In message , tscottme
writes
Simon Robbins wrote in message
...
If I had neighbours like theirs I'd be claiming to be pretty
adequately
tooled up too. Still doesn't answer the question about where it all
went
too. You'd think someone who'd have no compunction using such weapons
on his
own people would eventually use them as a last ditch attempt to save
his own
regime, if he had them.

So you have no trouble making excuses for Saddam?

Why is asking pertinent questions "making excuses"?

If Saddam had the alleged stockpiles of ready WMEs, available for prompt
use with crews trained in their use, then where are they?

On the other hand, he certainly had threats wanting to invade him and
cast him down. The US and UK, as proven ('cause we did), plus the
Iranians, and he had long-term squabbles ongoing with the Kurds and the
Turks.

Seems eminently sensible to me that he might try a "Look! No provable
WME!" tactic of wounded innocence to his powerful enemies, while darkly
hinting that just because the US can't _prove_ he's got chem-bio doesn't
mean he can't smack any incursion or rebellion with lots of exotic
nastiness.

Sensible tactic, provided his powerful enemies don't call the bluff and
are either unconvinced by the threat or are deterred by it. The problem
comes when the threat is made credible enough, yet doesn't deter.

Still a very serious intel failure that we misread his actual intent and
capabilities so badly, but I do see where it came from.

How typical, how long
have you been a Liberal?

In my case, quite a while: my second degree is from University College
London, founded by Jeremy Bentham (and who remains resident in a
hallway).

Of course, that assumes you mean "liberal" in the classical sense. I
don't seem to fit the current US definition at all: ex-military, work
for and with the military now, own my house, believe that governments
should ask nicely for tax money rather than expect it as a right, that
sort of thing.

Saddam used the weapons,

Fifteen years ago. *Before* losing a war and having serious efforts made
to eliminate them, and before a second 'operation' (Desert Fox was too
carefully well-planned[1] to be a war).

Lots of weapon programs were turned up, turned over and demolished
between 1991 and 2003. I'm still waiting for anyone to find more than
fragments of the "bury this in your garden until this all blows over"
variety to suggest that he had any effective capability this year.

he declared vast
amounts of them, intelligence services all over the world documented the
tons and tons of material and machines to produce and maintain the WMDs,
and as the article points out, the thorough inspections have only
cleared about 10 or 20 of the 130 known munitions storage areas.

The trained FDC crews who knew how to use the weapons would be a start,
as would the production facilities and the distribution organisation.
These weapons leave a wide trail if they exist and are fieldable.

How
many aircraft were buried in the desert of Iraq that we only found out
about because locals brought it to our attention.

How many of them will ever fly again? (The answer is the roundest of
numbers, unless you're using "The A-Team" as your guide to military
technology)

The anthrax stocks
could fit in a few 55 gallon drums which take up less space than one of
those buried MiGs.

I seem to remember something like nine thousand cubic metres of missing
growth media, which would fill 44,000 fifty-five gallon drums.

I'd have thought that if Iraq has a few dozen buried aircraft and we can
find them, we can find one or two out of forty-four thousand barrels.

Again, Saddam worked hard to mislead, but UK and US intelligence were
very badly mistaken.

In addition people and trucks were streaming out of
Iraq into Syria before, during, and just after the war.

So, a stated aim of the war was to stop proliferation of WMEs, and the
result of the war was to scatter Iraqi WMEs to the four winds beyond any
tracking, control or destruction.

You're saying the war was a failure, then?

"Interestingly, we started to lose this war only after the embedded
reporters pulled out.

When did we start to lose the war? I thought we won it convincingly. The
occupation and restoration is proving difficult, but that's a viewpoint
I get from returning military personnel not the news. Besides, the US
sacked the Army CoS who said the occupation would be harder than the
civilian whiz-kids theorised - was Shineski right after all?




[1] Never give the enemy a fair fight. If you can successfully conduct
your operations without a single loss, that doesn't mean you cheated -
it means you used your advantages correctly
--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk