Still think Saddam had WMD's?

The US government now says otherwise!

Published on October 6, 2004 By thatoneguyinslc In Politics

I was reading my complimentary copy of USA Today at the hotel this morning and found this little nugget of info. Now bush 2.0's own people are contradicting him.

Link

thanks for reading,
Thatoneguyinslc

Comments (Page 5)

T B

on Oct 22, 2004

We are not talking about stored components but scrap metal parts transferred by individual Iraqis to get cash for metal

Now there is a huge assumption, presented as a fact. Also, the engines look like they are completely intact, hardly "scrap" metal. It is pretty clear by your presentation where the partisan "assumptions" come from.

Solitair

on Oct 24, 2004

TB Does everything have to be partisan to you? Lets drop this partisan rubbish as I'm not American, and it just weakens any discussion here while making you jump to silly conclusions.

Lets be clear on the UN report we are discussing. Is it the 17th quarterly report of UNMVIC? This is the one that flags 5-12 scrap engines in the Netherlands.
Or might it just be the 18th quarterly report, the most recent, which discusses 20 engine parts in scrap yards in Jordan?

Judging by the fact that you didn't know that engine parts were found in Jordanian scrap yards I suggest you read the latest information before critising my responses and dragging partisan US politics into the debate. The latest report sheds far more light on this whole issue.

You will notice that the trade in scrap metal started AFTER the US invasion and reaches huge proportions. The scrap yards across the border would sort the metals and ship them to specialist yards across the regino and Europe, including the high quality metal yard in the Netherlands. You'll notice that the Iraqi goverment granted licences for people to dismantle the various sites listed in the 17th report and that it was all regulated (though no-one bothered to tell the UN despite some of the material being under controlled regulation). Finally you will notice many references to the lack of cooperation from the US authorities with the Un monitoring being responsible for much missing tracking of material.

Paul.

T_Bone4Justice

on Oct 24, 2004

Drmiler, "The leading "warbloggers" of the time, ranging from Steven Den Beste, Right Wing News, Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, James Lileks, One Hand Clapping, Eject Eject Eject, JoeUser (back when it was just me) and so forth were saying the same things.Anyone who thinks that we invaded Iraq primarily because we thought it contained drums of mustard gas or something is ignorant of the facts and deserves nothing but scorn and contempt for their naivete."

So, basically what your saying is the millions of Americans who were led to believe the exaggerated words of the President and his administration are only deserving of scorn and contempt for being naive enough to believe their president. I think the scorn and contempt should be reserved for the people who misled them not the people who were deceived by them. Secondly, I like how you copy paste portions of a post written by TB from another blog thread yet conveniently neglect to include my threads that went along with his. That particular conversation was between myself and TB and for you to only copy paste his portion without including everything that followed or even acknowledging there was a debate between us on this subject, in which I responded to most of TB's posts... is an exercise of cherry picking arguments from a broader debate in order to support your one-sided view and distorts the context in which TB made that particular post.

Secondly, who cares what certain bloggers believed about why we were going to war...they are only a few people out of millions who, in fact, supported the war in Iraq based on the President's distorted version of the facts. Thirdly, the U.N. inspectors that you mention above did not lie. As you can plainly see from your own post, the alleged UN intelligence you cite actually states that "The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks," Perricos told the council. Perricos also reported that inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection tags." Note that if this stuff being shipped out of Iraq was not actual WMD but PARTS and COMPONENTS that everyone already KNEW about. How could it have been tagged by the UN if Iraq was hiding some secret WMD program??? If anything, the fact that these known materials and parts were allowed to be smuggled out of Iraq POST invasion and yet were known and being monitored PRE-invasion, certainly doesn't lend much support for the wisdom of the war now does it? The UN inspectors were not lying...they were however, heavily reliant upon US and other allied satellite imagery and intelligence that were GIVEN to them.

For those who are interested in hearing a rounded debate I was having with TB, I suggest you go to the original article which sparked our debate on this issue, entitled "Questions for the Left and Right" instead of being presented with only a selectively distored version of that debate.

T B

on Oct 24, 2004

Lets be clear on the UN report we are discussing. Is it the 17th quarterly report of UNMVIC?

The post under discussion was the 17th (what was posted).

while making you jump to silly conclusions

I'm assuming you are referring to the use of "partisan". OK, "partisan" is a blind and/or unreasonable devotion to a position (by at least one definition) and not neccessarily associated with a political party (though often times is). I accept you are not politically partisan (though that's not what I wrote) and if that was offensive, please accept my sincere apology. However, it does appear to me that you are willing to ignore parts of the evidence to support your position as indicated by your apparent refusal to acknowledge that all significant missle subsytem parts were in Iraq (as documented in the 17th) prior to the deployment and that trading companies (NOT individuals) were responsible for the export of the materials (reported in the 18th).

Judging by the fact that you didn't know that engine parts were found in Jordanian scrap yards I suggest you read the latest information before critising my responses

Again, the post (and hence the debate) was in regard to the 17th quarterly report. It is not a matter of whether or not there was scrap in Jordan. That wasn't the subject.

You will notice that the trade in scrap metal started AFTER the US invasion and reaches huge proportions

False statement and contrary to the reports. From the 17th:

In addition, a number of items and equipment that may also be relevant to the UNMOVIC mandate were seen among the scrap. The existence of missile engines originating in Iraq among scrap in Europe may affect the accounting of proscribed engines known to have been in Iraq’s possession in March 2003.

It is ridiculous to me that you are ready to come to conclusions which even UNMOVIC is unwilling to state.

From the 17th quarterly report:

In addition, the Commission is aware from comparative analysis of recent satellite imagery that a number of sites previously known to have contained equipment and materials subject to monitoring have been either cleaned out or destroyed.

It is not known whether such equipment and materials were still present at the sites during the time of coalition action in March and April of 2003.

You'll note that March 20, 2003 is when the first ground troops entered Iraq.

The 18th quarterly report, in regard to the Jordanian yards, states that the arrival of scrap metal (not neccessarily misssle parts, but perhaps) from Iraq began in June 2003. So, it began arriving in June in Jordan. Nowhere does it state when the trade started.

You'll notice that the Iraqi goverment granted licences for people to dismantle the various sites listed in the 17th report and that it was all regulated

Again, false (mostly). First off the Iraqi interim council wasn't put in place until July 13, 2003 (after the scrap had already started arriving in Jordan). Secondly, the Iraq ministry of trade did not issue an export licensing procedure until April 9, 2004 and first required a license February 26, 2004 in CPA order 54. Conditions were then ammended on April 28, 2004. Not only were licenses NOT granted for that material, the export was prohibited.

From www.motiraq.org (as cited in the 18th)

Companies may apply for a license and export scrap metal from 30 April2004 .

No export of scrap metal may take place prior to 30 April.

Finally you will notice many references to the lack of cooperation from the US authorities with the Un monitoring being responsible for much missing tracking of material.

Really? Where? I've read both reports numerous times and can't seem to find one instance. Please substantiate this claim so I can locate the references. I find it interesting that you now divert the debate from the logical argument, don't address my previous points, continue to make what appears to be false statements not supported by the documents and demonstrate a misunderstanding of the timeline. I'm more than happy to look at the opposing viewpoint but only when it is subtantiated with some form of credibility. It seems to me the one jumping to conclusions is obvious, as indicated by the emphatic statement that the trade started after the invasion when all that was indicated is that some of the material ARRIVED after the start, and not long after, and while major hostilites were continuing, and before the interim council was even in place.

Solitair

on Oct 25, 2004

TB,
you can't talk about information in the 17th report while ignoring all the extra information in the 18th. That's like talking about WMD based on initial CIA reports and ignoring the Iraq survey group report. You are very willing to jump from known and labelled items being present when the inspectors were recalled in Feb 2003 to suggesting that by March 2003 when the invasion occurred they had already been removed. It's far more feasible to beleive that these items were looted along with most of the country when law and order broke down immediately after the US invasion. There is proof that material first arrived in Jordan after the invasion. THere is no proof that any material arrived before the invasion. What is your problem with this? Why do you jump to conclusions other than the obvious that the trade started after the invasion when Iraq was a US responsibility.

Rather than wasting time rehashing arguements let me just list the major point followed by some other points for you to agree or disagee with. Please elaborate and expand on any issue you disagree with.

The 18th report clearly sheds more light on the issue and crushes any suggestion that this material was being transported out of Iraq by Saddam to avoid detection. It also clearly crushes any suggestion that this material constituted WMD. Do you diagree with this? This is the critical point as it's the focus of this article.

