Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ex-US attorney general calls Iraq threat a 'fraud'
Reuters | 9/04/02 | Laura MacInnis

Posted on 09/04/2002 6:58:10 PM PDT by kattracks

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Pressing his case against an assault on Baghdad, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said on Wednesday the United States had no legitimate reason to attack Iraq and that it would be a grave mistake to do so.

"The claim that Iraq is a threat is a complete fraud. I don't think they believe it for a minute," Clark said, referring to the Bush administration's stated grounds for seeking to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Clark, who served in the Johnson administration at the height of the Vietnam war, said it would be "the gravest mistake" of any president in his lifetime if President George W. Bush launches a war against Iraq.

The U.S. government has accused Iraq of amassing weapons of mass destruction, a charge Baghdad denies.

"What business is it of the United States to engage in regime change?," Clark asked at a news conference called to announce anti-war demonstrations expected to take place on Oct. 26 in Washington, San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.

Bush said on Wednesday that at the appropriate time he would ask Congress to approve any action on Iraq "necessary to deal with the threat."

Clark has been a vocal opponent of U.S. policy on Iraq and the U.N. sanctions imposed on Baghdad for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In Baghdad last week, he urged the United Nations to act to prevent a U.S. assault on Iraq, saying it would breed more violence.

Other American critics of a possible war against Iraq shared their opinions on Wednesday at a Capitol Hill forum chaired by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat.

Some participants warned that a U.S. strike without legitimate reason, could destabilize the Middle East.

"A U.S. invasion would likely be met with fury across the region" American University professor Edmund Ghareeb said.

"Most Arab states view Iraq as a country on its knees, a victim of trigger-happy U.S. policies. An invasion would only serve to galvanize anti-American feelings, and help fulfill the dreams of extremists," Ghareeb said.

© Reuters Limited.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: decay; embalming; formaldehyde; mortuaryscience; ohsaddamfmh; putrefaction; ramseyclark; whisperingglades
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180181-197 last
To: dighton; Orual; aculeus
There is no Ramsey Clark, only Gavrielle Gemma...
181 posted on 09/05/2002 4:55:40 AM PDT by general_re
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 110 | View Replies]

To: MJY1288
MJY1288 say:   " I was under the impression that the only way to detect a Nuclear device (pre-detonated) was from a very close range "

Correct, but with a caveat. Here is what the Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information (the lead agency in the technical aspects of nuclear proliferation and test ban enforcement) has to say about even very close range detection of nuclear weapons:

"Another difficulty is that several types of weapon designs can make it almost impossible, using radiation measurements, to confirm that a declared item is a weapon."   (source)
Of course there is always the argument that when discussing militarily sensitive technology that what they admit to today may well be a generation or two behind our real capabilities. But the task of satellite based radiation detection of nuclear warheads is daunting, to say the least, and may well be beyond man's capabilities to ever do.

Regards,

Boot Hill

182 posted on 09/05/2002 5:11:47 AM PDT by Boot Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 178 | View Replies]

To: Boot Hill
Thanks for the clarification... I only mentioned RADEC originally to see if, in fact, that was what was being referred to... If RADEC was the 'magic bullet', one would think our NEST Teams would be using it, instead of chasing stuff around on the ground :0)
183 posted on 09/05/2002 5:19:23 AM PDT by Chad Fairbanks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 182 | View Replies]

To: Norvokov
He may be an idiot, but i'm sure half of those bashing him right now don't realize his past

You've got to be kidding me.

I was about eight years old when Clark was AG. For the longest time afterward I thought his name was "Ramsey F***ing Clark" because that's what I heard my dad call him. And that was before Clark became a communist, my dad was just reacting to the man's sheer and visible incompetence.

and only began to bash him because of his stance on Iraq.

Again, you've gotta be kidding me. My memory goes back a long way. His opinion NOW is not worth any more than it was when he defended the Achille Lauro hijackers.

184 posted on 09/05/2002 5:40:48 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 61 | View Replies]

To: Chad Fairbanks
Chad Fairbanks says:   " one would think our NEST Teams would be using [RADEC in satellites], instead of chasing stuff around on the ground "

You mean those NEST teams that carried around their detectors disguised as a carton of Marlboro cigarettes? LOL! That worked great until the nicotine nazis made it so unpopular that they stood out like klansmen at a Bar Mitzvah.

Regards,

Boot Hill

185 posted on 09/05/2002 5:42:26 AM PDT by Boot Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 183 | View Replies]

To: kattracks
SOF - Senile Old Fart
186 posted on 09/05/2002 5:42:58 AM PDT by AppyPappy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Boot Hill; palmer
Boot Hill: Thanks again for the clearification, I've always taken the position that it's better to remain silent and thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt. And that's why I didn't challenge the claims made by palmer, I had my doubt's, but I wasn't informed enough to speak on the subject. Thanks to you and your sources, I am now.

palmer: I would imagine you would like to defend or explain your statements, I will wait until you do before I respond to the apparent disionformation you posted

187 posted on 09/05/2002 5:49:31 AM PDT by MJY1288
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 182 | View Replies]

To: MJY1288
MJY1288 says:   " I had my doubt's, but I wasn't informed enough to speak on the subject. "

It was the honorable thing to do.

Regards,

Boot Hill

188 posted on 09/05/2002 5:56:59 AM PDT by Boot Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 187 | View Replies]

To: logician2u
No,it doesn't make ME wonder.I have nothing against deposing him over oil,I need a free flow of oil to get to work and for my place of work to exist so I can feed my family.As far as Israel,they could take him and his whole country out in a flash.We don't have too many other friends in that area,so,watching their back doesn't bother me.
189 posted on 09/05/2002 6:30:14 AM PDT by John W
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies]

To: Boot Hill
LOL... don't you just love the subtle ways that the Leftists degrade our national security? It's almost like a hobby for them - a popular diversion while they take breaks from the hard work of trying to control every aspect of our lives...

And if we DID have RADEC that could detect nuclear weapons from space, the environmentalists would take a break from starting forest fires to complain that our satellites are bad for the environment...

190 posted on 09/05/2002 6:45:03 AM PDT by Chad Fairbanks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 185 | View Replies]

To: logician2u
In 1965 it was the Domino Theory; in 2002 it's fear of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

With all due respect, Iraq is not Vietnam, there are no jungles and opposition morale is not exactly high.

One of the major differences between now and then is that Johnson KNEW the war was unwinable (as he was constrained to fight it), from the very beginning, before the escalation. He said so and its recorded in the tapes that were recently released.

Johnson was an insecure pile of pond scum who forever wanted to be liked by the Kennedy crowd, and therefore had us pay a heavy price in morale,human life and the rest of it, in order to prove his manliness to them, since Kennedy started the whole thing rolling. Nobody's going to repeat that idiot's mistakes (exactly).

191 posted on 09/05/2002 6:47:07 AM PDT by Nonstatist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 171 | View Replies]

To: MJY1288; Boot Hill
I'm sorry, I posted in haste without checking my facts. I assumed there would be a large amount of radiation coming from nuclear materials in sufficient quantity and proximity to form a critical mass. Then I assumed that all we would need is high efficiency gamma ray detectors similar to those used for astronomy.

My critical error was not realizing how few high energy photons are produced by the nuclear material, only a few photons per second per gram of material. Those photons are scattered in all directions so the signal will decrease with the sqaure of the distance. So detection not only requires close proximity, but it takes time (5 or 10 minutes) to gather enough photons to make a measurement.

Here's a paper with a practical example: gamma ray measurements of a soviet cruise missile warhead. The bottom line: the detector has to be within at most 20 meters of the warhead.

192 posted on 09/05/2002 8:20:14 AM PDT by palmer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 187 | View Replies]

To: Misterioso; Chad Fairbanks; CharacterCounts
What I said about detecting nukes from space was wrong, sorry. See #192
193 posted on 09/05/2002 8:28:43 AM PDT by palmer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 192 | View Replies]

To: palmer
I can live with that... thanks for being upfront :0)
194 posted on 09/05/2002 8:36:22 AM PDT by Chad Fairbanks
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 192 | View Replies]

To: palmer
Thanks for the update.
195 posted on 09/05/2002 9:51:21 AM PDT by CharacterCounts
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 193 | View Replies]

To: palmer
Thanks for the correction, and the explanation.

Kudos

196 posted on 09/05/2002 10:07:28 AM PDT by MJY1288
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 192 | View Replies]

To: EternalHope
If your shoe WAS kidnapped by aliens, wouldn't you want someone to tell you? But if Ramsey Clark gave a speach, wouldn't you rather NOT be told?

Isn't that what I said? :)

197 posted on 09/05/2002 4:34:59 PM PDT by lepton
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 121-140141-160161-180181-197 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson