Interesting theory on Iraq's WMD

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


None of MINE have come true?!?!!?!?!? Are you insane!!?!?!


WOW. You have testies, I'll give you that.

I said pre-war that there was a difference between 'proof' of WMDs and probability, and that the difference was enough reason not to go to war; because probability does not mean conclusion.

I said pre-war that unilateralism would hurt us, and that we'd have to go back to the UN at some point.

I said pre-war that the estimates that all Iraqis other than those working for Saddam would greet us with open arms was pie in the sky.

I said pre-war that there was no prrof of any connection between 9-11 and Iraq.


I said pre-war that the conventional military engagement would be short and one sided, but I was unsure of the length of the aftermath.

I said pre-war that the fact that several intel and diplomatic officials were saying that the WH was only looking for intel which confirmed it's position made that intel suspect.

I said pre-war that we were being misled.


I could go on...but I am just amazed that you would bring this up. I have been too polite to make a list like these, figuring that being right isn't that positive when it means crap like this comes true, but I felt that you of all people would shie away from this.


Or is this like your latest post which I didn't even bother to repond to, the one where you spent half of it bashing others ( and me) for personal attacks, the other half attacking me, and then when I called you on it said it was ok because you meant your attacks...or said I admitted to hating Bush when I even showed you the " IF' part of that statemtn...as in, even if I thought you had a point here I'd be amazed that you brought this up,etc..."If"...or that I had ducked centrifuge when i have answered you on it at least twice...


There was a time when I could distinguish you from the likes of johnheath, T_J etc. Lately, on Iraq, you've just been pilling it higher and higher and then calling it victory, which sounds like somwone else I know...

 

y'know, these articles arent born on clutchcity, and I dont only read everything here....

 

I found the article to be very insightful. I find holes in it thought...


He never actually says that Saddamn had WMD in 2003.

I think perhaps the Russians went down there before the war started to find out for sure what was still around and what had been distroyed possibly in mid-90's. I don't think it would of been possible for Saddam to destroy WMD past GWB becoming president in 2000. I am sure GWB upped our intelligence assets in Iraq quite a bit as soon as he could and destroying WMD he said he didn't have would of been much harder to do.

Perhaps the "Sarindar" plan had been put into effect in 1991?

 

Why do I bother...

Why on earth would I deny it...it has nothing to do with my point, and actually strengthems it, in terms of objectivity. I did think that Saddam had WMD...think...suppose...etc. WHat I said was...as I expalined a second ago...even though many of us, including myself, thought he had them was not the same as knowing he had them. There's the rub,as the bard said. We didn't know, we thought..and ( as I said all along) going to war takes more than a probability. It requires the most severe of standards, and the WMD argument hadn't met that. Moreover we certainly didn't know that whatever he had presented any threat to us...another of my incorrect predictions, I suppose...and again, we needed to before going to war over it.

Again, you try and sidestep the point. As usual.

I never said anything of the kind. I never had any opinion on that. How could i? I said that we shouldn't go unilaterally, and that the governments of those nations, whatever you think of their motives, accurately reflected the desires of their population, unlike every single on of the pre-war 'willing' except us. So again, you sidestep the fact that another of my predictions was correct...thereby in itself dismissing your latest ridiculous claim about me...to bring up some point which even if it were true ( Ok...based on past experience I know that this needs clarification for you...this statement, IF, does not imply admission, it is merely pointing out the flaw irrespective of it's accuracy, already dealt with) wouldn't make my prediction less accurate. I am now picturing tree as the chubby sherrif from Best Little Whorehouse in texas..." Ooooh, I like to dance a little side-step..."

Read my statement again....sigh...I used to get a kick out of these little wiggles of yours, particularly when you tried to squirm out of being wrong about, was it the vans, the prop planes, the WMDs distributed to troops, the...it's so hard to keep track, but anyways, a highlight for me was when you tried to get out of being panted by saying that you had never said something was 'proven', you had merely said it was 'supported by evidence'...which is worth another laugh now, in that they mean the same thing...

...but as for this one, I said " All except those working for Saddam." ...Not 'most' whatever your definition of that happens to be, unless you are going to ( again) contradict the statemtns of the US commander in Iraq, among others, and claim that only Saddamers and imports are fighting us, let alone all the civilians who have protested " Us Go Home!' at funerals, etc.,or that that is the only evidence of not greeting us with open arms.

...Oh, this is lovely. We have said there is no such evidence, and you state that until we prove a negative it's an either/or debate. We will NEVER prove that there was no link, tree, as anyone could tell you...it would be impossible. Even if we were to find audio tapes of Saddam speaking at length of his hatred of Al Queda, his love of all things Bush, and his desire to emigrate to the US to help rebuild the Twin Towers, that wouldn't " prove" that Iraq was not behind 9-11.

