Where are the WMD? Were there any?

Politics International Politics
61

I think speculation is all we really have to go on, in this argument. I have argued many times that many of the US policy decisions that are frequently criticized were in fact simply the best of two bad policies to choose from. I think Fred is arguing the same thing.

I think US policy toward China illustrates this quite well. After WW2, the US attempted to negotiate/mediate a peace between the KMT and CCP. Those efforts failed. That isn’t the fault of the US. Of course the KMT was/is corrupt, and of course it helped to ruin China, and of course it was outrageously brutal. But what was the alternative? That is the only reason the US supported the KMT.

I have always liked Dean Acheson’s remarks below regarding the situation in China in 1949:

[quote=“Statement by Secretary of State Dean Acheson, August 5, 1949”]The reasons for the failures of the Chinese National Government . . . do not stem from any inadequacy of American aid. Our military observers on the spot have reported that the Nationalist armies did not lose a single battle during the crucial year of 1948 through lack of arms or ammunition. The fact was that the decay which our observers had detected in Chungking early in the war had fatally sapped the powers of resistance of the Kuomintang. Its leaders had proved incapable of meeting the crisis confronting them, its troops had lost the will to fight, and its Government had lost popular support. The Communists, on the other hand, through a ruthless discipline and fanatical zeal, attempted to sell themselves as guardians and liberators of the people. The Nationalist armies did not have to be defeated; they disintegrated. History has proved again and again that a regime without faith in itself and an army without morale cannot survive the test of battle. . . .

The historic policy of the United States of friendship and aid toward the people of China was, however, maintained in both peace and war. Since V-J Day, the United States Government has authorized aid to Nationalist China in the form of grants and credits totaling approximately 2 billion dollars, an amount equivalent in value to more than 50 percent of the monetary expenditures of the Chinese Government and of proportionately greater magnitude in relation to the budget of that Government than the United States has provided to any nation of Western Europe since the end of the war. In addition to these grants and credits, the United States Government has sold the Chinese Government large quantities of military and civilian war surplus property with a total procurement cost of over I billion dollars, for which the agreed realization to the United States was 232 million dollars. A large proportion of the military supplies furnished the Chinese armies by the United States since V-J Day has, however, fallen into the hands of the Chinese Communists through the military ineptitude of the Nationalist leaders, their defections and surrenders, and the absence among their forces of the will to fight.

It has been urged that relatively small amounts of additional aid-military and economic-to the National Government would have enabled it to destroy communism in China. The most trustworthy military, economic, and politic al information available to our Government does not bear out this view.

A realistic appraisal of conditions in China, past and present, leads to the conclusion that the only alternative open to the United States was full-scale intervention in behalf of a Government which had lost the confidence of its own troops and its own people. Such intervention would have required the expenditure of even greater sums than have been fruitlessly spent thus far, the command of Nationalist armies by American officers, and the probable participation of American armed forces-land, sea, and air-in the resulting war. Intervention of such a scope and magnitude would have been resented by the mass of the Chinese people, would have diametrically reversed our historic policy, and would have been condemned by the American people. . . .

The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the government of the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed that result; nothing that was left undone by this country has contributed to it. It was the product of internal Chinese forces, forces which this country tried to influence but could not. A decision was arrived at within China, if only a decision by default.

And now it is abundantly clear that we must face the situation as it exists in fact. We will not help the Chinese or ourselves by basing our policy on wishful thinking. We continue to believe that, however tragic may be the immediate future of China and however ruthlessly a major portion of this great people may be exploited by a party in the interest of a foreign imperialism, ultimately the profound civilization and the democratic individualism of China will reassert themselves and she will throw off the foreign yoke. I consider that we should encourage all developments in China which now and in the future work toward this end.

In the immediate future, however, the implementation of our historic policy of friendship for China must be profoundly affected by current developments. It will necessarily be influenced by the degree to which the Chinese people come to recognize that the Communist regime serves not their interests but those of Soviet Russia and the manner in which, having become aware of the facts, they react to this foreign domination. One point, however, is clear. Should the Communist regime lend itself to the aims of Soviet Russian imperialism and attempt to engage in aggression against China’s neighbors, we and the other members of the United Nations would be confronted by a situation violative of the principles of the United Nations Charter and threatening international peace and security.

