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One clue that something was up is that the Dems started insisting there were none at a point at which the ISG teams had not yet completed their survey- something they would not have done unless they were absolutely certain none were going to pop up that the administration would admit to, a certainty that would be impossible to have at that stage UNLESS they knew the Bush admin had decided US policy would be to claim there were none to be found, and would dismiss any that might be found.

Why would the US have such a policy? Most likely in the hopes that if the administration took heat "for there not being any," terrorists would be convinced not to continue to search for any weapons or any equipment used in their manufacture that we may have been unable to recover, which is a good deal easier than trying to find every bit of a program that had been dispersed all over the place and often was buried or submerged in flooded structures below the water table. weapons stashes that were described by the Bush admin as like trying to find the contents of a two car garage dispersed in a space the size of California. [Just trying to find them in a space the size of al Tuwaitha would be a daunting task.] That Iraq had dispersed its programs internally and abroad was known years before Bush was elected. That Iraq had massive underground research facilities that they flooded is a fact, not fiction.

It is my belief much was recovered, and the "no WMD's thing ensures that what wasn't, if any, remains unsearched for, at least by hostiles. At the time of the ISG the US and the Russians were destroying their own stockpiles and it is worth noting that both the US and the Russian destruction programs fell behind schedule in that period for unexplained reasons.

That this denial was a determined policy explains the Democrat's smug assertions and in fact their antics helped solidify the myth to ensure the no-wmds scheme would be accepted as fact by those terrorists interested in finding such stuff. They would not have been so secure if the US policy was to keep looking, because there would be no way of knowing if something may turn up and be paraded around as evidence. They would ALSO not be so secure and smug if they didn't have Bush's word on the policy because if they were in the same position as Bush THEY WOULD HAVE PLANTED WMD to cover their rears... as we can see by their current behavior on Benghazi.

The Russians played along with the scheme and got most of their stuff back out of Iraq and also put out the stories that the US would fake finds to justify the war, and when the Bush admin didn't, it was then easier to believe there really wasn't anything if the Bush admin wouldn't ever TRY to fake it. Even when occasional reports said some things were found, press-established "facts" were so strong enough that people could accept the idea that Iraq may just have bought one chem shell, or that it was old, or that the initial positive tests were always wrong, etc.

One of the scientists used to play up the "no weapons program" story by the press was Obeidi, who the press tends to forget had a prototype centrifuge buried [against UN protocols & US cease fire agreement of course] in his rose garden. The only reason to keep such a prototype hid, instead of present it to the UN to get off the hook, would be if Iraq intended to reconstitute its program once sanctions were lifted, which is what the administration said all along was their justification. If Saddam just wanted to keep Iran bluffed as many claim presenting it to the UN would have at least scared Iran whereas keeping it buried kept Iran from knowing about it. The press cited Obeidi as saying Iraq had no nuke programs. Well, Iraq had the prototype in his yard for what they needed for a program they WOULD have if left off the hook.

The press always left of the fact that Obeidi worked on Iraq's off-shore nuke program - in LIBYA. Libya's program was very real, if smaller. Libya's materials for the most part were brought back to the US for destruction at Oak Ridge, etc. Also, the press or Obama NEVER speaks of Qadeer Khan and the unnamed states in the list of states he made deals with; mustn't upset the Pakis. We are supposed to believe Qadeer Khan dealt with every muslim nation from Libya, Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and so on but never with Iraq.

Go ahead, look it up- the US BCW weapons destruction program fell behind schedule at the time we invaded Iraq. So did Russia's.