Needs to be said about Bush & Iraq

[Preon1]

I found a very eloquent defense of the Kay report in the Wall Street Journal.  Everybody is so wound up about finding bunkers filled with anthrax that they overlooked the part of the report that showed the vast underground program to produce those weapons.  This was the very evidence that the UN inspectors were looking for in the first place.  Does anybody doubt that if Hussein weren't getting such attention, that he would be developing his program and building those weapons?

Wall Street Journal
October 6, 2003

The WMD Evidence


"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."

As we read David Kay's report last week on the weapons search in Iraq, the paragraph above is the real news. It concludes, even in this interim report, that Saddam Hussein was systematically attempting to evade inspections in blatant violation of United Nations Resolution 1441.

We bring this up because five days after his presentation to Congress we haven't seen it reported anywhere else. Instead the headlines have been that Mr. Kay hasn't found any WMD weapons "stockpiles." But the Stockpile Standard wasn't anyone's measure in agreeing to 1441, which was supposed to be Saddam's last chance to comply with U.N. demands. And what Mr. Kay has already found is more than enough proof that Saddam was attempting to deceive the world one more time about his dangerous intentions.

The unclassified portion of Mr. Kay's report contains 10 single-spaced typed pages of revelations about Saddam's WMD programs. It is worth the time to read through them at http:http://www.cia.gov/.

Mr. Kay's team found a prison laboratory complex "possibly used in human testing of BW agents" -- and not declared to the U.N. The home of an Iraqi scientist brought the discovery of strains of biological organisms, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons. The team found new research on "BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin," none of which were made known to the U.N.

The team also found programs for unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, that could possibly be used to disperse WMD agents. We know from other sources that Iraq also had route-mapping software that covered U.S. territory. As to Saddam's nuclear program, the report says that "the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials" makes clear that "Saddam Hussein remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. These officials assert that Saddam would have resumed nuclear weapons development at some future point."

Saddam's program of mass deception has made the Kay team's job especially difficult. It arrived at some sites, such as the Revolutionary Command Council Headquarters in Baghdad, to find documents burnt to ashes, computer hard drives destroyed and equipment cleaned of all traces of use. The assumption that Saddam is still alive and in the country also creates a sense of fear among those in the know. Mr. Kay reports that two Iraqi scientists working with the weapons team after the war were shot -- and one was killed -- apparently as a signal to anyone else who would cooperate.

None of these facts have been allowed to get in the way of those who posit the Imminence Test and the Stockpile Standard as the new goalposts for clearing President Bush and Prime Minister Blair from the charges of waging unjust war. Both are postwar inventions, and transparently political devices to portray the war in Iraq in the worst possible light.

West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller walked out of the Kay briefing to assert his dismay that nothing he'd heard proved Saddam's threat was "imminent" and thus pre-emption is wrong in all cases. In fact, the Bush Administration never subscribed to the "imminence" test when making its case for deposing Saddam. Mr. Bush flatly rejected it in this year's State of the Union address as too risky. The argument was that Saddam was continuing to hide the WMD capabilities he was known to possess in the 1990s and had used against Iran and his own Kurdish population -- with the clear intention of resuming these programs once the political heat was off. The Kay report proves this is precisely what Saddam intended.

What happened to the stockpiles he was known to have in the 1990s is of course an important question, not least to reassure us they weren't spirited away to another country where they can pose a new threat. By all means the CIA and White House should be honest about any intelligence mistakes, and explore and then explain the reasons. But even if no stockpiles are ever found, the Kay report provides ample proof of Saddam's WMD threat and how much safer the world is with him out of power.

[LePaul]

Good read

But those who are anti-war will remain anti-war for any reason they can muster.  Facts won't mean a thing to them.

[Eagler]

"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."

both outlawed by 1441

unless they find filled 55 gallon drums labeled "SADDAM"S WMD HERE!" in 24" letters - they dems won't know they found "it"

[LePaul]

Yup

People seem to insist we need a smoking "gun"...they've many many many crucial pieces of a very dangerous "mechanism" for these WMDs.  Its amazing how some want to thumb their noses at these finds.  People seem to have already made up their mind that Bush is wrong, the war is wrong and no factual information will sway them otherwise.

Yet these same people, back in February, were frothing at the bit to get in there and kick ass.

[Sixpence]

I wanna kick OBL's ass.

[k2cok]

Doesn't change the fact that Bush looked into the cameras and lied to us.

[muckmaw]

Preon-

Great post!

Printed and hung on my office wall for all passsing libs to read.

It's really sad when politcians will put their own agenda ahead of the country's well being.

In this case, the dems would rather tear at Bush's reasons for going to war, which were justified, and try to get into the white house this way, rather than come up with their own solutions.

Hey, let's trash bush. Let's make our own country look like a loose cannon on the world stage. What's the difference as long as we get into power. (Note, both sides do this).

Pathetic.

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by k2cok
Doesn't change the fact that Bush looked into the cameras and lied to us.

Cok-

Why don't you reply to Preon's post with your own words and not the one's the liberal press put in your mouth.

How did GWB lie? Be specific.

[Rude]

Originally posted by k2cok
Doesn't change the fact that Bush looked into the cameras and lied to us.

That's only how you and those left of center view it....time will bear out the truth, of which I'm certain you will cherish if it proves Bush a liar and will ignore if it proves him to have been honest.

[Toad]

From Kay's unclassified portion of the report:

Why are we having such difficulty in finding weapons or in reaching a confident conclusion that they do not exist or that they once existed but have been removed? Our search efforts are being hindered by six principal factors:

1. From birth, all of Iraq's WMD activities were highly compartmentalized within a regime that ruled and kept its secrets through fear and terror and with deception and denial built into each program;

2. Deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict and ran trans-to-post conflict;

3. Post-OIF looting destroyed or dispersed important and easily collectable material and forensic evidence concerning Iraq's WMD program. As the report covers in detail, significant elements of this looting were carried out in a systematic and deliberate manner, with the clear aim of concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime;

4. Some WMD personnel crossed borders in the pre/trans conflict period and may have taken evidence and even weapons-related materials with them;

5. Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage;

6. The environment in Iraq remains far from permissive for our activities, with many Iraqis that we talk to reporting threats and overt acts of intimidation and our own personnel being the subject of threats and attacks. In September alone we have had three attacks on ISG facilities or teams: The ISG base in Irbil was bombed and four staff injured, two very seriously; a two person team had their vehicle blocked by gunmen and only escaped by firing back through their own windshield; and on Wednesday, 24 September, the ISG Headquarters in Baghdad again was subject to mortar attack...


...For example, 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.

[k2cok]

This is too easy muckmaw, Bush is a serial liar, let's start with his first lie:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States."

It's been all downhill since.

[muckmaw]

HOLY ****!

How come we never hear this stuff in the mainstream media, Toad?

[LePaul]

Notice it requires cartoons to completely convey the moronic point of views of the left...

I suspected sock puppets but I stand corrected  

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by k2cok
This is too easy muckmaw, Bush is a serial liar, let's start with his first lie:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States."

It's been all downhill since.

Cok-

If you want to have a serious discussion, answer the question.

What did GWB intentionally mislead this country about? When did he lie?

If your just going to post cute little cartoons, and make pointless statements, then have at it, but don't expect to be taken seriously.

The more some of these folks open their mouths, the more I see there really is no meat to their argument. Many are just parroting what they hear on the 10 o'clock news...in a 14 second sound bite.

[Eagler]

Originally posted by muckmaw
HOLY ****!

How come we never hear this stuff in the mainstream media, Toad?

said the same thing last week:
http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=97703