Read all the United Nations Security Council Resolutions issued between 1991 and 1998, related to Saddam's interference with Hans Blix's gang and tell me that Hans Blix could be certain there were no weapons.
Also, I've never seen Hans Blix explain why he would claim such when he had identified stocks of chemical weapons that were in Iraq when he was forced to leave and that Saddam Hussein never accounted for.
No, David Kay didn't say that. He said there was no evidence. But, again, he wasn't granted unlimited access by Saddam either.
Guess what, Clinton had plans to invade Iraq as soon as the Liberation of Iraq Act was passed in 1998.
No, I'm still not convinced there were no WMDs. Neither are any of the people you listed -- except maybe for Hans Blix (and that's baffling considering all the WMDs he witnessed that were left in Iraq after 1998).
He was a government bureaucrat.
that's an odd question, IMO, because GW (or any of us ftm) can choose to believe whatever he wishes regardless of any exterior inluence. but it seems to me that when the intel he's receiving isn't jiving with preconceived notions about Iraq, he shoulda had some reason to believe that the path to war wasn't as straight as he had hoped it would be.
Who said it wasn't jibing in March of 2003? While the intelligence may not have been as "slam dunk" as Tenet claimed, there was more than enough reason to believe (and there still is, by the way) Saddam Hussein was harboring terrorists, developing relationships with al Qaeda, and possessing or developing weapons of mass destruction.
There was no intelligence in March of 2003 that said Saddam Hussein absolutely did not have any terrorists in Iraq, absolutely was not developing a relationship with al Qaeda, and absolutely did not have WMDs and related programs.
Then, put all of this against the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks and a fervent desire to prevent another attack and, why take the chance?
"There was no intelligence in March of 2003 that said Saddam Hussein absolutely did not have any terrorists in Iraq, absolutely was not developing a relationship with al Qaeda, and absolutely did not have WMDs and related programs."
There was no intelligence in March of 2003 that said Saddam Hussein absolutely did have any terrorists in Iraq, absolutely was developing a relationship with al Qaeda, and absolutely did have WMDs and related programs.
The WH suppressed and classified all doubts in the intel community about the above claims, so that the Dems in Congress would sign on. ie, the Dems did NOT have the same intel as the WH.
PNAC/AEI decided to go after Iraq's oil while Clinton was president and asked him to invade.
"why take the chance?"
Just take a look at Iraq today, and all the carnage is has produced, and will produce as longa dubya is unchecked. The USA and M/E are less secure now, there are more terrorists now, than in Feb 2003.
Last edited by boutons_; 07-20-2007 at 01:25 PM.
this has been covered ad naseum, so I'll just reply by saying that you and I have differing opinions on the weight and breadth of the evidence regarding those subjects.
that's an impossible standard to meet, so why use it as justification?There was no intelligence in March of 2003 that said Saddam Hussein absolutely did not have any terrorists in Iraq, absolutely was not developing a relationship with al Qaeda, and absolutely did not have WMDs and related programs.
"Why take the chance" is an even lower burden than "more likely than not," so I guess you'll understand when I don't find that argument persuasive.Then, put all of this against the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks and a fervent desire to prevent another attack and, why take the chance?
Let's just disagree and move on.
You're right. And, in March of 2003, my position was in agreement with virtually everyone who took to the public airwaves to expound on the issue; Democrats, former Presidents, pundits, military leaders (retired and current), diplomats, leaders from almost every Western country in the world, etc...
Because all Saddam had to do was allow unfettered access by inspectors during the 90's and this standard would have been met. After the attacks of 9/11, we didn't have the luxury to play his games of hide and seek, resolution and resist, anymore. There were much bigger issues to address and, from all the evidence, Saddam Hussein was up to his neck involved in it.
From his common contacts in Sudan to his payments to "Palestinian" terrorists to his harboring Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas to his terrorist training camps at Salman Pak. Time was up and he was still balking at full cooperation and adherance to UNSC resolutions.
