No kidding?
Posted on 07/25/2006 4:36:59 AM PDT by WmShirerAdmirer
(CNSNews.com) - According to a recent Harris Poll, a growing number of Americans believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States went to war in March 2003.
Fifty percent of American adults, when questioned by telephone between July 5 and 11 said they believe weapons of mass destruction (WMD) existed in Iraq before the U.S. invaded and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.
In February and March 2003 - just before and just after the invasion - Harris Interactive found that 81 percent of Americans believed the WMDs existed, but following the Iraq Survey Group's 2004 report, which concluded that there was no evidence of the weapons, the number plunged.
In October 2004 Harris Interactive found that only 38 percent of Americans believed the weapons existed. By February 2005, the percentage had dropped even further - to 36.
The latest poll - indicating that the mood has shifted and half of American adults believe Saddam possessed WMDs - surprised the polling firm.
"People seem to think Iraq had these weapons even if there's not much evidence of it," said David Krane, vice president of Harris Interactive. "No weapons of mass destruction have been used or found."
Krane added that "even if there have been some discussions about the stockpiling of weapons that may be coming out slowly, I just can't imagine that the broad public knows that," he told Cybercast News Service.
However, an Oct. 4, 2004, report by Cybercast News Service included 42 pages of Iraqi Intelligence Service memos that revealed Saddam's purchase of mustard gas and anthrax as recently as the summer of 2000 and his extensive ties to al Qaeda.
In February, the House Intelligence Committee began examining 48,000 boxes of Iraqi documents that had not yet been translated or catalogued, but were thought to contain information about Saddam Hussein's weapons program.
Then in June, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) released declassified portions of an intelligence report that they said confirmed Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction, including mustard gas. The report indicated that 500 such weapons had been destroyed by the U.S.-led coalition since 2003 and that the U.S. and its allies were racing against terrorist groups in trying to control the remaining weapons in Iraq.
"It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq," Santorum said during the news conference last month.
But many skeptics remain, including retired Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Lawrence Vann, who insisted that the American public is being "misled."
"The American people were misled prior, during, and after our dedicated men and women return from duty in Iraq," Vann told Cybercast News Service Monday.
"Belief is one thing, but facts are another," he said. "We've been in that theater for over three years now, and we have not found anything.
"Sadly, the American people have been feed so much unintelligence, they are reeling from the deception they have been dealt. Unfortunately the American people are responding to unfounded fear of WMD in a land far removed from our own," Vann added.
Mood shifting is because Americans aren't stupid! If it looks like a WMD, contents are analyzed as a chemical weapon, and it is discovered on Iraqi soil, it's a WMD!
If they asked the question where Americans think the majority of Iraq's other WMDs are, most would say "in the safe keeping of Syria and Lebanon."
Heaven help the civilian Lebanese if one of Israel's bunker busting bombs hits an area where some of Saddam's WMDs are being stored!
Yep. Smart people, stupid pollsters. Thanks to FR et el. people are reading translations of the actualy Iraqi documents rather than the MSM propaganda.
Additionally, Iraqi-prepared ricin in London etc. is stuff the MSM conveniently likes to forget.
This is what hezballoo is hoping for. They will then accusse Israel of using gas on civilians.
The 500+ artillery shells containing a variety of chemical weapons agents found in Iraq apparently are enough to convince the American public that the regime did in fact possess WMD. Of course the NYT would never let inconvenient facts like those get in the way of their agenda.
Surely there can be no question that Iraq had, at some point, utilized, stockpiled and deployed WMD. The only real, serious questions are "what happened to 'em?" and "where are they?"
A few waterboard lessons for said Saddam would probably tell all. But the West does not work like that.
Alas, the world may never know... unless one of those Israeli rockets gets lucky.
"Wonder how many Libs are adjusting their thinking."
None. Libs cannot bear to rethink an issue or change their minds. It messes up their 'world view'.
Good additional insights in your reply (replies), thanks.
These people, in a position to know, also think Saddam's WMD were moved to Syria:
Last month Moshe Yaalon, who was Israel's top general at the time, said Iraq transported WMD to Syria six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
Last March, John A. Shaw, a former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said Russian Spetsnaz units moved WMD to Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
"While in Iraq I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives," Mr. Shaw told NewsMax reporter Charles Smith.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong was deputy commander of Central Command during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In September 2004, he told WABC radio that "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon and Iran."
In January 2004, David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group which conducted the search for Saddam's WMD, told a British newspaper there was evidence unspecified materials had been moved to Syria from Iraq shortly before the war.
"We know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD program," Mr. Kay told the Sunday Telegraph.
Also that month, Nizar Nayuf, a Syrian journalist who defected to an undisclosed European country, told a Dutch newspaper he knew of three sites where Iraq's WMD was being kept. They were the town of al Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria; the Syrian air force base near the village of Tal Snan, and the city of Sjinsar on the border with Lebanon.
In an addendum to his final report last April, Charles Duelfer, who succeeded David Kay as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said he couldn't rule out a transfer of WMD from Iraq to Syria.
"There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation," Mr. Duelfer said.
In a briefing for reporters in October 2003, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper Jr., who was head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency when the Iraq war began, said satellite imagery showed a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion.
"I think the people below Saddam Hussein and his sons' level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Lt. Gen. Clapper said.
Note the press accurately identifies the issue as being based on a "mood" rather than knowledge of the evidence.
If there had been no invasion of Iraq and one of these weapons was used against US citizens or our allies, the Ned Lamont crowd would be the first ones to scream "Bush did nothing and people died!"
Exactly so.
No kidding?
The scary thing is that 50% believe there never where WMD (even after they where found). That says alot about those who only get their news from the network newscasts.
Lol. This news will drive the dems crazy after all they've done to poison the well.
I was so impressed by Duncan Hunter at the Congressional Hearing on WMD's last month. Especially his questioning of Kay and getting him to say that politicians saying there were no WMD's was Not accurate.....
REP. HUNTER: I understand. And so, when we have people who -- when we have descriptions on the House floor -- and I want to quote a couple to you, because you're a fair gentleman. "There were no," and I'm quoting, "there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: It's not accurate by my personal knowledge.
REP. HUNTER: Okay. "We are spending billions of dollars to occupy a country that did not have weapons of mass destruction." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: That's certainly not how I would phrase it, let me say that.
REP. HUNTER: "There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there are WMDs in D.C. Lies are weapons of mass destruction." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: D.C.'s a dangerous place, but not in that sense.
REP. HUNTER: Okay. "We know that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We know that to be the case." That's not accurate, is it?
MR. KAY: I think -- look, I don't want to get into criticizing your colleagues. We all knew that in Iraq we were going to find chemical weapons produced prior to 1991.
***. HUNTER: But Dr. Kay, you say we all knew. I don't agree with that. I think that most American people -- that's one reason we're having the hearing -- you say I kind of expected to find these. I think after the massive number of volume of statements to the effect of what I just read to you that have been going on in town hall meetings, coming out of the radio, the television, the newspaper -- if you ask the average American today if any weapons of mass destruction, even today before this hearing is aired, if there are any weapons of mass destruction, any chemical weapons found in Iraq, I think 99.9 percent of them are going to tell you no. I've been listening to television and radio. They're going to say no, there aren't. That's been asserted.
I've seen -- this has been the order of the day. The statements that I just quoted to you aren't radical statements that were made by a few people. Those are statements that have been made thousands and thousands of times in thousands of forums. And that's why I think it's good, now that we've found 500 of them -- albeit they're not brand new rounds, they're not full-up -- they probably aren't the end of our discovery. It's important for people to know that, is it not? Facts are good to get out.
MR. KAY: Facts are always good to get out
Nice to hear that it's 50%, not 99%. The truth is getting out.
"It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq," Santorum said during the news conference last month.
But many skeptics remain, including retired Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Lawrence Vann, who insisted that the American public is being "misled."
This jerk made it to Lt. Colonel??
Thinking? If they were capable of that, they wouldn't be libs.
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