Families of soldiers condemn Bush's war

Y'all don't seem to recall when Saddam threatened the US that if we
invaded, that he would use chemical and biological weapons on us?
Maybe it's me, but I don't think so, I think its the people who only
hear what they want to hear and twist things around to fit their own
agenda or feed their own retarded brains thought process. Isn't that
kind of like admitting he has them? DUH! Or just bluffing? either way
we called his bluff now didn't we? Vince, how do I use the "Nazi"
phrase in here to use up this thread? Please Troll, can you start
another one?

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:56:46 -0000, "oO"
wrote:


"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
.. .
Vince Brannigan wrote:

:It's the country's war when Bush produces the WMDs he promised

Jesus Christ, Vince, what are you smoking THIS weekend? Were you
frightened by a bush when you were very young, or what? That's the
only excuse I can find for your unreasoned venom, since you're old
enough to not be behaving like a 13 year old.

:lest we forget....

Yeah, lest we forget, EVERYONE believed he had such weapons, including
the French, the Russians, and even Saddam himself, apparently. Now
it's suddenly all Bush's fault.

Of course they knew he *had* them - they ****ing give them to him. the point
it - he clearly destroyed them ..

Get a clue....

We were told by the weapons inspectors he didnt have them anymore. Nobody
believed he had them outside of the US, but the only people who could really
know - the weapons experts who were actually there inspecting in Iraq
(including Mr.Blix) said there were NONE.

Despite this the UN was shown Powells laughable powerpoint demonstration
that showed a drawing of a truck that was meant to be evidence of a mobile
weapons factory...lol..****ing hell thats funny...what happened when they
invaded? The truck was being used for weather experiments. lol

user wrote in
:

Y'all don't seem to recall when Saddam threatened the US that if we
invaded, that he would use chemical and biological weapons on us?

Did he actually say that? I remember some vague statements that the US
government spun to mean that Saddam had chemical weapons, but not that he
actually came out and said it. Do you have a source by any chance?

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Vince Brannigan wrote:

:It's the country's war when Bush produces the WMDs he promised

Jesus Christ, Vince, what are you smoking THIS weekend? Were you
frightened by a bush when you were very young, or what? That's the
only excuse I can find for your unreasoned venom, since you're old
enough to not be behaving like a 13 year old.

:lest we forget....

Yeah, lest we forget, EVERYONE believed he had such weapons, including
the French, the Russians, and even Saddam himself, apparently. Now
it's suddenly all Bush's fault.

Get a clue....


People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional


Vince

Vince:

- What about the 30 or so 55 gal drums of Lewisite?
- What about the mobile chem labs?
- What about the Rycin?
- What about the Botulinum?
- What about the anthrax cultures?
- What about the residuals at various dumping sites?

How much "evidence of WMD;" or, more to the point, "evidence of WMD
programs" is enough for you?

Steve Swartz


"Vince Brannigan" wrote in message
...


Fred J. McCall wrote:
Vince Brannigan wrote:

:It's the country's war when Bush produces the WMDs he promised

Jesus Christ, Vince, what are you smoking THIS weekend? Were you
frightened by a bush when you were very young, or what? That's the
only excuse I can find for your unreasoned venom, since you're old
enough to not be behaving like a 13 year old.

:lest we forget....

Yeah, lest we forget, EVERYONE believed he had such weapons, including
the French, the Russians, and even Saddam himself, apparently. Now
it's suddenly all Bush's fault.

Get a clue....


People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional


Vince

"Leslie Swartz" wrote in message ...
Vince:

- What about the 30 or so 55 gal drums of Lewisite?
- What about the mobile chem labs?
- What about the Rycin?
- What about the Botulinum?
- What about the anthrax cultures?
- What about the residuals at various dumping sites?

How much "evidence of WMD;" or, more to the point, "evidence of WMD
programs" is enough for you?

Steve Swartz

You are forgetting that Vkince and his ilk only consider it a WMD
program if they can point to a physical and truly massive stockpile of
active agents already in a weaponized state. That approach makes it so
much easier for them to continue to bash Bush and the US. And BTW: you
can add the development of the tactical ballistic missiles that
exceeded the range allowed per the resolutions/cease fire agreement in
your list as well.

Brooks



"Vince Brannigan" wrote in message
...


Fred J. McCall wrote:
Vince Brannigan wrote:

:It's the country's war when Bush produces the WMDs he promised

Jesus Christ, Vince, what are you smoking THIS weekend? Were you
frightened by a bush when you were very young, or what? That's the
only excuse I can find for your unreasoned venom, since you're old
enough to not be behaving like a 13 year old.

