A desert mirage: How U.S. misjudged Iraq's arsenal

USA Today ^ | 2/4/2004 12:13 AM | John Diamond

[Toidylop]

A desert mirage: How U.S. misjudged Iraq's arsenal By John Diamond, USA TODAY WASHINGTON

[cripplecreek]

Given the choice of underestimating the threat and overestimating the threat, I'll take an overestimation any day.

[Toidylop]

Just leave it to the RATs!!! (/sarcasm off)

[kimosabe31]

Same here cripple. I guess we'll be hearing all sorts of explanations of how we went wrong from all sorts of people...and then the stockpiles will turn up.

[RoseofTexas]

Get ready folks, this is the beginning of the drumbeat by the RATS and their media WHORES! It's gonna get much worse before it gets better..... :(
9 longgggggggggg months...UGHHHHHH!

[MoodyBlu]

Given the choice of underestimating the threat and overestimating the threat, I'll take an overestimation any day.

Remember the video tapes found in Afghanistan of the experiments using gas on dogs? Wasn't there definitive proof that Al-Qaeda wanted to use chemical/biological weapons?

Given 9-11 and the extent that the jihadists will go to kill us "infidels" it is easy to see why it was prudent to make sure Iraqi WMD did not get into the hands of the terrorists.

MoodyBlu

[skyman]

"But the CIA had a problem: Once-a-day snapshots from the KH-11 spy satellite didn't show where the convoys were going. "We couldn't get a destination," a top intelligence official recalled. "We tried and tried and tried. We never could figure that out."

Remember when the SR-71 was retired because we were told we could rely totally on satellites? Others told us our intelligence would be reduced because of this very reason.

[Toidylop]

Yes, it's one of a series of thing (bad judgement, perhaps!). If you want to go back, way way back, John F'ing Kerry fought to gut the CIA every chance he could. Go as far as blaming the CIA as the criminal organization in order to qualify as a full-fledged card carrying member of the lefts.

[mikegi]

One year before President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, a U.S. spy satellite over the western Iraqi desert photographed trailer trucks lined up beside a military bunker. Canvas shrouded the trucks' cargo.

Maybe we could have bombed the convoy then sent in a team to check out the results ... if we wanted absolute proof. Regardless, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to assume that Saddam was hiding WMDs since we knew he had them in the past.

[hedgie]

We had used U-2 overflights of Iraq in the past ('97-'98). I wonder why we didn't consider them? Fear of shootdown? or too aggressive while we were trying to negotiate with the security council?

[Shermy]

What were the convoys doing if they weren't moving chemical weapons?

Biological machinery? UN didn't find chemical traces...so what? Why would the items leak? This article doesn't explain much of anything but is another exercise in faulty inferences - for example, UN found water trucks somewhere is proof that the govt. lied. Where are the other trucks? If the truck drivers are not talking, what does that tell you? Did the trucks go to Syria?

More disinformation by implication. Apparently CIA wonks are covering their rears in a media debate fashioning positions for the election.

[Uncle Hal]

Something just does not sound right about these so called missing WMD. How could all the intelligence agencies in all the world be wrong. Why would Saddam not let us in if he did not have them. Supposedly he was fooled by his own people. If they did fool him they would been dead in a second when Saddam found out. I still wonder if they are not hidden somewhere such as Syria or even in Iraq. I do not believe the whole story has been told on this matter. The final chapter may be a lot different than what we know now.

[kaktuskid]

How easy is it to verify the contents of a tanker truck by satellite? After all an oil producing country is going to have lots of them. One of the rumors is that the WMD was placed in tanker trucks that were driven into tunnels, the drivers shot, the holes covered over with bulldozers and the dozer operators shot. (so no one will talk)

[ContemptofCourt]

Who shot the people who shot the drivers?

[hedgie]

the drivers shot, the holes covered over with bulldozers and the dozer operators shot. (so no one will talk)

It worked for King Tut...

[hedgie]

Uday

[CyberAnt]

Am I reading this right .. they're saying that even though we had the pictures of the trucks .. it was not logical to assume there was any stockpile of stuff being loaded on it ..?? What?? Why not ..??

[PsyOp]

Bio-Chemical Weapons & Saddam: A History.

[meema]

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