand vision was uniting all of Arabia under his rule.

Quick google...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1023/p01s04-wome.html

Aburish also points to the way Iraqi officials a few years ago stopped using the traditional Arab hug and kiss on the cheek in greeting the president, and instead began kissing his lapels. "That's what you do to a holy man," he says.

Such signs appear to confirm what expert observers have long seen as Hussein's "exaggerated sense of his own heroic role in history," as burn puts it, illustrated by his dedication to rebuilding the ancient city of Babylon even at the height of the Iran-Iraq war.

The Iraqi leader has made no secret of his ambition to build on his deep nationalism to become the undisputed leader of the Arab people, defying the West in the fashion of the late Egyptian president Gamel Abdul Nasser.

And on the eve of the American invasion, this sure sounds like a "secular" speech...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...869642,00.html

Look, I know you're ing stupid, but wrap your brain (however small it is) around this... Saddam thought he would be the caliphe (religious leader) that would reunite all of Arabia and Mesopatamia into one grand nation, with him as the leader. You can say he was Ba'athist and secular all you want, but fact is, especially from '92 on, his sermons, rhetoric, and actions were all theological in nature.

An Arabic woman from Jordan in my Islam class last spring did her thesis on Saddam Hussein, and all he ever did (when he wasn't thumbing his nose at the US and UN) was preach endlessly about being the grand ruler of Islam and uniting all of the Muslim lands once again under the singular nation of Arabia.

This is lost on you because it doesn't come from democraticunderground or salon, but it's the truth.

have a good day.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

So what if he was involved with the CIA. You said the other day the CIA was busy using the drug trade to run this country, so he was obviously too busy to deal with ing up the Middle East.

[Marcus Bryant]

Had Kerry gotten more of his fellow Senators to agree that more of the Iraqi aid should have been as loans and not unrepayable grants, as W wanted, it would have been W who voted against the $87 billion dollar Iraq give-away.

Ha. If Kerry hadn't voted that way because Howard Dean was making noise in the primaries his vascillatory self wouldn't have been exposed as badly as it was.

[Marcus Bryant]

The I.A.E.A. had it secured. Saddam was living up to his confirmation obligations up to March of 2003, when the U.S. kicked out I.A.E.A inspectors immediately before invading.

First off, the IAEA didn't even verify that the material was there in March 2003, only that they saw some of the seals in place for the HMX but they apparently didn't even check the structures housing the RDX. Even the IAEA acknowledges that there were other entry points into those buildings.

Secondly, how was the IAEA going to prevent Hussein from doing whatever the he wanted? They couldn't. The only reason he had that material in the first place even though he wasn't supposed to have it originally as you have pointed out is that he opted to do as he pleased and the UN bent over for him.

[JoeChalupa]

Kerry was using the intelligence he had at the time. It happens.

[Useruser666]

That's fine Joe. Just remember how that street runs two ways. Spread the word!

[Yonivore]

[spurster]

Whether its 380 tons or 200 tons or 500 tons or whatever, I think you are missing the forest for the trees. BushCo thought that once Baghdad fell, the rest of it would be a cakewalk. Iraqis would toss them flowers, love each other, and form a US-friendly democracy. BushCo would pick up the terrorists, the WMDs, and the nukes and go home. Why would you need to guard any of the weapon depots in this scenario? Instead, they allowed anything less than a WMD to walk off. Whatever else you might say about the war, they blew this part big time.

[Marcus Bryant]

So the US had to lead an invasion of Iraq because Hussein had weapons which cons uted a grave threat to the United States. Welcome aboard.

Instead, they allowed anything less than a WMD to walk off.

You are assuming those weapons were even there when the US forces first arrived and that is a claim in serious dispute at the moment.

Hussein could have moved those weapons as even the IAEA admits prior to the invasion. Lest we forget the Russian angle which is being looked into at the moment.

Also of note is the fact that the material in dispute is precisely the type of explosive which could be used in a nuclear device, yet the UN/IAEA allowed Hussein to keep the material instead of destroying it because he claimed it was needed for "mining and construction."

[Nbadan]

You are assuming those weapons were even there when the US forces first arrived and that is a claim in serious dispute at the moment

Facts are facts. There were tons and tons of HMX at Al-Qa Qaa when the 3rd ID reached the complex. No one is disputing that, not even the Washington Times, who we have to remember is owned by Reverand Moon who would like nothing better than to see George Bush re-elected. Instead right-wing pundits, like Glen Beck this morning, are harping about there only being 3 tons of BMX. What a en asshole.

[Marcus Bryant]

There were tons and tons of HMX at Al-Qa Qaa when the 3rd ID reached the complex. No one is disputing that,

BULL . That is clearly what is in serious dispute. There is no evidence that it was there. Get up to speed. Where have you been? Arkansas?

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

BushCo thought that once Baghdad fell, the rest of it would be a cakewalk.

I never remember hearing this. Even when he declared major combat ops over in Iraq, he said it would be tough going in the future and we'd be there for the long haul. Typical Democratic revisionist BS history.

Facts are facts. There were tons and tons of HMX at Al-Qa Qaa when the 3rd ID reached the complex.

You're right, there could have been "tons and tons", a whole three tons, there by the IAEA's own admission. You got Bush, he's busted.