Posted on 04/01/2003 6:11:17 AM PST by TonyInOhio
CNN TV has reported this morning that Allied forces "may have found chemical weapons at Ansar al Islam camp in Northern Iraq".
The Agonist weblog comments on hearing the same:
Allied forces may have found chemical weapons at a camp of the radical Islamist group, Ansar al Islam, in northern Iraq, reported CNN on April 1.
National Review Online has a similar tease:
ANSLAR AL ISLAM & WMD [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
CNN On Air is reporting suspected chemcial/bioweapon evidence found at the camp seized over the weekend.
Any real gov't cannot claim ignorance of such activity within its own borders for very long.
It's not about "ceasefire agreeements." It's about WMDs in the hands of terrorists.
If WMDs are found inside of Iraqs' borders, they're Hussein's responsibility.
You seem to have a unique role on these threads. That role always seems to involve exculpating Saddam, in some way.
Why do you feel the need to do that? Do you feel sorry for him?
They will only need to see deaths from these and then they will cheer.
Yes, indeed. But the post I responded to and the innuendo of previous remarks meant to implicate Saddam, not terrorists in general. The justification for attacking Saddam is grounded in the parameters of the 1991 ceasefire agreement and nothing further.
If WMDs are found inside of Iraqs' borders, they're Hussein's responsibility.
Umm, no it's not, unless it's his responsibility. This is an intellectually bankrupt position to hold. If Saddam doesn't control that part of Iraq, whatever is found there is clearly not his responsibility.
You seem to have a unique role on these threads. That role always seems to involve exculpating Saddam, in some way.
Ironically enough, I just posted this to another thread:
To: alnick
I fully agree with your points, but I'm just commenting on the PR aspects. If these Al Samouds are all that was found, then opponents would naturally respond that they would've been destroyed by inspections since that was already underway. I doubt any of this will matter though, because it should become abundantly clear what all Saddam has once he fires it at our troops..
47 posted on 04/01/2003 9:40 AM EST by AntiGuv (™)
Why do you feel the need to do that?
Because my comments involve reality, and there are many who wish to ignore reality when it doesn't conform to their desires. If that conflicts with your personal view of the world, that's unfortunate.
Do you feel sorry for him?
Not in the slightest. I'm quite pleased he's getting removed; I'm far less pleased that any of our people have to die in the process. Otherwise, I don't really care much what happens to Iraq (i.e. 'liberation') but I am 98% convinced they have deployable WMDs. Beyond all that, I would not have chosen to pursue his removal in this particular manner, but my opinions are irrelevant in that respect. What's done is now done, and that's good enough for me.
On Monday, ABC said "No Signs of Chemical Weapons. No 'Smoking Gun' at Ansar Al-Islam Camp"
Even then they would claim that the video was a fake produced by the Pentagon. You simply are not going to convince people who will claim grass is pink just because George Bush says it's green, no matter what evidence you have.
You're kidding, of course?
"Everybody" knows we (Reagan, naturally) helped Saddam in his chemical weapons program when he was in the Iran/Iraq War and gave him the anthrax. Therefore, if we find this stuff, it is really our fault.
Thus sayeth the Left, and when we find it they will say it even louder!
Facts mean nothing. Slogans and lying propaganda mean everything. It's that "Post-Modern" truth, again....
Nope, the leftists would claim Saddam was just a coke dealer.
Naah. They'll just say it was one of his doubles.
Now, I have no particular view on whether they actually collaborated with Saddam...
That means I have a neutral position on whether or not these terrorists collaborated with Saddam or other Baghdad authorities, because I have insufficient information from which to draw a conclusion. However, I would add this as an aside: If Saddam wanted these particular terrorists to have WMD, then it seems reasonable to conclude that he would simply hand them refined, weaponized anthrax/sarin/whatever, rather than leave them brewing crude ricin in makeshift labs up in the mountains....
I brought that matter up before, and was vigorously flamed for my observation. I did not relish a repeat of that experience...
Does this org.have WMD? Yes!
Did Hussein give safe harbor to this group/ Yes!
Game! Set! Match!
So, Saddam would have let us go in and take them out then < /naive>
Ummm....seems I heard somewhere a saying that goes "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"...
Ansar Al-Islam: Iraq's Al-Qaeda Connection
An excerpt:
Intelligence officials told me that the agency also takes seriously reports that an Iraqi known as Abu Wa’el, whose real name is Saadoun Mahmoud Abdulatif al-Ani, is the liaison of Saddam’s intelligence service to a radical Muslim group called Ansar al-Islam, which controls a small enclave in northern Iraq; the group is believed by American and Kurdish intelligence officials to be affiliated with Al Qaeda. I learned of another possible connection early last year, while I was interviewing Al Qaeda operatives in a Kurdish prison in Sulaimaniya. There, a man whom Kurdish intelligence officials identified as a captured Iraqi agent told me that in 1992 he served as a bodyguard to Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy, when Zawahiri secretly visited Baghdad.
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