:lest we forget....

Yeah, lest we forget, EVERYONE believed he had such weapons, including
the French, the Russians, and even Saddam himself, apparently. Now
it's suddenly all Bush's fault.

Get a clue....


People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional


Vince

In message , Leslie Swartz
writes
Vince:

- What about the 30 or so 55 gal drums of Lewisite?

Which were found when and where?

- What about the mobile chem labs?

You mean the canvas-sided trailers that might be mobile WME factories...
or might be mobile hydrogen generators?

- What about the Rycin?

Ricin. Some evidence of ricin manufacture turned up in a UK house (it's
not that hard to do) but I don't recall any significant Iraqi program
being discovered.

- What about the Botulinum?

How much, how weaponised?

- What about the anthrax cultures?

Is this the culture that a scientist was told to hide in his
refrigerator in 1991?

- What about the residuals at various dumping sites?

What about them? Any recent activity?

How much "evidence of WMD;" or, more to the point, "evidence of WMD
programs" is enough for you?

Enough to suggest that there was a significant threat of weaponised,
deployable agents.

We know he used to have a WME program; ask an Iranian veteran, ask a
Kurd. We know a lot of it was captured or destroyed post-1991 and more
destroyed in 1998. What we don't know with certainty is (a) how much he
actually had, (b) how much was lost or destroyed, (c) how much the
Iraqis disposed of themselves.


In six months of occupation, with unlimited access, and many key
decisionmakers and scientists in custody, we haven't found any
deployable weapons, nor any means to produce them in a useful timescale.



--
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

Vince Brannigan wrote in message ...
Fred J. McCall wrote:
Vince Brannigan wrote:

:It's the country's war when Bush produces the WMDs he promised

Jesus Christ, Vince, what are you smoking THIS weekend? Were you
frightened by a bush when you were very young, or what? That's the
only excuse I can find for your unreasoned venom, since you're old
enough to not be behaving like a 13 year old.

:lest we forget....

Yeah, lest we forget, EVERYONE believed he had such weapons, including
the French, the Russians, and even Saddam himself, apparently. Now
it's suddenly all Bush's fault.

Get a clue....


People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional

Vkince, you should be the absolute *last* person to be hurling about
accusations that anyone is "delusional".

Brooks



Vince

Kevin Brooks wrote:


People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional

Vkince, you should be the absolute *last* person to be hurling about
accusations that anyone is "delusional".

I'm not the leader of the most powerful country on earth . sending the nation into war.

The Economist

October 4, 2003 U.S. Edition

SECTION: LEADER

LENGTH: 1243 words

HEADLINE: Wielders of mass deception? - Wielders of mass deception?

BODY:
THE road to war with Iraq was paved with arguments, good and bad. Among the many good ones were
Saddam Hussein's serial invasion of his neighbours, his neglect and murder of his own people, and his
recidivist disregard for the umpteen UN resolutions passed in the hope of domesticating him. But
there were some less good arguments advanced by the governments that ousted him. George Bush and Tony
Blair, it now appears, exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This
is not just a negligible footnote in the history of Iraq's conquest and reconstruction--so much
propaganda under the bridge. In the eyes of the world, especially the Arab world, the flimsiness of
some of the claims about Mr Hussein's arsenal has helped to make a legitimate conflict seem
otherwise. It also risks making the danger posed by WMD seem more rhetorical and less real than it
is, and may jeopardise future efforts to deal with that danger, especially any that involve acting
pre-emptively. Ultimately, weaknesses in the Anglo-American case risk damaging the limited trust that
Britons and Americans place in their leaders. They may also have more tangible political
consequences. Mr Bush's popularity has been hit by the costs and complications of the post-war
occupation, but thus far Mr Blair has faced more flak over his case for war. As the presidential
election approaches, and more light is shone into both Mr Bush's case and the way the White House
dealt with its critics, the balance of political risk may well change.

The good, the bad and the exaggerated

Mr Bush and Mr Blair, remember, were only supporting witnesses in the argument that Mr Hussein
coveted and probably retained WMD. The main evidence came from the UN weapons inspectors, aided and
abetted by Mr Hussein himself. Those with the inclination and stamina--of whom, before the war, there
were few--can immerse themselves in more than a decade's worth of reports that detail Iraq's WMD
history. Despite brazen efforts to obstruct them, in the 1990s the inspectors uncovered, among other
things, Iraq's biological-weapons programmes. The shenanigans continued when the inspectors returned
to the country in 2002. As well as acting guilty right until the end, Mr Hussein had used WMD in the
past. Very few people believed that he had given them up of his own accord. The Economist was not
among them.

