The Case For War Is Blown Apart

Independent UK ^ | 05-29-03

[Alberta's Child]

Any of the involved parties at the close of the Gulf War had the perogative to re-start hostilities if Saddam was in non-compliance of the cease-fire terms, which he was.

Where did you get that from? The rationale for the first Gulf War was that the U.S. had to enforce U.N. resolutions ordering Iraq to get out of Kuwait. This itself was a disgrace, and I said so at the time.

[Stone Mountain]

This proves the point that real Americans are making - You say we gave them bio weapons and then you say they don't have them. Which is it?

For one thing, I don't appreciate the implication that I'm not a "real American" for questioning this. If you wish to discuss this with me, please leave out the ad hominem. When our government tells us that WMDs "are what this war is about" and later says they may not have any, I think "real Americans" should wonder about exactly what is going on. As for your question, it could be both. We weren't just claiming that that Iraq once had a WMD program, we claimed that they had (I think) around 30,000 tons of them at the time we attacked them. The weapons (or weapon precursors) we supplied them was over 12 years ago. That isn't evidence of current WMDs, that's evidence of past WMDs. I don't think it's unreasonable to have the US and UK substantiate the claims they made prior to the war, those same claims that we used as a justification to go to war.

[hchutch]

And all I'm asking you to do is exercise common sense, which you seem to have resisted doing so far.

Explain away the chemical weapons suits, the atropine injectors, and all that stuff. Somehow, the Iraqis figured they would need them. We're looking for needles in a haystack that is about the size of Texas, and the perp has had five years in which to hide the needles.

[hchutch]

I'm betting he was handing stuff off as fast as he could produce it.

We moved fast, but since we lost strategic surprise, they have have ditched enough ofthe records so we don't know who has what.

[gitmo]

Iraq agreed in their surrender terms to document and account for the destruction of all their WMDs. They failed to do either. All they could do was say, "We destroyed them. And we never had them, anyway."

[Stone Mountain]

Our best intelligence was that they had WMD's. If they destroyed them right before the start of the war, how does that disprove our intelligence? The mobile bio-labs were known to our intelligence and were subsequently proven to exist. So our intelligence was correct.

They were able to destroy tons and tons of evidence that we knew about through our intelligence without a trace? There should be more evidence of this other than a couple of mobile labs that were sterilized.

[colorado tanker]

Yeah, some of those Baathists still on the loose could have some stocks. Great.

[dirtboy]

Where did you get that from? The rationale for the first Gulf War was that the U.S. had to enforce U.N. resolutions ordering Iraq to get out of Kuwait.

And that conflict was never ended by treaty, just suspended by cease-fire. Here is a specific term of that cease-fire:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:

(a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;

And, if Iraq were to violate terms of that cease-fire or other subsequent agreements, the other parties in the war could resume hostilities. A cease-fire is NOT a peace treaty. This itself was a disgrace, and I said so at the time.

[Alberta's Child]

This reasoning would be absolutely correct if Iraq were a defendant in a criminal trial (for the crime of: possessing weapons of mass destruction) and the U.S. and the U.K. were its prosecutors. That is not the situation, however. The situation is almost nothing like that, in any way.

So when some militant Islamic jackass from Yemen or Pakistan claims that the Mossad was behind the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., you'r telling me that the burden is on Israel to prove that they were not?

And, isn't that what we did, thumb our noses at the UN for disingenuously failing to enforce their own phony rules?

You can't complain about "phony rules" in this context, since they were put in place at the behest of the U.S. after the first Gulf War.

Then you must not believe the '91 Gulf War occurred. After all: we placed thousands of U.S. military personnel in Kuwait (at least), and: we knew that Iraq had various WMDs - at least, that's what leftists always tell me; in fact according to leftists we're the ones who supplied the WMDs to some extent. Right? Well, I believe the '91 Gulf War occurred in spite of all that. I guess that makes me "naive" and you know better.

