Given MM's qualifier at the end, I totally agree with his statement, and don't see it as following in the earlier dismissal of the lies which lead to war as equal to the lies which lead to impeachment. In his defense, he has made this point before, and it is a sticking point with him as with me: The offense Clinton did to the American people and justice system had to do with breaking the law to protect himself from justice, not having sex. MM was merely reacting to that common misrepresentation of the whole thing with casual BJ comments. He is honest and intelligent enough to easily discern the difference between the aftermath and intent of Clinton's lies and the other ones under discussion in here.
LOL! But don't forget, we haven't really taken a look at windmills, the Dutch, Cervantes, or knights in general since 9-11, and we all know that that changed everything. I'm not saying windmills are evil...just don't turn your back on one until we know for sure.
MacBeth, are you blind? I have just presented very good evidence, damning evidence in fact, that Saddam, in conjunction with Al Qaeda, has been harboring Windmills of Mass Destruction in defiance of UN resolutions. He has been dealt with accordingly and is no longer a problem.
To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go. To right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar, to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star. This is my quest, to follow that star -- no matter how hopeless, no matter how far. To fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause. And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest that my heart will be peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest. And the world will be better for this, that one man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage. To reach the unreachable stars. carry on...
This is WAY to early to analyze the ramifications of the war. It will be 20 or more years before we find out if this grand experiment to de-radicalize the middle east worked. One thing for sure, it could not have been worse as sitting idly by had only made the radicals feel safe. They are now on the run, and that is a good thing. Actions speak louder than words. Glad we did it, and will be happier still in 20 years when Iraq is a productinve democracy. (Hopefully). DD
DD...Don't you see this as a government licence to order whatever they want, and not pay the bill, if ever, until long past when they're sitting at the table? In fact, most of them will probably be eating somewhere else entirley when the bill comes due of you give it an at least 20 year lay off plan...And where would that end? You and I agree on accountability in basketball...shouldn't it be at least as relevent in war?
MacB, I somewhat concur, however, sitting on the sidelines for years or only doing things covertly made us a major target. All I know is that what we WERE doing was not working, and right now, terrorists around the world are more worried, and that is a great great thing. Saddam had to go, and the middle east had to be stabilized....trust me that when Bush speaks he gets more respect than Clinton. Other countries know that his words mean something. I am glad we threw our weight around, now we need to turn our attention to Israel and Palastine and get those countries back to the peace table. DD
So the "administration" couldn't find a strong enough point to agree on for war so they invented one. That the Democrates can't take a statement like that and drum up some support against the administration shows just how weak and in disarray the party has become.
Britain finds Iraq's 'smoking gun': a top-secret missile By Con Coughlin in Baghdad (Filed: 25/05/2003) British military officers have uncovered an attempt by Saddam Hussein to build a missile capable of hitting targets throughout the Middle East, including Israel, The Telegraph can reveal. Plans for the surface-to-surface missile were one of the regime's most closely-guarded secrets and were unknown to United Nations weapons inspectors. Its range of 600 miles would have been far greater than that of the al-Samoud rocket - which already breached the 93-mile limit imposed by the UN on any Iraqi missiles. Saddam's masterplan for the new missile, which was being developed by Iraq's Military Industrialisation Commission (MIC), the body responsible for weapons procurement, constitutes the most serious breach uncovered so far of the tight restrictions imposed on Iraq's military capability after the 1991 Gulf war. The range of Saddam's missiles was restricted to prevent him from using them as a delivery system for weapons of mass destruction. David Kay, the former United Nations weapons inspector responsible for dismantling Iraq's nuclear weapons programme in the 1990s, said the British discovery proved that Saddam had no intention of complying with UN requirements. "This is the smoking gun we have been looking for," he said. "We have known all along that Saddam was desperate to develop a delivery system for his mass destruction weapons, and this missile would undoubtedly have given him that capability." Details of Saddam's secret missile programme were discovered by British weapons experts after interviews with several former senior officials of the MIC. Gen Mudh'her Sadeq Sabe'a, the head of missile technology at the MIC, was in charge of the development programme, which began in 1999. Once a week Gen Mudh'her and Abdul Tawib Mulla Hawish, the minister responsible for the MIC, would travel to the presidential palace in Baghdad to deliver a progress report to Saddam, who is said to have taken a keen personal interest in the project. Mr Hawish surrendered to coalition forces shortly after the war and has provided British officials with a detailed breakdown of Saddam's plans to manufacture the weapon. The rocket motor was to be built at the Abu Ghraib military base, the main fuselage at al-Waziriyah and the navigation system at al-Taji. "We had finished the research stage and entered the development stage," said a senior Iraqi engineer who worked at the MIC and is now co-operating with British officials. "If it had not been for the war, development would have been completed within a year." Iraqi officials insist that the missile was intended to carry a conventional warhead, but British weapons experts believe it could easily have been adapted to carry chemical or biological weapons. The Iraqis say that the missile's main purpose would have been to protect Iraq from attack by neighbouring countries. However, it could also have been used to attack Israel. During the Gulf war Saddam launched Soviet-made Scud missiles at targets in Israel. The discovery of the plans for Saddam's secret missile programme is being hailed as a significant breakthrough by coalition commanders, who have so far failed to find any convincing evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programme. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/25/wirq125.xml Hmm... Mobile labs, prohibited missiles... I wonder what else the Iraqis were up to? It is only a matter of time.
