Well lookie here! Isn't this article timely. Batman, would you like to comment on how this could entirely destroy your pre-war assertions and close to 2 years of posts? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132682,00.html Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program Friday, September 17, 2004 By Claudia Rosett and George Russell LUGANO, Switzerland — Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations Oil-for-Food program to help fund Al Qaeda? Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of Oil-for-Food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his infamous war on the U.S. Now, buried in some of the United Nation's own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link — clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort. (To review a series of documents, audits and other stories related to Oil-for-Food, click here.) Next to that door, a festive sign spells out in gold letters under a green flag that this is the office of MIGA, the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (search). Registered here 20 years ago as a society to promote business between the Gulf States and Asia, Europe and Africa, MIGA is a company that the United Nations and the U.S. government says has served as a hub of Al Qaeda finance: A terrorist chamber of commerce. WOW. This could be huge.
That's why I said might. I didn't say did, but you suggested there was no possible explanation for their disappearance. I'm not a weapons inspector and I don't have all the intelligence the administration does (not the stuff they paid attention to or the stuff they ignored), so I can't speak with authority to this. I never said I could. What I can say is that there used to be two stories on this. The UN said the weapons didn't appear to be there, which the US said they definitely were. Today both sides subscribe to the UN version. That doesn't tell me where the weapons went but it tells me they probably aren't there.
Did your repeated wrong pronouncements of smoking guns "entirely destroy 2 years of posts?" Did your wrong bleating on each and every major Iraq-related issue as outlined in my still ignored challenge above? Or did it never matter since no one took you seriously anyway? As much as you love to lie and say I trust and believe Saddam, that has never been the case. I have said more than twenty times here that if a Saddam-9/11 link is found and verified (I'll need a little more than speculation and a little more than Fox), I will become a supporter of this war -- even with all the other major mistakes and misrepresentations (again, listed above and ignored). There is nothing contradictory in this. My position on Iraq has been the same since the issue first arose. I challenge you to prove otherwise. Oops! I said "challenge" again. Watch him run!
i'm not challenging your assertions, or what you might have said in posts past. i merely stating that no one has offered a convincing, authoritative, explanation of what happened to what we know was there in 1998, not '88. i'll entertain the possibility they weren't there in mid-march 2003. doesn't mean they weren't there in february, nor does in tell us what happened to them. and, it must be reiterated, some of the most telling evidence of their presence is saddam's own behaivor. if he didn't have them, why not prove it? he''d still be sitting in one of his palaces, enjoying the UN's largess, if he had.
basso: No, it doesn't mean they weren't there in February. It also doesn't mean they were. What we do know is that it was our intelligence and England's that led any of us to believe these stockpiles were there in February or whenever and our intelligence and England's now tells us they aren't there and probably weren't there when we decided to launch the war. Considering they were our original source, I'm gonna go ahead and take the retraction at face value. As for the other thing, I'm not exactly sure how Saddam was supposed to prove the absence of something except by opening up to inspectors, which he ultimately did. I'm also not inclined to try and get in his head about the whole thing. He's pretty crazy. I would also say it's true that he couldn't be trusted and would have liked to harm us, but that doesn't mean he had that capability. I said again and again that if that capability was proven I would support the war. It wasn't and it's looking less likely all the time that it ever will be. p.s. I forgot to reply to your previous swipe at Kerry in this thread. I agreed with that one.
actually, the world's intelligence services, US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Israel, UN, NATO, etc., etc.., etc. were in agreement on this point. the difference was over what to do about it.
