Abject surrender

In article ,
(Cub Driver) wrote:
Simon, you are conflating two ideas here. I remember no such
statement, at least not by Bush or Powell, to the effect that Saddam
could attack us with WMDs in 45 minutes.
That was very much how it was pushed in the UK. We were told in very black
and white terms that Hussain has WMDs, the American's knew exactly where
and that they could deploy them against us in 45 mins. It was never
mentioned that this was only on the battlefield, the implication being
that London, Edinburgh etc were targets.

In article ,
(Simon Robbins) wrote:
or was I dreaming it?
Probably not. It was also reported that some members of ETA were picked up
with rucksacks of explosives at train stations. Needless to say, not much
sign of those reports now...

In article ,
(Cub Driver) wrote:
Saddam had at least five months to convince people that he had no such
weapons. That he made no such effort (the efforts that he did make
were along the lines of obfuscating the issue, thus helping convince
everyone that the weapons did exist) can only mean that he was
convinced that he had them and couldn't conceal them.
I think you'd need to understand the Arab mindset to see what Saddam was
up to at this point. You don't have to agree with they way they think but
it would help to at least understand it.

On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 20:34:41 -0800, Steve Hix wrote:
In article ,
"Simon Robbins" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...
Actually, that's exactly the *opposite* of what was said. It was
repeated, time and again, that waiting until the threat was "imminent"
was a bad idea.

"45 minutes" not sound familiar then?

A somewhat different issue, and you should know better.

There is a little difference between probable local battlefield
response, and activity outside the national boundary.

In a speech made October 6th, 2002 [1], President Bush seems to me
to have strongly implied that Iraq posed a serious and immediate
threat to the United States:

"And we know that after September 11, Saddam Hussein's regime
gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Iraq
could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical
weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.

...

"Some citizens wonder: After 11 years of living with this problem,
why do we need to confront it now?

"There is a reason. We have experienced the horror of September 11.
We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash
airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies
would be no less willing -- in fact they would be eager -- to use
a biological, or chemical, or a nuclear weapon.

"Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat
gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait
for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the
form of a mushroom cloud."


ljd


[1] A transcript of Bush's speech is available on CNN's website at

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/

"Laurence Doering" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 16 Mar 2004 20:34:41 -0800, Steve Hix
wrote:
In article ,
"Simon Robbins" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...
Actually, that's exactly the *opposite* of what was said. It was
repeated, time and again, that waiting until the threat was
"imminent"
was a bad idea.

"45 minutes" not sound familiar then?

A somewhat different issue, and you should know better.

There is a little difference between probable local battlefield
response, and activity outside the national boundary.

In a speech made October 6th, 2002 [1], President Bush seems to me
to have strongly implied that Iraq posed a serious and immediate
threat to the United States:

In what way does your implied guess over rule the Administration's explicit
statement otherwise? The threat from Iraq was explicitly not yet immediate
and that is why they could be tumbled. Now that Libya has quit persuing a
nuke and Iran is trying to back off of what they have done, the entire
invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq plan is working.

The public in Spain was always against invading Iraq and the removal of a
government in conflict witht he will of the people is SOP for democracy.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 09:16:44 -0000, Simon Robbins wrote:
"Matthew G. Saroff" wrote in message
...
I recall hearing of such a threat in France, though not
from ETA, in about that time period.

Yep, could have been France, thinking about it. If that's the case it'd be
interesting to know whether the intelligence that resulted in the French
scare was related to the activities in Spain.

Probably not. The threat against railroads in France was very
different. In late February a group calling itself AZF claimed to
have planted 10 bombs along rail lines in France, and said it would
begin detonating them one by one if the French government didn't pay
the group about 4 million euros (about $4.9 million.) By March 5 it
was reported that 10,000 workers for the French state railway had
searched 20,000 miles of track and found no bombs. [1]

Or maybe even France was the original intended target, which was
switched when they became aware of the threat.

Doesn't seem likely. In contrast to the Madrid bombings, the
French threat seems almost Blofeld-esque. "My doomsday device
is in place, and I will begin to progressively destroy the French
rail network unless you pay me... [pause as villain strokes
white Persian cat] ... FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!"


ljd

[1] http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=9660

Well, no wonder you-all were skeptical!

I would have been skeptical too.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 13:26:38 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

In article ,
(Cub Driver) wrote:
Simon, you are conflating two ideas here. I remember no such
statement, at least not by Bush or Powell, to the effect that Saddam
could attack us with WMDs in 45 minutes.
That was very much how it was pushed in the UK. We were told in very black
and white terms that Hussain has WMDs, the American's knew exactly where
and that they could deploy them against us in 45 mins. It was never
mentioned that this was only on the battlefield, the implication being
that London, Edinburgh etc were targets.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (requires authentication)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

Ah well! This sounds perfectly reasonable to me, given what we knew
ante bellum.

And may well have been true, even given all that we have learned
since.

On 17 Mar 2004 17:23:47 GMT, Laurence Doering wrote:

"And we know that after September 11, Saddam Hussein's regime
gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. Iraq
could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical
weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (requires authentication)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

It's certainly true that I fail to understand that anyone would avoid
a war by convincing the enemy that he had every reason to go to war!

I find it very hard to believe that that is the Arab mindset. Surely
you're being contemptuous of the Arabs?

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 13:26:38 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

In article ,
(Cub Driver) wrote:
Saddam had at least five months to convince people that he had no such
weapons. That he made no such effort (the efforts that he did make
were along the lines of obfuscating the issue, thus helping convince
everyone that the weapons did exist) can only mean that he was
convinced that he had them and couldn't conceal them.
I think you'd need to understand the Arab mindset to see what Saddam was
up to at this point. You don't have to agree with they way they think but
it would help to at least understand it.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (requires authentication)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 13:07:36 -0500, Cub Driver
wrote:

Well, no wonder you-all were skeptical!

You can read what Blair was actually saving on the debate which
authorised miliary action in parliament.

http://www.publications.parliament.u...0318-06_spmin2

The 45 minutes stuff has been played up subsequently in the mass
hysteria to find disproveable claims in the intelligence dossiers to
invalidate the subsequent decision to go to war. I for one did not
understand it then to be critical to the case either way, but then
perhaps I was guilty of using some adult critical faculty to approach
the media hype with some degree of skepticism.

Gavin Bailey


--

Fochinell

"Ancient Scottish battle cry" painted on the side of a Spitfire Mk. XIV in 1944
- presumably without Air Ministry approval.