No, Come on now Treeman, everyone (read liberals) knows that it is more important to bash Bush about his questionable motives rather then look at the facts about Saddam. Most liberal arguments can be dismantled as simply Bush hating. DD
I would hardly call it "fact" yet, do they have one of these missiles in their possession? Do they have even a piece of it yet, or is an Iraqi scientist simply blowing smoke. Why am I Bush hating if I want proof that the reason we went to war was truthful?
Underoverup, you know as well as I do that this war was launched because Americans were convinced that Saddam's plans for medium range ballistic missiles represented a threat that had to be dealt with. Nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, 600 mile range missile plans, what's the big diff? Quit bashing.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030529-102724-2960r U.K. dossier on Iraq weapons 'unreliable' By Al Webb United Press International From the International Desk Published 5/29/2003 10:46 AM View printer-friendly version LONDON, May 29 (UPI) -- Britain's dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was rewritten on orders from Prime Minister Tony Blair's government to make it look more dramatic in the months leading up to the U.S.-led war against Baghdad, a top intelligence official said Thursday. Blair's office rejected the British Broadcasting Corp.'s report, which cited an intelligence source. "Not one word of the dossier was not entirely the work of the intelligence agencies," it said in a statement. An unidentified expert in Britain's intelligence network told the BBC the 50-page document contained unreliable information and was "transformed" on instructions from Blair's office in the week before its release last September, to make it "sexier." "The classic example," the BBC quoted the intelligence officer as saying, "was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use (by Iraq) within 45 minutes." In the dossier, Blair had warned that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could activate a chemical and biological arsenal in that time -- a suggestion that became a pillar of Britain's rationale for going to war alongside the United States against Baghdad. "That information was not contained in the original draft" that had been prepared for the prime minister, he said. "It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn't reliable." The claim came in the wake of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comment that Saddam's regime might have destroyed its chemical and biological weapons before the fighting began and amid growing suggestions the coalition's war had been launched on the weapons pretext. Defense Minister Adam Ingram told BBC Radio "the war was fought on the basis of all of the allegations, much of which was substantiated, not by just a security document produced by our security services, not concocted by Number 10 (Blair's office) or under pressure from Number 10 to produce it in a particular way." The intelligence officer interviewed by the BBC conceded that "most things in the dossier were double sourced, but that (claim about Iraq's ability to launch weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes' notice) was single source, and we believe that the source was wrong." "Most people in intelligence weren't happy with the dossier because it didn't reflect the considered view they were putting forward," he said while claiming that a "transformation" had taken place under orders from Downing Street. Blair, currently visiting Iraq to thank British forces for their role in the overthrow of Saddam's regime, said earlier that "rather than speculating (about the weapons of mass destruction), let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists." The BBC's intelligence source said it was "30 percent likely" Iraq did, indeed have a biological weapons program under way, and he suggested that U.N. weapons inspectors themselves may have understated some of the evidence. "We think U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix downplayed a couple of potentially interesting pieces of evidence," though "the weapons programs were small (and) sanctions did limit the programs." He did not elaborate. As for interviewing Iraq's scientists, the intelligence officer said that so far, "We don't have a great deal more information yet than we had before. We have not got very much out of the detainees yet."
