N
Neil Brooks
Guest
Mark Hickey <[email protected]> wrote:
>Neil Brooks <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>"Bill Sornson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>Wow. So those 17 UN Resolutions (or was it 21?) were just Cliff Notes?
>>
>>If we had abided the UN Resolutions (in this case, allowing Blix's
>>inspections to proceed), we might have been in an exceedingly
>>different place right now. As it stands, we offered inviolable
>>certitude that WMD did exist. We stopped short of actually providing
>>Blix with the proof that underlay that certitude, however.
>
>Blix's own inspectors did a pretty good job (more on that later).
>
>>Instead, we invoked the appropriate legal authority (UN), then--when
>>we didn't like the results they were getting (or became frustrated
>>that Blix told the media he felt the US and GB had overtly exaggerated
>>the 'gathering threat'), we said, "Step aside, Hans. We know best
>>here." (Roughly 2/03). Blix wanted a few more months.
>
>Blix would have ALWAYS wanted a few more months, and it didn't matter
>anyway since France had already declared that they would veto ANY
>resolution to use force anyway (gee, I wonder if it had anything to do
>with those millions of Iraqi oil dollars flowing through their
>government officials?).
>
>>Ritter might have credibility problems (he indicated that--due to
>>chemical half-life issues--the chemical weapons had been rendered
>>inert over time).
>>
>>David Kay ("Don't think they existed")
>>
>>(Charles) Duelfer Report (no WMD. No serious production effort since
>>'91. If we dropped sanctions, he might restart the program (don't
>>drop sanctions), Saddam had been fooling his top brass into believing
>>that he /did/ have WMD).
>>
>>Blix . . . well, he seems pretty ok. But the sum total of all these
>>teams' opinions seems pretty consistent.
>
>They were three dissenting opinions.
>
>In the March 6, 2003 UNMOVIC Unresolved WMD Issues report, the UN
>inspectors, among MANY other findings of likely WMD and production
>capacity said:
>
> "Based on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that
> about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and may still
> exist."
>
>And then there's this...
>
> "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports
> show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and
> biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his
> nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to
> terrorists, including al Qaeda members.. It is clear, however, that
> if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his
> capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep
> trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY),
> Oct 10, 2002
>
>I just thought she summed it all up so nicely. ;-)
>
>>What other nations 'believed' prior to the invasion was just that:
>>belief. Few offered concrete proof. The belief spread like wildfire
>>throughout many nations' intelligence communities, picking up not a
>>whiff of substantive proof along the way.
>
>Given the circumstances, obtaining "proof" could have been an
>impossible task (the secrecy within Saddam's regime is legendary).
>
>>While the Committee (CICUSRWMD) did conclude that the intelligence was
>>NOT overtly politicized, they also concluded that GWB's administration
>>fostered an "environment that did not encourage skepticism about the
>>conventional wisdom." A similar conclusion was reached by the British
>>government vis-a-vis their investigation.
>
>If by "British government" you mean the ONE miltiary dude's opinion,
>then yes. That's been pretty thoroughly kicked around already.
Nope.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/reports/intelligence/iscannualreport.pdf
OR http://tinyurl.com/7fx8c
>>I would have waited for Blix to do his job and kept the gauntlet in
>>place . . . but that's just me.
>
>I agree that it would have been MUCH better had the UN done what the
>UN is supposed to do - but it wasn't going to happen, and with
>France's guaranteed veto it was a matter of either taking out Saddam
>(something that was clearly going to happen sooner or later, with the
>US doing most of the heavy lifting anyway), or waiting to see if the
>intelligence WAS true.
>
>At the time, I could imagine NO reason to trust a despot who'd already
>tried to assassinate a US President, openly supported terrorists, and
>who had admitted having vast stores of WMD years earlier (and had used
>them years prior to that).
The problem with your argument is it implies that there were no more
than two choices: launch a "preemptive" war or sit back and do
nothing.
A third choice /always/ existed: keep the noose around his neck,
support the inspections, and keep the fleet in the Arabian Sea.
Incidentally, your comments that invading Iraq has nothing to do with
oil based on our continually rising gas prices seem a bit
disingenuous.
First (and you know this), we buy oil from oil cartels that use
commodity-based pricing (a/k/a price fixing). Second, Iraqi oil
production--once thought capable of paying for post war
reconstruction--was, apparently, another one of Saddam's little
exaggerations. We're having trouble getting anywhere near the
anticipated oil revenues out of their ground. This is reflected in
the administrations recent moving of the proverbial goal post.....
