Bush is either a liar or a fool

[Axis Kast]

More bullshit. Scale of aggressive act determines proportion of response. According to your fucked-up logic, the Soviet downing of KAL 007 would have provided sufficent justification for a full-scale war

That the scale of the aggressive act determines the proportion of the response is a maxim of strategy.

While I’m not fully up-to-date on the subject of Korean Airlines flight 007, it would appear that South Korea does have a legal casus belli, irrespective of whether it not it chose to press it.

No, you just resort fo Hitler's brand of reasoning, as always.

Do you wish to tell me that you actually adhere to the belief that any decision made over the censure of the United Nations – in both form and practice a body beholden merely to the self-interest of its member states – is absolutely Hitlerian?

While I can't do that for lack of access, I do recall that neither he nor any of his minions ever presented material from plagerised college term-papers, halfway-unintelligible phone conversations in Arabic, or scratchy sixth-generation video as "evidence" of anything.

And yet it is significant that, as David Kay has acknowledged, even the intelligence data of those nations against the war agreed that Saddam Hussein possessed prohibited materials.

The same tired argument you flogged the last three times you embarassed yourself on this board over this issue, and yet the findings to date have confirmed Blix.

The point is that somebody had to put on the ground in the first place.

As for the validity of the conclusions of either Blix or Kay, see above. I dealt with the inconclusiveness of Kay’s report earlier.

As long as we ignore the qualifiers attesting to the uncertainty level over any of their conclusions regarding Saddam's alledged WMD stockpiles, that argument flies. Unfortunately, those qualifiers were made and Kay is simply trying to cover his ass while assisting in the White House's effort to lay the blame on the CIA for "bad advice" in making the decision for war.

Even if the CIA is proven to have produced poor analysis, the basis on which we went to war remains solid: intelligence was handed to the President that emphasized a danger that could only be fully understood once troops were on the ground. And don’t presume to tell me that inspections under Blix satisfied the demands of that intelligence, since any interviewee was subject to torture or imprisonment after his release from U.N. custody, and the Hussein regime was still fully in power.

That proves exactly dick. The entire argument for going to war with Iraq was Saddam's alledged possession of a vast WMD arsenal and its imminent threat to the U.S. Afganistan and 9/11 are Red Herrings and remain so no matter how many times you continue to flog them.

It provides a basis by which to understand why George W. Bush might have drawn different conclusions from the same intelligence as compared to Bill Clinton.

[Patrick Degan]

More bullshit. Scale of aggressive act determines proportion of response. According to your fucked-up logic, the Soviet downing of KAL 007 would have provided sufficent justification for a full-scale war

That the scale of the aggressive act determines the proportion of the response is a maxim of strategy.

No, it is not. Strategy is a generalised course of action predicated upon comparative capability and conditions of advantage, and is not reactionary in nature.

While I’m not fully up-to-date on the subject of Korean Airlines flight 007, it would appear that South Korea does have a legal casus belli, irrespective of whether it not it chose to press it.

No, it doesn't. Aside from the insanity of attempting to challenge a nation which far outclassed it militarily, a single incident involving the deaths of a handful of civilians does not warrant sufficent provocation in and of itself to take a nation to war. The downing of KAL 007 was not part of a pattern of aggressive behaviour against South Korea nor did it come anywhere near fulfilling the criteria for "imminent threat" to that nation's survival.

Do you wish to tell me that you actually adhere to the belief that any decision made over the censure of the United Nations – in both form and practice a body beholden merely to the self-interest of its member states – is absolutely Hitlerian?

We've had this discussion before. The "right" you assert for the United States to go to war anytime it wishes against whomever it wishes was exactly the same "right" Hitler asserted in 1939. It was invalid then and it remains invalid now, no matter how much you wish to deny it. Without the justification of an external imminent threat posed to a nation's survival, unprovoked war against another state is imperialistic by definition and threatens the stability of a peaceful global order. Saddam Hussein asserted this same "right" in 1990 and got smacked for it for that very reason.

While I can't do that for lack of access, I do recall that neither he nor any of his minions ever presented material from plagerised college term-papers, halfway-unintelligible phone conversations in Arabic, or scratchy sixth-generation video as "evidence" of anything.

And yet it is significant that, as David Kay has acknowledged, even the intelligence data of those nations against the war agreed that Saddam Hussein possessed prohibited materials.

Intelligence data with HUGE qualifiers attatched and which was contradicted at every turn by the repeated findings of UNSCOM, IAEA, and UNMOVIC inspectors through a seven year period. And for all the data, the CIA never asserted that any of Saddam's alledged possession of materials amounted to an imminent threat. And you dodged the original question on this point, which was:

In point of fact, the terms of the UN Charter justify preemptive war only in cases where imminent threat actually is evident, but that is not the crux of the argument here.

Then why don’t you present to us the intelligence that Clinton relied upon?

To which the above original reply had been addressed. Even you can't be dense enough to pretend that intel data from 1991 and a plagerised college term paper based on that same data which was hopelessly outdated in 2003 are remotely the same thing.

The same tired argument you flogged the last three times you embarassed yourself on this board over this issue, and yet the findings to date have confirmed Blix.

The point is that somebody had to put on the ground in the first place. As for the validity of the conclusions of either Blix or Kay, see above. I dealt with the inconclusiveness of Kay’s report earlier.

If that's what you refer to your latest effort at stonewalling as, that is your preference.

As long as we ignore the qualifiers attesting to the uncertainty level over any of their conclusions regarding Saddam's alledged WMD stockpiles, that argument flies. Unfortunately, those qualifiers were made and Kay is simply trying to cover his ass while assisting in the White House's effort to lay the blame on the CIA for "bad advice" in making the decision for war.

Even if the CIA is proven to have produced poor analysis, the basis on which we went to war remains solid: intelligence was handed to the President that emphasized a danger that could only be fully understood once troops were on the ground. And don’t presume to tell me that inspections under Blix satisfied the demands of that intelligence, since any interviewee was subject to torture or imprisonment after his release from U.N. custody, and the Hussein regime was still fully in power.

The CIA SAID NO SUCH FUCKING THING —George Tenet himself said today that their analyses never emphasised an imminent threat in any of their dossiers, and Stewart Cowen articulated that point in his statement on the CIA's website when he said this was why they called it a National Intelligence ESTIMATE and not a National Intelligence FACTBOOK.

And you can take that "interviewees subject to torture" red herring (which is another tired argument you keep recycling) and cram it up your ass. Blix and ElBaradi relied on far more than mere interviews with people in Iraq and that is a well known fact. Will I have to again quote the findings of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC to make the point?

That proves exactly dick. The entire argument for going to war with Iraq was Saddam's alledged possession of a vast WMD arsenal and its imminent threat to the U.S. Afganistan and 9/11 are Red Herrings and remain so no matter how many times you continue to flog them.

It provides a basis by which to understand why George W. Bush might have drawn different conclusions from the same intelligence as compared to Bill Clinton.

You are so full of shit it's not even funny anymore. Afganistan and 9/11 have zero relevance as to any threat posed by Iraq, which was none. Both Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice were caught on videotape saying Iraq had been unable to rebuild its military power or its WMD efforts and the mountain range of evidence points to a White House which deliberately ignored every conclusion which did not fit its preconceived case for going to war and either oversold the worst-case scenario at every opportunity or outright lied to the public and the world.

[Axis Kast]

No, it is not. Strategy is a generalised course of action predicated upon comparative capability and conditions of advantage, and is not reactionary in nature.

Incorrect. Strategy need not be reactionary in nature, but it often is, nevertheless. When beset by particular circumstances, those in power formulate means of compensation and response. For Bill Clinton, who clearly viewed terrorism as small-scale and having only limited reach, the answer was a limited application of force. For George Bush, who had greater reason to weigh the history of the Clinton administration’s experience – and his own – more heavily, the conclusions were different, and thus demanded different prescriptions.

No, it doesn't. Aside from the insanity of attempting to challenge a nation which far outclassed it militarily, a single incident involving the deaths of a handful of civilians does not warrant sufficent provocation in and of itself to take a nation to war. The downing of KAL 007 was not part of a pattern of aggressive behaviour against South Korea nor did it come anywhere near fulfilling the criteria for "imminent threat" to that nation's survival.

Merely because one is presented with a cassus belli does not mean that one is obliged to act on it as such.

We've had this discussion before. The "right" you assert for the United States to go to war anytime it wishes against whomever it wishes was exactly the same "right" Hitler asserted in 1939. It was invalid then and it remains invalid now, no matter how much you wish to deny it. Without the justification of an external imminent threat posed to a nation's survival, unprovoked war against another state is imperialistic by definition and threatens the stability of a peaceful global order. Saddam Hussein asserted this same "right" in 1990 and got smacked for it for that very reason.

Invalid before whom? A body of our peers, many of whom acknowledged the same threat we saw but chose not to act with the same self-interested calculation by which we did?

Sometimes, intelligence is all a nation has to go on. If it can effect its will based on those predictions of what may occur or what is necessary for national security, it often does. This is irrespective of critics who feel complacent after the fact, as it should be.

Intelligence data with HUGE qualifiers attatched and which was contradicted at every turn by the repeated findings of UNSCOM, IAEA, and UNMOVIC inspectors through a seven year period.

But which ended in 1998; and we already know the pitfalls of exclusively reliance on satellite data. It failed to reveal South African boreholes, Libyan facilities, and Iraqi defense positions. Our reliance was dangerously flawed.

To which the above original reply had been addressed. Even you can't be dense enough to pretend that intel data from 1991 and a plagerised college term paper based on that same data which was hopelessly outdated in 2003 are remotely the same thing.

There were other reasons aside from the college term paper. I’ll remind you again that even weapons inspection David Kay is still upholding the unanimity of intelligence from numerous sources – including dissenters in Europe.

If that's what you refer to your latest effort at stonewalling as, that is your preference.

Concession accepted.

The CIA SAID NO SUCH FUCKING THING —George Tenet himself said today that their analyses never emphasised an imminent threat in any of their dossiers, and Stewart Cowen articulated that point in his statement on the CIA's website when he said this was why they called it a National Intelligence ESTIMATE and not a National Intelligence FACTBOOK.

And, if the estimate is all that there’s left to go on, considering the history of Iraq and what we know now about nations with limited means, then the decision is eminently defensible.

And you can take that "interviewees subject to torture" red herring (which is another tired argument you keep recycling) and cram it up your ass. Blix and ElBaradi relied on far more than mere interviews with people in Iraq and that is a well known fact. Will I have to again quote the findings of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC to make the point?

They conducted a search while a regime known for deception was still in complete power.

You are so full of shit it's not even funny anymore. Afganistan and 9/11 have zero relevance as to any threat posed by Iraq, which was none. Both Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice were caught on videotape saying Iraq had been unable to rebuild its military power or its WMD efforts and the mountain range of evidence points to a White House which deliberately ignored every conclusion which did not fit its preconceived case for going to war and either oversold the worst-case scenario at every opportunity or outright lied to the public and the world.

You’re utterly missing the point of the comparison. It’s that based on the experience of 9/11, even the least potent of nations can become a major potential threat. And precedent was certainly on the side of our dim view of the ambitions of Iraq (not to mention all the intelligence data of groups outside the United States). One needn’t use Afghanistan as the justification for invading Iraq, but it’s clear that suddenly, Iraq’s lack of conventional power and the possibility that it possessed even small stockpiles, gained more urgency.

[Patrick Degan]

No, it is not. Strategy is a generalised course of action predicated upon comparative capability and conditions of advantage, and is not reactionary in nature.

Incorrect. Strategy need not be reactionary in nature, but it often is, nevertheless. When beset by particular circumstances, those in power formulate means of compensation and response.

Wrong —what you are attempting to describe is tactics, not strategy.

For Bill Clinton, who clearly viewed terrorism as small-scale and having only limited reach, the answer was a limited application of force. For George Bush, who had greater reason to weigh the history of the Clinton administration’s experience – and his own – more heavily, the conclusions were different, and thus demanded different prescriptions.

Translation: 9/11 changed everything because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did... Once more: Afganistan and 9/11 have FUCK ALL to do with Iraq and the decision to drag this country into an unnecessary war against a pissant little thug utterly lacking the power to resist us.

No, it doesn't. Aside from the insanity of attempting to challenge a nation which far outclassed it militarily, a single incident involving the deaths of a handful of civilians does not warrant sufficent provocation in and of itself to take a nation to war. The downing of KAL 007 was not part of a pattern of aggressive behaviour against South Korea nor did it come anywhere near fulfilling the criteria for "imminent threat" to that nation's survival.

Merely because one is presented with a cassus belli does not mean that one is obliged to act on it as such.

Nice little backpedal.

We've had this discussion before. The "right" you assert for the United States to go to war anytime it wishes against whomever it wishes was exactly the same "right" Hitler asserted in 1939. It was invalid then and it remains invalid now, no matter how much you wish to deny it. Without the justification of an external imminent threat posed to a nation's survival, unprovoked war against another state is imperialistic by definition and threatens the stability of a peaceful global order. Saddam Hussein asserted this same "right" in 1990 and got smacked for it for that very reason.

Invalid before whom? A body of our peers, many of whom acknowledged the same threat we saw but chose not to act with the same self-interested calculation by which we did?

Simply because the United States decided to blatantly violate the UN Charter which defines the illegality of unprovoked aggression does not loan the action validity. The U.S. is part of that pact and its terms are binding upon us as per the U.S. Constitution, which makes all treaties entered into by this country part of the body of our own law. The very reason for that charter was the result of the last leader who took self-interest as his sole justification for action and whose logic you ape.

