If no WMD found; will Bush be made out to be a liar?

[raghar]

Re: Feed the troll.

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Yes. Quite a while ago, you poor isolated fool.

Might I ask for references? Or rather say detailed references. Few nice links would do.

See Sava, not so isolated.

[Pekka]

I'd be more worried if they did find WMDs now. That would just give unnecessary 'they planted it' suspections. If they don't find it, at least they are honest enough not to cover it up by planting them .

[GePap]

From the NY Times

U.S. Weapons Hunters Lower Expectations
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 5:07 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The commander of the American weapons hunters in Iraq says he's certain the U.S. invasion has ended a program capable of producing Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. But Col. Richard R. McPhee says his teams have found no such weapons thus far.

And members of McPhee's team and U.S. defense officials say that banned arms may never be found in Iraq.

This marks a shift in expectations to confirming an Iraqi capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, rather than actually finding them. Before the war, U.S. leaders said they knew such weapons existed in Iraq, and war was necessary to root them out.

``There's no doubt in my mind that what we have stopped here in Iraq is a WMD program that was being run, that was capable of producing chemical weapons, biological weapons as needed by (Saddam Hussein) now or in the future,'' McPhee said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Asked for the evidence, he replied, ``The expertise and knowledge of the people, the scientists, dual-use capability facilities. ... I believe clearly there was a capability here that would have kept going.''

The recent U.N. inspectors never declared they had uncovered a program designed to produce weapons of mass destruction.

A top operations officer for McPhee's 75th Exploitation Task Force said Friday he would be surprised if the team does not find the infrastructure and program for ``demand production of biological weapons'' -- in other words, not production, but a capacity to produce quickly on demand.

As for finding actual weapons, the operations officer said it may turn out that no weapons of mass destruction will be found.

The expert and others spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, citing a need to protect their identities for continuing work in intelligence and other sensitive areas.

Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, made a similar point at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday.

``I think we're going to find that they had a weapons of mass destruction program,'' Cambone said when asked whether banned weapons would ever be found. ``Now, how it was configured and how they intended to use it is part of the hard work that they're going through right now.''

After a month's field operations from Kuwait, McPhee's task force has moved into one of Saddam's palace complexes outside Baghdad, a sprawl of sumptuous homes and garish palaces -- all emptied by looters, some damaged by U.S. bombing -- set around a sparkling artificial lake.

A four-unit mobile laboratory is the heart of the operation, centered on two state-of-the-art investigative tools: a gas chromatograph mass spectrophotometer, which instantly deciphers the chemical makeup of suspicious substances; and a DNA thermocycler, whose highly classified catalog of DNA fingerprints would allow the Americans to confirm a sample as anthrax or other bioweapon microbes within 20 minutes.

The 75th ``XTF'' began work with a list of 900 Iraqi sites where inspectors might look for evidence of banned weapons work, led by 90 high-priority sites. Of those priority locations, 75 have been examined thus far, McPhee said Thursday, with nothing of major significance reported.

The U.S. military's advance through Iraq in late March and early April produced repeated false alarms from combat units that thought they had found banned arms. Suspected chemical weapons in metal drums turned out to be pesticides; suspicious white powder that made headlines was simply explosives; cyclosarin and mustard gas weapons agents were actually rocket fuel.

In fact, McPhee's experts said they haven't once had to don their most protective hazardous-materials outfits, because credible threats never materialized.

A top operations officer said a large percentage of the U.S.-surveyed sites had been inspected by the U.N. agency that resumed inspections for banned weapons programs last November and suspended them in March. Such Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological facilities had also undergone eight years of earlier U.N. inspections in the 1990s.

The U.N. teams tagged, sometimes sealed or planned to monitor dual-use equipment found at the sites -- that is, equipment that might be intended for benign civilian use, but is potentially useful for weapons-making.

The 75th XTF has reported one find of potentially major significance -- a truck trailer some specialists suspect was designed as a mobile production plant for biological weapons. It was seized at a northern Iraq checkpoint from an apparent truck thief on April 19.

This weekend, a highly qualified group of experts from the United States is expected to arrive in Baghdad to examine the vehicle thoroughly, XTF operations officers said. The investigation may be completed in 10 days, one of the officers said.

Of the trailer, Cambone said the experts have found no other plausible explanation for it than for weapons ``based on the equipment on board.''

Still, military experts said ``dual use'' has not yet been ruled out for the fermenter and other equipment in the vehicle.

[GePap]

``There's no doubt in my mind that what we have stopped here in Iraq is a WMD program that was being run, that was capable of producing chemical weapons, biological weapons as needed by (Saddam Hussein) now or in the future,'' McPhee said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Asked for the evidence, he replied, ``The expertise and knowledge of the people, the scientists, dual-use capability facilities. ... I believe clearly there was a capability here that would have kept going.''

I just find this absurd...How on earth could the Iraqis have given up sucha capability by killing thier scentists and destroying their chemical and agricultural industries?

It is statements like this that make me sure Bush will suffer absolutely no internal political ramifications from few actual WMD's being found. I doubt there will even be investigations on the quality of the "intelligence" we kept crowing about as we tried to justify this war.

[SlowwHand]

Few??

The stipulation was that there be None.

[GePap]

None have been found, but I think that at the end, a few will, i simply for the same reaosns those 12 empoty chemical capable warheads were found by the inspectors.

The Us and UK were claiming substantial quantieis of arms: as i have said before;

10,000 liters of anthrax (some of it in powder form), 700+ mustard gas shells, tons of nerve gas agents, 2 dozen SCUD missiles, mutiple mobile biol-weapons labs, UAV capable of spreading Bio-chem agents.

Even if at the end of the day 2 liters of anthrax, a lb. of nerve gas agents, and one possible mobile wepoans lab was found, there would still be a HUGE gap between what we were told was there and what they found. I think that would still be an issue.

[Pekka]

But I wouldn't call Bush liar because of this. I have supported this war and continue to do so, but for different reasons. Mainly, because Saddams death wouldn't necessarily change anything, his son would step over and so on. Assasination wouldn't do the job either. It would mean killing bunch of key people and that is close impossible. I would have supported regime change from the inside most, let the Iraqi people solve it with our support and weapons (what we afterwards collect back, or see destroyed). But it seems like it would have never happened anyway, so that's why I supported this.

That said, I do find it disturbing that the WMDs haven't been found. Why? Because we had lectures in the UN and pictures and the works. There was supposed to be clear evidence that they exists and they know much more, but they can't give that information because it would endager operatives in Iraq. It is very clear to me, that if this information was in fact there like it was said, the would have already found them. I don't believe, that these places where intelligence knew they were had been left unmonitored during the war, or before the war started. They must have kept close eyes to those places at all times. They wouldn't want to lose them when troops are attacking, dangering the troops for unnecessary risk for being nuked or what ever and with that information and close eye they'd be able to attack those places, or at least try with special ops, air force etc. This would be the most important thing, and the only real threat against the troops. So, I don't believe they 'lost' the WMDs during fighting or just before it. I believe they were never there, in the places intelligence claimed they were. I don't see any reasons why they couldn't keep on eye on these places with satellites and inside operatives and special ops. There would have to be HUGE tunnel systems to avoid moving the WMDs and distract, so that leads me to believe that either they have mistaken with those 'hot spots', or then there is no WMDs. Either way it seems bad. There's only two ways of moving the WMDs from those hot spots, and those would be trucks (Iraqi terrain doesn't make it easy to move them), and distracting with several trucks, fake moving, fake WMDs and at some point you just don't know where they really are. But I think if this really happened.. there are some serious problems in intelligence information anyway to do old school tricks like that in Iraqi terrain. Other way is those huge tunnels, and they would have been known about them already, or at least at this point, knowing where they are now. I don't believe they made tunnels all the way to Syria. Also, if they did the 'truck move' I believe they would have checked out EVERY truck that actually penetrated the borders for sure. Or, then they simply made the mistake to believe there was WMDs where there weren't.

I think it can be an honest mistake, with 100% good information you know is correct and make assumptions totalling existing WMDs in place X, Y, Z... This would, however be awful mistake because that was the pretext to this war, and it will seriously affect the future war plans to attack Syria or Iran. But all this said, I don't think it makes Bush liar. I think he might have been honest about believing to the WMDs. But it will have an affect to the future businesses, especially outside US and how people see Bush when he continues strikes.

If there are no WMDs to be found, or if they have been moved to other countries before or during the war, it means a huge mistake because what guarantees there are we'll get it the next time? Slim to none. Does it mean we can't go after them anymore? Of course not.
But it will make it more difficult, since there are lots of people dying in foreign countries in 'the hunt of the WMDs' and if they are not found, it means intelligence information is NOT sufficient, and if there is not clearly enough information, is pre-emtpive strike a good option?

