The State of the Union: Lies about a Dishonest War

"Fly Guy" wrote in message ...

Ask the Bush administration. They made it an international objective
to force Iraq to prove it did not have WMD. Absurd, yes. Par for the
course for this white house? Yes.


The Iraqis were required to verify the destruction of their WMD by the cease
fire agreement of 1991. Proving that something has been done is not proving
a negative.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:
Ask the Bush administration. They made it an international
objective to force Iraq to prove it did not have WMD. Absurd,
yes. Par for the course for this white house? Yes.

The Iraqis were required to verify the destruction of their WMD
by the cease fire agreement of 1991. Proving that something has
been done is not proving a negative.

You can't prove that something no longer exists if you've destroyed it
(especially if you're trying to prove it to those that are bent on
invading you).

If you start with an inflated estimate of the amount of WMD in the
first place, of course nothing will convince you that all of it was
destroyed.

Iraq was compelled to submit a 10,000 page report as to it's WMD
status. To date, I have yet to hear that any aspect of that report
was false. David Kay was assigned the task of finding WMD. At one
point he gloated over a room stacked to the ceiling with documents -
every page scanned into a bank of computers. I have yet to hear
anything productive come from his efforts (which I suspect were more
to discover and destroy evidence and links of the US-supplied chemical
weapons to Iraq in the 1980's). Mobile chemical manufacturing trucks
have been proven to be Brittish trucks sold to Iraq to generate Helium
for battlefield target balloons.

The US claimed to know where the WMD were, but for baffling reasons
they never told the UN inspectors on the ground.

Look. The UN had several hundred weapons inspectors in Iraq in late
2002/early 2003. They had complete access to any site they wanted to
go. While the US was massing 150k troops nearby. What the US could
have done was to slap UN arm bands on each and every US soldier and
say that they were simply more UN inspectors. They could have just
walked into IRAQ and take up the task of looking for WMD in a
peacefull way - similar to the several hundred UN weapons inspectors
already there. There would have been NO excuse that with 150k UN
inspectors that the Iraqis could play a shell game with WMD.

"Fly Guy" wrote in message ...

You can't prove that something no longer exists if you've destroyed it
(especially if you're trying to prove it to those that are bent on
invading you).


The Iraqis accepted the requirement to verify destruction of their WMD prior
to any destruction of them. For what reason would they destroy them but
maintain the appearance that they had not been destroyed?

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

The Iraqis accepted the requirement to verify destruction of their
WMD prior to any destruction of them.

Any such requirement would have been rammed down their throat,
probably with no supporting adendums detailing what constitutes
acceptible verification.

For what reason would they destroy them but maintain the
appearance that they had not been destroyed?

How about to give surrounding hostile countries the reason to think
that Iraq just might have some shread of defensive capability?

Please explain why a shipment of 14 scud missles from North Korea was
allowed to be delivered to Yemen before the Iraq invasion started?
Yemen. You know, where the USS Cole was almost sunk? The country
filled with radicals and terrorists? Why did the US allow the
Yemenese to take possession of those WMD's? The ship was boarded by
"coalition" forces. It could have been taken out to sea and sunk.
Instead the US allowed REAL WMD's to fall into the hands of REAL
terrorists.

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 11:08:55 -0500, Fly Guy wrote:

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

The Iraqis accepted the requirement to verify destruction of their
WMD prior to any destruction of them.

Any such requirement would have been rammed down their throat,
probably with no supporting adendums detailing what constitutes
acceptible verification.

For what reason would they destroy them but maintain the
appearance that they had not been destroyed?

How about to give surrounding hostile countries the reason to think
that Iraq just might have some shread of defensive capability?

Actually, the reason is quite simple. Just like in the US: domestic
politics.

Saddam owned his political survival on his ability to play games and make
the US look stupid. Hence this game.

(BTW, seems to me this was quite obvious all along. But eh, Rummy didn't
want to open his eyes apparently. Wishful thinking? Or maybe that's the
very reason he went to war?)

"devil" wrote in message
news

Actually, the reason is quite simple. Just like in the US: domestic
politics.

Saddam owned his political survival on his ability to play games and make
the US look stupid. Hence this game.

(BTW, seems to me this was quite obvious all along. But eh, Rummy didn't
want to open his eyes apparently. Wishful thinking? Or maybe that's the
very reason he went to war?)


If Saddam had complied with the cease fire agreement he'd still be in power
today. It appears destroying the WMD while maintaining the illusion that
they had not been destroyed, if that's what was done, was not very smart.

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:42:08 +0000, Steven P. McNicoll wrote:


"devil" wrote in message
news

Actually, the reason is quite simple. Just like in the US: domestic
politics.

Saddam owned his political survival on his ability to play games and make
the US look stupid. Hence this game.

(BTW, seems to me this was quite obvious all along. But eh, Rummy didn't
want to open his eyes apparently. Wishful thinking? Or maybe that's the
very reason he went to war?)


If Saddam had complied with the cease fire agreement he'd still be in power
today. It appears destroying the WMD while maintaining the illusion that
they had not been destroyed, if that's what was done, was not very smart.

Gave him ten good years. He would not have lasted one year otherwise.

Anyway, that's still talking about excuses and rhetorics, not the true
reason.

Except if we agree that the true reason for the war was that he
did make the US look stupid, that is.

"Fly Guy" wrote in message ...

Any such requirement would have been rammed down their throat,
probably with no supporting adendums detailing what constitutes
acceptible verification.


Well, when you lose a war, you tend to get things rammed down your throat.



How about to give surrounding hostile countries the reason to think
that Iraq just might have some shread of defensive capability?


Iraq was permitted defensive capability, we are not talking about defensive
weapons.



Please explain why a shipment of 14 scud missles from North Korea was
allowed to be delivered to Yemen before the Iraq invasion started?


Because it was not something they were barred from posessing.



Yemen. You know, where the USS Cole was almost sunk? The country
filled with radicals and terrorists? Why did the US allow the
Yemenese to take possession of those WMD's? The ship was boarded by
"coalition" forces. It could have been taken out to sea and sunk.
Instead the US allowed REAL WMD's to fall into the hands of REAL
terrorists.


Scuds are a delivery vehicle, they are not WMD.

"Fly Guy" wrote in message ...
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

The Iraqis accepted the requirement to verify destruction of their
WMD prior to any destruction of them.

Any such requirement would have been rammed down their throat,
probably with no supporting adendums detailing what constitutes
acceptible verification.

For what reason would they destroy them but maintain the
appearance that they had not been destroyed?

How about to give surrounding hostile countries the reason to think
that Iraq just might have some shread of defensive capability?

Please explain why a shipment of 14 scud missles from North Korea was
allowed to be delivered to Yemen before the Iraq invasion started?
Yemen. You know, where the USS Cole was almost sunk? The country
filled with radicals and terrorists? Why did the US allow the
Yemenese to take possession of those WMD's?

FYI, a ballistic missile is not a WMD all by its lonesome. It requires the
fitting of a nuclear, biological, or chemical warhead before it meets the
generally accepted definition of "WMD". You are mistaking the effort to
control ballistic missile proliferation under the Missile Technology Control
Regime (MTCR) for WMD proliferation control, and the two ain't the same
thing.

Brooks

snip further misdirected rant

Kevin Brooks wrote:

FYI, a ballistic missile is not a WMD all by its lonesome.

How do you know that there was no weapons payload?

Even if there was no payload, what are the Yemenese using them for?
Garden planters? A year later are they still just delivery vehicles,
or do you think they are fully armed WMD's?

Is the region better off with Yemen having them? Is Israel better
off?