[Andy from Beaverton]

http://www.therant.us/daily_columns/in_serach_of_saddam_husseins_wmd.htm

[LS]

The problem with this interpretation is that the Pentagon's declassified documents now have HUNDREDS of reports of "special weapons" handling; that HUNDREDS of people saw them, in one form or another; and that EVERY intelligence agency on the planet was "fooled" if this interpretation is right. I don't buy it. Lincoln said you can fool all the people some of the time . . . but not for 10 years.

[Thebaddog]

It is slightly counterintuitive to assume the premise of this article against the great lengths that the Iraqis went to to infiltrate the UN inspection teams to learn their agendas in advance. What was so important then?

[ClearCase_guy]

Saddam's belated attempts at transparency backfired

This all seems wrong-headed. Saddam wasn't trying to be transparent at all. He blocked all efforts to find out the truth.

[David Isaac]

This sounds like the establishment,s 'Warren Report'. There has been a lot of effort to convince everyone that WMD's never existed. I believe that they did, however.

[MortMan]

Well written, historically contexted, and replete with revealing details...

Unless the "revealing details" include all the data from the released and unreleased Iraqi memos, it's incomplete.

[NonValueAdded]

reference bump.

[Williams]

The article is correct but incomplete. Iraq did certainly at one time have WMD's and used them. Iraq did have a nuclear program, etc. The same Sadaam who was giving delusional orders and being lied to later on was also causing some programs to be hidden. The clearest example that comes to mind is when one of Sadaam's sons gave a nuclear scientist materials to hide so the nuclear program could be resuscitated when the UN inspectors left.

I've read a lot of the report and two things are clear: That Sadaam was a real threat and that he respected only the use of overwhelming force. He considered all diplomatic and even military maneuvering short of all-out war, to be a sign of weakness. So much for the idea of using diplomacy and sanctions on these types.

[Tenacious 1]

I suspected this years ago. Saddam was sure he had WMDs and/or the capability to mass produce them in short order. And why not? His sons were told by scientists that they were there and ready. The scientists could have shown Uday a jar of flour and told him it was weapons grade anthrax. Mix in some cyanaide and let Uday test the anthrax on some political prisoner and tell his Daddy, "This stuff works great. We must not let the UN find it." The scientist puts the unused flour back in his pantry and uses it to bake a cake the next day.

If the scientist had said anything different, Uday would have had him beaten, imprisoned, hand removed and wife raped. Now apply this little antedote across the country.

[Trailerpark Badass]

tag for later

[SittinYonder]

ping

[Tolik]

Interesting!

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for the perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author all 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of the good stuff that is worthy of attention. You can see the list of articles I pinged to lately  on  my page.
You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about). Besides this one, I keep 2 separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson and Orson Scott Card.  

[JamesP81]

Saddam's weapons are in Syria. We have photos of large convoys moving from Iraq into Syria before we went in. You do the math.

[DustyMoment]

While I generally doubt much of anything coming from agenda-driven Daniel Pipes (who wants to convince us that there is such a thing as "moderate" Muslims), I think it is likely that So Damn Insane is nuts and perpetrated the notion of "only good news" that extended to the WMD. That said, however, it doesn't explain the WMD that HAVE been found and (relatively) quietly removed from Iraq, nor does it explain the suspicious activity that occurred on the Iraq-Syria border just before the invasion. It also does not explain the Russian "technicians" whose car was shot up by American aircraft shortly before the invasion.

So to me, at least, there remains a large intel gap that Pipes is conveniently ignoring. What were the Russians doing there and did they, possibly, get some (or all) of Iraq's WMD? What was going on at the Iraq-Syria border when So Damn would replace the normal border guards with his own and send several trucks acroos into Syria?

Until/unless we get answers to those questions, I don't believe that it is entirely possible to lay the WMD issue completely to rest. They were there once. So Damn used them. What happened to them?

Pipes doesn't provide any answers.

[HawaiianGecko]

Here's what I don't "get."  The IAEA, UNMOVIC and UNSCOM all documented that Iraq had X amount of WMD's.  These same groups could verify the destruction of Y amount of these WMD's, the difference (X-Y) yielding a positive number. Now, for silly little engineers like myself and I'm sure accountants around the planet, a statement like Iraq had no WMD's just simply doesn't make sense.

Both sides can nuance the daylights out of statements to indicate they are correct, but neither side can change the mathematics of the situation.

[Peach]

Bump for later read

[The_Reader_David]

Well, I've always said, if someone was lying about Iraq's WMD's, it wasn't W, it was Saddam.

[Skooz]

bump

[WideGlide]

"You refer to non-existent stockpiles of chemical weapons. Of course the peaceful people of Iraq are not interested in weapons of massive destruction. That is a lie from the infidel President of America Boosh and his lapdog Dan Burton. Just ask your trustworthy patriot Mr. Howard Dean of the Revolutionary Democrat Liberation Party."

[El Gato]

In particular, Saddam underwent a change in the mid-1990s, developing a delusional sense of his own military genius, indeed his infallibility. In this fantasy land, soldiers’ faith and bravura count far more than technology or matériel. Disdaining the U.S. military performance from Vietnam to Desert Storm, and from Somalia to the Balkans, the tyrant deemed Americans a cowardly and unworthy enemy.

Considering who our CinC was at the time, his perceptions may not have been so very far off.