Why We Know Iraq Is Lying

NY Times ^ | 1/23/03 | CONDOLEEZZA RICE

[finnman69]

Why We Know Iraq Is Lying By CONDOLEEZZA RICE

Eleven weeks after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding — yet again — that Iraq disclose and disarm all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, it is appropriate to ask, "Has Saddam Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm?" Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and resounding no.

There is no mystery to voluntary disarmament. Countries that decide to disarm lead inspectors to weapons and production sites, answer questions before they are asked, state publicly and often the intention to disarm and urge their citizens to cooperate. The world knows from examples set by South Africa, Ukraine and Kazakhstan what it looks like when a government decides that it will cooperatively give up its weapons of mass destruction. The critical common elements of these efforts include a high-level political commitment to disarm, national initiatives to dismantle weapons programs, and full cooperation and transparency.

In 1989 South Africa made the strategic decision to dismantle its covert nuclear weapons program. It destroyed its arsenal of seven weapons and later submitted to rigorous verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Inspectors were given complete access to all nuclear facilities (operating and defunct) and the people who worked there. They were also presented with thousands of documents detailing, for example, the daily operation of uranium enrichment facilities as well as the construction and dismantling of specific weapons.

Ukraine and Kazakhstan demonstrated a similar pattern of cooperation when they decided to rid themselves of the nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers inherited from the Soviet Union. With significant assistance from the United States — warmly accepted by both countries — disarmament was orderly, open and fast. Nuclear warheads were returned to Russia. Missile silos and heavy bombers were destroyed or dismantled — once in a ceremony attended by the American and Russian defense chiefs. In one instance, Kazakhstan revealed the existence of a ton of highly enriched uranium and asked the United States to remove it, lest it fall into the wrong hands.

Iraq's behavior could not offer a starker contrast. Instead of a commitment to disarm, Iraq has a high-level political commitment to maintain and conceal its weapons, led by Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay, who controls the Special Security Organization, which runs Iraq's concealment activities. Instead of implementing national initiatives to disarm, Iraq maintains institutions whose sole purpose is to thwart the work of the inspectors. And instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie.

For example, the declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad, its manufacture of specific fuel for ballistic missiles it claims not to have, and the gaps previously identified by the United Nations in Iraq's accounting for more than two tons of the raw materials needed to produce thousands of gallons of anthrax and other biological weapons.

Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text. Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program.

Unlike other nations that have voluntarily disarmed — and in defiance of Resolution 1441 — Iraq is not allowing inspectors "immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted access" to facilities and people involved in its weapons program. As a recent inspection at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist demonstrated, and other sources confirm, material and documents are still being moved around in farcical shell games. The regime has blocked free and unrestricted use of aerial reconnaissance.

The list of people involved with weapons of mass destruction programs, which the United Nations required Iraq to provide, ends with those who worked in 1991 — even though the United Nations had previously established that the programs continued after that date. Interviews with scientists and weapons officials identified by inspectors have taken place only in the watchful presence of the regime's agents. Given the duplicitous record of the regime, its recent promises to do better can only be seen as an attempt to stall for time.

Last week's finding by inspectors of 12 chemical warheads not included in Iraq's declaration was particularly troubling. In the past, Iraq has filled this type of warhead with sarin — a deadly nerve agent used by Japanese terrorists in 1995 to kill 12 Tokyo subway passengers and sicken thousands of others. Richard Butler, the former chief United Nations arms inspector, estimates that if a larger type of warhead that Iraq has made and used in the past were filled with VX (an even deadlier nerve agent) and launched at a major city, it could kill up to one million people. Iraq has also failed to provide United Nations inspectors with documentation of its claim to have destroyed its VX stockpiles.

Many questions remain about Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and arsenal — and it is Iraq's obligation to provide answers. It is failing in spectacular fashion. By both its actions and its inactions, Iraq is proving not that it is a nation bent on disarmament, but that it is a nation with something to hide. Iraq is still treating inspections as a game. It should know that time is running out.

[Republic]

If the NY times article is accurate....LOL.....large assumption dear, you ol sweet marxist mole who drops into FR now and then to promote the wailing klintonista spin.

Love ya gal.....and tho you don't deserve to have our troops led by good men and women, and the current administration and our terrific President SPARE you from having a so called smoking gun laid across your neigborhood in all its biological, chemical or perhaps nuclear ectasy>

And even tho you don't give a damn about the horrors that Saddam inflicts on innocents, the fact that he pays and encourages kids to blow themselves up in Palestine, the fact that he harbors and aids terrorists. etc, etc, etc,......

You are quick to buy into the words of absolute filth like bill and hillary klinton (gotta a babe? got some missile tech to sell to China? need perjury expertise? wanna slime the oval office? wanna pardon some felons? into quid pro quos?) spew, or their wards fart out with glee, you are not capable of understanding good character, true conviction based on faith and corroborated by our Constitution and the vision it takes to protect as well as defend our wonderful nation.

Go play in your playpen Murry, go read a few lines from the DU underground and bloat yourself up with lies, feel smug in your no smoking gun bravado, and let others, who know real compassion and understand end games, keep you safe.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

NBC network news (tonight) showed satellite photos of some of Saddam's post '91 "palaces".

Areas had what looked like trenches leading to a large square room/bunker.

Then the area was covered with dirt and A POOL WAS FLOODED RIGHT OVER THE TOP.

Pretty slick now, but obvious while it was being built.

Oh ya....the evidence is there.

[pfflier]

You posted on the wrong site. You were looking for the Barbara Streisand ass kisser's club site.

[Bars4Bill]

If the NY Times report is accurate, the Dumbya Administration has dug quite a deep hole for itself out there in the desert.

A former president has a deep interest in your rank hole out there in Murrysville, PA. Take a hike, skank.

[Uncle Meat]

LOL! Little Dumbya and other goofy members of his administration never fail to generate lots of material for the Saturday Night Live and Politically Incorrect shows!

If you think they're so "goofy",what the hell do you call the last bunch of incompetent morons that were running things.That tells a lot about your mental state.Of course ,you've proven that you're so dense,and nobody here seems to be able to slap any sense in you,and we might as well talk to a compost pile.

[maestro]

Your#30).......BTTT

Why We Know Iraq Is Lying

Uh,......'Muslims don't lie to Muslims'?

[YaYa123]

Now now, don't be too hard on MurryMom...She's our comic relief. And hey, she has great fun pulling our chains...it's part of her anger management therapy.

[Uncle Meat]

You're right.We should be kind to the mentally disabled.The orderly's will be here soon to take her back to her special padded room after her lobotomy and shock treatment.

[Kramer_AL]

Those pupils' copied papers weren't supposed to prove to the world that the authors weren't harboring WMD to use for God knows what.

[MHGinTN]

Unaccounted fro nbc materials that we know were around in 1991 and have not been listed as destroyed nor placed on the list of materials they hold now IS MATERIAL BREACH of the first order ... and thus a smoking gun. Res. 1441 wasn't written to start a scavenger hunt, it was written to clarify the parameters of material breach, then the time was given for Iraq to fully disclose. They didn't disclose what is already in evidence as not accounted for. Past time for Saddam to go.

[section9]

MurryMom, you ignorant skank.

Now, normally I'd get simply amused by your flatulent postings, your craving for the Barbara Streisand Land of Make Believe that Might Have Been.

But no, you had to come on a Condi Rice thread a lay a steaming pile. You're worse than Tuco. At least Tuco lays an egg like a good troll and tries to amplify the offense by using the same line, in which everyone is in on the joke.

You actually believe your own bullshit, which the history of the last century should have taught you is flat wrong.

Your entire chain of reasoning depends on the following proposition...

What? For months the Administration has reassured us that it has secret evidence about Iraq's weapons, with many a pundit admonishing sceptics for not trusting the president. For months, the Administration has promised that the release of unequivocal evidence was coming "soon" (only a few days ago Colin Powell said we would see it by the end of this month). After all those promises, we now learn, casually, just by the way, that in fact no such evidence exists.

Of course Saddam has the bad stuff. Only stupid people, liberals for instance, would believe that he has done away with his VX, anthrax, and other biowar toxins. WMD's are the foundation of his regime.

Your whole line of argument is the result of a leak from an unidentified source who, in all probability, knows nothing.

Now, naturally, you can't bring yourself to believe that "Dumbya" might be right, nor can the logic of Condi Rice's piece become apparent to you, simply because you hate Republicans (although the beads of persperation coming off your brow as you actually try to understand anything that Condi Rice writes must be a joy to behold....). But George W. Bush and Condi Rice are both right, you are wrong, and worse yet, you and other liberals have chosen to side with an Islamic Fascist.

That's right, you're siding with the fascists. Which is to be expected. Leftists and fascists are two sides of the same coin.

Or, as Orwell remarked in 1941 about the Pacifists: "To be a Pacifist is to be objectively pro-Nazi."

