Blix found a "smoking gun" in Iraq?

[Drake Tungsten]

Once again, it will be up to the proponents of an assertion to show proof. Go ahead, make my day.

You're the one who claimed to know the reasoning behind Blix's actions; I've maintained that I don't know why he did it. You're the one making the assertion...

Can you please leave again? It was better without you and your ignorance...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Here is the reality which all the leftist appalogists in the world cannot erase:

quote:
You have to understand something here that's so diabolically clever. The Iraqis knew that gas is heavier than air and would penetrate cellars and basements more effectively by launching a conventional artillery attack on the town for several hours. In other words, they knew that people would do what they always did during an artillery barrage and run to their basements. They were stuck in their basements, and then [the Iraqis] launched the chemical weapons attack…turning them, really, into gas chambers.

They know this is true but they still spend all of their time defending Saddam because in their sick twisted minds the U.S. is some how worse the Saddam. They are a pathetic joke...

Nothing diabolically clever about it, it's standard tactics for employing CW in any scenario - to mix with HE prep fire before, during and after. I'm assuming this is related to gassing the Kurds, but what's interesting is that both Iran and Iraq used gas in their attack and counterattack, and that the DIA concluded the majority of gas fatalities were consistent with the timing and type of agents used by the Iranians. BTW, the US didn't stop providing Saddam with intel, including raw take from KH-11 and KH-12 overflights, after the first time Saddam used gas in the Iran-Iraq war.

It's nothing to do with defending Saddam (not that I've ever heard) - I think the general consensus, from the ***** left "war is bad, it hurts people" to the center-right opposition to the war, is that the net results - casualties, unpredictable change in ME stability, unpredictable reaction in the arab world, higher threats from Iran and the DPRK, etc., do not justify the immediate removal of Saddam by force.

[Ming]

Enough with the personal crap... if this keeps up, I'm going to take a lesson from MtG and just ban everybody involved...

[MichaeltheGreat]

GePap, Drake, Oerdin, UR and whoever:

Cut the namecalling, etc., or I'll cut it for any or all of you. Generally, the lot of you have more brains than to start acting like first graders.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Damn, you beat me to it by a minute.

[Kramerman]

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Once again, it will be up to the proponents of an assertion to show proof. Go ahead, make my day.

You're the one who claimed to know the reasoning behind Blix's actions; I've maintained that I don't know why he did it. You're the one making the assertion...

Can you please leave again? It was better without you and your ignorance...

Ahem.

You insist that the drone is a material breach and accuses Blix didn't mention this in his oral report.

How is the drone a breach unless it can be used as a weapons platform?

I trust in Blix's expert opinion. You don't. So show your proof.

[Ming]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Damn, you beat me to it by a minute.

Yeah... it was close. But it's nice to see that there is agreement on this issue.

If it keeps up, we just ban ALL OF THEM

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Blix and lads didn't mention it because they determined that the drones is not a weapon platform, as MtG pointed out.

Source?

Quit making up facts...

The "facts" are simple. Saddam isn't required to "disarm" - that's a misnomer. He can have, for all intents and purposes, all the tanks, artillery, rocket artillery, strike aircraft, etc. he wants.

There are certain classes of weapons and weapons related items, including manufacturing capability, tools, parts, and precursor substances, that are forbidden under the existing UNSC resolutions, and UNMOVIC's scope of authority is limited to identifying and demanding/overseeing the destruction of those prohibited items.

No nation has yet made a UAV into a continuous delivery platform for BCW - you could make it drop a dumb bomb (like any fighter aircraft), but that's not a prohibited weapons platform - just like Saddam is allowed to maintain both fighter and strike aircraft. Making a UAV work as a continuous delivery platform is both impractical, and technologically extremely complex - it's unlikely in the extreme that the Iraqis would attempt that, because it's a level of aeronautical and wireless command electronics sophistication beyond what the US has, so it's well beyond Iraq's capabilities.

UAV's are medium altitude vehicles - nobody yet has an operational one of any size (physically large enough to deliver any type of payload, even if it was set up for that), that is capable of remote NOE flight. You have to be fairly close to NOE to get proper dispersal from a spray apparatus, or else you fly so high that you solve the flight control problem at the cost of highly diluted dispersal subject to total disruption by wind.

The reason Saddam isn't likely to ever attempt such a thing is not because he's a great guy - it's because it would be very expensive, technically daunting way to develop a crap delivery system that's likely to fail operationally.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ming


Yeah... it was close. But it's nice to see that there is agreement on this issue.

If it keeps up, we just ban ALL OF THEM

bootlicking

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ming


Yeah... it was close. But it's nice to see that there is agreement on this issue.

If it keeps up, we just ban ALL OF THEM

You nailed CT, so I need to get a few. I'm getting hungry.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Nothing of the sort. You were the fanciful one declaring aerial chemical weapons delivery systems are such an advanced technology that Iraq couldn’t possibly possess them (didn’t you mention something about moon bases?). Sorry to burst your bubble and show how old and elementary they are; I'm sure you're disappointed. It doesn't take the moon bases or the rocket science which you so factiously spoke about; it just takes a pressurized tank and a spray nozzle.

A spray nozzle and a tank on a manned aircraft would be easy, yes, but pretty ineffective unless you had a lot of agent and applied it heavily. Doing the same thing with a UAV, with their weight/size/flight profile/remote control issues, is much different from doing it with a manned aircraft.

[Drake Tungsten]

The "facts" are simple. Saddam isn't required to "disarm" - that's a misnomer. He can have, for all intents and purposes, all the tanks, artillery, rocket artillery, strike aircraft, etc. he wants.

While I appreciate the information, you didn't really prove UR's statements correct. We still don't know why Blix made little mention of the drone finding, which was all I was getting at. I really don't know if drones are prohibited weapons or not; I'm waiting to see what the Americans and Brits say today.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The prohibitive language isn't all-inclusive - in other words, it's not a case of "anything not mentioned is prohibited," it's the other way around - anything not mentioned is permitted. It's arguable that a UAV constitutes a weapons program, even if it is a military program - for example, we'd never classify COMSATS or INTELSATS as "weapons" although they're clearly a serious part of a high-level military capability.

The exact wording as to what is prohibited is contained in three (IIRC) of the 12 UNSC resolutions between 600 and 1441 involving Iraq and the Kuwait invasion. They're spread out over a few years, and I'd have to re-read them to get the exact wording, but you can find them by doing a search of UNSC resolutions after 600 involving Iraq.

All of those involve NBC development programs, NBC ordnance, stuff for making it (including dual-use technologies and substances), and long range delivery platforms which can carry NBC ordnance. That's basically the prohibited list.

[Drake Tungsten]

I just get the feeling that the US and UK wouldn't be making a stink about this if they thought that it was a permitted weapons platform. I could be wrong, however...