Fine by me. You're the one that keeps bringing up justification for a war we're already in. Regardless of whether or not we ever agree on the legitimacy of the war, the fact remains, our withdrawal will have consequences that are unacceptable.
It will leave Iraq open to a "real" civil war.
It will leave Iraq succeptible to al Qaeda's influence, just as did Russia's abandonment of Afghanistan and our abandonment of Somalia.
It will probably result in genocide -- on the scale of that in which people want us to militarily intervene in Darfur.
It will certainly result in our having to go back because of the establishment of terrorist camps and bases of operation from which al Qaeda starts launching attacks on Western assets.
Don't forgt paul O'neil stating the exact same thing about Bush. he said that right after 9/11 they already talking about Iraq...but,but,but they wanted to give peace a chance..
GGA how long did it take us to go into Iraq after 9/11?
How many votes in Congress?
Did they give Saddam a chance to go to a neutral country
and let others take control of Iraq?
Did we go to the UN and how many months did we
spend there?
"he said that right after 9/11 they already talking about Iraq"
wrong, O'Neill said dubya was talking about Iraq in the FRIST cabinet meeting after the Repugs took office. Iraq invasion for oil-grab was on neo- /PNAC/AEI agenda in the 90s.
Sorry. I knew O'Neill made comments like that..but of course the Yoni's and ray's shrugged it off as someone with an agenda..
So? Do you think President Clinton just let the "Liberation of Iraq Act," passed in 1998, sit on his desk without making any plans?
I'll bet they made plans to invade a couple of dozen countries after 9/11.
Sudan and Somalia were probably way up on the list as well.
In fact, and this is something of which you may or may not be aware, the United States of America has military assets currently on the ground in approximately 100 countries on operations related to the war on terror.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Which begs the question, if the UNSC passed resolution after resolution demanding Saddam quit obstructing inspectors -- which he never did -- how can Hans Blix assert there were no WMDs in Iraq?
Further, if Hans Blix reported there were tons of chemical weapons in Iraq, in 1998, when the inspectors were run out of the country, and Saddam Hussein never accounted for them, how can Hans Blix assert there were no WMDs in Iraq?
Finally, if by quoting me on this you're claiming that I elevated Hans Blix to decision-maker status, you'd be wrong. He was merely a bureaucrat sent to Iraq by decision-makers. That he turned out to be like Joseph Wilson, whose public comments contradicted his professional findings, doesn't make him anything more than the publicity Wilson is.
Even if Saddam had some WMD, there is the question of them being a threat to the USA, how to deliver they to the USA. So quit arguing rat , the big picture was the Saddam's primay enemy was Iran and Kuwait,not the USA.
I'm thinking the whole issue is a bit more complex than your mind is able to grasp, DarkReign.
WHERE ARE IRAQ'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?
**The preceding Strategic Insight is a summary from an article en led, "How Iraq Conceals and Obtains its Weapons of Mass Destruction" available from The Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal, March 2003.**May 1, 2003
After the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein conducted a systematic concealment operation to disrupt the mission of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), whose mandate was to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The second team of inspectors, recons uted as the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) had the formidable task of uncovering the work of Iraq's concealment apparatus: a network of intelligence agencies, military units and government ministries assigned to procure, conceal and defend Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It is important now to have a full understanding of this concealment apparatus, as this can help uncover where Iraq's weapons of destruction could have been hidden. At this juncture, the U.S. forces deployed in Iraq have to unravel the activities of a network that once consisted of thousands of people from Iraq's General Intelligence, Special Security Organization, Military Industry Commission and the Special Republican Guards.
