The Real Intelligence Failure: What if it turns out Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction?

Opinion Journal ^ | 08/05/03 | FRANCIS FUKUYAMA

[justshutupandtakeit]

It had been mentioned many times, almost as often as Iraq's failure to abide by the UN resolutions which called the first war to a halt. There were many reasons to go in, WMDs was only one of them.

Breaking the terms of the peace was sufficient to renew the war in and of itself.

[Reagan Man]

>>>You're just determined to muddy the issue with a bunch of extraneous distractions, aren't you? If you can't refute my statement just say so. Making a mess all over the floor isn't going to help you any.

No wonder you're so confused. Your ignorance of American politics is muddying your thought process. I've already refuted your statement. If you want to define yourself as an impractical ideologue, fine, but don't expect everyone to join your cause. The vast majority of conservatives and an overwhelming number of Republican's support the efforts of PresBush. FReepers also back PresBush`s decisions and support the war on terrorism with an 80%-90% level of approval. This isn't a complicated issue. PresBush is the elected leader of the US and CIC of the armed forces and America is at war. Either you support the President or you don't.

I support the President.

[philosofy123]

Giuliani was hated for cleaning New York City from all the porn. Only when he returned the charity check to the Saudi prince did he become a hero. Similar fortune and or circumstances changed the popularity of President Bush after 9/11.

[MatthewViti]

so we didn't give arms to Iraq? LOL

[marron]

There is absolutely no – none, zip, nada – doubt that President Bush told the people of the United States that the main reason that he was sending the American military into harms way was the real threat of Saddam’s WMD and the necessity to destroy them.

I have to say that I never paid much attention to his rationale. This is a war I have expected, as I mentioned in my earlier post, since the seventies. I was disturbed that we didn't finish it in '91, and the mud-wrestling spectacle of the US "containing" Saddam for a decade after the war was a mistake of the highest order. Our "containment" policy did more harm than good to our strategic position, and it meant yet another decade of misery for people in the region.

There was never any doubt what Saddam would do if we withdrew from the region with him still in power. We had, after all, decades of experience dealing with him. We knew what he wanted to do, and couldn't, when the Shah was in power in Iran, and we know what he did the moment the Shah departed the scene. We know what he did to the kurds again and again until we stopped him, and we could surmise that the slaughter would resume the moment we backed away.

WMD was the legalistic explanation that was perhaps the only one you were listening to, and to which I paid little attention. Perhaps you didn't agree that the war was necessary, and so for you it all hinges on whether or not there were WMD, and for me this is a war that was 10 years too late, and WMD was only a tactical question.

I didn't support this war because Bush persuaded me, I saw it as an absolute necessity even before 9/11. Bush's personal rationale seems to have been 9/11, but again, it needed to happen with or without 9/11; 9/11 simply brought into focus the folley of leaving toxic situations to fester endlessly.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Very few arms of Iraq came from America. Someone posted a study of that issue which clearly showed that 98-99% of its arms came from countries other than America principally Russia, China, France. So you are wrong about that and your original claim we gave them WMD. Both are without a grain of truth.

[P.O.E.]

What if it turns out Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction?

Then it Saddam was pretty stupid to not come clean, thus giving us a fantastic reason to open up another base of operations right in the heart of the Islamofascists.

[inquest]

I've already refuted your statement.

In your dreams, pal. You haven't even dealt with my statement, and anyone here can see it.

[Reagan Man]

>>>In your dreams, pal.

LOL Look, if you want to boil this down to the lowest common denominator, have at it. The individual candidate and the message of their overall political agenda win elections and when you win you get to govern. Right now, America is at war and supporting the President goes beyond strict ideology. Your brand of politics appears limited to rightwing fringe extremism and reactionary absolutism. That places you in the minority opinion. So be it.

[Dilbert56]

Didn't I read a story yesterday about a killing field where chemical weapons were tested on prisoners? Wouldn't that refute the argument that his scientists lied to him because they couldn't make them anymore. Saddam had his people conduct tests to verify their effectiveness and kill his enemies at the same time.

[Dilbert56]

Bush's views on immigration are lousey. His views on taxing me to subsidize a globalistic welfare system are lousey. His grasp of economics is lousey. FWIW - your spelling was pretty lousy in that tirade.

[inquest]

Yup, just as I thought, you couldn't even address the actual statement, let alone refute it. I'll just let you ramble on about whatever now. You've satisfied my curiosity.

[marron]

Saddam's army was Soviet armed and trained. He was effectively a member of the Warsaw Pact until the fall of the Soviets.

