Pre-war intelligence and doubt that Iraq had WMD

Politics International Politics
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I knew you would say this! :smiley:

Strange that ESTIMATES can be facts.

Absolutely. They always said they knew, so let’s see it.

No, I wasn’t serious in my response to fred and above, they do not have to find the whole 500 tons.
But two shells don’t make it just to start a war, you need to apply some weighting (?) between the level of breach and the consequences - and in any case it should have been the UNSC to decide if and what consequences are to be applied, it was not for the US to take matters into their own hands based on evidence that was obviously weak from the beginning and partially disproven.

True, but as some “evidence” had already been disproven way before the war and others shortly after the invasion so it’s less likely that such quantities will ever be discovered and one could conclude it didn’t exist, unless of course you buy into worst case scenarios and assumptions (sold / smuggled to Syria) for which there is not much proof.

Others may have claimed there was none, I personally expressed doubt only; though I was confident that it would not meet the amount stated by the US (see above) or pose a threat as claimed.

Small amounts were always likely to be found because AFAIK some prohibited items had already been discovered during the on-going UN inspections. But none posed a ‘grave and growing’ danger / threat as claimed by the USG nor did they support claims about an active weapons program.
Those found were immediately destroyed, regardless why the stuff was there (forgotten, intentionally not declared … who knows), you could therefore say that the inspections were effective to ensure that Iraq will be clean once the job would have been completed. The planned watchdog should then have ensured it stays clean.

I see no base for that. Two old shells of currently unknown origin used by some insurgents who apparently were not aware of what they were dealing with does not make me worry.
If Iraq had moved all the stuff claimed than the intelligence should have noticed it, you don’t move the such an amount without anyone noticing, in particular not when you are under tight observation as Iraq was since the first Gulf War.

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This a complete non-issue, IMO.

As has already been pointed out about a million times already, this was never about WMD per se.

It was about failure to account for same.

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Only a couple of comments, since you now admit that:[quote=“Rascal”]I wasn’t serious in my response to fred and above, they do not have to find the whole 500 tons.[/quote]

First - the stuff that is dangerous is not the stuff that is found! The dangerous stuff is the stuff unaccounted for!

Therefore, to say that two shells don’t justify a war is to miss the point.

You then make two statements: one qualified, one dogmatic, which are perhaps inconsistent.

But, I seem to remember that the coalition did “notice” large amounts of stuff being ferried to Syria. Could have been WMD; could have been the Hussein family heirlooms.

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Just an added note. The main difference between Rascal and his debating opponents seems to be that Rascal wants to be absolutely certain of what was there before going to war.

As I see it, that’s not a morally horrible position by any means.

But when things are generally never certain, its a dangerous position as it could allow cruel regimes to get away with much.

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“I was wrong. I think every American should be very concerned that weapons of mass destruction have not been found.”
Bill O’Reilly, Fox News

“We went into Iraq with what, in retrospect, seems like a childish fantasy. We were going to topple Saddam, establish democracy and hand the country back to grateful Iraqis. We expected to be universally admired when it was all over.”
David Brooks, NYT

“I supported the war and now I feel foolish.”
Tucker Carlson, CNN

“Shoot first and ask questions later.”
Forumosa armchair generals

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Yes Spook:

Those are the quotes regarding wmds, but are things that dire in Iraq? We have lost 550 in combat in 1.2 years. The reconstruction of Iraq beyond the first US$18 billion will pay for itself given dramatically increased oil revenues. So we failed to realize the decrepitude of the Iraqi infrastructure and the amount of looting that would take place. So there’s US$18 billion. Hmmm compare this with what has been squandered on other programs in the United States. How much did enforcing the no fly zones cost over 12 years?

Now, we may need another US$50 billion in addition to the US$50 billion last year (US$4 billion per month) for operations in Iraq at current levels. Gee. There again, that is going to be the real budget buster isn’t it in a US$2.2 trillion budget. By my reckoning that accounts for 2 percent of the total budget. Woe! Woe!

Finally, al Sadr is suing for peace, Fallujah is quiet and our marines are entering on joint patrols, the handover will go ahead on June 30, Iraq is not going ballistic because of the Abu Ghraib charges (the true hysteria is in the Western media and Democratic Party or among Arab “intellectuals” in OTHER countries) so I guess I think we have every right to remain confident.

We were very wrong about another thing you know. The prediction was three months of war and 20,000 dead. We are only at 775 if you include accidental deaths, suicides, disease, illness, etc. So are you going to give us credit for saving 19,225 lives here. And for all this talk about needing more troops, the whole plan was to not have to take responsibility for day to day security operations. Rumsfeld looked at past peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo and lookee lookee, the troops are still there, they have not gone home and is the media wailing about that? Nope. Costs are running substantially over the original budget, democracy has not been restored, fighting breaks out and hey? Is that neocon arrogance? No, that is the politically correct nation building of the Democrats which most of the media supported so it gets nary a complaint because the right people were doing it in the right way? Give me a break.

67

Maybe should have just taken Saddam out and installed another dictator

A dictator mind you unlike Saddam where Saddam would amass 99% of the wealth and give the 1% ( or maybe even less to the people), they should have installed a dictator that gave 99% to the people and kept 1% for themselves and would be “friendly” to the West i.e Saudi Arabia, Jordan

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Another point would be that this WMD arguement would be an non issue if they had installed a dictator
What people tend to be doing now is saying that Iraq and the invasion was a mistake cause the place is still in shit, and this mistake stemed from the WMDs, so where are the WMDs?

Another question is is really possible to bring democracy to the Arab world… are there any Arab countries that are truely democratic? Ok maybe they are in name and supposed to be in function but even friendly countries that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, are really dictatorships

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They used to say that the Germans could never be civilized, would always be militaristic and the Prussian tradition was incompatible with democracy, before that the French, Italians, Spanish and Portuguese were too Latin and therefore “excitable” to ever be able to have a democratic government, strong leaders were needed to “control” the people, then it was the barbaric and militaristic Japanese, and after that the undisciplined and corrupt Chinese and now the impossible to civilize Arabs.

So now, lookee lookee, Rascal hasn’t shot us all for disobedience yet, the French are not running amok, the Italians are actually staying and fighting rather than pulling a French a throwing their arms up faster than you can say Sieg Heil and most Iraqis are willing to see this through to the end. The problem is as always in the hysterical media images of disaster disaster disaster. How does that gel with responsible reporting or their code of ethics. From day 1, it has been declaring this a disaster and it should be held accountable for stirring passions and raising excessive worries. Where is the disaster? 550 troops dead in 1.2 years, a country that no longer needs money for reconstruction because oil exports are expected to bring in US$25 billion this year! a failure of the Sunnis and Shias to “link up,” no civil war, pacification of Fallujah albeit with unusual means but perhaps necessary ones and the censure of all of the Shia leaders against who? The US? No. Sadr.

Give Arabs a chance. Ironically enough, I am supposed to be the big anti Arab and racist and I am the one saying that they can be just as democratic as other groups while the so called let’s not say mean things about brown people group is totally throwing in the towel and saying they are essentially inferior to us and therefore incapable of democracy? This will take TIME to democratize Iraq. It took time for Japan, Korea and Taiwan. BUT we can stabilize the country in a couple of years and if we cannot, why should that be any more worthy of news than the failures in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo? Why are some okay to the media and other efforts not? Finally, again, that US$4 billion per month adds up to US$50 billion per year and that is 2 percent of the total US budget. So slap a 5 cent tax on bubble gum if that is what it takes. Meanwhile, US$7 trillion have been squandered on public education since 1967 with scores and performance in public schools falling, the new drug program in Medicare is expected to cost US$600 billion so ??? what’s the big deal with another US$50 billion.

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[quote=“imyourbiggestfan”]Just an added note. The main difference between Rascal and his debating opponents seems to be that Rascal wants to be absolutely certain of what was there before going to war.

As I see it, that’s not a morally horrible position by any means.

But when things are generally never certain, its a dangerous position as it could allow cruel regimes to get away with much.[/quote]

Actually, I don’t think that’s a fair characterization. It’s not like Rascal (or some of us) required there to be 100% certainty that a, b, c were true before going in. I think we recognize the folly of that, and that governments and people do have to operate on assumptions and imperfect information on a daily basis.

I think the contention is more that the administration basically jumped on the chance to attack Iraq using any excuse it could. It wasn’t a because of a, b, c, we should take out saddam thing. it was more a let’s take out saddam, what a, b, c can we use?

and fred, don’t patronize me by throwing in the “we took out a monster dictator and you don’t think that’s a good thing” line. that’s not the point.

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JB:

We took out a monster dictator and that was the point.

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The stuff unaccounted for is only dangerous if it still exists. If it’s unaccounted because it has been destroyed but no record was made, then it can’t be dangerous anymore.
After all, the possibility that there are no WMD in huge quantities seems more and more likely, so it would be reasonable to assume that unaccounted actually means it is not there (and I also doubt it has been moved, see below).

The point has always been the on-going UN inspections and that two shells don’t fit the US claims, or do you really believe a war would have been possible if Bush had claimed “There, Iraq has two old, rusty artillery shells with sarin gas so let’s go to war”!?

The US was quick to blame Blix when he didn’t find anything based on their ‘best intelligence’; however as mentioned earlier inspections were making progress and were effective, but did not deliver the result the US expected (that is finding large quantities of WMD, and not accounting for WMD by verifying the declaration).
So instead of waiting they interrupted the inspections and started a war, primarily based on the WMD claim (no such claim, no war - despite all the other reasons cited).
If this was not about finding WMD as Tigerman always points out but about accounting for, then the US should have waited for the final report by Blix and the USG should not have made claims that there are WMD in Iraq - but this is exactly what they did.
To say UN inspections are no good and thus we go in ourselves to make sure (account for) is extremely hypocritical in light of the view that the US claimed there were WMD in Iraq.