Sometimes, intelligence is all a nation has to go on. If it can effect its will based on those predictions of what may occur or what is necessary for national security, it often does. This is irrespective of critics who feel complacent after the fact, as it should be.

Except none of the intelligence presented described Iraq and its alledged WMD as an imminent threat or recommended war as a policy option, and Iraq's actions in no way qualified as a threat justifying preemptive action even within the context of the UN Charter.

Intelligence data with HUGE qualifiers attatched and which was contradicted at every turn by the repeated findings of UNSCOM, IAEA, and UNMOVIC inspectors through a seven year period.

But which ended in 1998; and we already know the pitfalls of exclusively reliance on satellite data. It failed to reveal South African boreholes, Libyan facilities, and Iraqi defense positions. Our reliance was dangerously flawed.

It did not end in 1998. Certainly, the CIA and MI6 had their own access to the findings of the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspection reports which were being presented post-1998 and those indicated what was left of Saddam's WMD efforts, which was practically nil. The findings of the occupation forces and the survey teams as well as interviews with all Iraqi scientists captured since the end of the late war remain consistent with the picture which was being presented by UNMOVIC.

To which the above original reply had been addressed. Even you can't be dense enough to pretend that intel data from 1991 and a plagerised college term paper based on that same data which was hopelessly outdated in 2003 are remotely the same thing.

There were other reasons aside from the college term paper. I’ll remind you again that even weapons inspection David Kay is still upholding the unanimity of intelligence from numerous sources – including dissenters in Europe.

David Kay is desperately attempting to cover his own ass, and you nicely ignore his blanket statement "I doubt there ever were any WMD". If you're going to make an Appeal to Authority, it helps that the said Authority's own case isn't seriously compromised.

If that's what you refer to your latest effort at stonewalling as, that is your preference.

Concession accepted.

Your delusional fantasies are not my responsibility.

The CIA SAID NO SUCH FUCKING THING —George Tenet himself said today that their analyses never emphasised an imminent threat in any of their dossiers, and Stewart Cowen articulated that point in his statement on the CIA's website when he said this was why they called it a National Intelligence ESTIMATE and not a National Intelligence FACTBOOK.

And, if the estimate is all that there’s left to go on, considering the history of Iraq and what we know now about nations with limited means, then the decision is eminently defensible.

Their "history" is that they failed in their war against Iran, got their asses kicked out of Kuwait, that their industrial and technical infrastructure was smashed in that war, that the depredations of the sanctions regime denied Iraq the ability to rebuild that infrastructure, and that their nuclear programme had utterly fallen apart. Sorry, but that history does not provide a defence for Mr. Bush's War, since it clearly shows that Iraq was no threat.

And you can take that "interviewees subject to torture" red herring (which is another tired argument you keep recycling) and cram it up your ass. Blix and ElBaradi relied on far more than mere interviews with people in Iraq and that is a well known fact. Will I have to again quote the findings of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC to make the point?

They conducted a search while a regime known for deception was still in complete power.

A) they were not in complete power, as Saddam Hussein was unable to exert control over the northern Kurdish region of his own country and was facing challenge from not only Shia unrest but rumblings even within his own loyal Sunni tribes

B) the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors did not simply conduct interviews but conducted physical on-site inspection

C) the interviews with the Iraqi scientists captured since the war remains consistent with everything they said to Blix and his people —and there is certainly no torture threat now. So may we have an end to this Red Herring?

You are so full of shit it's not even funny anymore. Afganistan and 9/11 have zero relevance as to any threat posed by Iraq, which was none. Both Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice were caught on videotape saying Iraq had been unable to rebuild its military power or its WMD efforts and the mountain range of evidence points to a White House which deliberately ignored every conclusion which did not fit its preconceived case for going to war and either oversold the worst-case scenario at every opportunity or outright lied to the public and the world.

You’re utterly missing the point of the comparison. It’s that based on the experience of 9/11, even the least potent of nations can become a major potential threat.

I "miss" that point because it is utterly irrelevant to the issue before the bar —which is the effort by this White House to inflate the alledged danger of Iraq to justify an unnecessary war.

And precedent was certainly on the side of our dim view of the ambitions of Iraq

None of which ever included an attempt or even the intent to attack the United States.

One needn’t use Afghanistan as the justification for invading Iraq, but it’s clear that suddenly, Iraq’s lack of conventional power and the possibility that it possessed even small stockpiles, gained more urgency.

And again, this comes down to whether or not you take seriously the threat from a quadruple amputee that he is going to kick your ass. Nice bit of Circular Reasoning you employ, BTW: the lack of a threat capacity made Iraq more of a threat than ever. You don't even see how ludicrous that is, do you?

[Axis Kast]

Wrong —what you are attempting to describe is tactics, not strategy.

The broad overview of compensation and response is strategy. The means of its implementation are tactics.

Translation: 9/11 changed everything because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did... Once more: Afganistan and 9/11 have FUCK ALL to do with Iraq and the decision to drag this country into an unnecessary war against a pissant little thug utterly lacking the power to resist us.

Bullshit. They proved that even nations with almost no conventional power can pose very significant threats to American national security. The circumstances of September 11, 2001 demanded that we reevaluate our entire outlook to fit that new possibility.

Nice little backpedal.

What backpedal? I have merely stated fact. Shooting down the plane of a foreign country is an act of war.

Simply because the United States decided to blatantly violate the UN Charter which defines the illegality of unprovoked aggression does not loan the action validity. The U.S. is part of that pact and its terms are binding upon us as per the U.S. Constitution, which makes all treaties entered into by this country part of the body of our own law. The very reason for that charter was the result of the last leader who took self-interest as his sole justification for action and whose logic you ape.

In practice, we must be beholden to no one for our defense. Invoke Godwin all you like; by your reasoning – whereby self-interest means similarity to Adolf Hitler –, the whole world is lead by Nazis. That’s each and every nation, mind you.

Except none of the intelligence presented described Iraq and its alledged WMD as an imminent threat or recommended war as a policy option, and Iraq's actions in no way qualified as a threat justifying preemptive action even within the context of the UN Charter.

None of the intelligence analysis recommended war as a policy option? You can prove that?

It did not end in 1998. Certainly, the CIA and MI6 had their own access to the findings of the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspection reports which were being presented post-1998 and those indicated what was left of Saddam's WMD efforts, which was practically nil. The findings of the occupation forces and the survey teams as well as interviews with all Iraqi scientists captured since the end of the late war remain consistent with the picture which was being presented by UNMOVIC.

That is fact, not David Kay’s opinion (the validity of which is already in severe question). No foreign intelligence data ever questioned the conclusion that Saddam still had stockpiles.

Furthermore, Kay himself asked for more time on top of UNMOVIC and the military survey groups. And the military survey group was working under even more chaotic and confused conditions.

Their "history" is that they failed in their war against Iran, got their asses kicked out of Kuwait, that their industrial and technical infrastructure was smashed in that war, that the depredations of the sanctions regime denied Iraq the ability to rebuild that infrastructure, and that their nuclear programme had utterly fallen apart. Sorry, but that history does not provide a defence for Mr. Bush's War, since it clearly shows that Iraq was no threat.

That’s correct. Their history involves a series of stupid, stupid judgments made by men with little ability to rationalize as we’d prefer most international leaders might. And David Kay has already proven that there were ongoing programs, including active deception. Furthermore, the search is by no means over, and if you want to know why, you can go back further in this very thread.

A) they were not in complete power, as Saddam Hussein was unable to exert control over the northern Kurdish region of his own country and was facing challenge from not only Shia unrest but rumblings even within his own loyal Sunni tribes

B) the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors did not simply conduct interviews but conducted physical on-site inspection

C) the interviews with the Iraqi scientists captured since the war remains consistent with everything they said to Blix and his people —and there is certainly no torture threat now. So may we have an end to this Red Herring?

Saddam was in complete power in the vast majority of territory visited by inspectors.

UNMOVIC and IAEA are no longer reliable; we fought a war since they last held court.

We had defectors from Libya, too. No word of those new facilities. Furthermore, Iraqis are still targeting known collaborators.

None of which ever included an attempt or even the intent to attack the United States.

Bullshit. Saddam tried to have George Bush, Sr. killed. He tried to kill an American President.

And again, this comes down to whether or not you take seriously the threat from a quadruple amputee that he is going to kick your ass. Nice bit of Circular Reasoning you employ, BTW: the lack of a threat capacity made Iraq more of a threat than ever. You don't even see how ludicrous that is, do you?

No. The reasoning is that the lack of conventional threat capability was no longer as reliable an argument in proving Iraq’s total incapacity.

[Patrick Degan]

Translation: 9/11 changed everything because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did because it did... Once more: Afganistan and 9/11 have FUCK ALL to do with Iraq and the decision to drag this country into an unnecessary war against a pissant little thug utterly lacking the power to resist us.

Bullshit.

Yours, actually.

They proved that even nations with almost no conventional power can pose very significant threats to American national security. The circumstances of September 11, 2001 demanded that we reevaluate our entire outlook to fit that new possibility.

No, 9/11 is an excuse and nothing more. Afganistan posed no national security threat; it's government neither planned nor funded the WTC strike. That was wholly a private enterprise operation carried out by Osama binLaden. Afganistan only provided haven for alQaeda and our war there was a punitive expedition because the Taliban refused to turn over binLaden and his lieutennants. And once again; the Afganistan example has ZERO relevance to the Iraq situation, no matter how much you continue to prate the "9/11 changed everything" party line. So kindly cease your endless bullshit and deal with the actual issue at hand, which was how much or how little a threat Iraq actually posed.

Shooting down the plane of a foreign country is an act of war.

But single isolated incidents are never considered sufficent to provide a case for war. This has long been recognised in international custom and practise. Singular incidents can be negotiated, compromised, reparations made. Casus belli, on the other hand, involves either an action so extreme or devestating that diplomacy cannot answer it, or a pattern of behaviour and a catalogue of aggressions which can only be answered by war. Since no nation can afford to go to war precipituously, this is why singular, isolated acts of war are either ignored or negotiated.

Simply because the United States decided to blatantly violate the UN Charter which defines the illegality of unprovoked aggression does not loan the action validity. The U.S. is part of that pact and its terms are binding upon us as per the U.S. Constitution, which makes all treaties entered into by this country part of the body of our own law. The very reason for that charter was the result of the last leader who took self-interest as his sole justification for action and whose logic you ape.

In practice, we must be beholden to no one for our defense. Invoke Godwin all you like; by your reasoning – whereby self-interest means similarity to Adolf Hitler –, the whole world is lead by Nazis. That’s each and every nation, mind you.

How ludicrously simpleminded you are. Following international law does not mean "being beholden to others for our defence", it means building and maintaining a system of cooperative diplomacy and collective security. Furthermore, the UN Charter does indeed allow for national self-defence; it does not allow for unprovoked aggression. So let's have enough of that little strawman of yours. If you don't like being labeled a practitioner of Hitlerian logic, cease employing it as justification for unprovoked war.

Except none of the intelligence presented described Iraq and its alledged WMD as an imminent threat or recommended war as a policy option, and Iraq's actions in no way qualified as a threat justifying preemptive action even within the context of the UN Charter.

None of the intelligence analysis recommended war as a policy option? You can prove that?

George Tenent said that very thing at Georgetown University yesterday.

It did not end in 1998. Certainly, the CIA and MI6 had their own access to the findings of the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspection reports which were being presented post-1998 and those indicated what was left of Saddam's WMD efforts, which was practically nil. The findings of the occupation forces and the survey teams as well as interviews with all Iraqi scientists captured since the end of the late war remain consistent with the picture which was being presented by UNMOVIC.

That is fact, not David Kay’s opinion (the validity of which is already in severe question).

No, that is your opinion, not fact. Kindly learn the distinction between the two.

No foreign intelligence data ever questioned the conclusion that Saddam still had stockpiles.

No, they said he probably had banned weapons but all had the same caveats included in the CIA dossiers as well. None of the intelligence services made the absolute assertion that the alledged vast WMD arsenal existed, and the dilapidation of Iraq's nuclear programmes were certainly known before the late war. The only persons who were making assertions of that sort were George Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and Colin Powell —all of whom ignored the cautions and uncertainties included in each and every intelligence report handed to them.

Furthermore, Kay himself asked for more time on top of UNMOVIC and the military survey groups. And the military survey group was working under even more chaotic and confused conditions.

Funny, "more time" was what Hans Blix asked for. And there was no reason why continuation of the sanctions regime would not have been effective in keeping Saddam Hussein neutralised as it had done for the previous twelve years. And by now, we certainly have every government file regarding their WMD efforts, which should include hiding places for weapons —since it does no good to hide anything if you leave no sign as to where to find it when you need it again.

Their "history" is that they failed in their war against Iran, got their asses kicked out of Kuwait, that their industrial and technical infrastructure was smashed in that war, that the depredations of the sanctions regime denied Iraq the ability to rebuild that infrastructure, and that their nuclear programme had utterly fallen apart. Sorry, but that history does not provide a defence for Mr. Bush's War, since it clearly shows that Iraq was no threat.

That’s correct. Their history involves a series of stupid, stupid judgments made by men with little ability to rationalize as we’d prefer most international leaders might. And David Kay has already proven that there were ongoing programs, including active deception. Furthermore, the search is by no means over, and if you want to know why, you can go back further in this very thread.