But the inspectors' findings were too arcane to be turned into soundbites. And in the end, they
amounted to a set of alarming questions about what Mr Hussein might be hiding, rather than firm
statements. So Mr Blair and Mr Bush levelled some accusations of their own, based on what their spies
told them ()see page 24. America, for instance, made frightening allegations about the progress of a
Saddamite nuclear bomb, and Iraq's links to al-Qaeda. Both governments had other reasons for wanting
to change Iraq's regime, which, in the weapons' absence, they are now busily stressing; but the case
they made to the world was firmly anchored in the WMD threat.

Six months and a war later, the American-led post-war inspectors were expected to tell Congress this
week that Mr Hussein's missile programmes and procurement efforts did indeed breach UN resolutions,
and offer other proof of his duplicity. Yet no actual WMD have come to light, let alone the
terrifying arsenal the world was led to expect. Even many who opposed the war are shocked and awed by
this, especially by the apparent absence of the chemical weapons Mr Hussein was widely believed to
have retained. Like inquisitors condemning a witch, some argue that this failure to find very much
simply confirms Mr Hussein's cunning. That is not good enough. By adding their own,
intelligence-based allegations to those of the UN's inspectors, Messrs Bush and Blair shifted part of
the burden of proof from Mr Hussein to themselves. Their own worst enemies

Two questions are raised by the elusiveness of the WMD. The first concerns Saddam. Why, if he had so
little to hide, did he subject his country to all those years of sanctions and bombings, and finally
to the war that dislodged him? One explanation is that Mr Hussein intentionally created uncertainty
about his arsenal: adversaries might be deterred, while his guilt could never be categorically
proven. This strategy may have extended to the issue of fake orders to his commanders to unleash
chemical weapons, in the hope that they would be overheard and deter the invasion. Or this
self-proclaimed heir of Saladin and
Nebuchadnezzar may have been unwilling to face the shame of submitting to the UN, and did not give a
fig about what his machismo cost his people. Or, as can be the fate of dictators, Mr Hussein's
minions may have led him to believe that he had a bigger punch, and more to hide, than he actually
did. When war was on his doorstep, they may have been too cowed to tell him the truth.

The second question concerns the governments of Britain and America: why did they make some claims
that now look exaggerated? Did the spies get it wrong, or did the politicians lie about what the
spies told them? Unless more intelligence is declassified (and it should be), it is hard to make a
definitive judgment; but parliamentary and congressional probes, and a British public inquiry,
enable an interim one. Both were culpable. The spies erred and the politicians exaggerated.

Iraq was, in spook parlance, a "hard target". Reliable, on-the-ground intelligence was hard to come
by, as is inevitable in a country where minor disloyalty was punishable by death, or worse. But that
doesn't get the politicians off the hook. Intelligence, like those UN reports, tends to deal in
subjunctives: it often speaks of what might or could be going on rather than what definitely is.
Politicians, on the other hand, prefer indicatives or imperatives. What in some cases began as
nuanced reports became much more certain; and while both Mr Bush and Mr Blair often spoke, quite
reasonably, of future dangers and of possible threats, they sought as well to grab the attention
through more specific claims. It also seems possible that some dated intelligence was used to portray
a current menace. In the case of the al-Qaeda connection, Mr Bush's team wilfully over-interpreted
the little proof they had. This impression of cavalier behaviour, especially on the part of the
Americans, may yet be dispelled--either by a fuller disclosure of the intelligence, or by further
discoveries in Iraq. Indeed, it would be astonishing if no such discoveries were made. But judging by
the way some British and American officials have been playing down expectations--sliding from
talking about actual weapons to discussing weapons programmes and plans--they are not overly
optimistic. Even if some WMD are found, many of the specific Anglo-American claims seem unlikely to
be vindicated.

