Chemical Weapons Factory, South Iraq

bonkey

Originally posted by Man
Where Myself and Bonkey would probably profoundly disagree though would most likely be in the fact, that I am not so disturbed that it is the U.S that is taking this road and not some other country who may want to bring a system not conducive to the kind of life , we in the west lead, a life much easier to bring to chaos, with nerve agents in the wrong hands.

Well, we'd definitely disagree on your sweeping statements about "nerve agents in the wrong hands".

I have no idea what nation you're talking about, but last I checked, the Anthrax which got released during the post-9/11 period was US in origin. Indeed, they were the people who set Saddam down his road of building a WMD arsenal, and continued to supply him after he had used them.

Taking such facts into consideration, I hardly think you can claim that they have a good record of keeping these terrible weapons out of the wrong hands, and are somehow better than some unnamed regime you hint at who is somehow proliferating these weapons.

And while I admit that western society today is probably one of the preferable options, I do not believe western society as we know it will remain for long, as we move towards an era where a single nation imposes its will on both its own people and the rest of the world under a nice catch-all such as the nebulous "war on terrorism".

Originally posted by Meh

Didn't he try to assassinate Bush Sr. a decade ago?

Did he? I've read the article, and it seems that the US had circumstantial evidence which showed that the bomb was of the same design as ones Iraqi's had been known to build. This, apparently, indites the President of that nation sufficiently to take retributive action.

So...what do we get? What is the reaction of the world that Man feels more comfortable living in?

23 tomahawk missiles is what - not exactly what I would call a reasonable response.

I notice that - surprise surprise - the US decided to act unilaterally on this...they felt they knew who had threatened them, and therefore didnt need to ask anyone's permission to go and kick that nation squarely in the head in retaliation.

Maybe Iraq did try and assassinate Bush, maybe he didnt. However, the US "reaction" to this is about on par with their current reasoning behind the war : we think we know something, cant prove it, but hey - thats good enough to let off some bombs and risk some more civilians.

jc

I have no idea what nation you're talking about, but last I checked, the Anthrax which got released during the post-9/11 period was US in origin. Indeed, they were the people who set Saddam down his road of building a WMD arsenal, and continued to supply him after he had used them.

Just curious, but if the US supplied this material, how would they know who hit them? I mean, if they do tests on the substance, they'll find they produced it themselves, which means, any attack could have been a domestic incident, just as much as a foreign power, or a terrorist group.

bonkey

Originally posted by klaz
Just curious, but if the US supplied this material, how would they know who hit them? I mean, if they do tests on the substance, they'll find they produced it themselves, which means, any attack could have been a domestic incident, just as much as a foreign power, or a terrorist group.

Well, in the case of the anthrax, they thought they had tracked it as far as the lab where it was created. After that, its hard to say because it could have been anything from a disenfranchised worker in the company itself to someone who "picked the stuff up" from somewhere the producer had sold/shipped it.

Regardless of who it was, we have a situation where a US company is licenseed to produce the base component of what is classed as a WMD, and it got into the wrong hands somehow. In other cases - such as Iraq - the WMDs got into the wrong hands because the US government handed them over for whatever reason they had at the time. And yet Man feels safer because he wouldnt like Iraq to be "liberated" by (or presumably remain in the control of ) some regime who would let such terrible weapons get into the wrong hands.

I just think its a false perception of safety, and a false endorsement of the liberators in this case.

jc

Originally posted by bonkey
Well, we'd definitely disagree on your sweeping statements about "nerve agents in the wrong hands".

I have no idea what nation you're talking about, but last I checked, the Anthrax which got released during the post-9/11 period was US in origin. Indeed, they were the people who set Saddam down his road of building a WMD arsenal, and continued to supply him after he had used them.

Taking such facts into consideration, I hardly think you can claim that they have a good record of keeping these terrible weapons out of the wrong hands, and are somehow better than some unnamed regime you hint at who is somehow proliferating these weapons.

And while I admit that western society today is probably one of the preferable options, I do not believe western society as we know it will remain for long, as we move towards an era where a single nation imposes its will on both its own people and the rest of the world under a nice catch-all such as the nebulous "war on terrorism".
jc

Hmmm, It's definitely true, with hindsight to say that the U.S encouraged, WMD'S into the wrong hands ( Sadam's ) during the Iran Iraq war. They were looking at Iran at the time, and some say they still are, as a threat, I hope we don't disagree on that much.
As regards, the Anthrax scares , in the weeks after 9-11, it's definitely true, that the U.S were downright careless, bordering on reckless, in allowing ordinary citizens to get their hands on them.
Theres always going to be nut cases out there, who will be irresponsible and cause chaos ( indeed there were several of them here in Ireland who wrecklessly "for the laugh" caused many a nuisance for Ambulances and fire staff with hoax anthrax scares in the weeks after 9-11 ).
The situation in the U.S has utterly changed now, in that I'm sure, their WMD's are more secure than ever.
But , like a journalist can still get a gun onto a plane, from time to time, they can never be completely secure, but thats entirely different to encouraging them into the wrong hands.

The chaos, I refered to in my last post, would be chaos caused by nerve agents, in the hands of terrorists, not nations.
If there is any left, in Iraq,a marriage of convenience between Sadam and OBL would be nasty.
Yesterday his statement called on the kurds, his enemy up north to support him, that marriage, will not happen, but the OBL one might.
Whether, it would anyway, if there was no invasion is open to question, but probable none the less, hatrid being the seed.

mm

Victor

Originally posted by Man
Yesterday his statement called on the kurds, his enemy up north to support him, that marriage, will not happen, but the OBL one might.

If I'm right there are two factions in the Kurds, one of which runs the autonomous government, so they aren't necessarily "enemy" (but not friends either). I suspect OBL won't touch Iraq with a barge pole, as it would give the Americans justifcation, which OBL doesn't want.

Originally posted by Victor
I suspect OBL won't touch Iraq with a barge pole, as it would give the Americans justifcation, which OBL doesn't want.

I suspect, and hope you're right there.
It's going to be interesting, whats going to happen now that, the U.S are at Baghdad Airport.
Although the Iraqi information minister, still says they are on the retreat and are at least a 100 miles away this morning...:rolleyes:

If they have any chemicals, yeap, the U.S are practically, saying,indeed daring them to come on out and use them now, but I suspect they won't, as that would be an own goal in the extreme.

mm

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Originally posted by daveirl
Interesting how the BBC correspondent in Iraq Ragi Omar (sp.) was there today and he said that the US weren't anywhere near.

What Centcom said of course was that they were in the vicinity of Baghdad airport which depending on your definition of vicinity....

Hmmm, and now, all the embedded reporters are saying the U.S forces are in control of the airport.
Further to that, ITV news were taken out to the airport by their Iraqi minders and were stopped in their tracks , by shelling from the U.S battalions.
Centcoms definition of vicinity, appears to be fairly accurate.

The Iraqi information ministry on the other hand are now being caught out with blatant lies ( eg, their statement today that , Coalition forces were more than a 100 miles away ) :rolleyes:
It wouln't inspire confidence by me in other things they have been saying.

mm

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Slutmonkey57b

If you believe the US has "secured" its weapons of mass destruction you should have read the recent Wired article by a journalist who had the arduous task of stepping over some string in order to walk into Los Alamos and wander about some of their most "sensitive" facilities with a camera in broad daylight.

It is probably ironically more difficult for a "free" country such as the US to secure such sites because it treats the employees as law abiding unlike a regime where the people live in constant suspicion and are afraid to take any action that might be construed as out of order.

Los Alamos isn't even run by the military, it's run by the University of California - those reknowned hardcore security experts.