No, what's been proven is that the people Saddam was deceiving were chiefly his own, that his own scientists were deceiving him and pocketing the monies for the programmes he was theoretically advancing, that he was putting up a façade for world public consumption to hide the true state of his weakness, and that his WMD programmes had in fact ground to a halt. Furthermore, the cause for war was not WMD programmes (or "WMD programme related activities" in this White House's clumsy nomenclature) but alledged vast WMD arsenals available at Saddam's fingertips —and we have only to go as far back as the 2003 SOTU speech for those assertions on the part of Mr. Bush. ARSENALS, Comical Axi —not programmes, not "programme related activities", not "intent to one day have programmes".

A) they were not in complete power, as Saddam Hussein was unable to exert control over the northern Kurdish region of his own country and was facing challenge from not only Shia unrest but rumblings even within his own loyal Sunni tribes

B) the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors did not simply conduct interviews but conducted physical on-site inspection

C) the interviews with the Iraqi scientists captured since the war remains consistent with everything they said to Blix and his people —and there is certainly no torture threat now. So may we have an end to this Red Herring?

Saddam was in complete power in the vast majority of territory visited by inspectors.

Bullshit —the picture that's been revealed since the fall of Iraq is that Saddam's grasp on his own throne was growing increasingly rickety.

UNMOVIC and IAEA are no longer reliable; we fought a war since they last held court.

The findings to date confirm not contradict UNMOVIC and IAEA. The fact of the war does not erase that, no matter how much you fantasise it does.

We had defectors from Libya, too. No word of those new facilities. Furthermore, Iraqis are still targeting known collaborators.

The present nationalist insurgency is targeting those cooperating with the occupation governnment, and that has nothing to do with anything related to Saddam's previous regime. Yet another Red Herring.

None of which ever included an attempt or even the intent to attack the United States.

Bullshit. Saddam tried to have George Bush, Sr. killed. He tried to kill an American President.

No, he alledgedly attempted to kill a former American president. That is not anywhere near the definition of an attack on the United States, and due retaliation was swiftly meted out. Kindly cease your insane hyperbole.

And again, this comes down to whether or not you take seriously the threat from a quadruple amputee that he is going to kick your ass. Nice bit of Circular Reasoning you employ, BTW: the lack of a threat capacity made Iraq more of a threat than ever. You don't even see how ludicrous that is, do you?

No. The reasoning is that the lack of conventional threat capability was no longer as reliable an argument in proving Iraq’s total incapacity.

Only if we replace logic with paranoia, that is. Too bad extant fact says that argument is bullshit on its face.

[Patrick Degan]

Oh, and to punctuate part of this discussion, an excerpt from Kenneth M. Pollack's Atlantic Monthly article "Spies, Lies, and What Went Wrong":

The View From Baghdad

Figuring out why we overestimated Iraq's WMD capabilities involves figuring out what the Iraqis, especially Saddam Hussein, were thinking and doing throughout the 1990s. The story starts right after the Gulf War. An Iraqi document that fell into the inspectors' hands revealed that in April of 1991 a high-level Iraqi committee had ordered many of the country's WMD activities to be hidden from UN inspectors, even though compliance with the inspections was a condition for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed after the invasion of Kuwait. The document was a report from a nuclear-weapons plant describing how it carried out this order. According to UNSCOM's final report, "The facility was instructed to remove evidence of the true activities at the facility, evacuate documents to hide sites, make physical alterations to the site to hide its true purpose, develop cover stories, and conduct mock inspections to prepare for UN inspectors."

A great deal of other information substantiates the idea that Saddam at first decided to try to keep a considerable portion of his WMD programs intact and hidden. His efforts probably included retaining some munitions, but mainly concerned production and research elements. In other words, Saddam did initially try to maintain a "just-in-time" capability. However, it became increasingly clear how difficult this would be. In the summer of 1991 inspectors tracked down and destroyed Saddam's calutrons. Their discoveries may have convinced him that he would have to put his WMD programs on hold until after the sanctions were lifted—something he reportedly thought would happen within a matter of months.

But the inspectors proved more tenacious and the international community more steadfast than the Iraqis had expected. Accordingly, from June of 1991 to May of 1992 Iraq unilaterally destroyed parts of its WMD programs (as we know from subsequent Iraqi admissions). This action appears to have served two purposes: It got rid of unnecessary munitions and secondary equipment that the inspectors might have found, which would have constituted proof of Iraqi noncompliance. And it helped Baghdad conceal more-important elements of the programs, because the regime could point to the unilateral destructions as evidence of cooperation and could claim that even more material had been destroyed. (Since the fall of Baghdad scientists have told the ISG that key equipment was in fact diverted from these destructions and hidden.)

In 1995 matters changed. That August, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the head of Iraq's WMD programs, defected to Jordan, prompting a panicked Baghdad to hurriedly turn over hundreds of thousands of pages of new documentation to the United Nations. According to the former chief UN weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus, Kamel's statements and the Iraqi documents squared with what UNSCOM had been finding: although all actual weapons had been eliminated, either by the UN or in the earlier destructions, Iraq had preserved production and R&D programs. Although the Iraqis tried to withhold any highly incriminating documents from the UN (and, ridiculously, claimed that Kamel had been running the programs on his own, without anyone else's knowledge), in their rush they overlooked several containing crucial information about previously concealed aspects of the nuclear and biological programs.

Other secrets were laid bare that same year. A U.S.-UN sting operation caught the Iraqis trying to smuggle 115 missile gyroscopes through Jordan. (UN inspectors later found other gyroscopes hidden at the bottom of the Tigris River.) Iraq was forced to admit to the existence of a facility to build Scud-missile engines, and to destroy a hidden plant for manufacturing modified Scud missiles. It was also forced to admit to having made much greater progress on its nuclear program before the Gulf War than it had previously acknowledged. Most important, it was forced to admit that a very large biological-weapons plant at al-Hakim, whose existence had been concealed from UN inspectors, had produced 500,000 liters of biological agents in 1989 and 1990, and that it was still functional in 1995. Three years after this confession Lieutenant General Amer al-Saadi, Saddam's principal liaison with the UN, told inspectors that Iraq would offer no excuse or defense for having denied the existence of its biological-weapons program. He stated matter-of-factly that Iraq had made a political decision to conceal it.

Either late in 1995 or at some point in 1996 Saddam probably recognized that trying to retain his just-in-time capability had become counterproductive. The inspectors kept finding pieces of the programs, and each discovery pushed the lifting of the sanctions further into the future. It's important to keep in mind several other events of this period. Saddam's internal position was very shaky. He had faced disturbances in several of his most loyal Sunni tribes. In addition to Kamel, a number of high-ranking officials had defected to the West, including Saddam's chief of military intelligence, Wafic Samarai. Coup plots abounded. In 1995 the Kurds smashed two Iraqi infantry brigades at Irbil, humiliating the Iraqi army. In 1996 Iraqi intelligence uncovered a CIA-backed coup attempt whose participants had penetrated some of Saddam's most sensitive intelligence services. Iraq's economy was suffocating under the sanctions, and inflation was rampant. Given this precarious situation, Saddam probably decided to scale back his WMD programs (with the likely exception of work on proscribed missiles, which could be concealed by Iraq's permitted missile program) by destroying additional equipment, keeping the bare minimum needed to rebuild them at some point, in order to reduce the risk of further discoveries. This would have meant giving up the idea of just-in-time production capabilities and limiting his efforts to hiding documents and only key pieces of equipment. In short, Saddam switched from trying to hang on to the maximum production and research assets of his WMD programs to trying to keep only the minimum necessary to reconstitute the programs at some point after the sanctions had been lifted.

What Was Saddam Thinking?

H aving decided to give up so much of his WMD capability, why didn't Saddam change his behavior toward the UN inspectors and demonstrate a spirit of candor and cooperation? Even after 1996 the Iraqis took a confrontational posture toward UNSCOM, fighting to prevent inspectors from going where they wanted to go and seeing what they wanted to see. The governments of the world inferred from this defiance that Saddam was still not complying with the UN resolutions, and the sanctions therefore stayed in place.

The first and most obvious answer is that Saddam still had some things to hide, and was fearful of their discovery. Although he did unquestionably have some things to hide, this answer is not entirely satisfying. Iraq was able to conceal the minimized remnants of its WMD programs so well that UNSCOM found little incriminating evidence in 1997 and 1998. This early success should have given Saddam the confidence to begin to cooperate more fully with the UN resolutions. But throughout the period leading up to the war Saddam remained as obstinate as ever.

An alternative explanation, offered by Iraq's former UN ambassador, Tariq Aziz, and other officials captured after last year's war, goes like this: Saddam was pretending to have WMD in order to enhance his prestige among the other Arab nations. This explanation doesn't ring completely true either. It is certainly the case that Saddam garnered a great deal of admiration from Arabs of many countries by appearing to have such weapons, and that he aspired to dominate the Arab world. But this theory assumes that he was willing to incur severe penalties for the UN's belief that he still had WMD without reaping any tangible benefits from actually having them. If prestige had been more important to him than the lifting of the sanctions, it would have been more logical and more in keeping with his character to simply retain all his WMD capabilities.

Saddam's behavior may have been driven by completely different considerations. Saddam has always evinced much greater concern for his internal position than for his external status. He has made any number of highly foolish foreign-policy decisions—for example, invading Kuwait and then deciding to stick around and fight the U.S.-led coalition—in response to domestic problems that he feared threatened his grip on power. The same forces may have been at work here; after all, ever since the Iran-Iraq war WMD had been an important element of Saddam's strength within Iraq. He used them against the Kurds in the late 1980s, and during the revolts that broke out after the Gulf War, he sent signals that he might use them against both the Kurds and the Shiites. He may have feared that if his internal adversaries realized that he no longer had the capability to use these weapons, they would try to move against him. In a similar vein, Saddam's standing among the Sunni elites who constituted his power base was linked to a great extent to his having made Iraq a regional power—which the elites saw as a product of Iraq's unconventional arsenal. Thus openly giving up his WMD could also have jeopardized his position with crucial supporters.

Furthermore, Saddam may have felt trapped by his initial reckoning that he could fool the UN inspectors and that the sanctions would be short-lived. Because of this mistaken calculation he had subjected Iraq to terrible hardships. Suddenly cooperating with the inspectors would have meant admitting to both his opponents and his supporters that his course of action had been a mistake and that, having now given up most of his WMD programs, he had devastated Iraqi society for no reason.

This suggests that in 1995-1996 Saddam took one of his famous gambles—gambles that almost never worked out for him. He chose not to "come clean" and cooperate with the UN for fear that this would make him look weak to both his domestic enemies and his domestic allies, either of whom might then have moved against him. But he would try to greatly diminish the chances that UNSCOM would find more evidence of his continuing noncompliance by reducing his WMD programs to the bare minimum, in hopes that the absence of evidence would lead to the lifting of sanctions—something he desperately sought in 1996.

In other respects Saddam's fortunes began to rise in 1996. Although the CIA-backed coup attempt may have signified internal weakness, the fact that Saddam snuffed it out, as he had many previous attempts, signified strength. Also, to avenge the Iraqi army's 1995 defeat at Irbil, Saddam manipulated infighting among the Kurds so as to allow his Republican Guards to drive into the city, smash the Kurd defenders, and arrest several hundred CIA-backed rebels. As the historian Amatzia Baram has persuasively argued in his book Building Toward Crisis (1998), these successes made Saddam feel secure enough to swallow his pride and accept UN Resolution 986, the oil-for-food program, which he had previously rejected as an infringement on Iraqi sovereignty. Oil-for-food turned out to be an enormous boon for the Iraqi economy, and commodity prices fell quickly, stabilizing the dinar.

The oil-for-food program itself gave Saddam clout to apply toward the lifting of the sanctions. Under Resolution 986 Iraq could choose to whom it would sell its oil and from whom it would buy its food and medicine. Baghdad could therefore reward cooperative states with contracts. Not surprisingly, France and Russia regularly topped the list of Iraq's oil-for-food partners. In addition, Iraq could set the prices—and since Saddam did not really care whether he was importing enough food and medicine for his people's needs, he could sell oil on the cheap and buy food and medicine at inflated prices as additional payoff to friendly governments. He made it clear that he wanted his trading partners to ignore Iraqi smuggling and try to get the sanctions lifted.

By 1997 the international environment had changed markedly, in ways that probably convinced Saddam that he didn't need to cooperate with the inspectors. The same international outcry—against the suffering inflicted by the Iraq sanctions—that prompted the United States to craft the oil-for-food deal was creating momentum for lifting the sanctions completely. At that point it was reasonable for Saddam to believe that in the not too distant future the sanctions either would be lifted or would be so undermined as to be effectively meaningless, and that he would never have to reveal the remaining elements of his WMD programs. Only in 2002, when the Bush Administration suddenly focused its attention on Iraq, would Saddam have had any reason to change this view. And then, according to a variety of Iraqi sources, he simply refused to believe that the Americans were serious and would actually invade.

Another explanation should be posited. This is the notion that Saddam did not order the program scaled down, but Iraqi scientists ensured that it did not progress and deceived Saddam into believing that it was much further along than it in fact was. Numerous Iraqi scientists have claimed that although Saddam ordered them to produce particular things for the WMD programs, they dragged their feet or found other ways to avoid delivering them. There is most likely a germ of truth to these stories: prevarication on the part of some Iraqi scientists may have helped to account for the modest state of Iraq's WMD programs in 2003. But they probably form only a part of the explanation. Many of the accounts of scientists' quietly thwarting Saddam are undoubtedly self-serving, concocted in the aftermath of his defeat. As we have heard time and again from Iraqi defectors, those who did not meet Saddam's demands risked torture and murder for themselves and their families. We have consistently found that in Saddam's Iraq very few people took that risk.

