Posted on 11/19/2001 1:48:43 PM PST by AfghanAirShow
Once again, Ritter was on national television claiming that Iraq did not and could not have WMD. He's made this claim many times since the events of 9/11, despite a growing chorus of intelligence that suggests otherwise. Ritter says that his work as an inspector leads him to conclude that Iraq's infrastructure, economy, military and weapons program are all in such a state of disarray as to make it unlikely that Iraq could have progressed far in the aquisition of WMD since the conclusion of the Gulf War and the ensuing weapons inspections.
This, of course, is the same Scott Ritter that resigned in disgust in 1998 because the U.S. Security Council and the U.N. were lax in enforcing the weapons inspection program and failed to punish Iraq for non-compliance with the terms of the inspection program. The Iraqis were denying access to sensitive sites, and nothing was being done about it. This, he wrote, "constitutes a surrender to the Iraqi leadership" and "makes a mockery of the mission the staff of the Special Commission have been charged with implementing."
So... exactly how can Ritter be so certain today - three years later - that the Iraqis don't have a viable WMD program when he resigned in 1998 in part because inspections were being thwarted? If they are as far away from a viable program as he is saying today, then why did he raise such stink in '98? It stands to reason that Iraq would be closer to a deployable program than they were three years ago when Ritter quit, but for some reason he's been singing the same note over and over again lately saying that they're not. He seems to have changed his tune in the last few year -- why?
Essentially we have trapped a mean rat in a corner, and that rat must somehow bite back -- he cannot scurry or give up. That rat is Saddam and we've given him no recourse but to chase nonconventional terror techniques of bite-back. We've given him the time, we've given him and Iraq the constant re-motivation to persue war by other means.
Iraq is like a vat of anthrax a'brewing -- no light, no air, just distilled meaness a'waiting its chance to blossom.
How dumb do they think we are to believe that they are the authority on what Iraq has or does.
I guess he's "grown', that favorite word of the Left, which is applied to people that seemingly lose the capacity for rational thought.
The thing that bothers me most is how sure of himself he sounds when he says, unequivocally, that Iraq has no WMD. How would he know, since there are no inspections and he hasn't been there as an inspector since '98? Tonight on Fox with John Gibson he mentioned as an aside that he was in Iraq a year ago -- which begs the question, if he's not part of an inspection program, what was he doing there?
She did not elaborate on her meaning but was emphatic that Ritter is simply not credible and has even gone against the very things he used to speak and write about. I would love to know more about her opinion of him and why he has made this astounding and totally absurd turn-around.
Osama had help from a lot of people, and maybe some of them were from Iraq, but the connections are flimsy at best.
And think about this... If Sadham Insane hadn't invaded Kuwait, what would your beef be against him?
Sure, this guy is trying to develop an atomic bomb, but what third world despot country isn't? Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea, South Africa, and whole host of other unstable third world nations, already have the bomb.
At least Sadham is in his cage, and can be kept there. Which is more than can be said for the rest of these nuclear bearing nations.
I hate Hussain as much as anyone, but let's be reasonable. Are you really advocating loosing thousands of American lives to take out one crazy nut? Who'll replace him after you kill him? Some religious cleric, with an agenda to convert the world to Islam, and force the people of Iraq to follow the Koran like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
Get a grip. He may be crazy, but at least he's secular and runs a secular state Which by the way, is surrounded by religious fanatics.
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