underoverup: Re: the missiles - that comes from the Iraqi prisoners, specifically the man who was in charge of Iraq's missile programs. Do you think he's lying? I would seriously doubt it, since he was the man who ran the project. More on the mobile labs: CIA opens report on Iraq trailers By John Diamond WASHINGTON — The CIA took the unusual step Wednesday of making public an intelligence report concluding that two equipment-packed trailers seized in Iraq were intended to make biological agents, the only solid evidence to date supporting the Bush administration's allegations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The administration and the CIA have come under fire for failing to find proof of chemical and biological weapons. The administration cited such weapons in justifying the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Responding to what a U.S. intelligence official called "public interest" in the issue, the CIA posted on its Web site Wednesday a nine-page illustrated "white paper" with its assessment of the two trailers. Though fermenting tanks inside the trailers could have non-military uses, such as the manufacture of pesticide or hydrogen for weather balloons, the CIA report concluded that biological weapons production "is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles." No trace of biological agent has been found in the tanks or other hardware mounted on two military-style heavy equipment transporters in U.S. possession in Iraq. Some of the equipment had been looted and some of what was left was rusted and showing signs of having been hastily abandoned. One of the tanks had a manufacturing date of 2003, suggesting it was in use only a matter of weeks by the time the war started. Iraq expert Anthony Cordesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the CIA report "looks convincing." He said the mobile labs were probably built as backup sources of biological agent for military emergencies. But the continuing failure to find weapons weeks after the end of the war is causing lawmakers from both parties to raise questions about the quality of U.S. intelligence. The doubts arise as the Bush administration claims the right to take pre-emptive military action based on intelligence, before crises emerge. And release of the report comes as the administration is advancing new charges about weapons programs in North Korea and Iran. "The administration has got a serious credibility problem," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-area think tank. Pike called the CIA report credible but added, "This long after the war, for them to come up with two rusting trailers, it's pretty thin." The White House considers the hunt for proof of Iraqi weapons a high priority: A 1,400-member Pentagon team is deploying to Iraq to take over the search. At the same time, though, administration officials have begun to publicly downplay the issue. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was quoted in the magazine Vanity Fair on Wednesday as saying the decision to cite weapons of mass destruction as the reason to invade Iraq was made for "bureaucratic reasons ... because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Wednesday's CIA report, available on the agency's Web site, www.cia.gov, compares one of the captured trailers with an illustration used by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his presentation to the United Nations in February. "The design, equipment and layout of the trailer found in late April is strikingly similar to descriptions provided by (an Iraqi) chemical engineer that managed one of the mobile plants," the report states. A second U.S. intelligence official, one of several who briefed reporters anonymously in a conference call Wednesday, said the CIA considered the information collected from the Iraqi engineer the "centerpiece" of Powell's presentation. When Kurdish authorities gave U.S. forces a trailer seized at a checkpoint in April, "the feeling we had was a mixture of excitement and skepticism," the official said. The Iraqi engineer told the CIA in 1999 and 2000 that Iraq had established seven biological weapons production plants on as many as 20 trailers to evade detection by U.N. inspectors or Western intelligence. The two trailers seized by U.S. forces in April and May were built more recently. Workers at the Baghdad factory that made the equipment in the captured trailers said they were told by Iraqi officials that they were for making hydrogen. The workers told U.S. interrogators that they knew from experience not to ask questions. http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030529-iraq-trailers01.htm Gee, somehow I suspected that they weren't mobile agricultural factories...
Oh, and just in case anyone here fails to understand the significance of these trailers: they have fermenters, large ones, which means that they were not research platforms. They were production platforms. They were intended to produce large amounts of biological agent - there is no other use for large fermenters such as were found. What does that mean? It means that the Iraqis had a dedicated biowarfare *production* capacity. Which would lead one to logically conclude that they produced significant amounts of biological agent with these mobile labs, not just handfuls of stuff, but hundreds or thousands of gallons of the stuff. If you can reach another, more likely, conclusion then I'd like to hear it. It is only a matter of time.
After 2 weeks of Metallica and Barney music he would probably say anything. Show me the Missiles, or parts of the Missiles, or diagrams of Missiles and I will believe his story, until then I have to wait for some real proof. Once again I hope we find some real evidence for the good of the country.
