Pentagon in 2002 Found `No Reliable' Iraq Arms Data

Bloomberg ^ | June 6, 2003 | Bloomberg

[ejdrapes]

June 6 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. Defense Department report in September 2002 found ``no reliable information'' proving that Iraq had chemical weapons, even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was saying the country had amassed stockpiles of the banned arms.

The unreleased report said Iraq ``probably'' had stockpiles of banned chemicals, a more tentative conclusion than Rumsfeld was presenting in public remarks. Iraq has ``amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin and mustard gas,'' he told Congress on Sept. 19.

[steve50]

Serious and logical people know this is nonsense.

Serious and logical people know governments use whatever methods they can to justify taking the actions they want to take. Disinformation, fabrications, and outright lies included... as the klintoon administration would prove. Serious and logical people also know that partisan supporters will back any such methods.

[mewzilla]

Two measley labs? How many do you need to cook up enough anthrax to kill people? You have a very short term memory if you've forgotten the anthrax scare after 9-11. How much anthrax do you think was involved there?

[MizSterious]

Why is everyone ignoring what we've already found? I'm starting to wonder if it's going to take dropping a chem-coated warhead into the newsroom before anyone will admit that we've already found the evidence we need. Hussein was getting around the U.N. by keeping the components separated, but close enough to put together quickly if needed.

Like with the meth makers, the components alone were (mostly) "legal"--but together, they are lethal. We've found plenty. I can't believe these Freepers are dumb enough not to see what's going on.

[kevao]

One thing is certain: Saddam DID have chemical weapons once upon a time; thousands of Kurds found that out the hard way. Now either one of two scenarios is true:

1) Saddam continued to possess WMD, in which case we'll eventually find them, whether they're in Iraq, Syria or Iran.

2) Saddam destroyed all his WMD, in which case he was willing to lose his entire country, and perhaps his life, in order to hide that fact.

Scenario 1 is more plausible.

[Williams]

"Probably" does it for me.

[roses of sharon]

Obviously you are not serious or logical to believe in world-wide plots, that take hundreds of people to keep quiet, for years and years, only to ruin their reputations, and risk everything, knowing that when we entered the country we would find nothing?

Real life is not a Clancy novel.

[mewzilla]

I'm not ignoring it. What I do think is being ignored by poeple who have their heads in the sand, denying the WMD, is that if the damned things aren't in Iraq and weren't destroyed, then what happened to them? I hope Saddamn destroyed them or hid them in Iraq. If so, we'll find out eventually. What really scares the spit out of me is the prospect that some of them made it out of country. Then the naysayers just might find out 43 was right all along the hard way.

[steve50]

Real life is not a Clancy novel.

No, it is not. Real life has more powerful editors.

[MizSterious]

Agreed. And while I maintain we have already found what we were looking for, some, perhaps a lot, of it has made it into Syria and Iran--and from there who knows.

[Afronaut]

Saddam is/was a complete madman. What he did will will never resemble logic.

[hchutch]

Because they would have to admit they were wrong. It's either that or they have some passionate attachment to nasty dictators who hate the U.S.A.

[hchutch]

Bingo. We lost strategic surprise, and Saddam was able to hide a lot of it.

We're going to have to sweat the information out of people.

[faithincowboys]

So Bloomberg's liberal reporters have proved to your mind that Bush lied?

After the NYT debacle and decades of Leftist agenda driven reporting, I have no faith that this is the truth.

My, you're eager to believe the Left!

[faithincowboys]

It is funny-- every time a President tries to make Israel make concessions-- a media scandal or economic downturn or both arises. If I were Dubya, I wouldn't push Mideast peace too hard.

[templar]

Dissemble or stretch the truth would be more accurate.

That is deception using some of the truth for the purpose of credibility. That is lying. A lie is a lie; Period.

[Trueblackman]

First as a military man, you are tought to study your enemy and how you should get to know him. Saddam and his underlings had 7 years to study how the UN Inspectors went about their work and how to avoid and feed disinformation to the inspection teams.

Second Iraq is a country of mountains, swamps, flatland and desert so hid something from plan sight is easy. Remember the one underground bunker that was build so well under a parking lot in Baghdad that we did not know it was there until a lone Marine open a locked door that lead to the tunnel.

Third givern Saddam's mindset you would be a fool to believe that Saddam gave up on having WMD's when his very record and name in Arabic means "The one to confront."

[kevao]

Saddam is/was a complete madman. What he did will will never resemble logic.

Saddam was certainly a murderous thug, but I don't think he was mad. He didn't hang on to power in Iraq for 30 years by being suicidal. And for him to have destroyed his WMD and then to have tried to hide that fact, would have been suicidal.

[snooker]

Curious that the same people that voted to use force are now the ones yelling the loudest.

Dump-o-craps lie. That's all they know how to do. Simple as that.

When we find the weapons I wonder what everyone will say then.

But as far as I am concerned, since we haven't found Huesien, he didn't exist either.

[roses of sharon]

So now it's the "powerful editors" controlling the world!

I quess we will have to agree to disagree.

[templar]

``It's pretty clear that the intelligence judgments concerning Iraq weapons of mass destruction did not undergo a major change between the Clinton and Bush administrations,''

Shifting the blame to Clinton is getting rather old. Time for the Republicans to stand up and take responisbility for themselves. Unless they want to aknowelege that Clinton is their de facto leader; after all, they did spend a lot of years saying 'yes sir Mr. Clinton. What would you like us to do now, mr. Clinton?'.