The response of some cynics is that governments are always economical with the actualite, especially
when selling a controversial policy--and the Iraq war, a war of choice, fought in spite of much of
the world's disapproval, was an especially hard sell. The reverse is true: the standards of accuracy
and sobriety should have been all the more scrupulous because of the controversy, and because so many
lives were at stake. The war, we still think, was justified. But in making the case for it, Mr Bush
and Mr Blair did not play straight with their people.
October 3, 2003




Vince

(Kevin Brooks) wrote:

:Vince Brannigan wrote in message ...
: Fred J. McCall wrote:
: Vince Brannigan wrote:
:
: :It's the country's war when Bush produces the WMDs he promised
:
: Jesus Christ, Vince, what are you smoking THIS weekend? Were you
: frightened by a bush when you were very young, or what? That's the
: only excuse I can find for your unreasoned venom, since you're old
: enough to not be behaving like a 13 year old.
:
: :lest we forget....
:
: Yeah, lest we forget, EVERYONE believed he had such weapons, including
: the French, the Russians, and even Saddam himself, apparently. Now
: it's suddenly all Bush's fault.
:
: Get a clue....
:
:
: People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.
:
: Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional
:
:Vkince, you should be the absolute *last* person to be hurling about
:accusations that anyone is "delusional".

Especially since Vince's delusions seem to be rewriting history. I'm
not sure just how he thinks "el Busho" managed to make the
intelligence services of the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and the US
all believe that Iraq had chemical weapons ready to deploy (to the
point where the French were even initially offering to come in if we
were actually subject to a chemical attack, presumably to prevent
Saddam from doing something quite stupid and proving the French to be
liars).

I'd be REAL interested how he convinced Saddam and various Iraqi
military commanders of it. Remember, there are lots of reports from
field commanders that, while THEY didn't have chemical weapons, the
unit next door did. Obviously, SOMEBODY was spreading that rumour in
the Iraqi forces. I can just see Bush running from tent to tent
before the invasion.

Quite clever, these Evil Republicans, hey Vince?

Sheesh!

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

Vince Brannigan wrote:
[....]
People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional

Now, Vince, that is falling prey to your own political mindset.
Not everything is reducable to such politically naive pandering.

In reality, a very large portion of the people who paid
attention to the Iraqi WMD threat from the early through
mid and late 1990s all agreed that it was likely that Iraq
still had hidden some materials and had obviously hidden
large amounts of information. Many of us believed that
from 1991 and 1992, long before G W Bush had run for
Governor in Texas much less for president.

There were large, known gaps in the information provided
UNSCOM and then UNMOVIC, and in the information they were
able to take during inspections. Some of those were gaps
where it appears in retrospect that the Iraqis truly had
just destroyed records and they're gone; interviews with
the participants on the Iraqi side, done post-Iraqi
Freedom, indicate that a lot of them claim that's what
happened. But they weren't allowed to fully disclose the
details prior to Iraqi Freedom and nobody believed them,
not the US, UNMOVIC, the UN Security Council, France,
Russia, etc.

It appears likely that the reason they weren't allowed to
fully disclose them, and that the Iraqi government didn't
cooperate with the inspections regime fully at any point,
was that Iraq followed a conscious strategy of both
disarming (at least functionally, though some bits and
pieces were left and were discovered throughout the 1990s)
and maintaining a large scale deception program to maintain
a deterrent belief in their neighbors' (and internal
minorities and dissidents) minds as to whether they were
really completely disarmed or not.

Liberals who are anti-war often refuse to acknowledge
the existence of a long and quite detailed history of
investigations and evidence which quite credibly would
lead an independent thinker to conclude that Iraq was
in fact hiding a real program. Hans Blix spent many
years convinced there was in fact something there,
though he changed his mind before the war when it
appeared that his conclusions might be used to justfiy
the war, which he didn't want to happen.

It is probably true that the majority of the population
didn't care one way or the other until Bush put forwards
his belief and made a point of it. It is a grossly
misinformed lie that nobody had education and belief on
the issue prior to then, and that nobody agreed with the
conclusion prior to then.

The implications of Saddam Hussein's deception program having
been successful in fooling those of us (including in the US
government, and outside) who thought the threat was real,
are a serious problem. We did not have good enough solid enough
intelligence on what was really happening. But the problem
was clearly a very hard one: penetrating a program in a hostile
warlike country, in which the leadership had committed itself
to maintaining a deception as a matter of national urgent
priority, and was willing to kill and torture to help cover
up what it was really doing.

In the end, Saddam could have ended the deception at any point
since 1991 and, after a reasonably short verification program,
ended the sanctions and the threats of ongoing violence and
war which eventually escalated to the US invasion. He chose
not to comply materially until the US had already given up on
peaceful options and committed to launch the war. That decision
and the consequences lie on his head.

Knowing what we knew pre-war, the conclusion that he was
still hiding a WMD program was well supported and reasonable.
Not universally agreed with, but well supported and reasonable.
And at least largely wrong, as we now know.


-george william herbert