ned kelly

Shek, i, the IAEA, the UN and a whole lot of people would disagree. in fact tats the central theme of a lot of their reports and the book i mentioned. yes they had C & B and were trying to reconstitute a nuclear program till 92 but couldn't and gave up. saddam didn't want to tell the US he didn't have them so he could scare his neighbours.

not reactivated...very much gone and nowhere nere being "reactivated"

Bluesman

Shek is correct.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

gunnut

We have something like that in criminal justice when you lie to the police. It's called "filing a false report." When you lie in a court it's called "perjury." It's a criminal offense. There was a UN resolution demanding Iraq to file a truthful report. Saddam failed. That's a just cause for war.

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

Officer of Engineers

Ned,
No offense but we've gone through this over and over again. HERE are the facts.

Duelfer (CIA) Report on Iraq WMD

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Chimo

Herodotus

No It' not. Not unless the entire UN Security Council agrees that Iraq was in violation, which they didn't. Even then, a separate authorization of war is needed. You cannot compare the burden of proof in the criminal justice system, with international law between states. They are two entirely different topics.

Herodotus

The Duelfer report mentions that Saddam may have wanted to re-start his programs at some point in the future. But this supposition is based on second-hand sourcing from Saddam's advisers. Tariq Aziz said "Well, Saddam talked about it infrequently after sanctions were lifted," but Saddam had no firm plans or dates as to when he would re-start his programs. That's a major hole in the DUelfer report.

The second hole is what would Saddam do with the WMD if he did re-start his programs. Saddam and his advisers always saw Iran has the most pressing threat to Iraq. Indeed the Iran-Iraq rivalry pre-dates Saddam's tenure as president, and the presence of a Sunni government controlling Shiite holy sites sticks in the caw of the mullahs. Okay, so at worst case scenario we have Saddam using WMD as defensive weapons against a hegemonic (and not so nice to the West) power, that arguably posed a greater threat to stability in the region.

Finally the very absence of existing stockpiles, and the complete absence of any nuclear program implies that Saddam was still a long way off from an effective WMD deterrent. Defenders of the Bush administration will point to the measly 500 WMD from some pre-existing stockpile. But the problem with those 500 WMD is that they could have already been declared (as missing), could have been part of the blast pits that escaped destruction, or could have been left on the battlefield during the Iran-Iraq War. The point is we don't know.

Saddam's Iraq underwent the most intrusive and all encompassing disarmament regime since at least WWII, and his regime has basically accounted for 249,500 of 250,000 munitions. I don't expect perfection, and in fact I expected us to find more weapons, but to come within .2% of completely demolishing Iraq's WMD program is a grand achievement.

JAD_333

I don't care much about all the intricate details of what Iraq may have had or didn't have. Of course, it would have been better in the ensuing debate had we discovered all the WMD we thought Saddam had and, of course, had we found evidence of an ongoing effort to build nukes, all the better.

The fact--history will show this in due course--is that WMD was not the key reason for going into Iraq. It was the cover--like arresting a Mafia don for jaywalking as a pretext for holding him 72 hours while you grill him. The truth is, it was taking the offensive against extranational terrorism and the best way to counterbalance that threat was to estabish a beachhead in the ME. Iraq was the ideal fallguy because of its appearant violation of WMD resolutions and also very important was its geopgraphical position between the two leading national supporters of terrorism, Iraq and Syria. Never mind that terrorists groups weren't centered in Iraq. Boundary lines are just lines on a map.

Any serious projection of events stemming from our taking out the Taliban and disrupting AQ would make Iraq the potential locus of future terrorist santuaries. We acted when momentum was in our favor. If we can sustain our efforts in Iraq and succeed in seeing to the creation of a viable democratic country there, history will vindicate our decision. Never are things sweet and smooth in an armed struggle. Those who get tangled up in legalities and cite mistakes made lose sight of this and ultimately the larger picture. So, while I think it is fine to discuss the WMD details and such, no points won by detractors from Iraq make any difference to me when it comes to the larger picture. It had to be done; sorry the cover story evaporated. Let's get 'er done.

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To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education. (Plato)

Herodotus

Putting aside for a moment that the administration built its entire case with the international community for invasion on the premise that Iraq had these WMD, there are still problems with the invasion. The absence of WMD renders Saddam's alleged terrorist ties moot. Without the potential of use of WMD, terrorism becomes not a threat, but rather a bothersome annoyance.

Before 9/11, the largest terrorist attack only killed several hundered people, and after 9/11 the largest terrorist attacks only killed at most, several hundred people. 9/11 was an anomaly, it could not have been repeated even if we did not go after Saddam. Before the invasion Saddam had at best a cursory relationship with an anti-Iranian group (MEK) which the US eventually co-opted, allowed several heads of defunct terrorist organizations sancutary (Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, etc.) one of whom was killed/died before the invasion, another had renounced terrorism ten years prior to his caputre in Iraq, and periodically gave money to the families of Hamas suicide bombers after the fact.

