U.S. Comes Up Empty in Iraq Weapons Hunt

Associated Press ^ | 04-23-03

[Brian S]

Looks the press is about to start beating this drum so more. Had sort of taken a backseat since the Peterson story broke.

[ElectricStrawberry]

All the appeaseniks wanted to give the Blixster more time....more time....more time, but give the military 1 month? Hell no, we won't go.

[plain talk]

1 month WHILE AT THE SAME TIME battling people that want to kill them.

[onedoug]

They gassed the Iranians and Kurds. Whatever happened to the rest of that stuff is anyone's guess. But we were right to remove Sadist Hussein, whether we ever find a damned thing related to WMD, or not.

[freeper12]

>>All the appeaseniks wanted to give the Blixster more time....more time....more time, but give the military 1 month?

Good point...on the otherhand, I am sensing that some in the administration are starting to get nervous of the possibility that none will be found...if they don't, it will be a disaster for Bush. He won't be able to spin himself out of it..

My prediction is that no real "stockpile" will be found...just evidence that a stockpile once existed so the whole issue will remain as clear as mud with both sides claiming victory.(pro-war/anti-war sides that is)

[I'm ALL Right!]

Of course we didn't find anything...we're not searching in Syria.

[Aaron0617]

Of course we didn't find anything...we're not searching in Syria.

Helen Thomas asked: "If nothing was found will Bush make a statement and apologize to the American people?"

[ex-Texan]

I listed to 'Coast-to-Coast' last night. The guest was a writer -- Steve Quayle -- and he said the U.S. discovered hundreds (maybe thousands) of barrels of nasty chemicals. But we are keeping the discoveries under wraps for now.

Reason: "Made in ________" was printed all over the barrels filled with illegal materials. N'uff said.

[RaceBannon]

Good Grief

Cyanide and Mustard Gas in the Euphrates

Chemical warheads found

warheads for rockets that tested positive for Nerve Agents/Chem agents

False walls inside those radar vans with chemical mixing valves and a refrigeration unit attached

None of those were debunked.

What gives?

[Mr. Mojo]

1 month WHILE AT THE SAME TIME battling people that want to kill them.

While it took the UN inspectors around 2 years to find anything after the Gulf War, and only then because we got hot tips from Iraqis on the ground.

[kesg]

The scientist in this story reportedly told us that WMDs were destroyed a few days before the war, but the precursor material used to make these weapons were hidden rather than destroyed. If his account is true, then Saddam's failure to declare and destroy these weapons earlier is a slam dunk violation of Resolution 1441. Even the NYT reporter who wrote the story conceded this point.

I don't see how the left can argue with a straight face that the mere fact that Saddam destroyed these weapons a few days before the war somehow proves that we had no good reason to believe that he had them in the first place. To the contrary, this fact proves our case -- you can't destroy what you didn't have.

[alnick]

if they don't, it will be a disaster for Bush.

Not true. We've already got information that THEY DISPOSED OF THEM, or some of them, RIGHT BEFORE THE WAR STARTED.

That is the smoking gun.

Using the logic of those who say that the actual weapons must be found or the war wasn't justified in spite of what has come out is like saying that a murder victim is not really dead if the murder weapon is never found.

If SH disposed of all of the WMD just before the war started, then this war disarmed him. If he disposed of some of the WMD just before the war started, we've still neutralized him.

[Dr. Frank fan]

U.S. Comes Up Empty in Iraq Weapons Hunt

Hmm, misleading headline - as if the Weapons Hunt is over, time's up

were the mains reasons given by the administration for the war, which did not get U.N. approval.

Yes it did - resolution 1441 was all the approval needed. Just because the French pretended otherwise doesn't make it so.

Hans Blix, the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, commented Tuesday

Why?? And why are we listening?? Who is Hans Blix??

Anyway, I do have to say that this development surprises me somewhat. I really don't know what to make of the no-WMDs problem. Don't get me wrong: I absolutely believe that Iraq had a thriving chemical and biological weapons program. I also believed, however, that they had such weapons ready for use during the war - and that they might be used against our troops as they attacked - which appears not to have happened (thank God).