>Neil Brooks <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>"Bill Sornson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>Wow. So those 17 UN Resolutions (or was it 21?) were just Cliff Notes?
>>
>>If we had abided the UN Resolutions (in this case, allowing Blix's
>>inspections to proceed), we might have been in an exceedingly
>>different place right now. As it stands, we offered inviolable
>>certitude that WMD did exist. We stopped short of actually providing
>>Blix with the proof that underlay that certitude, however.
>
>Blix's own inspectors did a pretty good job (more on that later).
>
>>Instead, we invoked the appropriate legal authority (UN), then--when
>>we didn't like the results they were getting (or became frustrated
>>that Blix told the media he felt the US and GB had overtly exaggerated
>>the 'gathering threat'), we said, "Step aside, Hans. We know best
>>here." (Roughly 2/03). Blix wanted a few more months.
>
>Blix would have ALWAYS wanted a few more months, and it didn't matter
>anyway since France had already declared that they would veto ANY
>resolution to use force anyway (gee, I wonder if it had anything to do
>with those millions of Iraqi oil dollars flowing through their
>government officials?).
>
>>Ritter might have credibility problems (he indicated that--due to
>>chemical half-life issues--the chemical weapons had been rendered
>>inert over time).
>>
>>David Kay ("Don't think they existed")
>>
>>(Charles) Duelfer Report (no WMD. No serious production effort since
>>'91. If we dropped sanctions, he might restart the program (don't
>>drop sanctions), Saddam had been fooling his top brass into believing
>>that he /did/ have WMD).
>>
>>Blix . . . well, he seems pretty ok. But the sum total of all these
>>teams' opinions seems pretty consistent.
>
>They were three dissenting opinions.
>
>In the March 6, 2003 UNMOVIC Unresolved WMD Issues report, the UN
>inspectors, among MANY other findings of likely WMD and production
>capacity said:
>
> "Based on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that
> about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and may still
> exist."
>
>And then there's this...
>
> "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports
> show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and
> biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his
> nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to
> terrorists, including al Qaeda members.. It is clear, however, that
> if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his
> capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep
> trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY),
> Oct 10, 2002
>
>I just thought she summed it all up so nicely. ;-)
>
>>What other nations 'believed' prior to the invasion was just that:
>>belief. Few offered concrete proof. The belief spread like wildfire
>>throughout many nations' intelligence communities, picking up not a
>>whiff of substantive proof along the way.
>
>Given the circumstances, obtaining "proof" could have been an
>impossible task (the secrecy within Saddam's regime is legendary).
>
>>While the Committee (CICUSRWMD) did conclude that the intelligence was
>>NOT overtly politicized, they also concluded that GWB's administration
>>fostered an "environment that did not encourage skepticism about the
>>conventional wisdom." A similar conclusion was reached by the British
>>government vis-a-vis their investigation.
>
>If by "British government" you mean the ONE miltiary dude's opinion,
>then yes. That's been pretty thoroughly kicked around already.
Nope.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/reports/intelligence/iscannualreport.pdf
OR http://tinyurl.com/7fx8c
>>I would have waited for Blix to do his job and kept the gauntlet in
>>place . . . but that's just me.
>
>I agree that it would have been MUCH better had the UN done what the
>UN is supposed to do - but it wasn't going to happen, and with
>France's guaranteed veto it was a matter of either taking out Saddam
>(something that was clearly going to happen sooner or later, with the
>US doing most of the heavy lifting anyway), or waiting to see if the
>intelligence WAS true.
>
>At the time, I could imagine NO reason to trust a despot who'd already
>tried to assassinate a US President, openly supported terrorists, and
>who had admitted having vast stores of WMD years earlier (and had used
>them years prior to that).
The problem with your argument is it implies that there were no more
than two choices: launch a "preemptive" war or sit back and do
nothing.
A third choice /always/ existed: keep the noose around his neck,
support the inspections, and keep the fleet in the Arabian Sea.
Incidentally, your comments that invading Iraq has nothing to do with
oil based on our continually rising gas prices seem a bit
disingenuous.
First (and you know this), we buy oil from oil cartels that use
commodity-based pricing (a/k/a price fixing). Second, Iraqi oil
production--once thought capable of paying for post war
reconstruction--was, apparently, another one of Saddam's little
exaggerations. We're having trouble getting anywhere near the
anticipated oil revenues out of their ground. This is reflected in
the administrations recent moving of the proverbial goal post.....