Saddam's sponsorship of terrorism was basically non-existent against Western (non-Iranian targets) since 1991, and even then during the Gulf War his ISI only gave a half-hearted attempt at exploding one device in the Philippines, and one in Lebanon. Even during the hey-day of state sponsorship of terrorism (the 1980s), Iraq sponsored the least amount of terrorism of all the Arab/Moslem states on the list of state sponsors: Libya, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Iraq (removed from the list in 1982 after kicking out ANO, put back on the list in 1990 after invading Kuwait).

So in a war to thwart the proliferation of WMD, and the state sponsorship of terrorism, we invaded a country that had neither WMD, nor state sponsorship. But as you say, it did have a weak military making it an "easy" target, and had a viable middle class to make democracy well viable. But even in trying to promote democracy in this barren land, the administration has failed. Gone is the middle class, over half have fled, many of the rest have been killed, and with it any chance of a viable democracy. In its place arose the Shiite rabble (orgainized by former terrorist groups sponsored in whole by Iran), susceptible to the honeyed words of demagogues, and instrumental in converting Iraq (once a bastion of secularism in the Moslem world) into a theocracy in many places.

So low are expectations now, that we are merely left to fighting the remanants of a terrorist organization that did not exist prior to the invasion, and our "victory" will be defined on if we can beat it or not. How anyone can look at Iraq and not see a classic strategic error is beyond me.

gunnut

How would you verify that Iraq was not in violation?

JAD_333

For the purpose of disussion, I am not basing my view on whether Saddam had or had not WMD nor whether he had or had not any ties with terrorist groups. As I said, it would have been better for our image if he had. The underlying purpose of going into Iraq was not to punish Saddam, but to confront the whole terrorist phenomenon in the region where it it is based and draws its strength. If it was not operating specifically in Iraq at that time, it was all around Iraq. If the objective is to get close so you confront terrorism, you pick a point of entry that is politically and militarily vulnerable. Iraq fit the bill. Saddam's record was deplorable; he appeared to still have banned WMD; he gassed his own people; he was responsible for thousands of deaths; he saw to his own pleasures out of the oil for peace program; he had started a war with Iran; invaded Kuwait. In short, there was little sympathy for his continued survival.


All very interesting, but irrelavent to the central issue. How does the US protect itself, its allies and trading partners, and its vital interests in the face of escalating terrorism? Modify its ME policy and abandon Israel to suit the terrorists? Once you start doing that, there is no end to it. It invites every group opposed to US policy to blow up American embassies. It inculcates a culture of retreat among your own people. No. Going into Iraq was saying 'enough is enough.'


Failure comes at the end. Until then, there is struggle. Struggle has its good days and bad. I know people opposed to the war who say they'd be ok with it if it had been a slam dunk as advertized. It's a subtle contradiction: this idea that victory is ok, but fighting for it is not.

First of all, most observers don't agree that expectations are as low as they were. Second, the so-called "remnants" of a terrorist organization is exactly what I was referring to earlier. Iraq sits in the middle of a region where the terrorists are recruited for Iraq and before that for 9/11, Bali, USS Cole, our embassies in Africa, etc. Don't think for a minute that our being in Iraq caused them to organize against us. They merely moved to a place where we were a handier target, and likewise they became targets.

Herodotus

[QUOTE=JAD_333;463445]For the purpose of disussion, I am not basing my view on whether Saddam had or had not WMD nor whether he had or had not any ties with terrorist groups. As I said, it would have been better for our image if he had. The underlying purpose of going into Iraq was not to punish Saddam, but to confront the whole terrorist phenomenon in the region where it it is based and draws its strength. If it was not operating specifically in Iraq at that time, it was all around Iraq. If the objective is to get close so you confront terrorism, you pick a point of entry that is politically and militarily vulnerable. Iraq fit the bill. Saddam's record was deplorable; he appeared to still have banned WMD; he gassed his own people; he was responsible for thousands of deaths; he saw to his own pleasures out of the oil for peace program; he had started a war with Iran; invaded Kuwait. In short, there was little sympathy for his continued survival.

What region? AL Qaeda was based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hezbollah is based in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine. If by region you mean Islamic countries, that's a whole big region encompassing North Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia...and Southeast Asia. If you mean Islamic countries that also have oil then that narrows it down a bit.

If we really wanted to pick a point that was militarily and politically vulnerable and ACTUALLY take out a terrorist group we should have picked Lebanon. At the very least if we wanted to "reform" the region we should have started with our purported allies; Saudi Arabia, and the deplorable Kuwaitis.

Now you rattle off a list of tertiary reasons for the invasion, all in the past (except for oil-for-food which was after the fact), and at the time they occurred elicited little international outrage (save the invasion of Kuwait). Even if Saddam gassed his own people (and there is still some debate on the subject) or 'killed thousands', those are internal matters, that a state has a right to deal with. Deplorable yes, but a reality that exists. If we can invade Iraq 15 years after one crime, and justify the invasion based on that crime, despite no evidence that the crime continued, or that it would re-occur what's to stop us from invading Myanmar for what they did this last fall, or 1988, or any other country for crimes committed in its past?