One last element may also have been at work all along: the possibility that Saddam genuinely feared that the inspections were a cover for a CIA campaign to overthrow or assassinate him. The Iraqis repeatedly cited this fear in denying UNSCOM access to certain "sensitive" sites—particularly palaces—that were associated with Saddam personally. The rest of the world assumed that it was merely an excuse to keep inspectors out of places that contained evidence of WMD programs. However, the Iraqis may have been telling the truth on this point (and the initial debriefing of Saddam lends some credence to this scenario). After all, as various sources have now disclosed, the United States did run a covert-action campaign against Saddam, starting in 1991, and U.S. intelligence did use UNSCOM operations (without UNSCOM's knowledge) to gather intelligence for that campaign.

Atlantic Monthly link

[Vympel]

Even though this is going on at SB too, I have too call more bullshit on this:

UNMOVIC and IAEA are no longer reliable; we fought a war since they last held court.

Yes, from late March to 1 May, Iraq re-started it's non-existent nuclear program (making the IAEA not reliable) and started producing all sorts of chemical and biological weapons by importing vast amounts of the quantities of previously-destroyed-infrastructure and starting a production program in *record* time.

Fucking inane ...

[Axis Kast]

No, 9/11 is an excuse and nothing more. Afganistan posed no national security threat; it's government neither planned nor funded the WTC strike. That was wholly a private enterprise operation carried out by Osama binLaden. Afganistan only provided haven for alQaeda and our war there was a punitive expedition because the Taliban refused to turn over binLaden and his lieutennants. And once again; the Afganistan example has ZERO relevance to the Iraq situation, no matter how much you continue to prate the "9/11 changed everything" party line. So kindly cease your endless bullshit and deal with the actual issue at hand, which was how much or how little a threat Iraq actually posed.

Clearly, if Afghanistan provided safe haven for and refused to release terrorists who planned and carried out attacks against American interests, it was a national security threat. It is evidence that even nations with the least amount of conventional power are capable of support schemes or efforts that can have reverberations at the highest levels.

But single isolated incidents are never considered sufficent to provide a case for war. This has long been recognised in international custom and practise. Singular incidents can be negotiated, compromised, reparations made. Casus belli, on the other hand, involves either an action so extreme or devestating that diplomacy cannot answer it, or a pattern of behaviour and a catalogue of aggressions which can only be answered by war. Since no nation can afford to go to war precipituously, this is why singular, isolated acts of war are either ignored or negotiated.

South Korea would have been well within its rights to go to war over the downing of its aircraft, which was a clear violation by the Soviet Union of its sovereignty. That it chose not to was a matter of discretion, not jurisprudence. That singular incidents are handled without conflict in most cases is a matter of preference.

How ludicrously simpleminded you are. Following international law does not mean "being beholden to others for our defence", it means building and maintaining a system of cooperative diplomacy and collective security. Furthermore, the UN Charter does indeed allow for national self-defence; it does not allow for unprovoked aggression. So let's have enough of that little strawman of yours. If you don't like being labeled a practitioner of Hitlerian logic, cease employing it as justification for unprovoked war.

Cooperative diplomacy and collective security cannot function when nations are at loggerheads as to the utility of certain action. What drives them to such an impasse? Differing assessments of the national interest.

And our aggression was hardly unprovoked; Iraq was in violation of stipulations set out in a 1991 cease-fire with the United States of America.

George Tenent said that very thing at Georgetown University yesterday.

Nice try. Find me the quotation.

No, that is your opinion, not fact. Kindly learn the distinction between the two.

David Kay has acknowledged that none of the intelligence data he received from foreign intelligence communities denied that Saddam possessed weapons. You can find this in my larger discussion on Kay and inspections earlier in this thread.

No, they said he probably had banned weapons but all had the same caveats included in the CIA dossiers as well. None of the intelligence services made the absolute assertion that the alledged vast WMD arsenal existed, and the dilapidation of Iraq's nuclear programmes were certainly known before the late war. The only persons who were making assertions of that sort were George Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and Colin Powell —all of whom ignored the cautions and uncertainties included in each and every intelligence report handed to them.

But there was no way to find out for sure without an occupation.

Funny, "more time" was what Hans Blix asked for. And there was no reason why continuation of the sanctions regime would not have been effective in keeping Saddam Hussein neutralised as it had done for the previous twelve years. And by now, we certainly have every government file regarding their WMD efforts, which should include hiding places for weapons —since it does no good to hide anything if you leave no sign as to where to find it when you need it again.

As much as they were both inadequate, Kay’s search began from a far better position than that of Blix.

And we do not certainly have every government file; that’s an unsubstantiated absolute.

As for the sanctions regime, it was violated routinely.

No, what's been proven is that the people Saddam was deceiving were chiefly his own, that his own scientists were deceiving him and pocketing the monies for the programmes he was theoretically advancing, that he was putting up a façade for world public consumption to hide the true state of his weakness, and that his WMD programmes had in fact ground to a halt. Furthermore, the cause for war was not WMD programmes (or "WMD programme related activities" in this White House's clumsy nomenclature) but alledged vast WMD arsenals available at Saddam's fingertips —and we have only to go as far back as the 2003 SOTU speech for those assertions on the part of Mr. Bush. ARSENALS, Comical Axi —not programmes, not "programme related activities", not "intent to one day have programmes".

No credible final determination can yet be made. Inspections are still ongoing.

Bullshit —the picture that's been revealed since the fall of Iraq is that Saddam's grasp on his own throne was growing increasingly rickety.

Saddam still had the power to give orders and have men carry them out.

The findings to date confirm not contradict UNMOVIC and IAEA. The fact of the war does not erase that, no matter how much you fantasise it does.

I will return to this when I deal with Vympel.

The present nationalist insurgency is targeting those cooperating with the occupation governnment, and that has nothing to do with anything related to Saddam's previous regime. Yet another Red Herring.

Which include informants. Furthermore, at least some of the Iraqi insurgency is composed of Saddam sympathizers.

No, he alledgedly attempted to kill a former American president. That is not anywhere near the definition of an attack on the United States, and due retaliation was swiftly meted out. Kindly cease your insane hyperbole.

He was attempting to kill former American leaders – American citizens – to foment fear.

Only if we replace logic with paranoia, that is. Too bad extant fact says that argument is bullshit on its face.

As we have seen, al-Qaeda is having quite a great many problems now that its base in Afghanistan is under fire. Obviously, that nation and its patronage were key to Osama bin Laden’s power projection capability.

Yes, from late March to 1 May, Iraq re-started it's non-existent nuclear program (making the IAEA not reliable) and started producing all sorts of chemical and biological weapons by importing vast amounts of the quantities of previously-destroyed-infrastructure and starting a production program in *record* time.

It’s called “transport,” Vympel. Hell, David Kay himself insisted that we couldn’t find older weapons of mass destruction we knew Iraq to have had because all the evidence was gone thanks to immediate post-war chaos. That includes every possibility from uncatalogued destruction of records to physical movement of items.

[Vympel]

It?s called ?transport,? Vympel.

Yeah, they transported the non-existent evidence you sought. This has *what* to do with calling UNMOVIC and the IAEA unreliable because of a war?

Hell, David Kay himself insisted that we couldn?t find older weapons of mass destruction we knew Iraq to have had because all the evidence was gone thanks to immediate post-war chaos. That includes every possibility from uncatalogued destruction of records to physical movement of items.

Complete bullshit. Please point out where Kay said he couldn't find weapons of mass destruction they *knew* Iraq had, especially considering he said they *DIDN'T EXIST*.

[Axis Kast]

Yeah, they transported the non-existent evidence you sought. This has *what* to do with calling UNMOVIC and the IAEA unreliable because of a war?

It's too early to say whether weapons in Iraq were non-existant. Kay's search was neither comprehensive nor optimal in nature.

Furthermore, Blix relied partly on U.N. data to dismiss the need to visit most of some 130 artillery storage sites. Consider this argument: U.N. assessments that there was nothing at vast munitions dumps can be considered to have remained valid after a war. Absurd.

Complete bullshit. Please point out where Kay said he couldn't find weapons of mass destruction they *knew* Iraq had, especially considering he said they *DIDN'T EXIST*.

The Buffalo News article I cited earlier in the thread has apparently expired.

Of course, one can explain the situation even without the article.

It is a fact that we have not been able to qualify exactly what items that Saddam was known to have kept after 1998 were destroyed, precisely. Blix suggested that we could never know because data regarding these activities had disappeared during the "chaos" of the immediate post-war period. He then decided that this mean they didn't exist. That's an outright appeal to the unknowable.

[Vympel]

It's too early to say whether weapons in Iraq were non-existant. Kay's search was neither comprehensive nor optimal in nature.

Furthermore, Blix relied partly on U.N. data to dismiss the need to visit most of some 130 artillery storage sites.

Unjustified assertion. He shares their conclusions, where did you get him relying on their data, and furthermore, what's wrong with their data?

Consider this argument: U.N. assessments that there was nothing at vast munitions dumps can be considered to have remained valid after a war. Absurd.

WTF are you on about? What the hell does whether there was a war on have to do with the well defined properties of chemical and biological weapons produced in a certain way?

The Buffalo News article I cited earlier in the thread has apparently expired.

Then find it somewhere else or drop it.

Of course, one can explain the situation even without the article.

It is a fact that we have not been able to qualify exactly what items that Saddam was known to have kept after 1998 were destroyed, precisely. Blix suggested that we could never know because data regarding these activities had disappeared during the "chaos" of the immediate post-war period. He then decided that this mean they didn't exist. That's an outright appeal to the unknowable.

UNMOVIC stated correctly that the lack of verified destruction did NOT mean they existed. A fine point of argument lost on the geniuses in the US administration.

[Patrick Degan]

No, 9/11 is an excuse and nothing more. Afganistan posed no national security threat; it's government neither planned nor funded the WTC strike. That was wholly a private enterprise operation carried out by Osama binLaden. Afganistan only provided haven for alQaeda and our war there was a punitive expedition because the Taliban refused to turn over binLaden and his lieutennants. And once again; the Afganistan example has ZERO relevance to the Iraq situation, no matter how much you continue to prate the "9/11 changed everything" party line. So kindly cease your endless bullshit and deal with the actual issue at hand, which was how much or how little a threat Iraq actually posed.

Clearly, if Afghanistan provided safe haven for and refused to release terrorists who planned and carried out attacks against American interests, it was a national security threat. It is evidence that even nations with the least amount of conventional power are capable of support schemes or efforts that can have reverberations at the highest levels.

It proves no such fucking thing. Simply repeating the White House party line ad-infinitum does not validate the argument. Afganistan was no more a national security threat than any hideout for any criminal gang is a crime threat. Osama binLaden's money made 9/11 possible, and that he could access anywhere. And once again, Afganistan has ZERO relevance to Iraq —which not only never attacked the United States but utterly lacked the ability to do so despite George Bush's ravings about Saddam's alledged vast WMD arsenal.

But single isolated incidents are never considered sufficent to provide a case for war. This has long been recognised in international custom and practise. Singular incidents can be negotiated, compromised, reparations made. Casus belli, on the other hand, involves either an action so extreme or devestating that diplomacy cannot answer it, or a pattern of behaviour and a catalogue of aggressions which can only be answered by war. Since no nation can afford to go to war precipituously, this is why singular, isolated acts of war are either ignored or negotiated.

South Korea would have been well within its rights to go to war over the downing of its aircraft, which was a clear violation by the Soviet Union of its sovereignty. That it chose not to was a matter of discretion, not jurisprudence. That singular incidents are handled without conflict in most cases is a matter of preference.

I see you just decided to ignore the point wholesale. Declaring war over the downing of one passenger jetliner would have been totally, insanely out of proportion to the offense involved and would have put the national survival of South Korea directly at stake. On those terms, the South Korean government had no right to risk the lives of its citizens or soldiers for one and only one 747.

How ludicrously simpleminded you are. Following international law does not mean "being beholden to others for our defence", it means building and maintaining a system of cooperative diplomacy and collective security. Furthermore, the UN Charter does indeed allow for national self-defence; it does not allow for unprovoked aggression. So let's have enough of that little strawman of yours. If you don't like being labeled a practitioner of Hitlerian logic, cease employing it as justification for unprovoked war.

Cooperative diplomacy and collective security cannot function when nations are at loggerheads as to the utility of certain action. What drives them to such an impasse? Differing assessments of the national interest.

Hitler used just about that same justification going into Poland.

And our aggression was hardly unprovoked; Iraq was in violation of stipulations set out in a 1991 cease-fire with the United States of America.

The cease-fire was with the entire Gulf War coalition and the United Nations, and breaking treaty terms does not rate as a provocation for war, no matter how much you wish it does.

George Tenent said that very thing at Georgetown University yesterday.

Nice try. Find me the quotation.

I grow truly tired of your endless bullshit denials:

National estimates are publications where the intelligence community as a whole seeks to sum up what we know about a subject, what we don't know, what we suspect may be happening and where we differ on key issues.

This estimate asked if Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. We concluded that in some of these categories Iraq had weapons, and that in others where it did not have them, it was trying to develop them.

Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate.

They never said there was an imminent threat. Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policy-makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests. No one told us what to say or how to say it.

From the transcript of Tenet's speech at Georgetown University, 5 February 2004. Linky Furthermore, absolutely nowhere in this document — Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs October 2002 — does the CIA make any sort of policy recommendation, much less war or the need for a full-scale military occupation to uncover hidden weapons.

Eat it.

None of the intelligence services made the absolute assertion that the alledged vast WMD arsenal existed, and the dilapidation of Iraq's nuclear programmes were certainly known before the late war. The only persons who were making assertions of that sort were George Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and Colin Powell —all of whom ignored the cautions and uncertainties included in each and every intelligence report handed to them.

