Iraqi regime reportedly plans attacks with WMD from the air

Kuwait News Agency ^ | KUNA

[SamAdams76]

I am getting the uneasy feeling we are going to be eating heaping gobs of crow over these wmd's.

Who cares anymore if we find them or not? The whole world has seen the way that Saddam's regime paraded and abused our POWs (just wait until the full story of PFC Lynch comes out), the way they killed their own civilians, the way they hid massive amounts of weapons in schools and hospitals, the way they hided in mosques, the list goes on. Also, it is apparent that the Iraqi people have been brutalized by this regime, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg of those horror stories. When the full story of Saddam's regime comes out, people who criticize us for liberating Iraq are going to look like the nutcases who still defend Adolph Hitler and say that the Holocaust never happened.

Besides, we dropped something like 15,000 bombs in Iraq already. We can always just say that our bombs must have destroyed the stocks of WMDs (as they probably did).

[jerseygirl]

I imagine his military leaders keep feeding him good news. Doesn't he tend to kill those who bring him news he doesn't want to hear?

[AFPhys]

Several quick responses here:

The primary means Saadumb used against the Kurds and Iranians were (primarily) mortar and (secondarily) artillery.

There have been no attempts by the Iraqis to get off a runway because we have controlled them totally from about day two or three, and they are totally blind when it comes to radar and knowing the field of action. Any plane that even starts to taxi we know about immediately, and Gen.Myers stated about a week ago that we have a fighter cap flying 24/7 just wishing for an opportunity - one which has not materialized.

The "ultralight" threat is still there since it could be launched from a building in Bdad - barely there - but it is not much of a real threat given the amount which could be delivered and the weaponry trained on the poor bloke up in the air.

There have been persistent reports from defectors and other Iraqis, including Saadumb's son, of massive underground complexes Saadumb has built, minimally under Tikrit and Baghdad. I suspect far more than that, and wouldn't even completely rule out a Science Fiction-like subway all the way to Syria. We KNOW these underground facilities exist, and if Saadumb had truly been "cooperating with the UN" he would have taken Blix et al on a tour of those complexes within a week of their arrival. That he didn't, and that the inspectors didn't demand that, was always the acid test of the measure of cooperation and the "seriousness" of the "inspectors", and everyone on the Security Council and the "inspectors" know it. (I even have gotten away with suggesting this on DUh and the other liberal peaceniks I've engaged personally, by the way. It reduces them to rubble.)

As far as IgnoranceIsBlix - leave him alone and let him suffer in his retirement, and let him put a bullet into his own head in due time (literally or figuratively).

[Adder]

I understand all of that. HOWEVER, the stated aim of this war was to disarm Iraq and to remove the wmd's. In order to remove the wmd's we would have to effect regime change. It was never stated until the last stages of diplomacy in an almost desperate attempt to get started that this was a war of liberation. That the Iraqi regime turned out to be worse than advertised is a bonus, imho.

Domesticly,Dubya is going to have a massive[and I fear fatal] pr problem and Republicans in general will pay dearly if there are no weapons found. Internationally, the chortling from France will be unbearable and humiliating. As a "superpower" we will be wounded for years after such a debacle.

No amount of spin about freeing the Iraqi people will fix that.

[UCANSEE2]

President Bush could end up having a PR problem, but only if GOOD MEN DO NOTHING.

If we let the LEFT, the DU's, the MEDIA, the IDIOTS WIN, it is because WE, the GOOD MEN/WOMEN, did nothing to stop them.

[UCANSEE2]

P.S. Here is an interesting question.

If, after we finish Liberating the Iraqi Citizens, and find no evidence of WMD's, and the LEFT attempts to destroy President BUSH......
WILL YOU LAY YOUR LIFE ON THE LINE ? Will you do what it takes to support the PRESIDENT against these idiots, like our SOLDIERS are PUTTING THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE TO KEEP YOUR FREEDOM and WAY OF LIFE?

I am so mad. When a 20 year old Conservative Christian FEMALE risks her life to protect herself and her fellow soldiers in a gun battle, while a 60-year old has-been actor mouths off about how wrong the war is/how wrong the President is......
when I am not crying, I just want to kill something.

[American in Israel]

If they DID try it, they have had more than SIX months to prepare for such an attack

And with six months they don't need planes. They would just preplace the warheads. This is more Arab bluster is my guess.

[sheik yerbouty]

They'll attach a few boogers to that!

[veryconernedamerican]

this is a non-issue we will find the weapons period, if they didn't have them, we would still find them. france will not say a thing because it would cost them too much money at this point, it is over. we win

[aruanan]

Nope, I think Saddam will use ultralights...(under the radar)

Under the radar refers to ground-based radar. Coalition forces aren't depending on Iraqi ground-based radar.

[PoisedWoman]

Good list and I hope you're right. Even if Saddam is gone and/or dead, some crazed general may set off WMD in the center of Baghdad designed to look like we did it. High-ranking Saddamites know they face tribunals, the noose, or life imprisonment. Why wouldn't they plan one last megasuicide run at us or at the people of Baghdad?

Rational people would not, but we're not talking about rational people. Saddamism is a mental illness.

[PoisedWoman]

wouldn't even completely rule out a Science Fiction-like subway all the way to Syria.

Could be. There has been an oil pipeline running underground between the two countries for years. The 1957 Polish archeological team clunked into it accidentally on a dig at Palmyra, in the middle of the Syrian desert 270 km from the Iraq border.

[Almondjoy]

Some of them have been "hidden".. how I don't know but I read early in the war that we bombed airfields with planes that ended up being mock ups.

[SamAdams76]

The anti-Bush anti-Americans are going to still hate Bush even if they find a billion tons of chemical weapons and enough nuclear weapons to destroy Earth a thousand times over in Iraq.

I say again, even if we find not a single WMD in Iraq, it is not going to matter to the vast majority of the American people. Saddam had to go. He was a threat to the security of this country. Period. And most rational people realize that.

[Colt .45]

What's he gonna deliver 'em with? R/C planes with the cannisters rubber-banded to the bellies of them? His air farce is non-existant. Sounds to me like someone is smoking some hash.

[ellery]

what about POWs infected with black smallpox? It doesn't necessarily have to be aerial...

[Adder]

I agree that there is a core of voters who would not be swayed to vote for Bush if he could make the lame walk and the blind see. BUT the next election will be for the casual voters...the ones who view themselves as oh-so-fair moderates or who do not pay much attention until election time. Then, a credible charge that "Bush lied about wmd's" will stick and the ignorant mouthings will take hold.

I argue with these people all the time and it is appalling how they know so little and make their choices using that flawed knowlege. To hear them parrot what they hear from Daschle et al would be comedic if it wasn't so serious. They are ripe for the dem attacks and the support from an anti-Bush media.

[I_dmc]

How far is the Iranian border from Baghdad?

[samtheman]

I hope our people are safe too. It does seem less likely that they'll use chem now that we're in the city, but it's still a nerve-wracking thought.