Declassified report-WMD Found in Iraq

[Arrian]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why would that be?

PS I don't really buy the contention that it was obviously false that Iraq had no WMDs. The intel was obviously wrong on that point but that's the way it pointed even in the Clinton admin.

Because the threat level would have been higher if Iraq was actually close to nukes. That, coupled with other considerations, might have been enough to tip the balance for me. But even so, seeing as my main reservation on the war was that I had no confidence that the government would do a good job handling the post-war occupation/reconstruction, I might still would have been against. But at that point, it becomes a coin flip.

The reason I say it was obviously false was that it was obvious (to me) that the Bush Administration wanted to invade Iraq, and then set about trying to find a casus belli that allowed them to do it. Under those conditions, I considered all intel supporting the Admins' position highly suspect.

...

Drake, you know what I mean. It was laid out by others: we didn't invade Iraq to find some rusty artillery shells from pre-1991.

-Arrian

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Arrian


Actually, I agree, at least wrt chemical weapons.

Nukes are IMO the real "WMDs" and I would've been more concerned (perhaps even concerned enough to support the war) if I'd believed that Iraq was anywhere near getting nukes. Maybe.

...

As for who cares... anyone who cares about the government's casus belli. We can all play at being sophisticated by saying we don't really care what the government said to the ignorant masses to get us to go to war, but when it comes right down to it, I don't want Presidents taking the country to war on false pretexts: in this case that Iraq had WMDs and was a clear & present danger to the national security of the United States.

But we've been over this already.

-Arrian

Agreed. This so called NEWS is ancient. This was reported many moons ago. It is however indicting the Sadaam governement of their claims that they had destroyed every last bit of WMD (clearly they hadn't). Interesting to rebut oft repeated claims there were no WMD's but doesn;t really advance the real question of what to do now. Additionally whats not reported is the substantial chemical industry and raw materials found allowed for rather rapid reconstitution of 'chemical WMD' ( I also don't hold them as scary scary WMD's and said so back preinvasion) manufacture within a matter of days if not hours had Sadaam so wished. Again who cares save to shut up the moonbats who claim THERE WERE NO WMDs. And today winning the internal political arguement seems far more important then dealing intelligently with the Iraqi situation and terrorism as a whole.

[Mercator]

Originally posted by Japher
besides, what will it change?

Whether the ignorant masses vote Democrat or Republican in the mid-term elections or in 2008.

[Victor Galis]

If there had been a serious political argument before the Iraq war, we might not be in this mess now.

[Arrian]

Indeed. Unfortunately, 9/11 introduced a lot of emotions into the issue, and also I think lots of people looked back at the relative ease of Gulf War I and were thinking this would be easy too (and the "major military operations" part of it was. The US/UK forces crushed the Iraqi Army).

The Dems were such pussies. So scared of being labelled unpatriotic.

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Arrian
Because the threat level would have been higher if Iraq was actually close to nukes.

Why would that be? I'm only slightly being a smart ass here. I really am curious why a nuke program would have pushed you (or at least nudged you in that direction) to support the war. Seems odd at least to me.

[Arrian]

Several reasons, and please bear in mind I'm trying to back up several years here and remove stuff we've learned since then:

Because I consider nukes to be far more dangerous than other supposed "WMDs." This is true regardless of the year.

Because there is always the scary possibility that stateless actors (terrorists) could get their hands on a nuke from a state (either the state gives it to them - highly unlikely - or they manage to infiltrate the state's security and steal one). I don't think Saddam was buddy-buddy with A-Q. But Iraq with nukes struck me as a Pakistan-like situation... the nukes themselves or the technology might "slip out" to places we don't want it to go.

In hindsight, the above might seem overwrought. But not impossible. Nukes are the ultimate weapon - get a good one and NYC goes poof in an instant. Of course, I worry about Pakistan, which actually has been proliferating nuke tech, and it's pretty clear that the government has multiple personality disorder (whereas Saddam had pretty tight control).

Finally, because it would have represented a far more substantial violation of the UN resolutions than saying they destroyed some old decrepid (ack, sp?) chemical shells when they hadn't (which, honestly, is what I figured, pre-war).

That would've pushed me, yeah.

-Arrian

[Drake Tungsten]

I damn near chimed in here with a serious post, but why bother? No one who thinks Bush lied us into a war or that the Dems didn't fight it because they were "pussies" is going to change their mind on such matters at this point. And besides, none of this really matters anymore. **** it...

[Arrian]

It only matters if one thinks we can learn from the past, Drake.

Why do I bother, though? You actually contest that Bush wanted to invade Iraq and spun the "facts" such that we did? I didn't use the word lie, by the way. Spin is more accurate.

Besides, since when is something "mattering" a prerequisite for a discussion on 'poly OTF? And since when do you disagree that the Dems are pussies?

-Arrian

[Victor Galis]

Sorry, but I wouldn't seriously trust the assessment of anyone that wasn't aware on Sept. 11th that Bush was going to use this to invade some sort of Muslim country(ies).

[Arrian]

Except that the invasion that was justified by 9/11 was of Afganistan, which was fine by me.

So I guess Bush is 1 for 2. Being a baseball man, he probably thinks batting .500 is really good!

-Arrian

[Victor Galis]

Well, my prediction on 9/11 was that he was going to rally people around the flag then do something incredibly stupid. It wasn't quite that specific. I think it was late '02 that it became incredibly obvious that he was going to invade Iraq.

[Japher]

removing saddam from power is a good thing
if for no other reason than for the fact that his trial is getting some lawyers killed.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Japher
removing saddam from power is a good thing
if for no other reason than for the fact that his trial is getting some lawyers killed.

But is it good enough to justify the bad? I mean the near civil war situation, the thousands of dead civilians, etc.?

[Arrian]

It's Japher, man. That was not a serious post.

-Arrian