Yanks; sometimes I wonder...

[Toad]

Saddam 'killed missile chief' to thwart UN team
 
2003-03-02 06:01:19
 
Daily Telegraph

Western intelligence agencies are investigating claims that Saddam Hussein ordered the murder of a senior Iraqi missile engineer to prevent him passing vital information to United Nations weapons inspectors.

Gen Muhammad Sa'id al-Darraj, who was in charge of Iraq's mobile Scud missiles until three months ago, died 24 hours after talks with Saddam's officials, according to Arab newspaper reports. The officials wanted to discuss how the general would conceal his knowledge if he were called for interview by the UN.

The London-based Al-Zaman newspaper said that Gen al-Darraj told "indignant" relatives shortly before he died that he had been slipped a poisoned drink during the meeting at one of Saddam's presidential palaces.

Iraqi opposition groups suspect that the general's loyalty to Saddam was in doubt after he was removed from his post at the end of last year.

[Nash]

"If you think Iraq does not have combat ready chemical and biological weapons you are mistaken. If you think they do not have an ongoing nuke weapon research program you are mistaken." - Toad

How do you know?

[10Bears]

Toad,

If you think Iraq does not have combat ready chemical and biological weapons you are mistaken. If you think they do not have an ongoing nuke weapon research program you are mistaken.

I’m willing to see the evidence. You seem to know 100% can you point a link to the actual evidence? Not circumstantial, has to be real evidence that can be used in a court of law.. not a couple of buckets of bug spray either.

I'm aware of Israel's violation of UN sanctions and I've posted in the O-Club on it before. They should be made to comply. However, that is not the question before the SC right now, is it?

Hold on.. it has to be in context.. You can’t have a double standard in one country and not the other otherwise the whole thing is disingenuous.  Are you trying to say it depends on the meaning of “is” is?

The treatment of Al Qaeda prisoners at Gitmo lost us the moral high ground? The Patriot Act lost us the moral high ground.

Can you possibly believe what you write?

This notion of preemptive strikes cost us the moral high ground, having a police state cost us the moral high ground. Having American citizens locked up God knows where no trial nothing most definitely cost us the moral high ground... How can you say anything about human rights to the Chinese?... How can you stop the Chinese from doing a preemptive strike on Taiwan? Or Pakistan on India? Do you expect American POWs to be treated a little better than being put in dog cages outside?

Toad... Can you possibly believe what you write?

Here's some "spin" from Human Rights Watch. You might want to read it. It's very long and detailed; 13 chapters and it is footnoted.

Yeah?.. well here’s some spin from STEPHEN C. PELLETIERE  Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000

ECHANICSBURG, Pa. — It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."
The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.
But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.
I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.
This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.
And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.
The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent — that is, a cyanide-based gas — which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.
These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war against Iran.
I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.

In fact, those who really feel that the disaster at Halabja has bearing on today might want to consider a different question: Why was Iran so keen on taking the town? A closer look may shed light on America's impetus to invade Iraq.
We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a granary for the region.
Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990's there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that could change.
Thus America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades — not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water. Even if America didn't occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.
All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting, one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in its present debilitated condition — thanks to United Nations sanctions — Iraq's conventional forces threaten no one.
Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.
Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

[10Bears]

As soon as you start calling me names Toad I'll be happy

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by 10Bears
Hortland I gotta ask you a serious question... Are you diddlying the president of the United States?... no seriously.. are you?.. Your country sure isn't going for any of this nonsense... they'd vote same as France/Germany/Russia/China/Turkey... and pretty much the rest of the world.

Maybe you should answer my question instead?

If they destroyed everything they had back in 95...how come the inspectors found mustard gas a couple of weeks ago?

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by 10Bears
I’m willing to see the evidence. You seem to know 100% can you point a link to the actual evidence? Not circumstantial, has to be real evidence that can be used in a court of law.. not a couple of buckets of bug spray either.

[/b]
This quote is so hillarously funny I dont even know where to begin.

"Can you point a link to the actual evidence" what exactly do you think evidence like this looks like? Oh, and apparently the evidence must be something that can be used in a court of law too huh?

Tell you what, why dont you post a link to evidence that can be used in a court of law that you own a car, or if you dont have a car, that you are a US citizen.
..and remember that the evidence must be something that can be used in a court of law.

How can you say anything about human rights to the Chinese?... How can you stop the Chinese from doing a preemptive strike on Taiwan? Or Pakistan on India? Do you expect American POWs to be treated a little better than being put in dog cages outside?

[/b]
Yes...and tell me...when you are talking to the Chinese about human rights, are they listening?

When the Chinese are pondering over the question whether they are to invade Taiwan or not, do you think they are going "No, wait, we cant do that, it would be wrong. You stop the Chinese with force or with the threat of force, just like you stop N Korea and how you stopped the USSR.

As for American POW's, I think the Pearl video gave a pretty clear indication on how they can expect being treated...

[10Bears]

Whatever your ranting about Hortland...

Capitol Hill Blue

Senior aides to President George W. Bush say he faces a humiliating defeat before the United Nations Security Council next week.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, fresh from his latest round of meetings with representatives of countries on the Security Council, delivered the bad news to Bush on Monday. "You will lose, Mr. President," Powell told Bush. "You will lose badly and the United States will be humiliated on the world stage."

Some White House advisors are now urging the President to back off his tough stance on war with Iraq and give UN weapons inspectors more time. "We have no other choice," admits one Bush advisor. "We don't have the votes. We don't have the support."

Powell told Bush on Monday that Turkey's refusal to allow U.S. troops to stage at the country's border with Iraq doomed any chance of consensus at the UN. "Many were watching Turkey," Powell told Bush. "Had they agreed, it might have helped us sway critical votes."

Some Bush aides now admit privately that the President, for all his tough talk, may have to back down and postpone his plans to invade Iraq in the near future. "The vote in Turkey diddlyed things up big time," grumbles one White House aide. "It pushes our timetable back. On the other hand, it might give us a chance to save face." "Saving face" means backing away from a showdown with the UN Security Council next week and agreeing to let the weapons inspection process run its course. ,,,

So praying does work.. Thank you Jesus!

[Hortlund]

Hm...apparently you missed my question 10Bears. Here, let me post it again:

If the Iraqis destroyed every WMD they had back in 95...how come the inspectors found mustard gas in Iraq a couple of weeks ago?

[10Bears]

Hmm you must be refering to this
From DesertSun

AL-MUTHANNA STATE ESTABLISHMENT, Iraq -- The chemical team stepped into a hangar-like shed carpeted with clumps of bird droppings and feathers. In the shadows they saw them -- a dozen artillery shells still filled, as they have been for years, with one of man’s most dreaded substances, mustard gas.

For the U.N. arms monitors, locating them last Wednesday was a first -- the first batch of weapons of mass destruction brought under their control in the new round of inspections in Iraq.

However, the fact that such weapons had been found caused no alarm. In fact, the team was relieved. Its mission was to locate and secure the mustard munitions, first inventoried by their predecessors in the 1990s. And the team succeeded. The shells were where they were supposed to be.

"The inspectors were happy," Iraqi liaison Raad Manhal told journalists at the end of the day. "They found everything OK."

Hans Blix, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, concurred. Asked in New York on Friday if the mustard gas was a violation by the Iraqis, he said: "They had been declared before, and that was not news."

[/SIZE][/b]

Oh.... they had been declared before, and that was not news..

Your point?

[Hortlund]

[Iraq] Has some serious WMD and is working on more including nukes

Originally posted by 10Bears

Not according to Gen. Hussein Kamel who in 1995 told U.N. inspectors
that Iraq had DESTROYED ITS ENTIRE STOCKPILE of chemical and biological
weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims.

Hm I see you missed my question again. Here it is:

If the Iraqis destroyed every WMD they had back in 95...how come the inspectors found mustard gas in Iraq a couple of weeks ago?

[straffo]

Mustard gas is not WMD as far as I know.
In fact only Nuke are WMD.


If you disagree with this definition you should add to the WMD list : all gun (AK47,M16 etc ...) ,landmine ,gas,car ,boycott,embargo,revolution the list is endless ...

there was a redefinition WMD done in 1994
redefinition by the US not by international instances (not that the US are wrong IMO but it's an international conflict no ?)

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by straffo
Mustard gas is not WMD as far as I know.
In fact only Nuke are WMD.

Well, you are wrong. All chemical, biological and nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destuction.

[straffo]

Since 1994 yes.
Not before look here : http://disarmament.un.org/wmd/cwc/index.html

[Hortlund]

Did you have a point to all this?

[straffo]

yes , if you change the rule mid-game you can pretend anything.