There were Soviet advisors in Iraq all during the first Gulf War, and more recently the last Russian advisors left Iraq shortly before Gulf War 2 began. Saddam decorated the retired Russian generals who planned his final defense just before the shooting started.

The breakdown of weaponry was something like 70% Russian, 20% French, and so forth. The amount of US weaponry was something like 1%, less than the amount of Brazilian weaponry (1.5%)

During the Iran Iraq war, the Saudis funded his war. Our policy was to assure that neither Iran nor Iraq would win. So we provided Saddam with satelite imagery showing Iranian troop positions, and sold him non-combat gear. Meanwhile, we sold weapons to Iran, as did the Israelis.

If you want to accuse us of cynicism, fine. We sold weapons into the theater, but to Iran, not Iraq.

[Sloth]

As a result, the focuse of our war on terrorism has been to go after the state sponsors of terror. First on the list was the Taliban in Afghanistan. Second on the list was Hussein.

vbmoneyspender is correct. The primary reason for taking Hussein down was his sponsorship of terrorism. The WMD business was a sop to the UN-groupies like Powell and Blair.

[Dilbert56]

Yup - detail on http://projects.sipri.se/armstrade/Trnd_Ind_IRQ_Imps_73-02.pdf Net arms imports to Iraq:

---

From USSR/Russia 57%
France 13%
China 12%
Czechoslovakia 7%
Poland 4%

USA 1%

[Dilbert56]

More detail: The USA sales to Iraq from of "weapons" to Iraq, from 1973 to 2002 occurred in 1983 and 1985. They consisted of 117 light helicopters, ostensibly bought for civilian use but taken over by the Iraqi Army.

Personally this "we armed Saddam" crap is getting spread far and wide. It will become another fat lie that people think is true because they heard it so often.

[Reagan Man]

Yup, just as I thought, you couldn't even address the actual statement, let alone refute it. I'll just let you ramble on about whatever now. You've satisfied my curiosity.

I've addressed your original statement several times now. It's not my fault you're to stupid to comprehend my remarks and are incapable of handling fair, honest and intelligent debate. Instead you've chosen to be dismissive and turn tail and run for the hills. Doesn't take much to scare you off. LOL

If you pay attention, you may learn something.

You don't win elections being an impractical ideologue and once you're elected, you don't gain political victory by adhereing to a strict ideology or philosophy. Politics is all about governing in the realm of human relations and in poltiics, you compromise and you negotiate or you will never have any success.

Exactly, what don't you understand about that explanation?

[thtr]

WMD was the legalistic explanation that was perhaps the only one you were listening to, and to which I paid little attention.

You may be playing a bit fast and loose with the lives of men and women willing to sacrifice them to protect America. You seem to be saying that the main cause for which many gave their lives and hundreds suffered injury was alleviate the “misery for people in the region”. Well, that may be worth American lives for you but not me (and, I think most of the rest of the country). I am also not happy about having to pay the price for rebuilding an Islamic state.

Hopefully, those WMD will soon be found and destroyed. I would like to think that the reason our soldiers lost their live was to prevent those weapons from being used against us or our allies.

[Mortimer Snavely]

The mentality of this country is so screwed up that it is impossible for the President to come out and say that the USA must destroy Islamism and Arab National Socialism, even if he understands that that is precisely what's needed to be done, which I seriously doubt he does. Recent US actions against Turkish forces (the sworn ideological enemy of both Islamism and Ba'athism) in Northern Iraq demonstrate this inability to understand the nature of the enemy.

At the same time, though, Iran has the USA and Turkey on both its Iraqi and Afghan frontiers, and Syria has the USA, Israel, and Turkey on its frontiers, and these are good things. In this day and age any good news is welcome.

Gone are the days when the concept of allies and enemies were clearly understood, and everyone had some concept of what Grand Strategy was all about. I doubt seriously that Bush understands these things either. He thought it necessary to generate some sort of "sound bite" rationalization which would be able to fit into a nightly news slot, instead of a well-argued explanation of the nature of the geo-political threat and what would be necessary to destroy it.

By going on about WMD, and not explaining what grand strategy is, or even acknowledging that such an idea exists, though, the President has thrown away an excellent opportunity to explain these things. He has no real concept of a "bully pulpit," and once again an excellent chance to help turn the nation around is thrown away.

[RLK]

the President has thrown away an excellent opportunity to explain these things. He has no real concept of a "bully pulpit," and once again an excellent chance to help turn the nation around is thrown away.

-------------------

You can't explain what you are too stupid to understand or too timid to say.