The most current version of the events surrpounding the first Gulf War was that President Bush essentially laid out to Iraq all the elements of a U.S. response to a WMD attack. I hate to sound cynical, but I have a hard time taking anything like this seriously when it starts to smell like a staged event instead of a truly necessary military action.

[Stone Mountain]

I agree. Now we need to show that the weapons actually existed. It's not that I don't think they're out there - I think we need to find them to have any credibility in the rest of the world.

[Alberta's Child]

Example -- You overhear your neighbor talking about how he likes to molest children. You tell the police about it but they say there is nothing they can do about because they can't find the proof. Do you continue to let your children play at the neighbor's house?

You certainly don't let your children play there, but do you burn the guy's house to the ground?

Maybe you do -- But if I were so certain that this was necessary, I'd be burning the police station to the ground, too.

[Puddleglum]

I think they'll find the weapons, if not in Iraq then in Syria; but the time it is taking to find them does show how sketchy our intelligence has been in terms of people on the ground keeping an eye on things. I think we are seeing a consequence of the de-fanged US intelligence operations. It's going to take a while to ramp up the presence of eyes and ears on the ground after years of neglect.

[Alberta's Child]

The world community had played patty-cake with Saddam for 12 years. We finally ended that game, and showed that we will no longer accept UN games and words as a substitute for action against rogue states. And other rogue nations are now on notice as a result.

Now that's a laugh. You can be certain of one thing -- the next time the U.S. ever feels a need to deal with a "rogue nation" using military force, Step #1 in the process will be an attempt to secure U.N. approval.

[Stone Mountain]

That's interesting - not the way I heard it, but I certainly believe it could be true - I'll do a little reading on the subject and get back to you. So you're saying that we just supplied them with non-weaponized biological agents? How difficult is it to weaponize those agents?

[gitmo]

I read on some DUmb website that the Rats think the Republicans will wait till right before the election to 'discover' massive caches of WMDs.

Not a bad idea ...

[dirtboy]

Now that's a laugh. You can be certain of one thing -- the next time the U.S. ever feels a need to deal with a "rogue nation" using military force, Step #1 in the process will be an attempt to secure U.N. approval.

Hardly. Clinton didn't get it for Kosovo, Bush didn't get it for Afghanistan. The U.N. were simply useful idiots here, and we exploited their resolutions. Oh, yeah, and while I'm at it, this was a condition of the cease-fire as well:

32. Requires Iraq to inform the Security Council that it will not commit or support any act of international terrorism or allow any organization directed towards commission of such acts to operate within its territory and to condemn unequivocally and renounce all acts, methods and practices of terrorism;

I do recall Saddam sending monetary support to the Palestinians for their terror attacks. Yet another incident of his non-compliance.

[Issaquahking]

Hat's off to Getmain, We have over 5500 dead due to inaction, how many dead American's would satisfy you Alberta? I don't support that the end justify's the means logic, but Bill Clinton allowd the terrorist's free access to destruction of America by doing nothing. Enter "W" and trusting his intel people - he did the right thing in protecting America from future attacks.

We may not be done yet...there are still terrorists out there threatening us and suspect "W" isn't asking the goof balls at the U.N. for permission to ask. Freedom is not free - it's priceless, and so are the actions it takes to keep it.

[dvwjr]

Anyone who truly believes that the United States government would have placed thousands of U.S. military personnal in close proximity to Iraq if there was any chance in hell that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction" is naive.

Why naive? The US currently bases "thousands of U.S. military personnal in close proximity" to North Korea, who have admitted to owning nuclear weapons (those being weapons of mass destruction) and are even more militaristic than was Iraq.

Sort of blows your snap assertion out of the water, doesn't it?

dvwjr

[gridlock]

But we knew that already since we had supplied them with a bunch of biological weapons when they were fighting Iran.

You care to back that up (with a real source), or is that just something that you know, for sure?