Now get lost, skank. Go back to performing intellectual fellatio on the Bent One. It's what you're good at.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[steve-b]

The orderly's will be here soon to take her back to her special padded room after her lobotomy

Another one?

[MeekOneGOP]

I had jury duty today. bttt for read on Friday...thanks.

[MurryMom]

...worse yet, you and other liberals have chosen to side with an Islamic Fascist.

Wrong on at least 2 counts! We who oppose Dumbya's pointless war against Iraq are on the same side as Robert Novak, Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Jim Leach, and other thinking Republican Party office holders. Unlike the sheeple supporting Dumbya, Balanced Budget Conservatives like myself understand that waging a war against Iraq has its costs, and that if Dumbya had an honest bone in his body he would explain where the money for fighting his insane war will come from.

[finnman69]

Those secret Dr. Evil Spectre under the volcano crater style palaces are too much. When I saw that presentation it is soooooo obvious to me there is naughtiness happening at those palaces.

I was amazed at the number and size of them. Since 1991 the number has gone from 21 to over 90 palaces. One complex is bigger than Washington DC. Naaaahhh. It must just be a bunch of tennis and bocce courts.

[pgyanke]

> "Unlike the sheeple supporting Dumbya, Balanced Budget Conservatives like myself understand that waging a war against Iraq has its costs, and that if Dumbya had an honest bone in his body he would explain where the money for fighting his insane war will come from."

Unlike the complicit left, people with IQs in the triple digits know the cost of inaction is far higher. Here's a history lesson:

The terms of armistice after WWI prohibited Germany from ever producing weapons for war again. Throughout the '20s and '30s, Europe stood idly by while Hitler flagrantly built up his war machine. Chamberlain (your idol, I'm sure) received a letter from Hitler after his first national invasion saying he wouldn't do it anymore...he just wanted that one country. Chamberlain proclaimed "peace in [his] time" by the word of an imperialist Nazi--AND FULLY INTENDED TO LEAVE HIS FELLOW EUROPEANS SUBJUGATED AND CONQUERED BY THEIR PREVIOUSLY DEFEATED FOE! We know the rest of the story... Hitler didn't stop, he never had any intention of stopping (despite his "diplomacy" to the contrary), and the resulting WWII cost many magnitudes more in resources and lives than would have possibly been lost in an earlier confrontation.

Dubya is showing his knowledge of history and a vision for the future by cleaning up the messes left by the previous, appeasing administration.

You and your leftist (I know you call yourself a conservative but that just shows the depth of your delusion) buddies, if left to your own devices, would repeat history and likely see a different outcome from the first. Thank the Good Lord in Heaven that He saw fit to give us an adult in Washington in 2000.

[pgyanke]

> "It must just be a bunch of tennis and bocce courts."

Exactly... Saddam is a great sportsman just like King Louie from History of the World, Part I.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks ! Good article !

Iraq's behavior could not offer a starker contrast. Instead of a commitment to disarm, Iraq has a high-level political commitment to maintain and conceal its weapons, led by Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay, who controls the Special Security Organization, which runs Iraq's concealment activities. Instead of implementing national initiatives to disarm, Iraq maintains institutions whose sole purpose is to thwart the work of the inspectors. And instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie.

For example, the declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad, its manufacture of specific fuel for ballistic missiles it claims not to have, and the gaps previously identified by the United Nations in Iraq's accounting for more than two tons of the raw materials needed to produce thousands of gallons of anthrax and other biological weapons.

Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text. Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program.

Unlike other nations that have voluntarily disarmed — and in defiance of Resolution 1441 — Iraq is not allowing inspectors "immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted access" to facilities and people involved in its weapons program....

etc...

[freebilly]

if Dumbya had an honest bone in his body he would explain where the money for fighting his insane war will come from.

I say we suck the oil out of Iraq after the war. If we go to war we go to win, and we better be strong enough to take the spoils, too.....

[Torie]

Conservatives like myself

That's a mouthful. If you are a conservative, I am an extreme right winger. No one has suggested yet that that appellation fits me. Typically, the suggestion is that at best, I am a moderate, and at worst, a hideous left wing disrupter.

By the way, you would be more effective if you eschewed calling folks ad hominum names, like "Dumbya" or anything else. You will notice I never do that about anyone, including calling Democrats "rats." Nope, never ever do I do that, and I am proud of it. Name callers tend to be folks devoid of substance. Not always, but there is a considerable correlation.