Not everyone got it wrong on WMD

IHT ^ | 2-6-04 | scott ritter

[eagles]

WASHINGTON: 'We were all wrong," David Kay, the Bush administration's former top weapons sleuth in Iraq, recently told members of Congress after acknowledging that there were probably no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Kay insisted that the blame for the failure to find any such weapons lay with the U.S. intelligence community, which, according to Kay, provided inaccurate assessments.

[eagles]

Like everyone else, I thought Ritter was nuts to think IRaq had been effectively disarmed before the war. Like everyone else I fully expected that we would find stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Like everyone else, I thought France and Germany would have egg all over their "faces' after we could show proof that our intelligence on Saddam was correct. Am I the only conservative who's a bit disillusioned with the fact that the major objective for going to war with Iraq didn't pan out?

[n.y.muggs]

I always thought the major objective of invading Iraq was to fight terrorism and defend the Homeland. And we were right.

On this WMD garbage, Sadddam used them in past, never accounted for the remaining WMD. Lets move on.

[prairiebreeze]

Is there a link for this missive purportedly from Scott Ritter? As far as your question, see tagline

Prairie

[GROOVY]

WMD could be produced by Saddam in a few hours, if he did not have them stockpiled, so it is essentially irrelevant in my opinion. Was Scott Ritter the guy charged as a child molester?

[hole_n_one]

[babble-on]

I'm not disillusioned, but that's because I never thought his possession of these weapons was the issue. I was more impressed by his desire for them, and his proven willingness to use them.

[cripplecreek]

This sounds like a matter of definition to me. It seems that democrats are looking for stock piles that cover acres and fill warehouses. The truth is that its an unlikely scenario. In reality those stockpiles could fit in refrigerators. A hole the size saddam was found in could hold enough anthrax to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

[america-rules]

"Am I the only conservative who's a bit disillusioned with the fact that the major objective for going to war with Iraq didn't pan out? "

No, you're just not up on all the facts for going to war!

[thoughtomator]

We're not even close to done with our search. To say it didn't pan out is very premature.

[cripplecreek]

Hey! put a baseball cap and a mustard stained shirt on him and you get a dead ringer for Michael Moore.

[mikegi]

You left out part of the byline:

WASHINGTON (Burger King on 2012 P Street, N. W. Washington, DC 20036):

[NutCrackerBoy]

Am I the only conservative who's a bit disillusioned with the fact that the major objective for going to war with Iraq didn't pan out?

I am disillusioned because the political fallout of the missing WMDs is hurting the War on Terror. I am disillusioned that the media kneejerks to an adversarial position against any war, and against any Republican president, and thus endeavors to suppress the message that we are fighting a difficult war, and the successful invasion of Iraq is a victory in that war. They suppress the message that the liberation of this pivotal Middle East country will transform that dangerous region.

[thoughtomator]

Oh yes, and the WMDs were not a major reason to go to war... the media made that out to be the case since it was a sexy topic, but that never was the case. The primary case was the decades of breaches of the 1991 ceasefire, his repeated stated intentions to attack the US, collaboration with terrorists, his repeated wars of aggression, and the impossibility of turning him out (or his sons, for yet another generation or more of that madness) in any other way.

[camas]

i would like to point out that Saddam was not found in one of his palaces. just because the WMD are not in the warehouses where they should be does not mean to me, that they are all gone.

[InterceptPoint]

Theis has probably been beat to death on FR but I still have this nagging question ringing in my ears after hearning Dr. Kay tell us that there are no WMDs in Iraq. That question is:

How in the heck does he know? And what has he offered as proof to demonstrate the truth of this claim?

My problem with all of this is that it is very hard to prove a negative and that is what is going on now. Does Kay in fact know for certain that Saddam didn't bury all of his chemical weapons in concrete bunkers for future use? How could anyone possibly know that he didn't?

[VOA]

(Repost of a post I made on another WMD thread; note the article claims that the
"just in time" WMD production capability was also apparently on hold...at least that
is the way it appears at this time...)


A good article about the WMD situation is in the current Atlantic Monthly at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/pollack.htm

While this article is, to some degree, a CYA article by Clinton Admin. official
Kenneth Pollack, readers can't miss one main message:
Even up to the day that the tanks rolled into Iraq, the French, the Germans, the Russians,
the Chinese (etc.) all thought that Saddam had WMDs...and the only real question was
what to do about it.

My inexpert guess is that future US Presidents are still going to be in Dubya's debt...
he aborted any possibility that nutburgers like Saddam, Usay, or Quasay would reactivate
their "on-hold" WMD programs...
as well as flushing Khaddafi into the open and even squeezing North Korea a fair bit.
If we (G-d FORBID IT!) get a President Kerry, he'll be the beneficiary of Dubya's
moral strenght in "pulling the trigger".

[maestro]

Not everyone got it wrong on WMD ......

Exactly,......where are those 3 "SH-Mystery-Ships"...and their cargoes?

(I know nothing!......nothing here,....please, ignore.)

[RonDog]

Is there a link for this missive purportedly from Scott Ritter?

Here is a link to the ORIGINAL article, from the International Herald Tribune (2/6/04)

[Timm]

Hussein's government's history, along with his defiance of international demands for oversight, justified going to war. This was true since 1998, in my view.

For my part, I've been frustrated the administration emphasized actual possession of weapons as the cause of war to the extent it did. They've got a p.r. problem of their own making, now. A gamble they didn't have to take.

[evad]

great tagline...and so true.