Saddam had no WMD for a decade, report says

Seattle Times via LA Times ^ | 10/7/04 | Bob Drogin and Greg Miller

[foreverfree]

snip

WASHINGTON — Saddam Hussein did not produce or possess any weapons of mass destruction for more than a decade before the U.S.-led invasion last year, according to a comprehensive CIA report released yesterday.

Saddam intended to someday reconstitute his illicit programs and rebuild at least some of his weapons if United Nations sanctions were eased and he had the opportunity, the report concluded. But the Iraqi regime had no formal, written strategy to revive the banned programs after sanctions, and no staff or infrastructure in place to do so, the investigators found.

snip

[hawkaw]

Everybody misses the point that it was Saddam's obligation, not Bush's, to proove Iraq did not have WMD. He never did. Well, too bad then.

Exactly. In fact as Saddam incidated in his interview he wanted to give the impression he had them.

But of course this won't be reported on the front pages.

[HenryLeeII]

We were told that Hussein was an iminent threat to the United States...

Yes, by Senators John Edwards and Robert Byrd. The president stated clearly more than once that we need to remove Hussein pre-eminently, and that he'd rather fight terrorism with our military on their soil rather than with first responders on the streets of our cities.

...and an active participant in terrorist strikes against us, and in the planning of future strikes.

Well, we know that it is likely an Iraqi official met with al-Qaeda operatives at the December 2000 Kuala Lampur conference in which details of the 9/11 attacks were discussed. He harbored known terrorists such as Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, and if I remember correctly several operatives have been picked up bearing Iraqi passports (including some involved in the first WTC attack in '93), so he was a link in their modus operandi. And then you have the Salman Pak training facility, located near Baghdad, and under the operational control of a non-Iraqi known simply as "the Ghost," so who was he, what organization was he affiliated with, and of the numerous people who trained there were any associated with 9/11?

So, before accepting the news headlines as fact, please read further into the reports that are released, and put it into the context of Hussein's history of development and use of WMD, his inability to account for the large stockpiles he told us he had after the end of the Gulf War, his active denial & deception programs coupled with his kicking out of U.N. inspectors, and the findings of the October 2003 Iraq Survey Group (please see my Reply 35 on this thread to read about the WMD-related programs and delivery systems).

Also, keep in mind that Kerry, Edwards, et. al, voted on a resolution to authorize the war that simply said Iraq had the "capacity to possess" WMD, not that they had large stockpiles; the lists of WMD that Colin Powell referred to during his appearance at the U.N. was based on what Hussein told us he had, but could not account for. Kerry can revise his vote all he wants by telling us his opinion of what he was voting for; however, senators voted for what was on the proposed resolution, otherwise it would mean 100 different things which would be nothing other than anarchy.

[HenryLeeII]

If it had only been us saying he had WMD, I might believe we screwed up. But you can't convince me that our intel, British intel, Russian intel, and virtually every government in the region that believed Iraq had WMD, were all wrong. They're there, or were moved to other places (Syria) during the footsie game with the UN.

Exactly. During the 15 months in which President Bush "rushed us into war," I guess Hussein had just enough time to truck them over to Syria, bury them in the sands of Iraq, or do whatever else with them.

[Peach]

An important post, Henry; thank you.

[HenryLeeII]

And thank you, Peach, for the kind comment. In the next few days the Kerry crowd will be crowing over the alleged findings of the new ISG report, so we must be prepared to make them eat crow instead!

[rang1995]

pooff(as in the french) thin air

[daler]

Exactly what I was thinking.

Amazing how "reports" harmful to GWB all seem to be coming out less than a month before the election.

[You Dirty Rats]

Perp pulls a gun on a cop and fires three shots. Cop returns fire and kills the perp. Turns out the perp used blanks. Using the logic of the no WMD crowd, the cop is guilty of premeditated murder.

[You Dirty Rats]

Why wouldn't the recon satellites picked up their movement? Several hundred miles is a lot of distance to move things underground.

Because the recon satellites saw trucks that had "Baby Milk" printed on the roofs rather than "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Oh, that tricky Saddam!

[You Dirty Rats]

Why wouldn't the recon satellites picked up their movement? Several hundred miles is a lot of distance to move things underground.

Because the recon satellites saw trucks that had "Baby Milk" printed on the roofs rather than "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Oh, that tricky Saddam!

[freestyle]

I'd like to see the similar type quotes from yesterday's report.

(more stuff the MSM doesn't want you to know)

[Austin Willard Wright]

So....are you suggesting that we send the marines to overthrow every dicatator who tortues his own people? Where do you intend to get the troops and money to pay for this grand Wilsonian crusade?

[freestyle]

>>>So....are you suggesting that we send the marines to overthrow every dictator who tortures his own people? Where do you intend to get the troops and money to pay for this grand Wilsonian crusade?


Why do people insist on making these comparisons? I've heard them go so far as to say "The United States has WMD. Should we invade ourselves?".

There are obviously many, many, many, many, many reasons and factors that go into a President's final decision on whether or not to use force. It is just plain disingenuous to argue that the ONLY reason to go to war was "the existence of ready to go stockpiles" or "the capability to create wmd" or "his torture of his own people" or "the threat that he might give or sell weapons to terrorists," or "his funding of outside terrorists" or "his connections to al-qaeda" or "his assassination attempt on an American president", or his "harboring of terrorists," etc, etc, etc.

See what I did there? Which one would you like to "pick off" and say, "See! We didn't need to go to war!"...

..."China has been known to torture thier own people, should we invade them?"

blah, blah, blah, I'm sick of that argument.

Sorry.

[carlyaxt]

Saadam was a WMD, offering 25,000 to bombers to kill Jews.

[HenryLeeII]

Correction ping. Jay Rockefeller referred to Iraq as an imminent threat, not Robert Byrd as I stated in #62.

[HenryLeeII]

Re: #62 [NOTE: I corrected in a later reply the names of the Dem'Rats who used the word 'imminent' by saying it was Jay Rockefeller, not Robert Byrd, his fellow West Virginia Democrat.]

[HenryLeeII]

Re: #35

[Eagle Eye]

What weapons? They never existed.

As a matter of fact, Saddam never existed either.

[snooker]

All these articles in the news assume one thing. No one reads the Duelfer report. If they did, people would laugh at stories like this.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Genius.