Most rational people would take lack of any proof of the opposite as sufficient, in that it's the only realistic way to evaluate it. I could make all kinds of ridiculous claims...ok, tree, PROVE that french book wrong...PROVE that the US had no connection with 9-11...See what i mean? It's impossible. Another side step...According to what the White House has said...and AGAIN, in support of what I said and contrary to what you said...there is no evidence of any connection between 9-11 and Iraq. End of argument, in that the war wasn't based on the remote possibility possibly proven at some point in the future...agtain read my statemtn..but that we had nothing to prove that at the time. We have said as much. Again, you: wrong. Me: right. God, I'm sinking to T_J's level, but these ridiculous claims of yours go on and on...

Again, wrong. I'm not saying that the exchange you are retelling didn't happen, it probably did...but I said many times to many people that it was, as I most liked to call it, an elephant against a mosquito...I didn't rely on your assesment to come to that conclusion.

And, again, you are wrong about the aftermath. I wasn't among those predicting quagmire, I agree. But I said many times that what trouble we would have would come at the stage it is coming...and I cited the USSR and Afhanistan ( originally a liberator, etc.) as a possiblity, in terms of when the trouble could come, and what kind of form it might take.

But, again...what was your point? What I said would happen was accurate...contrary to your claim, AGAIN, which was phrased thus: "Why should I get used to it? None of your predictions in this arena (and I repeat: none) have ever come true yet. Why should this one be any different?"


Again, proven wrong...or, if you prefer, supported by evidence to show you're wrong...but I expect nothing of class or more than another sidestep, just like all the other times I've shown you to be wrong.

Uh, no...I was basing my PREDICTION regarding the accuracy of the intel on the claims of 'being selective' made by several senior intel and diplomatic officials...and, no, all the intel didn't back up what we said...Uranium come to mind? Threat assesment come to mind? etc. etc. When you want to play ostrich, you are as good as anyone I've ever known. Again...prediction...intel unreliable....eventuality...intel unreliable...Prediction correct...treeman sidestep...

Lol. So many flaws...ok, Saddam said he had largely disarmed. We chose not to believe him. Where in there is Bush's position based on information provided by Saddam? If we believed him,, we don't go to war...if we don't believe him, his 'information' is not the basis for our conclusion, in which case it has nothing to do with Bush's basis or claims...or deception. And what kind of President would simultaneously call someone evil, deceptive, etc. and base his decision to go to war on information provided by same!?!?!? We didn't go to war because of any information provided by Saddam, we went because we didn't believe him...or are you going to sday we believed him at one point...basis for conclusion...but disbelieved him at another...basis for conclusion!?!? Do you actually believe any of this stuff?

Seriously weak.

Oh...I guess it's ok then. Silly me...when you admonished people for maming personal attacks on other postrs credibility, I didn't realize you only meant that it was wrong to do so only when you didn't really mean it. What a load of pure crap. I haven't lied once...why on earth would I? A) I don't need to to win argumetns with you, at leat. B) I wouldn't, even to win an argument, and C) As I have disproven your claims of lying time and time again...to no avail...what possible difference would it make?


I am going to be straight with you, tree, and you can rise to your now customary level of

 

I'm sorry to make this sound like the old left-wing/right-wing thing, but isn't the Washington Times is owned by the Reverend Sun Yung Moon? As I understand it, and as I have learned through reading other journalists' work, it is often used by the CIA and the Pentagon to get their side of the story out.

Russia hiding Iraq's WMD? Anything is possible, but Putin can't afford to be America's b**** in the next cold war. We're trying to make China accept that role.

Besides, we had so many satellites peaking into Iraq before, during, and after the recent invasion that we would have seen something amiss.

Then again, satellites aren't everything. I mean, Newsweek reported that NORAD's satellites were down on the morning of 9/11/01.

 

3:42AM don't you guys sleep?!?

Seriously, Tree, fascinating and provacative article. I'm not sure i buy it, but it certainly seems plausible. Clearly, something happened to them, and I think it's possible that as part of the "Sarindar" plan that some of the WMDs ended up in Damascus or Iran. Their existence is undeniable- what happened to them is the mystery, and this seems as likely as anything else.

 

This is a golden example of these paranoid guys who are always looking for another enemy.

This old Russian guy knows how to play these military freaks like a banjo. He's looking to score his retirement book. After all his info is getting old, so best to tie into the freak's current mideast obsession. As we see, a lot of the old Iraqi defectors also knew how to play these guys, too.

Got to love it, The mere fact that they don't have the weapons, but allegedly have a secret plan to build them later, just goes to show how fiendish and Dr. Evilish they really are. We are dealing with the evil genius that a combo of the Russkies and the AArabs concocted together. My how sinister!

