Posted on 03/09/2010 6:15:31 PM PST by retrogo
Looks like Jim-0 has left the (heated) building.
Well I’m not sure it all has been fully explained and I agree with you on the starting point of the war. However, at that time, Hussein was mouthing off and had been ignoring the UN Resolutions etc etc...and that was ongoing even before 9-11. Bush, I believe had this on his mind as well. He had advisors that apparently agreed on Iraq being the starting point. Personally I think Osama is dead and felt that from the beginning wave on Afghanistan.
Any movie with Greg Kinnear in a lead role is bound to be a dud. I hope this thing is the mother of all flops.
The invasion was also justified on the grounds that Saddam had refused to comply with the terms of the peace treaty that formally ended Desert Storm. This is undeniable. He reneged on inspections and shot at our surveillance planes in the no-fly zone. He continued to sponsor terror and to provide safe harbor to terrorists. Thus, the invasion of Iraq was actually a continuation of Desert Storm. Saddam refused to let himself be defanged, and he paid the price.
Bush had legal justification from Congress, and the overwhelming support of US citizens (if polls mean anything).
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/57506/sec_id/57506
http://davidbellavia.com/2010/new-english-review-article-on-british-iraq-inquiry-must-read/
Article unpacks the recent formal hearings the British held over their participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Carson’s piece not only brings attention to the “Day of Judgement,” which many in the media ignored, but revisits much of the Iraq war debate. Christopher layers his argument flawlessly and made me think twice about the reasons we went to war in the first place.
The Worst of Intentions
Saddam wanted to keep his surge-production abilities in BW as well as in CW. As Duelfer described, a “break-out production capability” in BW existed at one site, the State Company for Drug Industries and Medical Appliances, SDI, at Samarra. ISG judged that Saddam could surge production of Anthrax spores within four months if he so desired. Let us assume that four months is not exactly a safe timeframe for our intelligence community to both detect and disrupt the anthrax threat before a hand-off to the terrorist group. To put it mildly.
Maybe this is why Dr. David Kay, Duelfer’s predecessor at ISG, reported to Congress in October 2003 that one scientist was ordered to conceal reference strains of BW organisms like anthrax, ricin and Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever in his own refrigerator, which he turned over to ISG. The scientist knew of the location of other, much larger seed stockpiles, but these were unsurprisingly missing when ISG investigators showed up to collect them. Similarly, most of the hard drives, written reports, and lab samples suspected of being BW in refrigerators were deliberately and selectively vandalized and destroyed shortly before the coalition forces arrived, according to Dr. Kay.
Keep in mind: the real danger to Americans was not that Saddam would use chemical weapons in a final battle against American forces invading his country. Our forces can protect themselves against nearly every unconventional weapon with the gear and supplies they’re trained to use. The real danger was that Saddam would hand over smaller quantities (not battlefield quantities) of his anthrax spores to the next Mohammed Atta, who would then rent a crop-duster plane in Cedar Rapids and spray the good stuff all over Des Moines at rush hour. That was the danger we went to war over. It doesn’t take much more than one 155 millimeter shell filled with mustard gas to dump into the HEVAC system of the NBC Building in Chicago. Shortly before OIF, Hans Blix, of all people, found fourteen of these 155 mm shells filled with mustard gas, which totaled approximately 49 liters and was still at high purity (more than 90% concentrate). Blix’s UNMOVIC also found, among other things:
Approximately 500 ml of thiodiglycol
Some 122 mm chemical warheads
Some chemical equipment
224.6 kg of expired growth media
50 Al-Samoud II missiles
Thanks for that information, which was very interesting. I seem to recall Andrew McCarthy, or another of NRO’s terrorist experts, also writing something about how we couldn’t, or at least didn’t, reveal all that we knew about the whereabouts of Saddam’s stockpiles.
I must say, it’s frustrating to see Bush blamed even for the things he did right, whereas Obama gets a pass for blunders the size of Pluto. I hope history is kinder to Bush than journalists and the like have been up till now.
What BP winner do you base that on?
Matt Damon? figures.
Everyone posts in threads on subjects that interest them.
Can anyone here confirm the reports of significant traces of outlawed chemicals being found in the Euphrates River shortly after our invasion? I recall reading news stories to that effect, but the story seems to have disappeared.
The suspicion is that while most of the hardware and chemicals were sent to Syria, some last-minute discoveries of overlooked chemical stockpiles had to be disposed of quickly by the Baathists, thus they got dumped in the nearest large river.
Thank you for that. Very interesting. What did you believe about the war before reading this?
Better yet. Saddam himself admitted to Army interrogators that he pretended they had WMD’S in order to frighten Iran.
Oh...if you follow the link, these are the words of guy writing the article, not me.
lol...ok. Thanks again.
Good post Outlaw....also remember, it was Blair and Powell who wanted UN permission under the WMD case....VP Cheney did NOT.
Pres Bush listened to both, and went with Blair.
I will bet he regrets it now, since he get no credit for arguing with the UN FOR 14 MONTHS!
Just the other day I heard some jerk on TV say that GWB “shoots first, asks questions later”.
Oops. Um, yes that would be $12.6 million, not $12 and 60 cents.
Just wanna clear that up.
Don’t forget the semi trailers that were converted into mobile chemical labs.
He’s just riding on the coattails one of his mentors, Clooney.
Despite how anti-America Redford is, I'll always watch The Natural.
We would have ended up fighting like cats and dogs. ;-)
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