The elite Special Security Organization, Amn al-Khas, headed by Saddam's son Qusay, served as one of the major command and control oversight bodies of this concealment network. General Intelligence (al-Mukhabarat) had at least two sub-directorates involved in the concealment effort—a covert operations unit and a covert procurement unit. Military Intelligence (al-Istikhabarat) had a role in the strategic concealment of Iraq's WMDs, while General Security's (al-Amn al-'Amm) military unit, The Emergency Forces (al-Quwwat al-Tawari'), provided security for the facilities that housed these programs. The Special Republican Guard (SRG) (al-Haris al-Jamhuri al-Khas) played numerous roles in the transportation, concealment and guarding of military facilities and materials. One of the most important agencies of all in the concealment operation was the Military Industrial Commission (MIC), which was part of the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI). Both MIMI and MIC oversaw Iraq's military industries and sought to conceal sensitive activities from UN inspectors.[1]
These agencies formed a vast, complex and wide-ranging labyrinth of security organizations, all of which played a role in the procurement and concealment of Iraq's WMD program. The duties and functions of these agencies overlapped, complying with Saddam's security doctrine of not allowing any one agency to have a monopoly over any one area of securing and concealing Iraq's WMD program. While the agencies played a key role in this concealment process, its coordination was clearly a family affair. One source writes of the coordination of the concealment process as, "So important was this responsibility that the small number of men selected for the task were chosen only after the most careful vetting of their families, their tribal ties, their absolute loyalty to Saddam."[2] The head of these agencies generally are from Saddam's immediate family, his al-Bu Nasir clan or from his hometown of Tikrit. Thus, if these hidden WMD facilities were to be found, members of Saddam's clan or family would need to be captured and interrogated.
In May of 1991, Saddam Hussein formed a Concealment Operations Committee (COC) to be supervised by Qusay.[3] UNSCOM inspectors became aware of the existence of this covert network as a result of inspections and interviews conducted between 1991 and 1996. They believed that this apparatus, created in 1991, was designed to hide do ents, computer records, and equipment related to its WMD program. As a result, UNMOVIC, and its predecessor UNSCOM's mandate has evolved from inspection agencies to detective agencies, in order to investigate, impede and unravel the activities of this Iraqi concealment network. The U.S. forces tasked with finding these weapons will have to conduct the same investigative activities; thus, discovering where Iraq's WMD infrastructure is located could be a lengthy process.
The concealment apparatus launched a coordinated effort to thwart full discovery of Iraq's proscribed programs. The concealment apparatus destroyed or bulldozed WMD related facilities and constructed false or decoy facilities or altered suspected facilities to deceive inspectors. UNSCOM found a do ent in Iraq in August 1995 that demonstrates how these tactics were implemented. The Iraqi do ent, known as "The al-Atheer Center for the Development of Materials Production: Report of Achievements Accomplished from 1 June 1990 to 7 June 1991" recorded how the facility staff was ordered to remove evidence of nuclear weapons activities, evacuate do ents to remote sites, physically alter the facility and to conduct mock inspections to prepare for UN inspectors.[4] According to Secretary of State Powell's briefing to the UN on February 5th, 2003, "We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. To all outward appearances, even to experts, the infrastructure looks like an ordinary civilian operation."[5] The Iraqis learned how to conduct such tactics based on their own innovations as well as through KGB assistance in the early 1980's.
The concealment apparatus focused on concealing only critical materials and WMD components, while destroying non-essential items unilaterally or handing them over to inspectors. It was reported that these critical components of the nuclear, biological, chemical and missile programs were dispersed to the environs surrounding Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, where they were concealed in presidential palaces or the residences of Iraqi security officials belonging to the Special Security Organization and Special Republican Guards.[6] Proscribed materials and do ents could be concealed in places ranging from the basements of the official state buildings to private farms of officers and officials. For example, during the last months of 1997, the Iraqis transported sensitive military materials to a large shed used to house military uniforms, within the compound of the state Ba'ath party office in Baghdad.[7] A White House report issued in January 2003, states, "We have many reports of WMD material being buried, concealed in lakes, relocated to agricultural areas and private homes, or hidden beneath Mosques or hospitals. In one report such material was buried in the banks of the Tigris River during a low water period."[8] Thus, finding the evidence of Iraq's WMD program does not merely entail searching specific WMD related facilities, but a search of Iraq itself.
Do ents of Iraq's military program could also be easily concealed or evacuated from locations prior to the arrival of the inspectors or moved while armed guards were stalling the UN personnel. Do ents relating to the WMD program were either destroyed or forged, or converted into microfiche to facilitate their concealment.[9] Richard Butler, former chairman of UNSCOM relates that, during one inspection, the UNSCOM team was delayed for 20 minutes in front of a facility, as the Iraqis scrambled to remove computer hard drives with critical WMD information stored on them.[10] At times, these materials were moved in the presences of UN inspectors. For example, during an inspection on September 17, 1997 inspectors witnessed the movement and burning of do ents, which were then emptied into a nearby river.[11] The White House report mentions, "On January 16, 2003, a joint UNMOVIC/IAEA team found a significant cache of do ents related to Iraq's uranium enrichment program in the home of Iraqi scientist Faleh Hassan."[12] Even Hans Blix referred specifically to this instance during his presentation on January 28, saying, "On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of do ents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield do ents by placing them in private homes." Thus, Iraq's concealment practices including hiding do ents and materials in locations considered unlikely to be found continued with UNMOVIC inspectors. Therefore do entation relating to Iraq's WMD program may still be hidden in homes or other civilian facilities.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that WMD materials are hidden in mobile facilities. An unnamed Iraqi defector details this action in an interview in Amman:
German intelligence reported that WMD laboratories are hidden in trucks that appear completely normal on the outside.[14]
The Mojahedin-e Khalq, an armed opposition group to the Iranian government based in Iraq, has reportedly played a role in this concealment effort. Former members of this organization informed UNSCOM that Iraqi WMD equipment had been hidden in one of their training camps in the vicinity of Baghdad. When inspectors attempted to visit the site in 1997, armed guards of the Mojahedin blocked them from entering the site. It is believed that the Mojahedin facilities continue to store proscribed WMD materials.[15]
The vast nature of Saddam's concealment apparatus is an indication of how much he had invested in protecting the "crown jewels" of his military arsenal. The discovery of buried mobile labs near Karbala in the south of Iraq on April 14th, 2003 demonstrated that while chemical agents were not found, that Saddam did have the capability to produce such munitions. The nature of this apparatus may indicate that a "smoking gun" cache of chemical or biological warheads may not be found, but the infrastructure to create such munitions or a "breakout capability" in fact did exist.
References
1. Jeremy Binnie, ed., Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments: The Gulf States (London: Jane's Information Group, 2001) p. 219.
2. Andrew burn and Patrick burn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, (New York: Harper Collins, 1999) p. 107.
3. Dilip Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran After the Gulf Wars (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 49.
4. CNS "UNSCOM's Comprehensive Review: Actions by Iraq to Obstruct Disarmament".
5. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, "Remarks to the United Nations Security Council", February 5, 2003.
6. Hiro, p.61-62.
7. UK Ministry of Defense and Foreign Commonwealth Office, "Ba'ath Party Offices In Aadhamiyya Used To Conceal Sensitive Military Material"
8. The White House, "What Does Disarmament Look Like?", January 2003. p.6
9. Gordon Corera, "Playing the Iraq Inspection Game", Jane's Intelligence Review, November 2002, p. 42-43.
10. Christopher Wren, "UN Weapons Inspection Chief Tells of Iraqi Tricks", The New York Times, 27 Jan. 1998.
11. "UNSCOM Chronology of Main Events", December 1999.
12. The White House, "What Does Disarmament Look Like?", January 2003. p.6
13. "Ranking Iraqi Army Officer Reveals Saddam's Ploy To Outwit UN Inspectors," Panorama, January 23, 2003 pp. 36-40. FBIS EUP20030118000254
14. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "German Intelligence on Mobile Labs." RFE/RL Iraq Report vol.6 no. 5, February 2003.
15. Kenneth Timmerman, "'Gray Lady' Runs Ad For Terrorists," Insight Magazine, January 24, 2003.
By Ibrahim al-Marashi of the Center for Contemporary Conflict (CCC). The CCC is the research arm of the National Security Affairs Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Naval Postgraduate School, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Keep in mind when you read the following, it's in 1999 and when you see the acronym UNSCOM, that's Hans Blix's group.
7. Michael R. Gordon, "U.S. says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts," New York Times, 8 September 2002.Of particular concern is Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) arsenal, which many intelligence officials and military experts are convinced that Saddam is aggressively rebuilding. Saddam attempted to conceal his weapons infrastructure from U.N. inspectors throughout the 1990s, and since 1998 has refused to allow inspectors back into Iraq, even at the cost of international sanctions. The exact size and character of Saddam's WMD arsenal is a matter of speculation, but the arsenal's potential contours can be made out:
- Biological Weapons. In its report to the U.N. in 1999 the UNSCOM (U.N. Special Commission) concluded that Saddam had concealed nearly 160 biological bombs and more than a dozen missile warheads filled with anthrax and other pathogens. According to the latest intelligence reports 300 secret biological weapons facilities have been reactivated in Iraq since the withdrawal of U.N. inspectors.[6] Quoting Saddam's brother-in-law Hussein Kamel, who defected in 1995, a recent New York Times report stated that U.N. and American records both show that Iraq made more than 22,000 gallons of anthrax and 100,000 gallons of botulinum toxin, one of the world's most lethal poisons. The fate of these weapons is still unknown.[7] According to World Health Organization (WHO) experts, Iraq could have also obtained smallpox virus from a natural outbreak of smallpox that swept Iraq in 1971 and 1972.[8]
- Chemical Weapons. UNSCOM records show that much of Saddam's once-vast chemical weapons stockpile remains unaccounted for. The Iraqi government in 1997 claimed to have destroyed 3.9 tons of lethal VX nerve agent, along with 550 mus gas s s and 107,000 special artillery s casings. But because the Iraqis did not back this accounting with compelling evidence, UNSCOM dismissed the claim as a lie. Meanwhile, Iraqi insiders contend that Saddam's chemical munitions work is continuing in locations like Falluja, a site known for previous chemical weapons activity. Iraqi defector Ahmed-al-Shemri (pseudonym), who claimed to have worked for many years at the Muthanna State Enterprises—once Iraq's weapons plant— disclosed in August 2002 that Iraq had the ability to make at least 50 tons of liquid nerve agent. Shemri also said that Iraq had invented in 1994, and is now producing, a new solid nerve agent (VX) that clings to soldier's protective clothing and makes decontamination difficult.[9]
- Nuclear Weapons. Experts suggest that in 1991 Iraq was very close to being able to develop a nuclear device. However, weeks of Gulf War bombing followed by years of intrusive inspections neutralized the country's capacity to synthesize nuclear fuel. Intelligence reports now suggest that during recent years Saddam has developed secret uranium enrichment facilities, and also that Iraqi nuclear scientists currently possess enough equipment and expertise to build a nuclear bomb quickly. The previously mentioned New York Times report stated that in the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium. According to intelligence and security analysts, if Saddam manages to obtain the necessary amount of nuclear fuel, he has the means to develop a nuclear weapon.[10]
8. ibid.
9. ibid.
10. Jobby Warrick, "In Assessing Iraq's Arsenal, The Reality is Uncertainty," Washington Post, 31 July 2002
Yoni, what are you trying to do? Don't you know liberals cannot tolerate the thruth?
Here's another interesting commentary from 2000 and, for those in lefty-land, that prior to President Bush taking office.
NIX TO BLIX: MAN WHO CERTIFIED IRAQ AS NON-NUCLEAR IS UNLIKELY TO FIND -- OR EVEN TO SEEK -- SADDAM'S HIDDEN WEAPONS
How prophetic was that?Security Council's Choice is Sure Sign of End of 'Containment'
Center for Security Policy
SECURITY FORUM No. 00-F 6
27 January 2000
In a hugely disappointing decision yesterday to fill a senior UN bureaucratic post, the Security Council spoke volumes about its depleted appe e for further confrontations with -- to say nothing of additional efforts to punish -- Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The Security Council formally endorsed Secretary General Kofi Annan's recommendation to appoint Hans Blix. a Swedish diplomat with a checkered record, to become the first head of the successor to the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM).