Meanwhile our policy will continue to be based upon our own respect for the Charter, our friendship for China, and our traditional support for the Open Door and for China’s independence and administrative and territorial integrity.[/quote]

62

I agree with your (Tigerman’s) fair statement and respect the fact that you don’t attack others personally for their beliefs. Yes, most of the what-ifs arguments and coulda, woulda, shoulda stuff is pretty much pointless.

I agree, the US did try to broker a peace deal between the two parties. It’s not like I said the KMT was corrupt and it was all the US’ fault etc. The US just didn’t have an alternative to go on. It’s too bad that Edgar Snow guy who ended up respecting the Communists for their better qualities was branded red.

In fact, lots of Chinese then respected and were thankful for the help the US brought to China. Case in point, the Flying Tigers (sp?) Squadron which operated in China were famous heroes.

It’s not like I am a Mao supporter or anything. My family lost pretty much everything because of their policies (my folks were “merchants”)
But nevertheless, I acknowledge the fact that Mao etal was responsible for fighting the Japanese and played a large part in their defeat with respect to China theatre. The Communists also made huge social equality advances. They, like the USSR, initially gave real substantial rights to women, that western democracies like UK and USA, did not. They also did clamp down on prostitution and had a effective reform program for such women. Drugs, vice and crime were also initally dealt with, with some exceptions. Of course this was the initial upside of the revolution and things degenerated from there. What did the KMT do? rob the country blind basically. Actually, that was the Chiang and Soong people who pocketed large amounts of the national gold reserve etc.

And a couple years ago, my family was returned our home confiscated from the 50s and compensation too.

(Yes, the US did drop the bomb and decisively ended the war, but China conflict cost the Japanese a huge drain in resources. Similar effect in USSR at least from the US point of view. Blueface condones the nuclear bombings. I am of the view that the US, as was suggested by some in the WHite house or war department i think, could have simply give the Japanese a demonstration off an uninhabited island near Japan rather than a major city, at least as a first option)

63

Here’s what one Clinton staffer says about the search for WMD and the threat they posed in Saddam’s hands:

[quote=“Kenneth Pollack”]… the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in no way invalidates the prewar intelligence data indicating that Iraq had the clandestine capacity to build them. There has long been an extremely strong case - based on evidence that largely predates the Bush administration - that Iraq maintained programs in weapons of mass destruction. It was this evidence, along with reports showing the clear failure of United Nations efforts to impede Iraq’s progress, that led the Clinton administration to declare a policy of “regime change” for Iraq in 1998.

In 1995, for example, United Nations inspectors found Russian-made ballistic-missile gyroscopes at the bottom of the Tigris River; Jordanian officials intercepted others being smuggled into Iraq that same year. In July 1998, international inspectors discovered an Iraqi document that showed Baghdad had lied about the number of chemical bombs it had dropped during the Iran-Iraq War, leaving some 6,000 such weapons unaccounted for. Iraq simply refused to concede that the document even existed.

These episodes, and others like them, explain why many former Clinton administration officials, including myself (I was on the staff of the National Security Council in the 90’s), agreed with the Bush administration that a war would likely be necessary to prevent Iraq from acquiring nuclear and other weapons. We may not have agreed with the Bush team’s timing or tactics, but none of us doubted the fundamental intelligence basis of its concerns about the Iraqi threat.

As for the estimates the Bush administration presented regarding Iraq’s holdings of weapons-related materials, they came from unchallenged evidence gathered by United Nations inspectors (in many cases, from records of the companies that sold the materials to Iraq in the first place). For instance, Iraq admitted importing 200 to 250 tons of precursor agents for VX nerve gas; it claimed to have destroyed these chemicals but never proved that it had done so. Even Hans Blix, the last head weapons inspector and a leading skeptic of the need for an invasion, admitted that the Iraqis refused to provide a credible accounting for these materials.

