USA - Iraq = WMD's

Wook

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3018063.stm

Ameria slowing down the search for WMD ? rejecting help from Hans Blix ? Complaining about anti-americanism ?

DadaKopf

There was a similar article in yesterday's Observer: http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,953604,00.html, but this article concentrates on the abuses carried out by the British and American intelligence communities in trying to justify the war.

This is a clear signal that they haven't found anything and that they won't find anything, ever.

Sadly, the debate we're able to have about all that over here hasn't entered mainstream American political debate and probably never will. The media is primarily responsible for this but so is the general public whose limp politics amount to a tacit acceptance of the war simply because it happened and maybe it wasn't justified but at least a nasty man is out of the picture and that's better for everyone, isn't it?

Bull.

Anti-American? About what? The international community possibly refusing to help the US and UK in their restructuring of Iraq? I can't see how pinning the responsibility firmly on their heads and putting pressure on them to deliver on internationally agreed standards of decency through close scrutiny is anti-American.

Victor

this bit is not reassuring.

Members of the team told the newspaper that they no longer expected to find such stocks, and that they had consistently found targets identified by Washington to be inaccurate, or to have been looted and burned.

Éomer of Rohan

I wonder what the right wing have to say to this - especially Biffa Bacon, who, I remember, said that it was never about terrorism or anything like that, it was about WMD. Which they haven't found. Guess who feels justified.

Wook

well , this would be interesting to see.. most likely sadam's removal is justification enough to start a war and 'look at all these happy faces!'

what annoys me though is the short attention span of most people who fought against and for this war and completely now lost interest in further development. Could they be considered the media's addicts-slaves ?

Hobart

What can be done about it? US/UK alliance went into Iraq to find WMD's. It is plainly obvious that there never was any there. So, by deduction, Saddam was never a threat to the US or UK. He has never been linked with Al-Queda or international terrorism (AFAIK). So what can be done about this? Can the US/UK be brought to the International Court or are we at the mercy of whatever the US decides to do?

Éomer of Rohan

Can the US/UK be brought to the International Court or are we at the mercy of whatever the US decides to do?

We are of course at the mercy of the United States to decide what to do. The ICC is related to genocide and crimes against humanity. The US is willing to disregard UN resolutions anyway so in sum total, we can do little or nothing.

Sparks

The US cannot be brought to the ICC. They are being brought to a belgian court by a group of Iraqis for war crimes (shooting marked civilian ambulances, targeting hospitals, and so forth). The UK can be brought to the ICC, if I remember correctly (the UK are signed up, Iraq isn't - and who wants to bet they never will be now, given that the US are opposed to the ICC?). In fact, I think there was some debate on this before the invasion.

Hobbes

Clearly the fact that the US and UK haven't found any WMD is proof enough that Saddam has them well hidden.

gandalf

No No Hobbes I love the excuse by one of the American Generals as to why the Iraqis didn't use there WMD when the Axis of Diesel attacked.

Apparently the Iraqis didn't use their WMD's against the UK & US troops because they hid them so well they couldn't find the weapons themselves :rolleyes:

Gandalf.

bonkey

Originally posted by gandalf
Apparently the Iraqis didn't use their WMD's against the UK & US troops because they hid them so well they couldn't find the weapons themselves

Not only could they not find them, but the weapons that they couldnt find still posed a real and immediate threat to world peace apparently.


jc

Sparks

As pointed out by Bremner, Bird and Fortune, Jeff Hoon gave a radio interview on the topic of Saddam's WMDs. Apparently the offical line is that they weren't found because Saddam had so much warning of the invasion that he had loads of time to hide his WMDs - but he didn't use them because he had so little warning of the invasion that there wasn't enought time to retrieve them to use them in self-defence....

Lemming

Originally posted by Sparks
As pointed out by Bremner, Bird and Fortune, Jeff Hoon gave a radio interview on the topic of Saddam's WMDs. Apparently the offical line is that they weren't found because Saddam had so much warning of the invasion that he had loads of time to hide his WMDs - but he didn't use them because he had so little warning of the invasion that there wasn't enought time to retrieve them to use them in self-defence....

tbh, that sounds like utter w^nk! That observer article linked in by DadaKopf makes for painting a very damning picture of the current US intelligence community, and the fact that this new group OSP would appear to be politically motivated rather than intelligence motivated.