Blix was the lowest-common-denominator choice for the job after Russia, China and France vetoed [can you say oil-for-food scandal? --y.] his much more conscientious compatriot, Rolf Ekeus. He is a natural choice to run the sort of Potemkin inspection operation that those three countries clearly have in mind for their once-and-future client, Iraq. Given Blix's dismal sixteen-year performance as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- an organization that had an uncanny track-record during his tenure of not finding evidence of nuclear weapons activities prohibited by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Thus not only Iraq, but Iran, North Korea, Brazil, Argentina and South Africa were among the nations that succeeded in largely concealing indigenous or collaborative nuclear weapons programs from Blix's IAEA.
Unfortunately, as the following, recently published editorials make clear, the Blix appointment is only the latest in a litany of serious mistakes made by the Clinton-Gore Administration with respect to Iraq. If not immediately reversed, these mistakes will have the effect of empowering and emboldening Saddam -- and set the stage for serious grief for the United States and its regional allies down the road.
This would take too long and would be absolutely too easy to debunk each and everyone of your right winged cut and paste jobs.
Please send someone who isnt a Hannity sheeple using bullet points from others arguments. Please for the life of God, use your own idea's.
When no AQ/Saddam link, no WTC/Saddam link, no WMD found, dubya waved off all the rat yoni cites as "bad intel".
How can somebody devote so much time to making themselves look so stupid? Yoni makes a decent point every now and again but he refuses to budge on any single mishap that this administration gets itself involved into. He's like a giant .
Iraqi Watch is right-wing? Since when?
I don't think you can refute them. That's your problem.
Look, I think the war in Iraq is legitimate and justified. It doesn't do any good to get down in the weeds over things that, in hindsight, can be shown to have been wrong. The point I was making in this thread is that the conventional wisdom prior to March 2003 was that Iraq had WMDs.
Were there people that disagreed. Yes. But they were in the minority.
In fact, if the person who criticized my posting as being right-wing cut and paste would go to Iraqi Watch and look at some of the other articles, they'd find some that were critical of a view that Iraq had WMDs. But, to be sure, those articles were in the minority and, in fact, I found all of them were by the same author.
WMDs weren't the only justification but, even if they had been, the concensus among EVERYONE, in March of 2003, was that Iraq had them. And, I don't care what Hans Blix said because, as is shown, UNSCOM and UNMOVIC didn't have the access necessary to make a determination there were no WMDs or programs in Iraq.
When they were kicked out in '98, there were TONS of chemical weapons unaccounted for. Blix never clears up the discrepancy.
I guess I need to preamble every one of my posts with the following:
I disagree with the Bush administration on immigration policy. I disagree with the Bush administration's continuance of the idiotic war on drugs. I disagree with the Bush administration's idiotic move to reach across the aisle to Teddy Kennedy on education reform. I think signing McCain-Feingold was stupid. I think the administration doesn't grab the bully pulpit on Iraq enough. I think this administration, while sticking to its guns, is way to conciliatory and compromising to the left and tolerates way too much of the partisan and damaging rhetoric before responding.
I could go on...but, on his prosecution of the war, I believe its legitimacy, his rationale, and the importance of winning far, far, far outweigh any miscalculations. In fact, none of the mistakes, so far, would have changed the need to fight it.
No war plan ever survived first contact with the enemy.
One more thing.
If Saddam Hussein wasn't dangerous in March of 2003, at the rate al Qaeda was flowing into the country and with the way Russia, Germany, France, and Kofi were whittling away at sanctions...it was just a matter of time before he was going to be dangerous.
Fact: The sanctions regime was being undermined and was crumbling thanks to nefarious actors in the U.N.
Fact: al Qaeda was fleeing Afghanistan to Iraq.
Fact: If he didn't have them, he wanted WMDs and maintained the skilled people, precursors, plans, and equipment to quickly recons ute his programs.
him. May he rot in .
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