Posted on 10/07/2004 6:31:27 AM PDT by 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
For "Germany" read "some German companies" if that helps. As if that makes it better...
You are right, he was not a threat to the whole world in 2003. He loved Germany and France, and Russia and China too. He was just a threat to the US and Israel. We drew straws, and the US came up with the longer straw, and we took him out.
Well, what means "fooling". It´s always hard to criticize the actions of the past. Anyway, I feel that we were wrong to bash the axis of weasels so harsh - with the knowledge we have today. It´s still speculation and we all should be careful with judgments.
This is an arrogant thing to say. Apparently the United States may not attack someone unless he poses a threat TO THE WHOLE WORLD.
In other words, it's NOT ENOUGH just to be an enemy of the United States itself. No. He must be a threat TO THE WHOLE WORLD. Otherwise, no war, United States!
Sorry but frankly I don't give a rat's ass about what kind of threat Saddam Hussein was to the "world". It's the United States which interests me, as an American citizen. I hope that's ok with me.
People from Germany saying the US shouldn't attack X because X poses no threat to Germany just really pisses me off.
now that we all learned that he had no WMD when the war started?
You think he had "no WMD" when the war started?
Does that include anthrax? Give your proof please that Saddam had no anthrax.
I was responding to a guy who wrote that Saddam posed a threat to the WHOLE WORLD! I told him that I doubt that, and now you reproach me with arrogance? Who are you? Check the timeline of posts before slamming me.
That's not a "problem with that", that's a feature of the analogy. For "Iraq" substitute "Germany".
Japan attacked us, Germany didn't. So why the hell did we open a front against Germany? That's the analogy.
And if you will check your history you will see that Germany declared war on us on December 11, not the other way around.
Yeah? Well so what? Germany posed no direct threat to the continental US. We could have "contained" that threat.
That makes it better, because it is very important to me that the German governments (conservative pro-US Kohl as well as socialist anti-US Schröder) are not corrupt and follow our laws.
See post #65.
Much of the extensive documentation of Iraq's WMD came from ... Clinton's administration. In 2001, there were rumors of landmines left behind by the Clintons.
Why, then, did Sodamn Insane fight the UN inspectors tooth and nail, and do everything in his power to obstruct their work? If memory serves, Bush went into Iraq, after the UN inspectors were effectively kicked out of the country.
That's sure not the behavior of someone who has nothing to hide.
It went well beyond gas masks. They also had atropine injectors, which is a nerve agent antidote.
I have never heard any reports that Iraq had anthrax. Prove to me that they did.
"A couple of commissions and studies and investigations have all come to the conclusion that he didn't have something to hide"
If these "commissions" are comprised of people like Blix, or some of the members of our 911 commission, I rest my case.
In addition, according to my news sources, the CIA report (which comes just in time to hurt Bush, I suspect) says that Iraq had no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons by 2003.
Every fair-equipped army has atropine injectors. We had training injectors, but in state of war those will be replaced with real atropine injectors. This is not abnormal.
Thats not talking Biological Weaopns.
That's very nice that the German government is not corrupt but this has nothing whatsoever to do with whether sanctions would have worked, which was the actual point I was responding to. Understand now?
I was responding to a guy who wrote that Saddam posed a threat to the WHOLE WORLD! I told him that I doubt that
Sorry, my mistake there. I'm glad we agree then that Whether Saddam Posed A Threat To The Whole World can and should not be the test of anything. Frankly, even Hitler would have failed that test (Hitler posed very little threat to, oh, Siam).
You were equipped to face a Soviet army that was felt likely to use nerve agents on a large scale. Are you trying to say Iraq was similarly equipped to face us?
And they had the real thing, not training injectors.
Iraq (along with the US and USSR) is one of the few countries known to have produced weaponized anthrax. Moreover, in the mid-90s declarations, Iraq declared that it possessed a large amount of such anthrax, which has never been accounted for (whether destroyed or what). These are undisputed facts.
As such, the prudent presumption here is that this anthrax still exists. And the appropriate challenge to the WMD-debunkers is that they need to Prove that it doesn't if they want their conclusions to carry weight.
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