Any credibility in the US Intelligence community I had has taken a sharp nose-dive. Rather than simply thinking that they couldn't find something that wasn't there, it now looks like a small group within the larger whole deliberately withheld what it didn't want to hear to further it's founder's political ends.

The founder is ... lo and behold ... Rumsiebaby.

Éomer of Rohan

Any credibility in the US Intelligence community I had has taken a sharp nose-dive. Rather than simply thinking that they couldn't find something that wasn't there, it now looks like a small group within the larger whole deliberately withheld what it didn't want to hear to further it's founder's political ends.

The founder is ... lo and behold ... Rumsiebaby.

The Question that needs to be asked now is why the hell did so many people (admittedly, in the UK, not as many as those who did) not see this before the invasion?!

Biffa Bacon

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
I wonder what the right wing have to say to this - especially Biffa Bacon, who, I remember, said that it was never about terrorism or anything like that, it was about WMD.

Well I don’t think I ever said that WMD was the primary justification for the war. The primary justification for the war was the democratisation of Iraq and hopefully the wider Arab world, although the issue of WMD was certainly a convenient casus belli.

Nevertheless, even if WMD are never found, the war on Iraq is still justifiable on the grounds of eliminating WMD, because the Iraqis were not cooperating fully with the UN weapons inspectors. This suggests they had something to hide. If not, why did they not make a full declaration of their banned weapons programs and thus get sanctions lifted?

Guess who feels justified.

Well unless you were opposed to the war on the grounds that Iraq did not actually possess WMD, I don’t think you can feel justified.

bonkey

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
The Iraqis were not cooperating fully with the UN weapons inspectors. This suggests they had something to hide.

Not necessarily.

Part of it suggests that they didnt like the US continuing to tell them what to do using the threat of war to bully them around.

Also, the lack of co-operation was based mostly on the inspectors saying that evidence produced did not answer all questions. The Iraqi's took the position of "thats all the evidence we have right now", and by and large went about trying desperately to dig up anything else they could find - even after the outbreak of war.

Now, if no WMDs were found, and the conclusion is that they weren't there, then the vast majority of so-called lack of co-operation was in fact nothing of the sort, but rather someone deciding that a lack of perfect book-keeping (before, during and after the nation got bombed halfway to Mars in the GUlf War) is the same as lack of co-operation. It is increasingly appearing like the Iraqi's produced what evidence they had, and told the truth. Exactly where is the lack of co-operation?

And the simplest question, Biffa, would be "what were they hiding"? If you havent found it, then what was it, and why was going to war necessary if you weren't going to find what you ostensibly invaded for.

jc

Victor

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
Nevertheless, even if WMD are never found, the war on Iraq is still justifiable on the grounds of eliminating WMD, because the Iraqis were not cooperating fully with the UN weapons inspectors.

But the evidence is to the contrary, yes they might have huffed and bluffed about cooperating, but they did cooperate.

Lemming

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
Well I don’t think I ever said that WMD was the primary justification for the war.

Well, oddly enough, that's what the "coalition of oil", to borrow a phrase from Gandalf, gave as their primary reason at the start of the war.....

The primary justification for the war was the democratisation of Iraq and hopefully the wider Arab world

Democracy cannot be forced upon a country if you want it to work.

although the issue of WMD was certainly a convenient casus belli.

Oh, it was convenient for something alright .....

Nevertheless, even if WMD are never found, the war on Iraq is still justifiable on the grounds of eliminating WMD, because the Iraqis were not cooperating fully with the UN weapons inspectors.

Sorry? Come again? Listen to what you are saying Biffa! The possibility of someone maybe someday down the line acquiring WMDs is grounds enough to invade a sovereign nation and throw decades of internation agreements & conventions to the wind?


So, that means that we can incarcerate everyone under the age of 25 on the grounds that this will stop drug use. So its perfectly justifiable, eh? Because those people MIGHT SOMEDAY DOWN THE LINE BUT WE CAN'T SAY FOR DEFINITE take drugs.

That's what you're saying is comparable to. Wow! I'm impressed. I bow to your superior clarity and sense of purpose :rolleyes:

This suggests they had something to hide. If not, why did they not make a full declaration of their banned weapons programs and thus get sanctions lifted?

Possibly because of pride? Dignity? Most of all, defiance of the US?