Normally you would expect Treeman to urge a premeptive attack on Russia, but even he has to concede to their size and nukes. Realistically his guys will probably urge this as a reason to build second generation first strike nukes and, increase efforts to build expensive anti-missile systems. They will also go full scale on the militarization of space.

These guys will gladly say you can't be sure the Russkies might not align themselves with their old comrades, the Communist Chinese and the first warning we will have will be a mushroom cloud over Manhattan or Houston. You must error on the side of safety, so go militaristic.

Think about it. There won't be smoke until their is the nuclear fire.

 

Two salient points from Kay's briefing yesterday:

- "We have not found at this point actual weapons," Kay said after briefing lawmakers behind closed doors. "It does not mean we've concluded there are no actual weapons."

- "In addition to intent, we have found a large body of continuing activities and equipment that were not declared to the U.N. inspectors when they returned in November of last year," Kay said.

 

The something that happened to the WMD is they were destroyed before and after the first gulf war and never existed in the exaggerated quantities various intelligence sources had them pegged at. That article is silly -- if Saddam would use WMD on his own people he would use them on an invading nation -- quickly destroying all his WMD obviously would do him no good at all.

 

then why not just say so, and avoid a US invasion?

 

Other points of note from David Kay:

There are approximately 130 known Iraqi Ammunition Storage Points (ASP), many of which exceed 50 square miles in size and hold an estimated 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordinance. Of these 130 ASPs, approximately 120 still remain unexamined. As Iraqi practice was not to mark much of their chemical ordinance and to store it at the same ASPs that held conventional rounds, the size of the required search effort is enormous.

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.

Our discoveries include:

[/i]* A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

* Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.

With regard to biological warfare activities, which has been one of our two initial areas of focus, ISG teams are uncovering significant information - including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities, and deliberate concealment activities. All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents.

A very large body of information has been developed through debriefings, site visits, and exploitation of captured Iraqi documents that confirms that Iraq concealed equipment and materials from UN inspectors when they returned in 2002. One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery - hidden in the home of a BW scientist - illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache.

[W]hatever we find will probably differ from pre-war intelligence. Empirical reality on the ground is, and has always been, different from intelligence judgments that must be made under serious constraints of time, distance and information. It is, however, only by understanding precisely what those differences are that the quality of future intelligence and investment decisions concerning future intelligence systems can be improved. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is such a continuing threat to global society that learning those lessons has a high imperative.[/i]

His conclusion:

1. Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Even those senior officials we have interviewed who claim no direct knowledge of any on-going prohibited activities readily acknowledge that Saddam intended to resume these programs whenever the external restrictions were removed. Several of these officials acknowledge receiving inquiries since 2000 from Saddam or his sons about how long it would take to either restart CW production or make available chemical weapons.
2. In the delivery systems area there were already well advanced, but undeclared, on-going activities that, if OIF had not intervened, would have resulted in the production of missiles with ranges at least up to 1000 km, well in excess of the UN permitted range of 150 km. These missile activities were supported by a serious clandestine procurement program about which we have much still to learn.
3. In the chemical and biological weapons area we have confidence that there were at a minimum clandestine on-going research and development activities that were embedded in the Iraqi Intelligence Service. While we have much yet to learn about the exact work programs and capabilities of these activities, it is already apparent that these undeclared activities would have at a minimum facilitated chemical and biological weapons activities and provided a technically trained cadre.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2003/david_kay_10022003.html

Make of it what you will.

 

Thanks for the Post Buck- it's amazing how much we still don't know. i didn't realize that there were so many sites still to search. and none of this will make it into the NY Times, CNN, etc...

 

oh, and here's today's NYTimes headline:

"No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq, U.S. Inspector Tells Congress"

 

Why don't you read the Times before you criticize it for what you claim didn't make it into it?


Example: from Today's Times story on this:

In addition, the full text of the report is posted on the website. I haven't seen the print version yet but I imagine its there too.

If you've been following it at all, the Times has been criticized for its WMD coverage in the past, but for being to eager to declare WMD finds . Times reporter Judith Miller has been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism for being too quick to blow the WMD whistle from the Wash. Post and Jack Shaefer of Slate, among others.

Read it before you accuse it of bias.

 

I Think it's safe to say this wasn't the empahsis of the times' article, their point being nicely encapsulated in their headline "No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq, U.S. Inspector Tells Congress"

 

Even those who were present were disappointed and thought that was the major theme:

"I'm not pleased by what I heard today," said Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He said Americans were hoping there would be a breakthrough by now, but, he said, "There has not been a breakthrough."

 

Curious...

Big leap between numbers 1 and 2. Also, the second place finisher is thought to be the more liberal of the network news, but it also has the older demographic.

 

Your bias is showing basso

that is just one follow-up article on the NYT website.

the actual headline is...

Bush Cites Parts of Arms Report to Justify U.S. Action in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/

 

NYTimes: No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq