IRAQ HAD NO STOCKPILES...SO WHAT?

Neal Nize ^ | 10/7/04 | Neal Boortz

[NotchJohnson]

IRAQ HAD NO STOCKPILES...SO WHAT?

The media and the Democrats, along with The Poodle's campaign are all excited about Charles Duelfer's testimony in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. His verdict? There are no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Big whoop...why is this really news? Haven't we been hearing this for over a year?

The headlines all say the same thing...CIA adviser says Iraq had no banned weapons since 1991...no WMD in Iraq...and so on. The implication is essentially 'Bush lied, people died.' This is where media bias comes in big-time...as some of the stories showed. After all, bad news for Bush is good news for Kerry...and the media. But really, what we have here is old news.

It's been known since the report from David Kaye that nobody could find any stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. It's just not news. But what's also interesting in this case, is that some of the other more important testimony by Duelfer is being ignored. For instance, Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions, he merely put them on hold. As soon as the heat was off, he was going to start making nuclear weapons. He had the ability and the desire.

Let's talk about biological weapons. Duelfer testified that Iraq could have restarted its program and produced mustard agent in months, and nerve agent in less than a year. So Saddam wasn't a threat, huh? All he would have had to do is restart that program, and sell some of that nerve agent to an Islamic terrorist.

What the Democrats would have done, had they been in power, would have been to wait until Saddam did just that. They would have waited until he posed an even greater threat to the world, the region and his neighbors before they did anything. So they didn't find any stockpiles...who cares? The dictator is out of power, is no longer a threat to the rest of the world, is no longer killing and torturing his own people, and will never produce weapons of mass destruction again. Iraq was a terrorist state, and we took action.

Al-Qaeda doesn't have any WMD stockpiles either...should we look the other way there? I think not

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

The Mainstream Media likes to change the reasons we went to war in order to call Bush a liar. They conveniently forget or ignore what really happened.

The United Nations, in Resolution 1441, gave Saddam one last chance to disarm and to prove that he had disarmed. There were a myriad number of banned weapons and programs that he had admitted to earlier. He needed to show that he had, in fact, abandoned them. Proof would be showing where they were buried, or, at the very least, a bookkeeping analysis of their disposition.

Saddam did not comply with the resolution at all (even the French and the Germans concede that point.) So, we were left with having given Saddam an ultimatum and having him ignore it. The question becomes: what do you do when a "final" ultimatum is ignored. If you are the United Nations, you do nothing. If you are George Bush, you do something.

What we have is, on a grander scale, the equivalent of police officers chasing down a suspect in a shooting. Many witnesses saw the perpetrator's weapon. The cops scream, "Stop or I'll shoot!" He doesn't stop. They shoot. No weapons are found. Therefore (if you are a liberal) they never existed.

Bottom line--we went into Iraq because Saddam did not adhere to inernational demands, all of which stemmed from the peace agreement following his invasion of Kuwait (the Gulf War.) It would have been great to have found weapons, but the finding of them is not a necessary condition to the underlying reason for the invasion--Saddam had been given a final opportunity to comply, and he failed to do so.

[dfwgator]

We also sent a message to other rogue states like Libya and Syria, that they could be next. Kaddafy Duck sure wised up, didn't he?

[AaronInCarolina]

So what? Over a thousand U.S. soldiers are dead and thousands more wounded for reasons that prove to be untrue, and all Neal can say about that is "So what?" According to the report all it took to keep a lid on Hussein's WMD program was UN santions. Wouldn't keeping those in place have been cheaper than the invasion?

First of all, your premise is wrong. They died to remove a genocidal maniac who was a threat to the whole world. This report does nothing to change the perception that Saddam Hussein was a crazy man and a threat to us and the whole world! The reason Boortz says "So What" is that if we had not acted, the sanctions would have eroded or expired completely, and Hussein would re-amass the WMD's! What the report essentially concluded was that while he may not have had stockpiles when we went in, he had a plan and driving desire to re-constitute these WMD's. So if we didn't do it now, we would have to do it within a year or two. If you can't see that, then I think you are blind. We removed a mad man who would never give up on the dream to possess WMD's.

Secondly, we could not have kept the sanctions in place. They were going away. Why do you think Saddam Hussein was patiently waiting for the day when his plan to bribe all of our so-called "allies" (France, Germany, Russia) to block our invasion strategy and to get all sanctions revoked came to fruition? Or have you had your head in the sand for the past 6 months?

[JiggyMac]

Morris said: Germany made it easy on us by declaring war first. Do you think we would have waited? Should we have waited if Germany didn't declare war on us?

[Sister_T]

Great post!

[F16Fighter]

Al-Qaeda doesn't have any WMD stockpiles either...

Al-Qaeda members themselves ARE "stockpiles" of WMD.

And anyway, Saddam was harboring AQ launching pads and training grounds.

There's "proof" of that, isn't there?

[PreviouslyA-Lurker]

Good point, thank you for posting.

[MadAnthony1776]

Saddam had 11 years to comply with the destruction of his WMD programs. All he had to do was allow inspectors in to verify and produce the paperwork proving he destroyed his known WMD. He did neither and had no intention of doing so. What was known was he had used chemical weapons on his own people and the Iranians. We did not know if he still had stockpiles but Saddam was not willing to let us verify that he did not. He chose to obstruct and stall the wishes of the international community at the expense of his own people. As for ties to terrorists it was known that the leader of Abu Nadal was given sanctuary in Iraq. Also it is known that members of Iranian intelligence had met with Al Queda operatives. This is not to say he aided in planning 9/11 but there were connections to terrorism. One plus was that Quadafi saw the light and dismantled his WMD programs. He obviously is a lot smarter than Saddam and has moved the target off his back. Now if only some of the other countries see the light the world will be better off for it.

[1-Eagle]

I think its just the DNC "Ministry of Truth" roaring its ugly head. Obviously we are not fighting against WMD's but against the people who might use or distribute them. The fact that some intelligence was askew does not sulley the President in a situation where our nation is at war with a somewhat invisible enemy.

Wouldn't it just be great if AQ and Bin Laden would just line up and fight us like a regular army. So we just need to ask people what is it about a terrorist means of warfare do they not understand?

So it was a tough call and I agree with the President. Considering the viciousness of 911 against innocent non-combatants, I think we were compelled to do this. Conquering Afghanistan was no small feat. The Soviets failed there, but we found a way to win quickly, never-the-less I think the President is absolutely right that it was, alone, not enough. We still looked weak to the world, after conquering a third world country.

I like to tell people its "American Math". They knocked down two of our buildings and killed three thousands of our people, so we knocked over two of their countries and killed thousands of theirs. (No disrespect to those injured or suffered loss at Pentagon, or in Pennsylvania.) We didnt ask for this transaction, but by golly we will complete it. And just let any miscreant cave dwelling fools think about that the next time they even think about coming here and doing it again.

Poor Al Gore would have turned to a bowl of jelly. I thank God that President Bush won in 2000.

[avital2]

let's also not forget that we had satellite photos of installations that were there one day, gone weeks later - huh? --and intercepts of phonecalls toIraqis on the ground during weapons inspections being ordered to be sure XYZ was removed before they arrived on scene,(what were they removing?) and signs of said activity actually happening. did the report prove that Saddam had not farmed out his knowledge/formulas to the likes of Libya, Syria, etc, basically moving it off site to continue the work, but get it out of his bailiwick?

[dfwgator]

Morris said: Germany made it easy on us by declaring war first.

Oh OK, I didn't catch that. Of course we should have gotten into the war earlier against Germany, but at the time most people were dead set against the idea. That's the difference between President Bush and FDR. FDR was too afraid to risk his presidency to do what he knew would have been the right thing in taking on Germany earlier. President Bush was aware invading Iraq might risk his re-election chances, but he knew it was the right thing to do, and did it, regardless of the consequences to his own presidency.

[Michael81Dus]

I don´t challenge that Saddam was and is evil/mad. But I doubt that he posed a threat to the whole world - at least by 2003. Any hints for the opposite, now that we all learned that he had no WMD when the war started?

[AaronInCarolina]

Oh OK, I didn't catch that. Of course we should have gotten into the war earlier against Germany, but at the time most people were dead set against the idea.

The EXACT SAME crowd (or at least type) of people who are against the Iraq War effort. There will always be appease-niks in our presence!

[Dr. Frank fan]

Over a thousand U.S. soldiers are dead and thousands more wounded for reasons that prove to be untrue,

You are speaking as if "He has stockpiles of WMD" was the only Reason for the war. That's simply not true.

According to the report all it took to keep a lid on Hussein's WMD program was UN santions.

Does the report mention how the hell "sanctions" were going to contain anthrax? If not, it ain't worth the paper it's printed on, and that conclusion is meaningless. (Do *you* know where the 2001 (Daschle) anthrax came from?)

Does the report mention that countries like Germany and Russia were cheating on the sanctions? How does that work exactly, we trust in "sanctions" even though everyone's cheating on them?

Does the report mention things like the AQ Khan nuke network, uncovered only after the war?

Does the report mention that all indications are that the political momentum was pushing toward ending the sanctions sooner rather than later? If not, it's even more worthless.

If the report mentions none of these things, it's junk. If it mentions some of these things, but STILL has a conclusion like "all we need to contain Saddam's WMD is continue sanctions" then it is self-contradictory. Another possibility is that you are summarizing that conclusion falsely.

For just how many decades, pray tell, do you think we should have kept the nation-state of Iraq under siege? Keeping in mind that this siege-state would be helping keep the Hussein Dynasty in power.

How many generations of Husseins, for how many decades, were we supposed to help keep in power over the people of Iraq?

Wouldn't keeping those in place have been cheaper than the invasion?

Depends for how long. There are two possibilities:

1. We keep the sanctions in place indefinitely, for decades. (You know, because it's "cheaper" than ousting Hussein.) Unfortunately, in this case I believe the cumulative cost of doing this far outweighs simply removing Hussein.

And what is this talk of "cost"? Is it all about money? That is very simple minded. Are you counting the *propaganda* cost incurred (for Al Qaeda types) by the fact that we were being so Mean to the Iraqi People? Remember, the Iraq sanctions killing Iraqi babies etc. (along with Troops in Saudi Arabia - ANOTHER direct byproduct of the "contain Hussein with sanctions" effort) were a primary grievance of Al Qaeda. Frankly, as part the Cost of containing Saddam I'm afraid we ALREADY have to count... 9/11 and all its aftereffects.

Still think it's "cheaper"?

2. Something happens politically (a (D) President is elected? France produces some weepy documentary about the effect of sanctions?) and the support for keeping up a "sanctions regime" (i.e. holding Iraq and its 25 million people under siege indefinitely) collapses, so they are dropped in some face-saving deal. IMHO this was bound to happen sooner rather than later. In that case your whole premise that we can "contain" Saddam with sanctions vanishes.

You tell me, which was going to happen, 1 or 2? Either way it's not worth it. And IMHO this is precisely the calcualtion Bush saw on his table.

[avital2]

but as Prez, could you take the chance that you were wrong?

[FourtySeven]

Boortz bump. I love this guy.

[Coldwater Creek]

REAL QUICK.

[Non-Sequitur]

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Saint FDR did not attack Japan, he attacked Germany.

A couple of problems with that. Japan attacked us, Iraq didn't. And if you will check your history you will see that Germany declared war on us on December 11, not the other way around.

[Samwise]

We had a million and one reasons to go after Saddam. If one of them didn't pan out, so what? He was in violation of his terms of surrender and we had the moral and legal justification to whoop his butt anytime we wanted to. He kept shooting at our planes.

Kerry and his ilk seem to be complaining that we did the right thing for the wrong reason. Say what? They are glad Saddam is gone, but getting rid of him was wrong? They make my head hurt.

If a mugger tells me he has a gun at my head, I'm going to assume he is telling the truth. To do otherwise is suicidal.

Saddam either had WMD or he tricked the world into believing he did. He got what he deserved. Now our job is to kill the rest of the terrorists.

[Non-Sequitur]

They died to remove a genocidal maniac who was a threat to the whole world. This report does nothing to change the perception that Saddam Hussein was a crazy man and a threat to us and the whole world!

In what way?

Secondly, we could not have kept the sanctions in place. They were going away.

When?