But there was no way to find out for sure without an occupation.

UNMOVIC was well on its way to uncovering the extent —or lack thereof— of Iraq's WMD capabilities. They and Joseph Wilson had certainly confirmed that Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was effectively finished, and scientific fact certainly confirms the short shelf-lives of chemical and biological agents.

Funny, "more time" was what Hans Blix asked for. And there was no reason why continuation of the sanctions regime would not have been effective in keeping Saddam Hussein neutralised as it had done for the previous twelve years. And by now, we certainly have every government file regarding their WMD efforts, which should include hiding places for weapons —since it does no good to hide anything if you leave no sign as to where to find it when you need it again.

As much as they were both inadequate, Kay’s search began from a far better position than that of Blix.

The UNMOVIC inspections and the sactions regime were far from inadequate, as the clear evidence of the situation on the ground in Iraq confirms. I'm sorry if that reality is too inconvenient for you.

And we do not certainly have every government file; that’s an unsubstantiated absolute.

And the basis for that assertion of yours is...?

As for the sanctions regime, it was violated routinely.

And the Iraqis were caught routinely at their attempts to circumvent sanctions —particularly with a 1995 joint US/UN sting operation as reported in the Kenneth Pollack article quoted above. You have no argument.

No, what's been proven is that the people Saddam was deceiving were chiefly his own, that his own scientists were deceiving him and pocketing the monies for the programmes he was theoretically advancing, that he was putting up a façade for world public consumption to hide the true state of his weakness, and that his WMD programmes had in fact ground to a halt. Furthermore, the cause for war was not WMD programmes (or "WMD programme related activities" in this White House's clumsy nomenclature) but alledged vast WMD arsenals available at Saddam's fingertips —and we have only to go as far back as the 2003 SOTU speech for those assertions on the part of Mr. Bush. ARSENALS, Comical Axi —not programmes, not "programme related activities", not "intent to one day have programmes".

No credible final determination can yet be made. Inspections are still ongoing.

What a pathetic attempt at a response.

Bullshit —the picture that's been revealed since the fall of Iraq is that Saddam's grasp on his own throne was growing increasingly rickety.

Saddam still had the power to give orders and have men carry them out.

Big fucking deal. It has become quite clear that a good number of his people were deliberately deceiving him; either to get their cut of the pie while the getting was still good, or to cover their own asses due to their inability to carry out his directives. And the threat of an internal coup was omnipresent in the final years of the Saddam regime.

The findings to date confirm not contradict UNMOVIC and IAEA. The fact of the war does not erase that, no matter how much you fantasise it does.

I will return to this when I deal with Vympel.

You mean you'll just spew the same bullshit you've been spewing for three threads now.

The present nationalist insurgency is targeting those cooperating with the occupation governnment, and that has nothing to do with anything related to Saddam's previous regime. Yet another Red Herring.

Which include informants. Furthermore, at least some of the Iraqi insurgency is composed of Saddam sympathizers.

A small portion, and they are far more engaged in the fight to overthrow the occupation than hunting down informants. You don't even attempt to back this assertion with a single molecule of fact, just as the last time you tossed up this particular Red Herring.

No, he alledgedly attempted to kill a former American president. That is not anywhere near the definition of an attack on the United States, and due retaliation was swiftly meted out. Kindly cease your insane hyperbole.

He was attempting to kill former American leaders – American citizens – to foment fear.

No, he was seeking revenge for Gulf War I against the man who ordered it. Beyond that, an assasination is not the same as a military attack on the United States.

As we have seen, al-Qaeda is having quite a great many problems now that its base in Afghanistan is under fire. Obviously, that nation and its patronage were key to Osama bin Laden’s power projection capability.

The fact that not only is alQaeda not destroyed and Osama binLaden not captured but are gaining new recruits and planning and financing future terror attacks against the House of Saud demonstrates a fundamental flaw with that "theory".

[Stuart Mackey]

*blah blah blah we got hit on 9/11 blah blah blah we can't sit and wait for terrorists to attack us blah blah blah dire threat blah blah blah what if the 9/11 terrorists had Iraq's death-dealing UAVs blah blah*

you get the idea.

Lol!!!....

[Axis Kast]

Unjustified assertion. He shares their conclusions, where did you get him relying on their data, and furthermore, what's wrong with their data?

If Blix shares there conclusions, one can only assume that he relies on their data being valid. And, by insisting that their conclusions still hold true so much later, he is substituting their older data for any newer search in the present.

What’s wrong with their data?! Try: “We don’t think anything’s changed much at the artillery storage locations, in spite of the fact that a war was fought since we last came to that conclusion.”

WTF are you on about? What the hell does whether there was a war on have to do with the well defined properties of chemical and biological weapons produced in a certain way?

First of all, the original U.N. report used the qualifier “virtually all,” and second of all, it is only logical to assume that some of those 130 sites must have seen use as Iraqi troops armed themselves for war. That means there was military activity at those locations; the stocks of war material may very well have been changed. Kay doesn’t intend to see that they were or were not.

UNMOVIC stated correctly that the lack of verified destruction did NOT mean they existed. A fine point of argument lost on the geniuses in the US administration.

It also doesn’t mean that they are certainly gone – especially not because Kay’s search was so lacking.

It proves no such fucking thing. Simply repeating the White House party line ad-infinitum does not validate the argument. Afganistan was no more a national security threat than any hideout for any criminal gang is a crime threat. Osama binLaden's money made 9/11 possible, and that he could access anywhere. And once again, Afganistan has ZERO relevance to Iraq —which not only never attacked the United States but utterly lacked the ability to do so despite George Bush's ravings about Saddam's alledged vast WMD arsenal.

Potential hideouts are crime threats; police often speak of dilapidated neighborhoods with large numbers of abandoned buildings as potential havens for criminals who can hide their activates – and their persons – among them.

Furthermore, the Taliban a superior allies, than, say, Turkey, because they promised near-total freedom from harassment by Western intelligence. Afghanistan provided succor to the enemy, and in that way revealed itself as threatening.

I see you just decided to ignore the point wholesale. Declaring war over the downing of one passenger jetliner would have been totally, insanely out of proportion to the offense involved and would have put the national survival of South Korea directly at stake. On those terms, the South Korean government had no right to risk the lives of its citizens or soldiers for one and only one 747.

It shouldn’t have for want of power, but it could have done so legally.

Hitler used just about that same justification going into Poland.

No, Hitler claimed that the Poles had attacked a German radio broadcast station.

The cease-fire was with the entire Gulf War coalition and the United Nations, and breaking treaty terms does not rate as a provocation for war, no matter how much you wish it does.

No, the cease-fire was with the United States of America; UNSCR 686 spoke of “the suspension of combat operations” – a cease-fire already arranged bilaterally between the United States and Iraq.

From the transcript of Tenet's speech at Georgetown University, 5 February 2004. Linky Furthermore, absolutely nowhere in this document — Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs October 2002 — does the CIA make any sort of policy recommendation, much less war or the need for a full-scale military occupation to uncover hidden weapons.

Yet the CIA concluded that Iraq had weapons. That’s from whence we got the “imminent threat” argument. And, considering Iraq’s history, it was quite defensible.

UNMOVIC was well on its way to uncovering the extent —or lack thereof— of Iraq's WMD capabilities. They and Joseph Wilson had certainly confirmed that Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was effectively finished, and scientific fact certainly confirms the short shelf-lives of chemical and biological agents.

It was doing so in an atmosphere where official Iraqi circumvention was still possible, using the arms of Saddam’s police state.

The UNMOVIC inspections and the sactions regime were far from inadequate, as the clear evidence of the situation on the ground in Iraq confirms. I'm sorry if that reality is too inconvenient for you.

Blix’ search never came to conclusion; Kay’s was inadequate.

And the basis for that assertion of yours is...?

I do believe you made the first unsubstantiated statement here – that being that we have all of the possible documents regarding weapons.

And the Iraqis were caught routinely at their attempts to circumvent sanctions —particularly with a 1995 joint US/UN sting operation as reported in the Kenneth Pollack article quoted above. You have no argument.

And yet we still don’t know what the Chinese did on the ground in 2000. It certainly wasn’t covered under any UN mandate.

What a pathetic attempt at a response.

You’re the one relying on rushed inspections by a man making appeals to ignorance and the unknowable, not I. All the witty sarcasm in the world can’t build up a stronger argument on your behalf.

Big fucking deal. It has become quite clear that a good number of his people were deliberately deceiving him; either to get their cut of the pie while the getting was still good, or to cover their own asses due to their inability to carry out his directives. And the threat of an internal coup was omnipresent in the final years of the Saddam regime.

Except he still had people under his control, ready to do his work.

A small portion, and they are far more engaged in the fight to overthrow the occupation than hunting down informants. You don't even attempt to back this assertion with a single molecule of fact, just as the last time you tossed up this particular Red Herring.

Most Iraqis oppose cooperation with the occupation, and word travels fast among communities based on clan and family connections. Note the fate of Palestinian informants on Israel – they end up on lamp posts despite the “secret” nature of their activities.

No, he was seeking revenge for Gulf War I against the man who ordered it. Beyond that, an assasination is not the same as a military attack on the United States.

It was an act of international terrorism designed to send a message to the United States.

The fact that not only is alQaeda not destroyed and Osama binLaden not captured but are gaining new recruits and planning and financing future terror attacks against the House of Saud demonstrates a fundamental flaw with that "theory".

It was a great deal more powerful when it sat unmolested in Afghanistan. It’s now on the run, despite all those new recruits.

[Vympel]

If Blix shares there conclusions, one can only assume that he relies on their data being valid. And, by insisting that their conclusions still hold true so much later, he is substituting their older data for any newer search in the present.

Complete non-sequitur. Sharing someone's conclusion does not lead to the conclusion of relying on their data.

What?s wrong with their data?! Try: ?We don?t think anything?s changed much at the artillery storage locations, in spite of the fact that a war was fought since we last came to that conclusion.?

Red herring to the issue of chemical weapon viability. Whether ammunition was used has fuck all to do with it. Stop being dense.

First of all, the original U.N. report used the qualifier ?virtually all,? and second of all, it is only logical to assume that some of those 130 sites must have seen use as Iraqi troops armed themselves for war. That means there was military activity at those locations; the stocks of war material may very well have been changed. Kay doesn?t intend to see that they were or were not.

Virtually all what?

It also doesn?t mean that they are certainly gone ? especially not because Kay?s search was so lacking.

Yes yes, UNSCOM was lacking, UNMOVIC was lacking, the ISG was lacking, there's just all this lack and slackjawed incompetence everywhere. Where's the diligence?

[Cornelius]

Do not all politicians lie..just some more than others? Personally, I like Bush, but I do think if there be no reasons for war shant go. Does diplomacy really work against certain people?

[Cornelius]

horrible spelling mistake.

[Axis Kast]

Complete non-sequitur. Sharing someone's conclusion does not lead to the conclusion of relying on their data.

It does when David Kay declined to visit 120 of 130 munitions storage sites on the basis of United Nations determinations before the war. Since the Iraq Survey Group did not collect its own data, it by default accepted that of past inspections regimes.

Red herring to the issue of chemical weapon viability. Whether ammunition was used has fuck all to do with it. Stop being dense.

If there was movement by military personnel at the storage sites, it’s possibly they brought illegal munitions to those locations.

Virtually all what?

Kay dismissed the possibility that he would visit more than 10 of the storage locations on the basis of UN arguments that Saddam was always careful to specifically mark and store separately “virtually all” specialized weaponry.

Yes yes, UNSCOM was lacking, UNMOVIC was lacking, the ISG was lacking, there's just all this lack and slackjawed incompetence everywhere. Where's the diligence?

You haven’t been able to deny my points regarding Kay’s shortcomings yet, Vympel.

[Vympel]

It does when David Kay declined to visit 120 of 130 munitions storage sites on the basis of United Nations determinations before the war. Since the Iraq Survey Group did not collect its own data, it by default accepted that of past inspections regimes.

"Since the ISG didn't collect it's own data"? Where are you getting this from now?

If there was movement by military personnel at the storage sites, it?s possibly they brought illegal munitions to those locations.

Well, that makes a TON of sense. They'll bring illegal ammunition *to* known ammunition dumps during the war.

Kay dismissed the possibility that he would visit more than 10 of the storage locations on the basis of UN arguments that Saddam was always careful to specifically mark and store separately ?virtually all? specialized weaponry.

Again, that was speculation on my part- the comment was made to show that Kay's 120 out of 130 storage site comment back last year was exaggerting what was required.

You haven?t been able to deny my points regarding Kay?s shortcomings yet, Vympel.

Why repeat myself all over again? I've already stated my reasons why I don't agree, and you've stated yours. I don't have the time to go round the garden again.

[Patrick Degan]

It proves no such fucking thing. Simply repeating the White House party line ad-infinitum does not validate the argument. Afganistan was no more a national security threat than any hideout for any criminal gang is a crime threat. Osama binLaden's money made 9/11 possible, and that he could access anywhere. And once again, Afganistan has ZERO relevance to Iraq —which not only never attacked the United States but utterly lacked the ability to do so despite George Bush's ravings about Saddam's alledged vast WMD arsenal.

Potential hideouts are crime threats; police often speak of dilapidated neighborhoods with large numbers of abandoned buildings as potential havens for criminals who can hide their activates – and their persons – among them.

Never once have I ever heard any police department spokesman refer to a dilapidated house or rundown neighbourhood as a "crime threat" —so we'll just list this among the many items you've pulled out of thin air to support an increasingly threadbare argument.

Furthermore, the Taliban a superior allies, than, say, Turkey, because they promised near-total freedom from harassment by Western intelligence. Afghanistan provided succor to the enemy, and in that way revealed itself as threatening.

Sheer bullshit. To be a threat, a country must possess power to enforce a threat. A nation which can be bombed and invaded with impunity does not and never will meet that definition.

I see you just decided to ignore the point wholesale. Declaring war over the downing of one passenger jetliner would have been totally, insanely out of proportion to the offense involved and would have put the national survival of South Korea directly at stake. On those terms, the South Korean government had no right to risk the lives of its citizens or soldiers for one and only one 747.

It shouldn’t have for want of power, but it could have done so legally.

Not actually. The downing of a single passenger jetliner does not constitute a threat to national survival and would not meet the standard for defensive war under Article 48 of the UN Charter, or meet the criteria for preemptive action to avert invasion or attack under that same article.

Hitler used just about that same justification going into Poland.

No, Hitler claimed that the Poles had attacked a German radio broadcast station.

Hitler clamed the same "right" as Bush —to preemptively invade another country as self-defence and did so under the specious grounds of an alledged Polish attack. Difference of manufactured casus belli does not destroy the parallel.

The cease-fire was with the entire Gulf War coalition and the United Nations, and breaking treaty terms does not rate as a provocation for war, no matter how much you wish it does.

No, the cease-fire was with the United States of America; UNSCR 686 spoke of “the suspension of combat operations” – a cease-fire already arranged bilaterally between the United States and Iraq.

Wrong again, Comical Axi:

UN RESOLUTION 686 (1991)

Demands Iraq start obeying twelve UN Security Council resolutions.

UN Resolutions Page


Adopted by the Security Council at its 2978th meeting on 2 March 1991

The Security Council,

Recalling and reaffirming its resolutions 660 (1990), 661 (1990), 662 (1990), 664 (1990), 665 (1990), 666 (1990), 667 (1990), 669 (1990), 670 (1990), 674 (1990), 677 (1990), and 678 (1990),

Recalling the obligations of Member States under Article 25 of the Charter,

Recalling paragraph 9 of resolution 661 (1990) regarding assistance to the Government of Kuwait and paragraph 3 (c) of that resolution regarding supplies strictly for medical purposes and, in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs,

Taking note of the letters of the Foreign Minister of Iraq confirming Iraq's agreement to comply fully with all of the resolutions noted above (S/22275), and stating its intention to release prisoners of war immediately (S/22273),

Taking note of the suspension of offensive combat operations by the forces of Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990),

Bearing in mind the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions, and the objective in resolution 678 (1990) of restoring international peace and security in the region,

Underlining the importance of Iraq taking the necessary measures which would permit a definitive end to the hostilities,

Affirming the commitment of all Member States to the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Kuwait, and noting the intention expressed by the Member States cooperating under paragraph 2 of Security Council resolution 678 (1990) to bring their military presence in Iraq to an end as soon as possible consistent with achieving the objectives of the resolution,

Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter,

1. Affirms that all twelve resolutions noted above continue to have full force and effect;

2. Demands that Iraq implement its acceptance of all twelve resolutions noted above and in particular that Iraq:

(a) Rescind immediately its actions purporting to annex Kuwait;

(b) Accept in principle its liability for any loss, damage, or injury arising in regard to Kuwait and third States, and their nationals and corporations, as a result of the invasion and illegal occupation of Kuwait by Iraq;

(c) Under international law immediately release under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Red Cross Societies, or Red Crescent Societies, all Kuwaiti and third country nationals detained by Iraq and return the remains of any deceased Kuwaiti and third country nationals so detained; and

(d) Immediately begin to return all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq, to be completed in the shortest possible period;

3. Further demands that Iraq:

(a) Cease hostile or provocative actions by its forces against all Member States including missile attacks and flights of combat aircraft;

(b) Designate military commanders to meet with counterparts from the forces of Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990) to arrange for the military aspects of a cessation of hostilities at the earliest possible time;

(c) Arrange for immediate access to and release of all prisoners of war under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross and return the remains of any deceased personnel of the forces of Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990); and

(d) Provide all information and assistance in identifying Iraqi mines, booby traps and other explosives as well as any chemical and biological weapons and material in Kuwait, in areas of Iraq where forces of Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990) are present temporarily, and in adjacent waters;

4. Recognizes that during the period required for Iraq to comply with paragraphs 2 and 3 above, the provisions of paragraph 2 of resolution 678 (1990) remain valid;

5. Welcomes the decision of Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990) to provide access and to commence immediately the release of Iraqi prisoners of war as required by the terms of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross;

6. Requests all Member States, as well as the United Nations, the specialized agencies and other international organizations in the United Nations system, to take all appropriate action to cooperate with the Government and people of Kuwait in the reconstruction of their country;

7. Decides that Iraq shall notify the Secretary-General and the Security Council when it has taken the actions set out above;

8. Decides that in order to secure the rapid establishment of a definitive end to the hostilities, the Security Council remains actively seized of the matter.

That cease-fire agreement was between Iraq and "all Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990)". All Member States —not just the United States.

From the transcript of Tenet's speech at Georgetown University, 5 February 2004. Furthermore, absolutely nowhere in this document — Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs October 2002 — does the CIA make any sort of policy recommendation, much less war or the need for a full-scale military occupation to uncover hidden weapons.

Yet the CIA concluded that Iraq had weapons. That’s from whence we got the “imminent threat” argument. And, considering Iraq’s history, it was quite defensible.

Moving the Goalposts avails you nought. Your challenge was to prove that the CIA never recommended war or never used "imminent threat" in describing Iraq and its alledged WMD. To demonstrate:

George Tenent said that very thing at Georgetown University yesterday.

Nice try. Find me the quotation.

To which THIS was the response:

Link

National estimates are publications where the intelligence community as a whole seeks to sum up what we know about a subject, what we don't know, what we suspect may be happening and where we differ on key issues.

This estimate asked if Iraq had chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. We concluded that in some of these categories Iraq had weapons, and that in others where it did not have them, it was trying to develop them.

Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate.

They never said there was an imminent threat. Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policy-makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests. No one told us what to say or how to say it.


—George Tenet at Georgetown University, 5 February 2004

A position further supported by the lack of any policy recommendation in the actual October 2002 CIA intelligence dossier.

And Iraq's history shows they were far from being any threat to the United States; their condition after 12 years of sanctions certainly demonstrated that point, and the extant situation on the ground as encountered by our own armies exploded the myth conclusively.

UNMOVIC was well on its way to uncovering the extent —or lack thereof— of Iraq's WMD capabilities. They and Joseph Wilson had certainly confirmed that Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was effectively finished, and scientific fact certainly confirms the short shelf-lives of chemical and biological agents.

It was doing so in an atmosphere where official Iraqi circumvention was still possible, using the arms of Saddam’s police state.

Which does not invalidate the detail of their findings, or the fact that those findings have been increasingly confirmed by what has been observed by inspectors after the war. When does that fact penetrate that thick skull of yours?

The UNMOVIC inspections and the sactions regime were far from inadequate, as the clear evidence of the situation on the ground in Iraq confirms. I'm sorry if that reality is too inconvenient for you.

Blix’ search never came to conclusion; Kay’s was inadequate.

The only reason Blix's search "never came to conclusion" was due to Bush launching his specious war. Kay's observations squared with UNMOVIC's, as have those of US Air Force experts, as have those of US Army personnel, as have those of British and Australian military forces. Your argument grows ever thinner.

And the basis for that assertion of yours is...?

I do believe you made the first unsubstantiated statement here – that being that we have all of the possible documents regarding weapons.

We have the whole country. We have Baghdad. We occupy Saddam's palaces, government ministries, and military command centres. Kindly demonstrate your evidence that we do not have all their files, please.

And the Iraqis were caught routinely at their attempts to circumvent sanctions —particularly with a 1995 joint US/UN sting operation as reported in the Kenneth Pollack article quoted above. You have no argument.

And yet we still don’t know what the Chinese did on the ground in 2000. It certainly wasn’t covered under any UN mandate.

We fucking well do know what the Chinese were doing on the ground in 2000. They spilled the details when we found out about the telecom project —as was covered in the course of the "Saddam Was Bluffing" thread.

You’re the one relying on rushed inspections by a man making appeals to ignorance and the unknowable, not I. All the witty sarcasm in the world can’t build up a stronger argument on your behalf.

"Rushed inspections". That's rich! UNMOVIC began its work in November of 2002 and followed upon seven years of inspections carried out by UNSCOM. All the bullshit denial in the world can't build up a stronger argument on your behalf.

Big fucking deal. It has become quite clear that a good number of his people were deliberately deceiving him; either to get their cut of the pie while the getting was still good, or to cover their own asses due to their inability to carry out his directives. And the threat of an internal coup was omnipresent in the final years of the Saddam regime.

Except he still had people under his control, ready to do his work.

So did Hitler in his bunker. The crux of the matter is how effectively he could exert control in a situation which was slipping out of his control.

A small portion, and they are far more engaged in the fight to overthrow the occupation than hunting down informants. You don't even attempt to back this assertion with a single molecule of fact, just as the last time you tossed up this particular Red Herring.

Most Iraqis oppose cooperation with the occupation, and word travels fast among communities based on clan and family connections. Note the fate of Palestinian informants on Israel – they end up on lamp posts despite the “secret” nature of their activities.

And this little Red Herring relates to the issue at hand how...?

No, he was seeking revenge for Gulf War I against the man who ordered it. Beyond that, an assasination is not the same as a military attack on the United States.

It was an act of international terrorism designed to send a message to the United States.

No, it was an act of revenge, plain and simple. And considering our own attempt to assasinate Col. Qaddafi (clumsily, with airstrikes, missing him and killing two of his daughters instead), it can be fairly said that Ronald Reagan helped set a precedent for Saddam Hussein to follow.

The fact that not only is alQaeda not destroyed and Osama binLaden not captured but are gaining new recruits and planning and financing future terror attacks against the House of Saud demonstrates a fundamental flaw with that "theory".

It was a great deal more powerful when it sat unmolested in Afghanistan. It’s now on the run, despite all those new recruits.

Al Qaeda isn't having to do too much running these days. Our occupation of Afganistan is effective only within the vicinity of Kabul and the Pakistani border provinces are effectively back under Taliban control. Osama played these same games against the Soviets while fighting for the Mujahadeed in the 1980s and the Soviets were no more successful against Bin Laden than we have managed. This is one example of why a "War on Terrorism" makes as much sense as trying to punch an echo and why the theory you so desperately keep flogging is also fundamentally flawed.

[Axis Kast]

"Since the ISG didn't collect it's own data"? Where are you getting this from now?

David Kay did not visit 120 of 130 munitions storage locations slated for inspection prior to the initiation of his search. Instead, he reasoned that according to United Nations inspectors who had been in Iraq before the war, special munitions were generally stored and managed separately from conventional weaponry or equipment, and so suggested that there was really nothing amiss to be found at those 120 other sites.

Well, that makes a TON of sense. They'll bring illegal ammunition *to* known ammunition dumps during the war.

And why not? It’s where quartermasters were going to go to requisition new equipment, or from whence such shells were to be transported.

Furthermore, if the Iraqis lost the war, they might have reasoned that those illegal munitions weren’t going to matter, regardless.

Again, that was speculation on my part- the comment was made to show that Kay's 120 out of 130 storage site comment back last year was exaggerting what was required.

Why would Kay exaggerate his own position?

Why repeat myself all over again? I've already stated my reasons why I don't agree, and you've stated yours. I don't have the time to go round the garden again.

Then the discussion is closed.

Never once have I ever heard any police department spokesman refer to a dilapidated house or rundown neighbourhood as a "crime threat" —so we'll just list this among the many items you've pulled out of thin air to support an increasingly threadbare argument.

To return to the example of Afghanistan directly, they provided succor to the enemy. They were clearly a threat to our national security, because they were willing to harbor and provide protection for those who would carry out actual attacks.

Sheer bullshit. To be a threat, a country must possess power to enforce a threat. A nation which can be bombed and invaded with impunity does not and never will meet that definition.

Even if Afghanis had been carrying out terrorism directly, their nation-state would still have been unable to ward off bombing. Your conclusion does not follow.

Not actually. The downing of a single passenger jetliner does not constitute a threat to national survival and would not meet the standard for defensive war under Article 48 of the UN Charter, or meet the criteria for preemptive action to avert invasion or attack under that same article.

It’s a violation of sovereignty; the Soviets were infringing upon South Korean autonomy.

Hitler clamed the same "right" as Bush —to preemptively invade another country as self-defence and did so under the specious grounds of an alledged Polish attack. Difference of manufactured casus belli does not destroy the parallel.

If Hitler manufactured a prior attack, then he could not have claimed that his war was preemptive. It would have been spuriously defensive.

That cease-fire agreement was between Iraq and "all Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990)". All Member States —not just the United States.

It said “suspension of offensive combat operations,” not termination. It is by definition temporary.

Moving the Goalposts avails you nought. Your challenge was to prove that the CIA never recommended war or never used "imminent threat" in describing Iraq and its alledged WMD.

But then it doesn’t matter what the CIA did not suggest. If Iraq was truly considered to have had prohibited weapons, the argument of preemption is immediately defensible.

And Iraq's history shows they were far from being any threat to the United States; their condition after 12 years of sanctions certainly demonstrated that point, and the extant situation on the ground as encountered by our own armies exploded the myth conclusively.

Mistaking conventional for unconventional capacity.

Which does not invalidate the detail of their findings, or the fact that those findings have been increasingly confirmed by what has been observed by inspectors after the war. When does that fact penetrate that thick skull of yours?