And it wasn’t just the United States that was concerned about Iraq’s efforts. By 2002, British, Israeli and German intelligence services had also concluded that Iraq was probably far enough along in its nuclear weapons program that it would be able to put together one or more bombs at some point in the second half of this decade. The Germans were actually the most fearful of all - in 2001 they leaked their estimate that Iraq might be able to develop its first workable nuclear device in 2004.[/quote]

nytimes.com/2003/06/20/opini … gewanted=2

64

Like I said earlier. I am convinced. All the talk now is just politics. Otherwise why would every other intelligence agency “know” this earlier as well?

The argument was never whether he had them or not (prior to the invasion) but how best to deal with the inspections process. Now of course, the debate has shifted to whether or not he had them. Amazing how public opinion can turn on a dime. Look out Goebbels.

Finally, looks like the Americans may have whacked Saddam near the Syrian border. Not that this will be sufficient to put down the uprising which is moving into guerilla warfare since most of the other families would not mind taking Saddam’s place and seeing their privileged status restored.

Does anyone know how the Americans fared with Germany and Japan’s occupations immediately following WWII. The first lasted till 1954 (technically) and the latter till 1952 no? So that would be 9 and 7 years respectively. Were there uprisings, criminal activity etc.? I would have imagined a lot of gangs involved in smuggling, prostitution, counterfeiting. Were ex-Nazis out trying to steal valuables? ditto for the Japanese?

65

Within the U.S., at least – which is where the “ringleaders” of this particular school of nonsense are – the ringleaders have finally started to shut their revisionist pie-holes. This change apparently is in large part due to this editorial in the WSJ:

opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110003657

in which it was carefully pointed out that Carl Levin, who has been leading the “did Bush lie?” charge, was formerly one of the chief proponents of the “let’s kill Saddam because he’s developing WMDs” school of thought.

Of course, Levin was pro-war when a Democrat (Clinton) was in office; given the chance to beat up on a Republican (Bush II), he switched sides and started raising doubts.

Similar revelations regarding sudden 180’s have come out against former “kill Saddam” hawk John Kerry (who by the way served in Vietnam), who was also campaigning hard on the “Bush lied to us!” bandwagon just a few short days ago. Incidentally, Kerry’s presidential ambitions appear to be sinking like a depleted-uranium slug in the Marianas trench.

With the U.S. ringleaders having been dusted, the worldwide nonsense will probably start dying down soon, and then they can go back to focusing on their old “Bush is a drunken frat boy!” nonsense.

66

[quote]WASHINGTON, June 25

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No offense Tigerman. I am in complete agreement that Iraq had programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Like however the eternal and ever changing figures on the museum looting and the situation on the ground, I will wait until this is proven to be true. Seems that there have been many such “discoveries” all of which have come to naught. Let’s wait and see what happens over the next week. If this is discounted or mistaken yet again…

68

[quote=“fred smith”]No offense Tigerman. I am in complete agreement that Iraq had programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Like however the eternal and ever changing figures on the museum looting and the situation on the ground, I will wait until this is proven to be true. Seems that there have been many such “discoveries” all of which have come to naught. Let’s wait and see what happens over the next week. If this is discounted or mistaken yet again…[/quote]

No offense taken, Fred. I’m just keeping the forum updated on current events.

69

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar … Jun27.html

[quote=“Rolf Ekeus, former executive chairman of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq from 1991 to 1997, former Swedish ambassador to the US, current chairman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute”] The chemical and biological warfare structures in Iraq constitute formidable international threats through potential links to international terrorism. Before the war these structures were also major threats against Iran and internally against Iraq’s own Kurdish and Shiite populations, as well as Israel.

The Iraqi nuclear weapons projects lacked access to fissile material but were advanced with regard to weapon design. Here again, competition with Iran was a driving factor. Iran, as a major beneficiary of the fall of Hussein, has now been given an excellent opportunity to rethink its own nuclear weapons program and its other WMD activities.

The door is now open for diplomatic initiatives to remake the region into a WMD-free area and to shape a structure in the Persian Gulf of stability and security. Moreover, the defeat of the Hussein regime, a deadly opponent to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, has opened the door to a realistic and re-energized peace process in the Middle East.