Batman, on one hand you say you have been correct on every issue, and on the other you say that you reserved judgement on the issues. Not sure that jives. As for some of your other points, if they are dealing exclusively with Treeman, that is ok. If you are generalizing about all who have supported the intervention, then you have problems. I didn't support the 9/11 links with Saddam, but he was a sponsor of terrorism. I didn't say he was three weeks away from nukes, but he definitely wanted to/had the means to acquire them in the future. And he definitely was in violation of the UN mandates on weapons programs. Even some of your 'you were completely wrong' assertions are false. For instance, even if you look at the 'why i turned against america' thread you'd see that the majority of Iraqis WERE for the intervention, and believed (as most still do) that they'll be better off five years from now than they were before the intervention. In addition, the antiwar crowd was wrong about a lot of things like 'the whole middle east will blow up, regimes will fall, the world will be sweep up in terrorism.' That simply hasn't happened. And while you're weighing the good vs the bad you have to weigh in the removal of sanctions over Iraq. Certainly the decisiveness predicted was true in relation to the conflict with Iraqs army, and was false in relation to whether or not that would equal stability in Iraq. The major blunder seems to be, IMO, disbanding the Iraqi Army. Had that decision not been made, its entirely possible that we'd have seen NOTHING like the violence we currently are. And yes, you really are cutting on Treeman. To say you aren't is disingenous at best. Can't believe I'm agreeing with TJ on this one, but you are definitely being hypocritical (not that I care as long as you admit it). If all you want is a 'I was wrong' from Treeman, that's pretty silly.
Hayes: My basic assertion is that I was right to reserve judgment while others accepted the administration's presentation of the intelligence at face value. I also assert that I was right to be skeptical and much of my skepticism was based on reports of intelligence that was been downplayed by the admin (that in the case of Saddam having WMD's he was only likely to use them if attacked; that an invasion would invite terror into the country; that there were no meaningful links to Al Qaeda or 9/11). I don't mean to paint the entire pro-Iraq war group with the same brush. I brought treeman up because he was a staunch defender of the WMD claims and continually mocked anyone who didn't believe them. He told us again and again we'd be ashamed when it all came out. He also (along with Jorge and others) bragged of various claims of smoking guns before they were proved to be false. As for the other assertions, they were for Jorge. He started it, as he always does, by intimating I'd been right "once" as a result of a lucky guess. He still hasn't provided the slightest answer to my response. He ran away like he always does. As for the other stuff: Yes, of course many Iraqis are happy to be free from Saddam's rule. That was never in contention. I said back then that a lot of others were going to be pissed at us. That we wouldn't be thanked as enthusiastically by those who lost family to American firepower. That democracy would be a hard sell there. These are complex issues as you know and there aren't black and white responses to them. I never pretended there were. I left that to folks like Jorge and ZRB. I haven't read the Why I Turned Against America thread. I'll read it since you mentioned it. I haven't seen evidence that Saddam had the means to acquire nukes. The desire, I'm sure. I haven't seen that he had the means. But if the means is criteria for pre-emptive strike we've got a hell of list to go after -- either before or after we deal with countries that hate us and already have them like N. Korea and Iran. I've never met a single person here or elsewhere that didn't think we'd have a quick, decisive military victory against the Iraqi army. The fact that we did is irrelevant to the debate. Lastly on the treeman thing: I really don't believe I'm being hypocritical at all, but I guess it's a relative thing. If you'll remember, I and others took incredible lumps from that guy and other guys. We were basically told we were idiots, traitors, Saddam lovers, naive, unpatriotic, French or some combination of each. We were told these things because we were skeptical about the administration's case for war and the intelligence they provided to support it. That intelligence has completely flipped now. I think I show incredible restraint to leave it at "Where's treeman" and "what's his take?"
Hayes: (In response to your edits.) I never said the Middle East would collapse or be swept up in terrorism. I said an arrogant, go-it-(almost)alone, pre-emptive invasion would incite terrorists and create new ones. I did not even predict the level of calamity that presently exists there, so while you ask me not to lump everyone from your side together I'll ask the same of you. And no, I don't want an "I was wrong" from treeman. I want him back at the table to debate these issues even when things are looking down for his side and not only when he can call names and proclaim victory. And I don't even need that. Most of all I wanted to hear from the people who were so confident of the WMD's to find out if they still are or what they think went wrong. basso still believes they're out there. I respect that. He's still at the table. I'd like to know where the others went. I really don't think that's too outrageous.
