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To: Dr. Frank fan

Have I read the report? No. But the administration has agreed that it reports no active program, no ongoing capacity, no stockpiles, and so forth. So, back to my orginal question, are they being truthful about agreeing with it?


66 posted on 10/12/2004 4:49:20 AM PDT by joesbucks
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To: joesbucks
But the administration has agreed that it reports no active program,

This does not contradict the pages published above as far as I can tell. For example above there's a page documenting that they procured some anthrax and mustard gas. Is that an "active program"? I guess not. Yet it still means that they had some anthrax and mustard gas (i.e. "WMD").

These simpleminded categories people have in their head ("Iraq had WMD!" or "Iraq didn't have WMD!") are not all that related to reality, and (i.e. in your case) lead people to see contradictions where there are none. "WMD" are not well-defined objects that exist in boxes labeled "WMD" that you either have or don't have. They come in variations and degrees. Unfortunately this is the kind of issue that can't be adequately described by a screaming headline, hence we get absurd contradictions.

For example, lots of people now seem to think that the Duelfer report Proves That Iraq Had No WMD. Yet just this summer, you might recall, we got a bunch of news stories about how we've found several shells in Iraq containing.... WMD. So this seems like a contradiction unless you abandon the idea that the headline "Iraq Had No WMD" is actually a fair summary of the Duelfer report.

no ongoing capacity

Again does not contradict anything above as far as I can tell. What pray tell is an "ongoing capacity"? Well I suppose it's the metaphorical equivalent of a functioning assembly line to produce "WMD" (which, when the mainstream media talks about them seems to be limited to: missiles tipped with chem or bio warheads; they seem not to know about anthrax). One can think they did not have such an assembly line and yet think the docs described above are genuine because again, they do not actually contradict as far as I can tell.

no stockpiles

"Stockpiles" has been the biggest media con job of all. Frankly I don't give a rat's ass about whether Iraq had "stockpiles". Who moved the goalposts to that absurd level? WTF is a "stockpile" anyway? When exactly does a collection of chem warhead shells become a "stockpile"? At what magical number - 17? 23?

But again, "Iraq had no stockpiles" and "the docs above are genuine" do not seem to contradict anyway.

There are no contradictions you've pointed to. If you think there is a contradiction, tell me where.

So, back to my orginal question, are they being truthful about agreeing with it?

The point, as you can see, is that the answer to that question is irrelevant to this thread. That question is only interesting if the two are in contradiction, but you have no reason to believe that they are.

My guess? Yes I suppose they're being "truthful"; Duelfer comes back, writes a report, what are they gonna say? They say "looks ok to me". What's your point?

79 posted on 10/12/2004 8:09:59 AM PDT by Dr. Frank fan
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