With ‘stuff’ I obviously referred to WMD and ‘could have been’ is certainly no proof, you gotta have something more than just moving trucks.
If WMD really had been shifted then where is the intelligence of the “quality” made in regards to the WMD claims (sat pictures, ‘we know’, witnesses …)? Why did the US not attempt to intercept those?
This seems to be pure speculation with no indication for WMD at all, and if you consider that the transfer would have to be done quickly it would not be so easy to conceal all the WMD stuff, so it should have been more than just “noticed”.

[quote]Just an added note. The main difference between Rascal and his debating opponents seems to be that Rascal wants to be absolutely certain of what was there before going to war.

As I see it, that’s not a morally horrible position by any means.

But when things are generally never certain, its a dangerous position as it could allow cruel regimes to get away with much.[/quote]
In part correct. My main issue is that UN inspections were interrupted (or sabotaged by the US if you like) and that the pre-war evidence was weak/flawed, yet the USG made some statements that left no doubt.

Saying ‘estimates’ might not be such a clear statement, but there were those that were very clear and the underlying message was always that Iraq had huge quantities, was seeking more and was up to no good.
As shown above estimates and facts don’t mix, so if you estimate you shouldn’t say ‘we know’ and the like, but of course Bush & Co. couldn’t have made their case by saying ‘We estimate but of course we could be totally wrong and there are none’ or ‘we don’t know for sure’ (instead of ‘we know’).

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Nope Nope Nope!

You continually miss the point, Rascal. Those WMD unaccounted for may well not exist… but it was Saddam’s obligation to prove that they didn’t exist. He claimed that they existed previously. Thus, we were reasonable in believing that they did exist, as he had not yet then accounted for their disposal.

When will you stop shifting the burdon of proof onto the US? What is it that you do not understand about this very simple notion? Saddam had the burdon of proving that the WMD that he admitted possessing were no longer in existence.

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Yes Tigerman:

That is certainly true. Saddam was LEGALLY obligated by treaty to account for these wmds and even Blix and the UN agreed that he had not. Where is Rascal’s concern for those that flout international law in this particular case? Hmmm. Selective interpretation of “international law?”

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Well, quite! Absolutely! But as Mr. T and FS keep pointing out - under the ceasefire/UN resolutions and what not, Iraq had to prove that.

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[quote]You continually miss the point, Rascal. Those WMD unaccounted for may well not exist… but it was Saddam’s obligation to prove that they didn’t exist. He claimed that they existed previously. Thus, we were reasonable in believing that they did exist, as he had not yet then accounted for their disposal.

When will you stop shifting the burdon of proof onto the US? What is it that you do not understand about this very simple notion? Saddam had the burdon of proving that the WMD that he admitted possessing were no longer in existence.[/quote]

And you are all missing / ignoring the point of the on-going UN inspections (not that I haven’t repeated it a 1000 times …):
[color=blue]If you neglect that fact your arguments may have a point, but as said above sabotaging them and claiming there are WMD makes it now responsibility of the US to present them to us.[/color]

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I’ll buy your perception Rascal:

I too believe that the US was out to get Saddam but not an innocent Saddam but a recalcitrant Saddam that had been given more than enough time and chances. That was certainly my view and it had only a small amount to do with wmds.

This still begs the question though why this is a matter of such deep concern for you Rascal. Were you outraged that an innocent Saddam and sovereign Iraq were attacked for NO reason? Come on.

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[quote=“Rascal”]And you are all missing / ignoring the point of the on-going UN inspections (not that I haven’t repeated it a 1000 times …):

[color=blue]If you neglect that fact your arguments may have a point, but as said above sabotaging them and claiming there are WMD makes it now responsibility of the US to present them to us.[/color][/quote]

Nope Nope Nope!

Those “on-going” UN inspections hade been on-going and going-off for twelve (12) years! TWELVE years! TWELVE years! The UN cease fire agreement required Saddam to comply IMMEDIATELY! IMMEDIATELY! IMMEDIATELY!

The final UNSC Resolution required Saddam to comply IMMEDIATELY! IMMEDIATELY! IMMEDIATELY!

How in the name of all that is reasonable can you think that the US was sabotaging the cease fire agreement???

And for the millionth time… Saddam claimed that he possessed X amount of WMD… why do you never address this fact?

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To comply immediately or not, it did not automatically mean consequences nor does any non-compliance justify an invasion, i.e. consequences need to be measured at the ‘crime’ committed - and it was for Blix to identify the ‘level of crimes’ in his final report that would have been out in less than a year. Then the UNSC could have decided the consequences.

Twisting things around? The US sabotaged the UN inspections, or who was it exactly that asked the UN inspectors to leave so that they could start the invasion? Duh.

Because, as you have said yourself, he couldn’t be believed and I don’t recall the inspectors (or anyone else for that matter) confirming those claims.
And where the US asked Blix to look nothing turned up. NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING!

So how can anyone reasonably assume that a) Saddam had lot’s of WMD and b) thus posed a threat as claimed by Bush & Co., therefore justifying an invasion? That’s the part I don’t get.

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Well if everything is so clear cut according to you Rascal then why in the name of all that is holy didn’t Saddam just comply?