When it apparently didn't happen, it was fair to wonder why. Personally, I made an uneducated guess: Because in the buildup to war, we had gathered intelligence on the main sites with chem/bio weapons, and we sent in special ops to neutralize such sites - stuff like that. I've been assuming all along that something along these lines is what went on, why we saw no attacks.

The problem is, had that been true, we'd have been able to unveil those sites by now. Under my little ignorant uneducated-guess hypothesis: special ops would have gone in, neutralized whatever chem/bio weapons sites we knew about or got hints about, secured them, then sat on them (or kept VERY close watch on them) for the duration of the war. After the war when the dust has settled, we'd therefore be able to show these sites to reporters.

Evidently that is not the case and some aspect of my uneducated guess is incorrect.

We don't have any Secured Neutralized Chem/Bio Weapons Sites to show to reporters. Which says to me that they don't exist.

One explanation: whatever such sites we knew about, we just bombed beyond recognition and turned them into craters. Can't find much evidence in a crater. But you'd still think that if we'd done this, we could take reporters to the crater... say there is trace nasty stuff in the area, etc. So I don't like this explanation.

But I still believe that Hussein had a chem/bio weapons program. There's really no doubt in my mind. So what happened to them?

The obvious answer is that they're all in Syria now (which is distressing because it means we now have to turn to Syria). Leftists really won't like this answer: they'll say it "looks like" we're just making this stuff up and then attacking whatever country we feel like. And they'll be right: it does "look like" that, whether or not it's true. The reason this is bad is that it will make it very politically difficult to do what may be a very necessary thing, go after Syria.

[ContentiousObjector]

Why the hell would Iraq give up their chemical weapons to Syria when they were about to be invaded and any chemical weapons they might have had were the only potent weapons available to them?

[alethia]

"Made In ____"

Any clues? Us/US?

[alnick]

Why the hell would Iraq give up their chemical weapons to Syria when they were about to be invaded and any chemical weapons they might have had were the only potent weapons available to them?

Because those particular weapsons were virtually useless against our troops, who were very prepared for them.

[ContentiousObjector]

We've already got information that THEY DISPOSED OF THEM, or some of them, RIGHT BEFORE THE WAR STARTED.

Right... your about to be invaded by the most powerful military in the world and your going to destroy the only real weapons available to you?.

Any who believes that Iraq either gave weapons to Syria or destroyed them just before the start of the war will believe absolutly ANYTHING

[Dr. Frank fan]

Why the hell would Iraq give up their chemical weapons to Syria when they were about to be invaded and any chemical weapons they might have had were the only potent weapons available to them?

That's a very good question. A similar good question is: if they didn't give (all) their chem/bio weapons to Syria before the war, and what they kept wasn't neutralized and sat on by our military (which seems not to be the case, otherwise we'd presumably be able to show the results to reporters), why didn't they use these chem/bio weapons during the war?

The only possible answer I have thought of: perhaps Hussein thought, even up until the very end, that he could actually avoid being invaded by the US/Britain using diplomatic maneuvers (and bribes) at the UN. In other words: he still thought that he had some kind of chance of winning the PR battle, and he thought that eventually this could be enough to turn back the Americans.

If so, obviously, he had to make sure that Blix found nothing and he couldn't even use such weapons while being invaded (and prove the Americans right).

I'm not saying that I believe this whole explanation is definitely true. I'm saying that it's the only possibility which makes sense to me. There may be others which I simply haven't thought of.

Incidentally, if my explanation is actually the correct one, it would be highly ironic. It would mean that, in effect, we played and won a game of "Good Cop/Bad Cop" against Hussein - and the French/Germans/Belgians/Russians were the "Good Cops" - and they didn't even know it. According to this theory, by being such convincing bribery/appeasement candidates (because they really were bribed by Hussien and really did argue for appeasement), the F/G/B/R weenies actually helped us defeat Hussein and prevented him from using chem/bio weapons against, even if this was never their intent.

but hey, it's only a theory.

[Belial]

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before some anthrax is "found".

[Smedley]

Hans Blix, the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, commented Tuesday on the lack of U.S. findings. "It is conspicuous that so far they have not stumbled upon anything," he said in New York.

Ah, yes. Blix can't turn up squat in 12 years, but the US should have it done after a full month, three weeks of which was combat.