"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message ...
"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
...

...

Who really cares if YOU are impressed or not? There was a continuing effort
to work with ricin as a weapon. That work was in violation of the
restrictions placed upon them. There were other violations noted as well.
All of those are FACTS. As to *your* assessment of dual-use facilities,
ricin, etc....gee, I am gonna kind of believe that Kay, with his background,
knows more about them than YOU do--or are you going to give us a CV that
proves otherwise?


Iraq was not enriching Uranium and was nowhere near having an
operable reactor and we knew that for certain. Uranium
enrichment programs and reactors release noble gases that can
be detected over long distances--that is how we know North
Korea has reprocessed fuel rods. Besides, the IAEA did certify
that Iraq was in compliance with the nuclear requirements.
Iraq's complaince with the UN mandatres on chemical and
biological weapons was still an open issue when the invasion
began. However UNMOVIC and IAEA both reported that they
had been receiving full cooperation form Iraq.

One very important reason why UNMOVIC had not certified Iraqi
compliance at the time of the invasion was becuase they were
misinformed, by the US. We kept telling them to inspect
sites, they kept inspecting them and kept finding nothing.
One UNMOVIC inspector summarized the US intelligence as '****'.

It is clear that the Bush administrations sabotaged the UNMOVIC
inspections by providing UNMOVIC with false information. THe
motive is clear, to prevent UNMOVIC from certifying that Iraq
was in compliance.

But let us agree that there we some violations of the letter
of the prohibitions iethout regard to whether or not UNMOVIC
would have discovered them The real question is if those violations
justify the invasion. Tha answer is clearly no because dormant
and bench scale research programs did not present an imminent
danger. There was time to deal with those by other means,
discovery by UNMOVIC, revolution, coup, assasination by the
Israelis, death by accidental or natural causes, surgical strikes,
any number of things might have kept Iraq from aquiring stockpiles
of chemical or biological weapons. The rapid success of the in-
vasion and the post-invastion evidence shows that the sanctions
were efffective in keeping Iraq militarily weak altogether, both
conventionally and nonconventionally. There is no doubt of the
potential for danger, but also no doubt that actual danger was at
least years away.

IMHO, even stockpiles of useable biological and chemical weapons
did not present a threat to the US or to Iraq's neighbors because
Saddam Hussein dared not use them for fear of US retaliation.
That was my position befor the invasion and it remains the same
today.

They would be useless against the US becuase
Biological and Chemical weapons are useless without aircraft
or arrillery to deliver them and neither would survive long enough
to fire for effect in an engagement against US forces.

The purpose of the invasion was to be preemptive, not punitive.

We didn't preempt anything was less than several years in the future.
We did succeed in punishing Saddam Hussein, but at what cost?
The price is yet to be determined in full.


who had the capability of producing weapons of mass destruction

Yeah, they did, and what's more they were continuing proscribed WMD programs
up until the outbreak of armed hostilities.


The only program shown to be active was the Al Hussein missle program.
Those only exceeded the allowed range in a zero payoad no guidance
test, and only barely so. Much as I hate to agree with the former
Iraqi regime on anything honesty requires that I agree that AH missles
were arguably within the proscribed limits. Notwithstanding, Iraq
agreed to allow them to be detroyed.

Iraq complied (albeit grudingly) with our demands, and we invaded
them anyways.


This no longer even is a claim that Saddam had the intent
of producing WMD, only the capability;

Do you seriously doubt that Saddam would not have reopened production ASAP
if he had been allowed to? I gave you credit for possessing a bit more
common sense than that.


I don't think anyone seriously doubted that Saddam Hussein would
have resumed WMD production if he could have. The argument against
the invasion was that he had not and could not in the immediate future.

When Bush made the claim that those of us who opposed the invasion
thought that Hussein could be trusted he lied to you. We never thought
that at all.

--

FF