It means that any search produced after Saddam was out of power would inherently be more trustworthy.

The only reason Blix's search "never came to conclusion" was due to Bush launching his specious war. Kay's observations squared with UNMOVIC's, as have those of US Air Force experts, as have those of US Army personnel, as have those of British and Australian military forces. Your argument grows ever thinner.

Kay’s search was haphazard. His resources were being stripped away as he complained of issues related directly to them. His mobility was restricted as he made appeals to lack of speed early in the war to explain the lack of documentary evidence regarding the supposed destruction of WMD he had not found. The ISG was working in poor conditions with less-than-optimal resources, and did so within a collapsed timeframe. Not comprehensive.

We have the whole country. We have Baghdad. We occupy Saddam's palaces, government ministries, and military command centres. Kindly demonstrate your evidence that we do not have all their files, please.

Ah, but I don’t have to prove a negative. You have argued that we have all his files – back it up with a quote, or back down. We do not have the whole country, by the way; we are still fighting for certain areas (else Kay would not have had problems of being able to go where he wanted to go when he wanted to go there).

We fucking well do know what the Chinese were doing on the ground in 2000. They spilled the details when we found out about the telecom project —as was covered in the course of the "Saddam Was Bluffing" thread.

You can’t know whether it was a complete divulgence. Nor can anybody else, for that matter, unless our search is more thorough than it has been to date.

"Rushed inspections". That's rich! UNMOVIC began its work in November of 2002 and followed upon seven years of inspections carried out by UNSCOM. All the bullshit denial in the world can't build up a stronger argument on your behalf.

Those seven years ended in 1998. Any appeal to older sanctions is ridiculous, since it ignores the fact that things were still missing when the teams left in 1998, and haven’t been found to this day.

David Kay himself asserted that six to nine more months would be necessary as of 2 October 2003.

So did Hitler in his bunker. The crux of the matter is how effectively he could exert control in a situation which was slipping out of his control.

Saddam Hussein was not yet in his hole while Hans Blix was in-country.

And this little Red Herring relates to the issue at hand how...?

Those who cooperate with occupations are often targets.

No, it was an act of revenge, plain and simple. And considering our own attempt to assasinate Col. Qaddafi (clumsily, with airstrikes, missing him and killing two of his daughters instead), it can be fairly said that Ronald Reagan helped set a precedent for Saddam Hussein to follow.

It was international terrorism, because it was meant to send a message. Regardless of the emotional satisfaction Saddam hoped to glean.

Yes, and if I commit a crime, and you commit the same, you are still as guilty as I.

Al Qaeda isn't having to do too much running these days. Our occupation of Afganistan is effective only within the vicinity of Kabul and the Pakistani border provinces are effectively back under Taliban control. Osama played these same games against the Soviets while fighting for the Mujahadeed in the 1980s and the Soviets were no more successful against Bin Laden than we have managed. This is one example of why a "War on Terrorism" makes as much sense as trying to punch an echo and why the theory you so desperately keep flogging is also fundamentally flawed.

Then what would you have us do, Deegan, if not destabilize the countries that give succor to terrorism, such as Afghanistan?

And let me remind you that since our War on Terrorism, there have been no major attacks on American soil. We have many top al-Qaeda leaders in custody. The core of their group is hemorrhaging badly, and their assets are being tracked and seized worldwide.

[Patrick Degan]

Never once have I ever heard any police department spokesman refer to a dilapidated house or rundown neighbourhood as a "crime threat" —so we'll just list this among the many items you've pulled out of thin air to support an increasingly threadbare argument.

To return to the example of Afghanistan directly, they provided succor to the enemy. They were clearly a threat to our national security, because they were willing to harbor and provide protection for those who would carry out actual attacks.

Osama binLaden took advantage of a situation where the country was in utter chaos, with no "government" other than a gang of religious fanatics, some of whom were part of the Mujahadeen Alliance against the Soviets in the 80s. The WTC attacks required no particular expenditure of resources other than the fees for flight lessons, the financing could have been done from anywhere, and the actual terrorist force which carried out the hijackings was already lodged within our own country. Attacking Afganistan after the fact was nothing more than a punitive expedition against a country with no real government to begin with. And, as pointed out before, the situation with Afganistan bears no relevance whatsoever with Iraq or the decision to pursue a war against that country on the basis of its phantom WMD arsenal.

Sheer bullshit. To be a threat, a country must possess power to enforce a threat. A nation which can be bombed and invaded with impunity does not and never will meet that definition.

Even if Afghanis had been carrying out terrorism directly, their nation-state would still have been unable to ward off bombing. Your conclusion does not follow.

No, dear boy, it is your essental premise which does not follow.

Not actually. The downing of a single passenger jetliner does not constitute a threat to national survival and would not meet the standard for defensive war under Article 48 of the UN Charter, or meet the criteria for preemptive action to avert invasion or attack under that same article.

It’s a violation of sovereignty; the Soviets were infringing upon South Korean autonomy.

No, stupid —the jetliner strayed into Soviet airspace. If anything, KAL 007 —in strictest terms— was infringing upon Soviet autonomy.

Hitler clamed the same "right" as Bush —to preemptively invade another country as self-defence and did so under the specious grounds of an alledged Polish attack. Difference of manufactured casus belli does not destroy the parallel.

If Hitler manufactured a prior attack, then he could not have claimed that his war was preemptive. It would have been spuriously defensive.

A distinction which makes no distinction. Mr. Hitler claimed the right to defend Germany by any means necessary —just as Mr. Bush claimed to justify his war with Iraq. The only significant difference is that Hitler manufactured a spurious prior attack and the Bush White House manufactured a spurious imminent WMD threat.

That cease-fire agreement was between Iraq and "all Member States cooperating with Kuwait pursuant to resolution 678 (1990)". All Member States —not just the United States.

It said “suspension of offensive combat operations,” not termination. It is by definition temporary.

A truly pathetic attempt at a nitpick —that clause referred to the condition which was in force at the time UNR 686 was passed, not the terms of the ceasefire agreement covered in the body of UNR 686 and which were further detailed in UNR 687:

Text of UN Resolution 687

Adopted by the Security Council at its 2,981st meeting on 3 April 1991
Resolution for cease-fire between Iraq and Kuwait, demands Iraq respects Kuwait's border, and demands the deployment of a United Nations monitoring team to make sure Iraq respects the border.

The Security Council,

Recalling and reaffirming its resolutions 660 (1990), 661 (1990), 662 (1990), 664 (1990), 665 (1990), 666 (1990), 667 (1990), 669 (1990), 670 (1990), 674 (1990), 677 (1990), and 678 (1990), and 686 (1991)

Welcoming the restoration to Kuwait of its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and the return of its legitimate Government,

Affirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Kuwait and Iraq, and noting the intention expressed by the Member States cooperating with Kuwait under paragraph 2 of resolution 678 (1990) to bring their military presence in Iraq to an end as soon as possible consistent with paragraph 8 of resolution 686 (1991),

Reaffirming the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions in the light of its unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait,

Taking note of the letter sent by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Iraq on 27 February 1991 and those sent pursuant to resolution 686 (1991),

Noting that Iraq and Kuwait, as independent sovereign States, signed at Baghdad on 4 October 1963 "Agreed Minutes Between the State of Kuwait and the Republic of Iraq Regarding the Restoration of Friendly Relations, Recognition and Related Matters", thereby recognizing formally the boundary between Iraq and Kuwait and the allocation of islands, which were registered with the United Nations in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations and in which Iraq recognized the independence and complete sovereignty of the State of Kuwait within its borders as specified and accepted in the letter of the Prime Minister of Iraq dated 21 July 1932, and as accepted by the Ruler of Kuwait in his letter dated 10 August 1932, Conscious of the need for demarcation of the said boundary,

Conscious also of the statements by Iraq threatening to use weapons in violation of its obligations under the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, and of its prior use of chemical weapons and affirming that grave consequences would follow any further use by Iraq of such weapons,

Recalling that Iraq has subscribed to the Declaration adopted by all States participating in the Conference of States Parties to the 1925 Geneva Protocol and Other Interested States, held in Paris from 7 to 11 January 1989, establishing the objective of universal elimination of chemical and biological weapons,

Recalling also that Iraq has signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, of 10 April 1972,

Noting the importance of Iraq ratifying this Convention,

Noting moreover the importance of all States adhering to this Convention and encouraging its forthcoming Review Conference to reinforce the authority, efficiency and universal scope of the convention,

Stressing the importance of an early conclusion by the Conference on Disarmament of its work on a Convention on the Universal Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and of universal adherence thereto,

Aware of the use by Iraq of ballistic missiles in unprovoked attacks and therefore of the need to take specific measures in regard to such missiles located in Iraq,

Concerned by the reports in the hands of Member States that Iraq has attempted to acquire materials for a nuclear-weapons programme contrary to its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968,

Recalling the objective of the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region of the Middle East,

Conscious of the threat that all weapons of mass destruction pose to peace and security in the area and of the need to work towards the establishment in the Middle East of a zone free of such weapons,
Conscious also of the objective of achieving balanced and comprehensive control of armaments in the region,

Conscious further of the importance of achieving the objectives noted above using all available means, including a dialogue among the States of the region,

Noting that resolution 686 (1991) marked the lifting of the measures imposed by resolution 661 (1990) in so far as they applied to Kuwait,

Noting that despite the progress being made in fulfilling the obligations of resolution 686 (1991), many Kuwaiti and third country nationals are still not accounted for and property remains unreturned,

Recalling the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages, opened for signature at New York on 18 December 1979, which categorizes all acts of taking hostages as manifestations of international terrorism,

Deploring threats made by Iraq during the recent conflict to make use of terrorism against targets outside Iraq and the taking of hostages by Iraq,

Taking note with grave concern of the reports of the Secretary-General of 20 March 1991 and 28 March 1991, and conscious of the necessity to meet urgently the humanitarian needs in Kuwait and Iraq,

Bearing in mind its objective of restoring international peace and security in the area as set out in recent resolutions of the Security Council,

Conscious of the need to take the following measures acting under Chapter VII of the Charter,

1. Affirms all thirteen resolutions noted above, except as expressly changed below to achieve the goals of this resolution, including a formal cease-fire;

A 2. Demands that Iraq and Kuwait respect the inviolability of the international boundary and the allocation of islands set out in the "Agreed Minutes Between the State of Kuwait and the Republic of Iraq Regarding the Restoration of Friendly Relations, Recognition and Related Matters", signed by them in the exercise of their sovereignty at Baghdad on 4 October 1963 and registered with the United Nations and published by the United Nations in document 7063, United Nations, Treaty Series, 1964;

3. Calls upon the Secretary-General to lend his assistance to make arrangements with Iraq and Kuwait to demarcate the boundary between Iraq and Kuwait, drawing on appropriate material, including the map transmitted by Security Council document S/ 22412 and to report back to the Security Council within one month;

4. Decides to guarantee the inviolability of the above-mentioned international boundary and to take as appropriate all necessary measures to that end in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations;

B 5. Requests the Secretary-General, after consulting with Iraq and Kuwait, to submit within three days to the Security Council for its approval a plan for the immediate deployment of a United Nations observer unit to monitor the Khor Abdullah and a demilitarized zone, which is hereby established, extending ten kilometres into Iraq and five kilometres into Kuwait from the boundary referred to in the "Agreed Minutes Between the State of Kuwait and the Republic of Iraq Regarding the Restoration of Friendly Relations, Recognition and Related Matters" of 4 October 1963; to deter violations of the boundary through its presence in and surveillance of the demilitarized zone; to observe any hostile or potentially hostile action mounted from the territory of one State to the other; and for the Secretary-General to report regularly to the Security Council on the operations of the unit, and immediately if there are serious violations of the zone or potential threats to peace;

6. Notes that as soon as the Secretary-General notifies the Security Council of the completion of the deployment of the United Nations observer unit, the conditions will be established for the Member States cooperating with Kuwait in accordance with resolution 678 (1990) to bring their military presence in Iraq to an end consistent with resolution 686 (1991);

C 7. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, and to ratify the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, of 10 April 1972;

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; (b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:

(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below; (b) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such approval: (i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission itself; (ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph 8 (a) above, including items at the additional locations designated by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 (b) (i) above and the destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission, of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified under paragraph 8 (b) above; (iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;

10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9 above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of this resolution;

11. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968;

12. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above; to submit to the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution a declaration of the locations, amounts, and types of all items specified above; to place all of its nuclear-weapons-usable materials under the exclusive control, for custody and removal, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary- General discussed in paragraph 9 (b) above; to accept, in accordance with the arrangements provided for in paragraph 13 below, urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above; and to accept the plan discussed in paragraph 13 below for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of its compliance with these undertakings;

13. Requests the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, through the Secretary-General, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General in paragraph 9 (b) above, to carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission; to develop a plan for submission to the Security Council within forty-five days calling for the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items listed in paragraph 12 above; to carry out the plan within forty-five days following approval by the Security Council; and to develop a plan, taking into account the rights and obligations of Iraq under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968, for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with paragraph 12 above, including an inventory of all nuclear material in Iraq subject to the Agency's verification and inspections to confirm that Agency safeguards cover all relevant nuclear activities in Iraq, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of the present resolution;

14. Takes note that the actions to be taken by Iraq in paragraphs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the present resolution represent steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons;

D 15. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the steps taken to facilitate the return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq, including a list of any property that Kuwait claims has not been returned or which has not been returned intact;