People will get killed. What I'm interested is the total, in the long run which choice is better and leads to less damage. But if we can't keep track on these things and they can go to other countries and disappear at will if someone wants to.. are the strikes worth it? It will make lot more unstable regions (no Iraq is not stable, Afghanistan is far for stable being #1 heroin producer once again etc etc, so we can't talk about stable regions just yet, maybe later) and lots of new enemies instead of friends or neutrals that are willing to strike against us, and even more so want to get those WMDs, which they will surely get if the money is there and the money will be there. So at this point we can't predict the total outcome, and if we can't do that, pre-emptive strikes are too much of a risk in my opinion. We can't use Jimbo-tactics against these kind of things (it's coming right for us *BLAM BLAM!*). What we need is solid information about them, more good operations and agents and operatives, infiltration and stabilize the regions as much as possible, avoid making new enemies or braking existing alliances. If and when we get that solid information, then we strike deep and HARD and without notice or warnings and get as much of the dirtbags as possible at the same time.

Just my thoughts.

[Pekka]

So, I hope there are WMDs found, there are still chances. I hope they won't do the 'definition of WMDs' thing as Stefu said.

[SlowwHand]

That may be, but we may never know what they had at any given time.

Some is still too much, and this thread only deals with one of the many reasons Hussein had to go.

[Sandman]

Biological Weapons were used effectively by the Japanese against the Chinese in WW2 but the Japs only used them a few times and then gave them up because of the risk of sicking their own troops. As for chemical weapons not being effective... You must not have learned very much about modern nerve and blood agents. Both the Soviets and Americans had Chemical weapons that would go right through a gas mask or the commonly used MOP suites. That they were so effective, deadly, and long lasting is the main reason niether side had the balls to use them.

The Japanese usage of biological weapons can hardly be considered effective. They killed thousands, compared to the millions killed with 'conventional' weapons. Like Saddam, they thought that since germ warfare was banned, it must therefore be very effective.

Modern nerve and blood agents: Can you be more specific?

[uh Clem]

Bush is a liar for the simple reason that he stated as uncontested fact what he knew to be only conjecture.

Whether his guess was right or wrong is immaterial. He said that he was certain when in fact he was not, and had no plausible reason to believe that he was.

Here's some statements Bush made over the course of a few weeks while campaigning last fall:

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2003_0....html#92763368

Edit: scroll down to entry for "Wednesday, April 16, 2003" if the link doesn't take you there.

Samples:
28 Oct: "He's got weapons of mass destruction."
1 Nov: "We know he's got chemical weapons"
2 Nov: "We know that this is a man who has chemical weapons"
2 Nov: "He's a man who has said he wouldn't have weapons of mass destruction, but he's got them"
3 Nov: "He's a man who said he wouldn't have weapons of mass destruction, yet he has them."

No doubts, no conditionals or subjunctives. But the reality has proved that the case was NOT certain.

If anyone wants to argue that Bush was justified in lying, then make your case. I don't agree, but at least you'd be dealing with events as they actually happened here on Planet Earth (Reality, in other words).

But don't insult people's intelligence by saying that he wasn't lying.

* * *

BTW, I suppose it goes without saying that lying over matters of war and peace is nowhere NEAR as grave an offence as lying over receiving oral sex.

[Pekka]

Well I rather take him lying that one and there being no WMDs than 'missing WMDs we had under our eye at one point'. That would make me feel very uncomfortable, and shaking my belief and trust for US and international intelligence community, and that we are truly screwed and ignorance is a bliss.

[Sava]

uh Clem:
Japher: no offense man, I just had to rant... BTW any news source owned by multi-national conglomerates isn't liberal... food for thought... and I'd accuse you of being a Rush listener regardless

Sloww: some of us live in the real world, others... well... don't.

[Joseph]

Let's look at the inspectors for a moment.
In 98 when the inspectors were told to leave, they said Saddam had x numbers of Chemical, Bio, and Scuds missile. Were did the weapons go?
This time the inspectors found nothing, not even the Mobil lab that we found.
I saw a report a few days ago (and I don't have a link) that suggest that just maybe, the weapons are now in Syria, just like the money. If three money trucks can disappear, why not 5 or 6 trucks full of WMDs.
The Scuds that he had in 98 are a mystery. Were did they go?

[LoneWolf]

I did not have WMD with that woman!