As for his invading of Iran, this is a myth, that he started the war. In truth a border conflict had been raging between the two countries for ten years prior to his invasion. Coupled with that was Saddam's fear (real it turned out) that the Islamic Revolution in Iran would target his regime, so he launched a pre-emptive war (I thought that was allowed). As for Kuwait, Iraq has always had a territorial claim to it that predates Saddam and the Baathists. When Kuwait declared its independence in 1961, Iraq almost invaded but was stopped by a show of force by the British. The removal of Saddam does not mean the Iraq/Kuwait issue has been resolved.


All very interesting, but irrelavent to the central issue. How does the US protect itself, its allies and trading partners, and its vital interests in the face of escalating terrorism? Modify its ME policy and abandon Israel to suit the terrorists? Once you start doing that, there is no end to it. It invites every group opposed to US policy to blow up American embassies. It inculcates a culture of retreat among your own people. No. Going into Iraq was saying 'enough is enough.'

That's a slippery slope argument. No one, at least not me, is saying don't get the Taliban or al Qaeda (You know the ones actually doing the blowing up of embassies). But its one thing to go after the actual culprits and entirely another to go after someone who had nothing to do with it. Radical Islamic terrorists that want to wage war against the US are a tiny, tiny, tiny minority in Islam--there are over 1 billion Muslims in the world, Al Qaeda/Hezbollah have what 20-30,000 members combined?

Instead we have created a self-fulfilling prophecy with our faulty inductive reasoning:

All terrorists are Muslim
Iraq is a Muslim country
Therefore we should invade Iraq to fight terrorism





Failure comes at the end. Until then, there is struggle. Struggle has its good days and bad. I know people opposed to the war who say they'd be ok with it if it had been a slam dunk as advertized. It's a subtle contradiction: this idea that victory is ok, but fighting for it is not.

Well how do you define victory?


First of all, most observers don't agree that expectations are as low as they were. Second, the so-called "remnants" of a terrorist organization is exactly what I was referring to earlier. Iraq sits in the middle of a region where the terrorists are recruited for Iraq and before that for 9/11, Bali, USS Cole, our embassies in Africa, etc. Don't think for a minute that our being in Iraq caused them to organize against us. They merely moved to a place where we were a handier target, and likewise they became targets.[/quote]

Before the Iraq war terrorists were angry about foreign occupation of Islamic holy lands. After the Iraq war terrorists were angry about...foreign occupation of Islamic holy lands. I think there's a trend here. There is irony in justifying an invasion in order to prevent the invaded from invading other countries, or in occupying a country holy to Muslims in order to alleviate their anger over the foreign occupation of another country holy to Muslims. Perhaps this war should be named the Ironic War?

Herodotus

A state can be in violation of a Chapter 7 Security Council resolution and not have it lead to war (See South Africa or Morocco). And for the record Iraq did comply with Security Council directives, (sometimes reluctantly but always eventually complying), from 1992-1998. In 1998 the Security Council couldn't agree if Iraq was in violation, let alone if force should be justified, but the US took it upon themselves to attack Iraq.

Nothing really changed between 1998 and 2003 except Iraq was more complicit, or at least more accommodating, and the US was in a less forgiving mood.

Bluesman

We're not going through this again with anybody, friend, especially not you. But you should note that most of us are correct in thinking that President Bush sees the matter clearly, and like us, he believes that no extra-national body, particularly one as corrupt and feckless as the UN, should have any say at all in the matter of US national security.

You want to peddle the line that any non-UN-sanctioned action is somehow illegal, that's fine, you believe what you will. But the rest of us choose to see that as an outrageous renunciation of our national sovereignty, suitable only for bed-wetting internationalists that are too weak to stand up for their own country's best interests.

As to the rest of your posts, well, I've settled the matter to my own satisfaction, and your 'points', such as they are, leave me unconvinced that you have much of a case.

Dreadnought

So in other words walking into Kuwait, raping /piligaging ,killing many citizens and setting fire to Kuwaits own oil fields, removing state properties and treasury of Kuwait, Killing thousands of inncocents at home in a failed assinantion attempt (we are still finding the mass graves), lying his ass of to IAE, giving them the run around on a constant basis during inspections, denying said IAE access to specific sights. ignoring the UN oil for food sanctions and **** im outta breath from typing the reasons why but could still go further.

Yes, we should just sit back and do nothing while all of this goes on everyday and the UN laughed at by some crazy arab killer who would just as soon kill his sisters husbands etc the list goes on.

There are two kinds of people out there...Those that would do nothing and except it and hope the world changes some day and those who will stand up for those that cannot and usher in change so that change comes much sooner for those who lives depend on one word....Time.

Beit popular with the world and you we are not concerned with.

The world has lost its sense of right and wrong and has replaced it with the baby boomer cliche "popular" and "unpopular". Such is not the words of people who really want change such are the words of those who criticise and do nothing to change just how bad the world had become.

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Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Herodotus