Anon

Does a madman really need a loaded gun before you move to take him off the streets, or is it OK to put him in a rubberroom before he goes postal?

That's really what it boils down to in the end.

dalem

Wouldn't matter. The people aligned against OIF are aligned against it no matter what. We've found all the circumstantial evidence we could ever hope for and it is pooh-poohed routinely. If we found 1,000 shells people like you would just start demanding that we find 5,000, etc.

Which is why that argument was never made. You seem to think that someone is claiming that we found things we haven't found yet.

OIF is a damn good thing irrespective of whether WMD are ever found or were ever there or not. Just ask the Iraqis.

-dale

leolover

no doubt that it was pretty good to get rid of Saddam

but the main statement for OIF was that Saddam actually has WMDs (remeber the story of mobile laboratorys for production of whatever and so on), and that he is trying to get more (the bomb).

no one of these WMDs he was supposed to have were found, so one of the reasons for OIF seems to be wrong

tell me what that looks like?

Edit: if Saddam is such a crazy madman (and he is pretty mad), why was iraq not liberated right after ODS??????

Dreadnought

That is not true. WMD were found however the rest of the world didnt feel cozy with the quanities so they deemed it a farse. But yet had he used them again while everbody was debating they would have been screaming why didnt we do something. No win situation.

dalem

You are remembering it incorrectly.

The main reason was regime change before Saddam's Iraq became an imminent threat. Get your facts straight.

It looks like you don't know your facts, is what it looks like.

-dale

leolover

well, if i remember correctly Collin Powell made a speech about Iraq and Saddam at the Security Council.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...889531,00.html

the main statement is that Iraq is uncooperative (no problem for me to believe that), but he says also that there are WMDs, which were hidden from inspections.

the matter is where the f*ck they are now? Syria? Somewhere digged in the sand? or did they never exist?

nobody knows.

another thing is what Powell later stated about his own speech:

"Powell has since called that speech before the UN a "blemish" on his career"

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...389200,00.html
(sorry time is short, no better link found)

looks like an apology....

Dreadnought

Doesnt matter when mustard gas shells were found in Iraq. They qualify as WMD. Hence he was forewarned about his deceptions more then once. And he payed for it through having his regime overthrown and his fellow countrymen liberated. The rest is up to them to sort out their government and religious issues. Hell they even arrested and jailed the man responsible for shipping him the actual chemicals. Nobody blindly buys these chemicals they were made for one reason WMD. But the world seems to overlook these strange little facts.

Officer of Engineers

I've said it once and I will say it again. I was wrong. However, even using today's evidence, I cannot see how I would arrive at any other conclusion other than Saddam still had his stockpiles. Those chem shells were in perfectly maintained conditions. That means someone inspected them, signed for them, and maintained them - all when they should have been destroyed. If they were rusting away, I can see yeah someone forgot but perfectly maintained? That more than raise my eyebrows.

__________________
Chimo

leolover

got a link for the WMDs that where found in Iraq? where they really operational or legacys?

Dreadnought

Im with you OOE
Im sure you can relate to this. Nobody that has their hands in the military planning ever goes backwards its always forwards with weapons programs unless they are either too expensive or accident prone. Sadaam had them and everybody knows it but you cant expect them to agree with a western power that said he did and proved he did although the political reasoning was shuffled so much that they completely confused true efforts with speculation in all of those debates involved with its liberation and the very reasons for it. Saddam was a ruthless bastard and he needed to go. Now he needs to pay for his crimes but the world dont seem to be listening to witness testimony at his hearing. They are just more inclined to disagree with us.

Dreadnought

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9907/...nup/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...als/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/US/9612/05/gulf.w...ons/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

When you need more just ask

With clues such as above I would say they could draw a certain conclusion.

Blademaster

Maybe there were some confusions and the people doing the maintenance were ignorant that they were chemical weapons?

Besides how many shells did we find in intact shape? Very few. Perhaps it was an anomaly.

Officer of Engineers

Then, they couldn't be maintained, could they? You have to know what you're doing but aside from that, the paperwork alone is a red flag to anyone in authority who wanted them destroyed ... unless they don't want them destroyed.

A couple of dozen but that's a couple of dozen too many. Like I said, if they were rusting away, yeah, I can see "oops, we forgot." But they were not and that raised my suspicions to no end.

Shek

I don't know of any comprehensive link that will list all the precursors found as well as the empty shells as well as the handful of filled shells post-invasion. Here's one thread with a link of a related story from Foxnews that popped up in a Google search. Unfortunately, the farther you get past an event, the deeper in a search that you have to go because blogs will continue to get hits and show up first, masking where the actually MSM article is.

'Nerve gas bomb' explodes in Iraq

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Dreadnought

Agreed Shek blogs are a killer to the net..lol Its surprising how much WAB turns up on a Google search.