E 16. Reaffirms that Iraq, without prejudice to the debts and obligations of Iraq arising prior to 2 August 1990, which will be addressed through the normal mechanisms, is liable under international law for any direct loss, damage, including environmental damage and the depletion of natural resources, or injury to foreign Governments, nationals and corporations, as a result of Iraq's unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait;

17. Decides that all Iraqi statements made since 2 August 1990 repudiating its foreign debt are null and void, and demands that Iraq adhere scrupulously to all of its obligations concerning servicing and repayment of its foreign debt;

18. Decides also to create a fund to pay compensation for claims that fall within paragraph 16 above and to establish a Commission that will administer the fund;

19. Directs the Secretary-General to develop and present to the Security Council for decision, no later than thirty days following the adoption of the present resolution, recommendations for the fund to meet the requirement for the payment of claims established in accordance with paragraph 18 above and for a programme to implement the decisions in paragraphs 16, 17 and 18 above, including: administration of the fund; mechanisms for determining the appropriate level of Iraq's contribution to the fund based on a percentage of the value of the exports of petroleum and petroleum products from Iraq not to exceed a figure to be suggested to the Council by the Secretary-General, taking into account the requirements of the people of Iraq, Iraq's payment capacity as assessed in conjunction with the international financial institutions taking into consideration external debt service, and the needs of the Iraqi economy; arrangements for ensuring that payments are made to the fund; the process by which funds will be allocated and claims paid; appropriate procedures for evaluating losses, listing claims and verifying their validity and resolving disputed claims in respect of Iraq's liability as specified in paragraph 16 above; and the composition of the Commission designated above;

F 20. Decides, effective immediately, that the prohibitions against the sale or supply to Iraq of commodities or products, other than medicine and health supplies, and prohibitions against financial transactions related thereto contained in resolution 661 (1990) shall not apply to foodstuffs notified to the Security Council Committee established by resolution 661 (1990) concerning the situation between Iraq and Kuwait or, with the approval of that Committee, under the simplified and accelerated "no- objection" procedure, to materials and supplies for essential civilian needs as identified in the report of the Secretary-General dated 20 March 1991, and in any further findings of humanitarian need by the Committee;

21. Decides that the Security Council shall review the provisions of paragraph 20 above every sixty days in the light of the policies and practices of the Government of Iraq, including the implementation of all relevant resolutions of the Security Council, for the purpose of determining whether to reduce or lift the prohibitions referred to therein;

22. Decides that upon the approval by the Security Council of the programme called for in paragraph 19 above and upon Council agreement that Iraq has completed all actions contemplated in paragraphs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 above, the prohibitions against the import of commodities and products originating in Iraq and the prohibitions against financial transactions related thereto contained in resolution 661 (1990) shall have no further force or effect;

23. Decides that, pending action by the Security Council under paragraph 22 above, the Security Council Committee established by resolution 661 (1990) shall be empowered to approve, when required to assure adequate financial resources on the part of Iraq to carry out the activities under paragraph 20 above, exceptions to the prohibition against the import of commodities and products originating in Iraq;

24. Decides that, in accordance with resolution 661 (1990) and subsequent related resolutions and until a further decision is taken by the Security Council, all States shall continue to prevent the sale or supply, or the promotion or facilitation of such sale or supply, to Iraq by their nationals, or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of:

(a) Arms and related materiel of all types, specifically including the sale or transfer through other means of all forms of conventional military equipment, including for paramilitary forces, and spare parts and components and their means of production, for such equipment; (b) Items specified and defined in paragraphs 8 and 12 above not otherwise covered above; (c) Technology under licensing or other transfer arrangements used in the production, utilization or stockpiling of items specified in subparagraphs (a) and (b) above; (d) Personnel or materials for training or technical support services relating to the design, development, manufacture, use, maintenance or support of items specified in subparagraphs (a) and (b) above;

25. Calls upon all States and international organizations to act strictly in accordance with paragraph 24 above, notwithstanding the existence of any contracts, agreements, licences or any other arrangements;

26. Requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with appropriate Governments, to develop within sixty days, for the approval of the Security Council, guidelines to facilitate full international implementation of paragraphs 24 and 25 above and paragraph 27 below, and to make them available to all States and to establish a procedure for updating these guidelines periodically;

27. Calls upon all States to maintain such national controls and procedures and to take such other actions consistent with the guidelines to be established by the Security Council under paragraph 26 above as may be necessary to ensure compliance with the terms of paragraph 24 above, and calls upon international organizations to take all appropriate steps to assist in ensuring such full compliance;

28. Agrees to review its decisions in paragraphs 22, 23, 24 and 25 above, except for the items specified and defined in paragraphs 8 and 12 above, on a regular basis and in any case one hundred and twenty days following passage of the present resolution, taking into account Iraq's compliance with the resolution and general progress towards the control of armaments in the region;

29. Decides that all States, including Iraq, shall take the necessary measures to ensure that no claim shall lie at the instance of the Government of Iraq, or of any person or body in Iraq, or of any person claiming through or for the benefit of any such person or body, in connection with any contract or other transaction where its performance was affected by reason of the measures taken by the Security Council in resolution 661 (1990) and related resolutions;

G 30. Decides that, in furtherance of its commitment to facilitate the repatriation of all Kuwaiti and third country nationals, Iraq shall extend all necessary cooperation to the International Committee of the Red Cross, providing lists of such persons, facilitating the access of the International Committee of the Red Cross to all such persons wherever located or detained and facilitating the search by the International Committee of the Red Cross for those Kuwaiti and third country nationals still unaccounted for;

31. Invites the International Committee of the Red Cross to keep the Secretary-General apprised as appropriate of all activities undertaken in connection with facilitating the repatriation or return of all Kuwaiti and third country nationals or their remains present in Iraq on or after 2 August 1990;

H 32. Requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism;

I 33. Declares that, upon official notification by Iraq to the Secretary-General and to the Security Council of its acceptance of the provisions above, a formal cease-fire is effective between Iraq and Kuwait and the Member States cooperating with Kuwait in accordance with resolution 678 (1990);

34. Decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of the present resolution and to secure peace and security in the area.

And again, that agreement involves ALL MEMBER STATES —not simply the United States and Iraq. Nor do any of the resolutions involving Iraq include any sort of tripwire clause automatically authourising war for Iraqi noncompliance with the terms of the ceasefire agreements

Moving the Goalposts avails you nought. Your challenge was to prove that the CIA never recommended war or never used "imminent threat" in describing Iraq and its alledged WMD.

But then it doesn’t matter what the CIA did not suggest. If Iraq was truly considered to have had prohibited weapons, the argument of preemption is immediately defensible.

NO. IT. ISN'T. "Considered" to have WMD is not PROOF of having WMD. Even Bush is now backpedaling away from the primary argument he advanced for the war —his own unqualified assertions of Iraqi WMD arsenals and the "imminent threat" they supposedly posed.

And Iraq's history shows they were far from being any threat to the United States; their condition after 12 years of sanctions certainly demonstrated that point, and the extant situation on the ground as encountered by our own armies exploded the myth conclusively.

Mistaking conventional for unconventional capacity.

No, Comical Axi, that is your Red Herring.

Which does not invalidate the detail of their findings, or the fact that those findings have been increasingly confirmed by what has been observed by inspectors after the war. When does that fact penetrate that thick skull of yours?

It means that any search produced after Saddam was out of power would inherently be more trustworthy.

Data is data, no matter when it was gathered.

The only reason Blix's search "never came to conclusion" was due to Bush launching his specious war. Kay's observations squared with UNMOVIC's, as have those of US Air Force experts, as have those of US Army personnel, as have those of British and Australian military forces. Your argument grows ever thinner.

Kay’s search was haphazard.

The Iraq Survey Group were in-country for eight months —three months longer than UNMOVIC had been prior to the war.

His resources were being stripped away as he complained of issues related directly to them. His mobility was restricted as he made appeals to lack of speed early in the war to explain the lack of documentary evidence regarding the supposed destruction of WMD he had not found.

Is this Kay you're referring to here or Blix? And your latest Appeal to Ignorance is laughable.

The ISG was working in poor conditions with less-than-optimal resources, and did so within a collapsed timeframe. Not comprehensive.

Ah, the NEW catch-all excuse for you to deny evidence inconvenient to you.

We have the whole country. We have Baghdad. We occupy Saddam's palaces, government ministries, and military command centres. Kindly demonstrate your evidence that we do not have all their files, please.

Ah, but I don’t have to prove a negative. You have argued that we have all his files – back it up with a quote, or back down.

This is not a challenge to prove a negative. You made the assertion that we don't have all their files. A positive assertion, BTW. It is on you to back that statement or back down.

We do not have the whole country, by the way; we are still fighting for certain areas (else Kay would not have had problems of being able to go where he wanted to go when he wanted to go there).

Kay's statement of 2 October, 2003 referred to attacks related to the guerilla insurgency, which is a general problem within Iraq at present. This is nowhere near the same thing as attempting to access areas of the country still under dispute with an opposing army or still under the control of a government which now no longer exists.

We fucking well do know what the Chinese were doing on the ground in 2000. They spilled the details when we found out about the telecom project —as was covered in the course of the "Saddam Was Bluffing" thread.

You can’t know whether it was a complete divulgence. Nor can anybody else, for that matter, unless our search is more thorough than it has been to date.

Appeal to Ignorance fallacy. Yet again.

"Rushed inspections". That's rich! UNMOVIC began its work in November of 2002 and followed upon seven years of inspections carried out by UNSCOM. All the bullshit denial in the world can't build up a stronger argument on your behalf.

Those seven years ended in 1998. Any appeal to older sanctions is ridiculous, since it ignores the fact that things were still missing when the teams left in 1998, and haven’t been found to this day.

As if that has fuck-all to do with the issue. UNMOVIC found no evidence that additional materials or weapons were produced between 1998 and 2002, and observation in the post-war environment has only added weight to the case that most if not all of Saddam's CBW was indeed destroyed and that his nuclear weapons programme had ground completely to a halt.

David Kay himself asserted that six to nine more months would be necessary as of 2 October 2003.

Um, ahem:

My summary view, based on what I've seen, is we're very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons. I don't think they exist.

—David Kay, 26 January 2004

What a difference three months makes.

So did Hitler in his bunker. The crux of the matter is how effectively he could exert control in a situation which was slipping out of his control.

Saddam Hussein was not yet in his hole while Hans Blix was in-country.

But his grip on power was far shakier when Hans Blix was in-country than before the UNSCOM inspections regime. And the data gathered since the end of the war has confirmed, not refuted, Blix.

And this little Red Herring relates to the issue at hand how...?

Those who cooperate with occupations are often targets.

This still does not answer the question, which was whether or not the present guerilla insurgency are specifically targeting Iraqis on the basis of cooperation with ISG on WMD-related issues or just simply targeting anyone talking to any Americans for any reason.

No, it was an act of revenge, plain and simple. And considering our own attempt to assasinate Col. Qaddafi (clumsily, with airstrikes, missing him and killing two of his daughters instead), it can be fairly said that Ronald Reagan helped set a precedent for Saddam Hussein to follow.

It was international terrorism, because it was meant to send a message. Regardless of the emotional satisfaction Saddam hoped to glean.

As you wish...

Yes, and if I commit a crime, and you commit the same, you are still as guilty as I.

Wrong, stupid. Not all crimes are equal and hence neither are degrees of guilt.

Al Qaeda isn't having to do too much running these days. Our occupation of Afganistan is effective only within the vicinity of Kabul and the Pakistani border provinces are effectively back under Taliban control. Osama played these same games against the Soviets while fighting for the Mujahadeed in the 1980s and the Soviets were no more successful against Bin Laden than we have managed. This is one example of why a "War on Terrorism" makes as much sense as trying to punch an echo and why the theory you so desperately keep flogging is also fundamentally flawed.

Then what would you have us do, Deegan, if not destabilize the countries that give succor to terrorism, such as Afghanistan?

This presumes that Afganistan was stable before al Qaeda set up shop there.

And let me remind you that since our War on Terrorism, there have been no major attacks on American soil.

Begging the Question fallacy.

We have many top al-Qaeda leaders in custody. The core of their group is hemorrhaging badly, and their assets are being tracked and seized worldwide.

Big fucking deal. The problem is that no matter how many terrorists you manage to round up or kill, there will always be more terrorists —and the next groups invariably learn from their predecessors.

[Vympel]

David Kay did not visit 120 of 130 munitions storage locations slated for inspection prior to the initiation of his search. Instead, he reasoned that according to United Nations inspectors who had been in Iraq before the war, special munitions were generally stored and managed separately from conventional weaponry or equipment, and so suggested that there was really nothing amiss to be found at those 120 other sites.

*that was speculation on my part*. There is no evidence that he relied ENTIRELY on UN data for ANY aspect of his search, and frankly, that you continue to imply that there's something wrong with this argument (which I offered merely as a reason why the 10 out of 130 munitions storage dumps argument was exaggerated) is incredibly funny, considering you were the one who brought up the seperate administration of chemical weapons in a previous debate!

And why not? It?s where quartermasters were going to go to requisition new equipment, or from whence such shells were to be transported.

What? It's where people will be going to get equipment, therefore they'll be bringing equipment (from god knows where) to these places? And even though somehow their elaborate scheme for hiding all these weapons (never mind there's no evidence of their existence) manages to get these weapons there, they're not used? And to this litany of questions I attach the last: why the hell am I bothering with these blatant appeals to ignorance?

Why would Kay exaggerate his own position?

Why would he refer to common Middle Eastern diseases as being related to biological warfare? He was offering the absolute maximal position. It's not like he's anti-war, but even he sees that there were serious problems with the intelligence.