On other points

- there is NO proof that any of this material was removed from Iraq prior to invasion. Agreed?
This is important as you imply that it might have been. But is there any proof anywhere?

- all the identified material is already tagged by UN inspector and therefore already known. Agreed?
Again all the removed material is tagged and non of it was hidden from inspectors prior to the war.

- the rockets in question were not proscribed until February 2003, less than 1 month before invasion. Agreed?
The material did nto need to be hidden as it was only proscribed just before the war. Saddam had no reason to hide it before this.

- the 18th report discusses the 'degree of access required by unmovic' to do their job. This implies that the current US policy of no access is not working. Agreed?
Again this is important as since the US took over whoile sites have gone missing., including nuclear material.

- the 17th report states that to date no evidence of any dual use items being used for WMD was found. Agreed?
Again more indication that Saddam was not making WMD.

- therefore this was not a ploy by Saddam to hide WMD. Agreed?
Back to the original point of this article.

Paul.

drmiler

on Oct 25, 2004

Reply #65 By: Solitair - 10/25/2004 4:39:26 AM
TB,
the rockets in question were not proscribed until February 2003, less than 1 month before invasion. Agreed?
The material did nto need to be hidden as it was only proscribed just before the war. Saddam had no reason to hide it before this

Excuse me but aren't rockets considered to be WMD's. they are at least one part of a WMD. It's called the delivery system. And *if* my assumption is correct then they were forbidden by UN Res. 1441

Solitair

on Oct 26, 2004

No rockets are not considered WMD. Same with 120mm artillary pieces. These are not WMD, just can be used to deliver them.

Medium range rockets with ranges greater that a certain value were banned under earlier resolutions. The rockets that Iraq was actively developing were not banned. They were however added to the list of banned weapons in February 2003 when it was discovered that they could be stripped down to allow for a range about 10% over the max range allowed. Iraq argued that they were obviously NOT designed to be stripped down but to hold conventional (and hence heavier) warheads. Either way these devices were not proscribed until a month before the invasion.

Paul.

drmiler

on Oct 26, 2004

Reply #63 By: T_Bone4Justice - 10/24/2004 10:07:18 AM
.

I like how you copy paste portions of a post written by TB from another blog thread yet conveniently neglect to include my threads that went along with his. That particular conversation was between myself and TB and for you to only copy paste his portion without including everything that followed or even acknowledging there was a debate between us on this subject, in which I responded to most of TB's posts... is an exercise of cherry picking arguments from a broader debate in order to support your one-sided view and distorts the context in which TB made that particular post.

I did no such thing. I went back and reread my posts. ALL of my quotes were from "solitair" NOT from TB.

thatoneguyinslc

on Oct 26, 2004

Damn, i thought this thread died a week ago!

thatoneguyinslc

on Oct 26, 2004

Folks...I have one request. Only post quotes from THIS Blog. The messages come out a little convoluted when you paste from other posts

Cappy1507

on Oct 28, 2004

Anyone who thinks that we invaded Iraq primarily because we thought it contained drums of mustard gas or something is ignorant of the facts and deserves nothing but scorn and contempt for their naivete.
Show me anti-war people who would have thought taking out Saddam would have been a good thing if only we had found a warehouse of mustard gas. You can't because they were against it no matter what. So out of their own cynical nastiness they merely spin the absence of WMD stockpiles as being the main reason we went in which was never the case.

This is a total load of crap. I WAS FOR THE WAR. GWB said we could not wait for the final proof because it might come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Colin powell stood infront of the UN and the american people and said they had necular labs in RVs trooling around in the deseert. GWB said we would find his weapons and destroy them. GWB Spent 3x as much money procuring biohazard suits for the troops because he expected us them to be fired on by WMD. I had countless conversations with people friends co workers and others who all believed they would turn up. No one is really against the war now. They merely are against the gross mismanagement of the peaceful transition of government.

They are against the blank check mentality of the new republican regime that has hunkered down in 1600 Pennsylvainia Ave. He want's another 70 billion, enough is enough. We can't bring the troops home until the job is done, but GWB has absolutely no idea what he's doing. I had more faith in Reagen during his "lost years" at the end of his presidency than a lot of us have in GWB right now. He had his chance and he blew it. Change the guard, before this gets any more out of hand.

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