ba1025

I think Saudi Arabia had more to do with 911 than Irag. The saudis supported extremist religous schools all over the mideat. The type of schools that produce zealots.It was a terror cell of almost all suadi citizens that hijacked those jets.

ba1025

the administrations team confirmed there were no WMD. Finding a few discarded 20 year old chem shells buried in the sand is not finding a stockpile of WMD. you are smart enough and well informed enough to know the difference. if we attacked every Tyrant who had some blueprints or wanted WMDs we'd be invading a dozen nations at the least. Anything Saddam said was bravado because he needed to keep his enemy Iran at bay.

Nothing in this statement was accurate.
The report by his administration did not back up this claim and they looked HIGH and LOW. i will grant that everyone thought he had something but you cannot convince me they didnt overplay it to justify an end they truly believed was in our best interest. I just don't think they were right. We opened up Iraq for Shia extremism and Sunni extremism by destroying a weakened secular regime that posed us no real threat. Anyway the topic is about 911 and who was connected and once again the non existent WMDs in Iraq have distracted us

Officer of Engineers

It would help greatly if you've actually read the report

Duelfer (CIA) Report on Iraq WMD

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Chimo

ba1025

I was satisfied reading his congressional testimony. Are you claiming he perjured himself?

Officer of Engineers

I am stating that you have not read the report and read the details. Bio and Chem WMDs were found and in considerable quantities. There were just no weaponized stockpiles. The nuclear program was dormant, not canceled. There was every intention of resuming the program once Iraq got out of the sanctions. The testimonies of senior B'aath members are listed in that report.

Shek

Sir,
I'll add that the press in general did a poor job of portraying the results of the report.

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"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

Shek

Here's Duelfer's testimony.

http://armed-services.senate.gov/sta...2010-06-04.pdf

He said WMD were found. However, his exact words on the amount of WMD that were found were:

So, it is just as I stated originally.

No WMD vs. no stockpiles of WMD are two different things. I'd agree with you that ex post facto, it is clear that the intelligence was incorrect, but it took the invasion to confirm this, and given Saddam's intentions, had the sanctions regime eroded following any UNMOVIC statement in the 2003-4 timeframe that the regime was clear, Duelfer's report I think is pretty clear that Iraq may now possess the BW/CW that we thought they had back in 2002-3.

Lastly, the results of the invasion are not pretty right now, but this was not pre-ordained. Faulty planning/execution in the 2003-2006 is a huge factor. Also, Saddam's regime cannot be looked upon as purely secular. He made a deal with the devil to maintain his grips on power in 1991-2, and he allowed Salafism to slowly take root in Western Iraq. While a false pretense, he turned to Allah to remake his image shore up his own credentials within Iraq. Why did "Allah Akbar" suddenly appear on the Iraqi flag post-ODS?

I don't think he would be a direct threat to the US today if he remained in power, but he would be a threat to regional stability, and with a weak regime and growing Salafist influence, I wouldn't be happy with that potential, either.

JAD_333

Your reply is almost as tortured as my statement. Did I really say that? And what in the world do you mean?

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

tankie

80 Bucks huh ? With gas at over 5 pounds a gallon in the uk , that equates to app 160 pounds sterling .
you guys have it easy . i wish the British Public would do something about it just as the French do ,( but still how else are we going to be able to give those poor illegals everything the indigenous populace cant get ) and for once i agree with the French . However we did once have a farmer who did try to stop the fuel prices rising and caused a tad problems to the govt , that was until he received a visit from the men in black ???

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TANKIE , WITHOUT WAX

ba1025

Iraq did not meet that bar. Saddam was never going to be a threat to us. the 20 year exportation out of Saudi Arabia of radical Islamic theology has been and will continue to be a greater threat and was responsible for 911


Thus the pretense for the invasion was false. it was a mistake. It just becomes a question of whether you believe it was an honest mistake and the Bush administration was not trying to paint a picture of a threat greater than the evidence merited or whether our intelligence services failed and gave the administration extremely flawed intel.

The fact VP Cheney was still repeating what he knew was bad intel( The Atta Prague meeting) on Meet the Press certainly leaves open the question of whether they may of repeated intel they received but knew to be false in the run up in 2002-2003.




As to how the operation unfolded that's the fog of war and was part of the risk.

once again though Iraq diverts a response to 911 even on forums

Officer of Engineers

I disagree. Saddam became an intolerable strategic threat after 11 September. His past history left no doubt that he had the stupidity to try to get away literally with murder. 11 September opened his eyes to new possibilities on how to hit the US. I never had a doubt that he would try.

ba1025

Because commercial Jets were now a viable weapon we had to invade iraq to prempt an attack???? Can someone spell out how Iraq was capable of or near capable of attacking us pre invasion?

Meanwhile south of Iraq we have a medieval Arab caliphate ruled by the house of Saud responsible for much of the exported extremism in the area and the source of the $ to fund the extremists on 9-11
This nation is our friend???? Alexander Mitchell
IMO they are the pivot point of the real axis of evil( islamic extremism) not nation states. This is the kingdom that is the problem. IRaq Iraq Iraq irAQ WHAT A DISTRACTION.

Officer of Engineers

Yes. Or are you forgetting that Saddam tried to assassinate Bush Sr? Start a war against the mightiest military machine on the planet? Smart thinking was not his strongpoint. Tim McVeigh.

ba1025

Iraq is a greater threat now to us as a source of extremism and to the region as a destabilizing force than it was in 2002. yeah what about right wing terror groups here? how come they have gotten such a free ride? Did Clinton destroy them all or something?


you don't have to look in Iraq for WMD in the hands of those who hate us they were found in Texas

Officer of Engineers

Because they don't have the might of a state to help them. You don't think Saddam could not have done a Tim McVeigh outside of New York harbour? And that's just off the top of my head.