This is enough to justify the international military intervention undertaken by the United States and Britain. To accept the alternative – letting Hussein remain in power with his chemical and biological weapons capability – would have been to tolerate a continuing destabilizing arms race in the gulf, including future nuclearization of the region, threats to the world’s energy supplies, leakage of WMD technology and expertise to terrorist networks, systematic sabotage of efforts to create and sustain a process of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the continued terrorizing of the Iraqi people.[/quote]

This guy must be some right-wing wacko, right Rascal?

70

Nice try Tigerman but you cannot fool me with the facts. I feel that Bush wanted to avenge his Daddy because he got into Yale without being very smart and everyone knows that Texas is all about oil so that’s why the invasion was there and if there were any weapons of mass destruction which there weren’t because I feel that Saddam would know better after the first invasion so I do not feel that he would try to develop such weapons. And it is totally strange that Bush would choose oil man Cheney for his vice president instead of someone with no practical business experience or management expertise because that just goes to show that it’s all about corporate interests and globalization of resources and oil because the US needs to free itself from dependence on Saudi Arabia because of bin Laden and because the Jews want to make money on oil deals. So we know that this is really about oil and not about having weapons of mass destruction even though if the weapons were there it’s because Cheney and his oil buddies sold them to Iraq to gain influence over the oil and to build that pipeline across Afghanistan to be able to dominate China.

71

Fred,

I feel your pain!

72

The jews have oil? i thought they just own all the international banks to finance all this stuff. :?:

73

JB: The Jews dominate everything and there is this secret cabal behind Bush which controls his every move and that is why the US invaded afghanistan and Iraq and maybe will invade like other countries in the region because there are like 13 million Jews in the world but only 250 million Arabs and that’s why it is so easy for the 5.5 million Jews in the whole Middle East to dominate and control everything like that pipeline in Afghanistan which is why the US invaded even though it was never built. Just like the excuses about the weapons of mass destruction because there were just like a figment of George W.'s imagination cuz he is not very smart and that’s why he invaded Iraq is to show everyone how smart he is.

74

I realize some people won’t notice any connections, but I’m glad 60 years ago we had people like Claus Helberg and General Leslie Groves.

Saboteur of the Nazis’ atomic quest

March 27 2003

The Norwegian resistance hero Claus Helberg, who has died aged 84, took part in one of the most daring and important commando raids of World War II - the attack on a heavy-water plant crucial to the Nazis’ nuclear plans. Nine British-trained Norwegian saboteurs were dropped by parachute on a frozen lake in the county of Telemark, west of Oslo, on February 17, 1943, to attack the Norsk-Hydro laboratories at Vemork, near Rjukan, Helberg’s birthplace.

Their exploits were immortalised in The Heroes of Telemark (1965), starring Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris.

Helberg’s local knowledge was crucial to the raid’s success. The third of five sons of an intellectual family, he had taken a job as a guide and skiing instructor after finishing college in Bergen. He was captured during the Nazi invasion of Norway, but escaped and, after training in England, returned home for the Telemark attack.

Operation Freshman, an earlier raid on the heavy-water facility, had failed in November 1942, when the two gliders carrying British Royal Engineers and their Norwegian escorts crashed far from the objective. The 14 survivors were rounded up by the Germans and shot the same day.

The destruction of the plant was requested by General Leslie Groves, the American military administrator of the Manhattan Project, then developing the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. Prompted by warnings from Einstein, the Allies feared that the Nazis might build a nuclear device before them. Indeed, had the Germans not dismissed particle physics as “Jewish science”, and forced its practitioners out of the country in the '30s, this could well have happened.

The Allies, of course, had no knowledge of German scientific doubts or Nazi indifference. They did, however, have reliable information that the Germans were working on a reactor. It was also clear that the Nazis had acquired Belgian uranium from the Congo, and had the Norwegian heavy-water plant at their disposal.

Helberg and his colleagues in Operation Gunnerside wore white snowsuits over their British uniforms as they landed 50 kilometres north-west of Vemork, in the midst of the toughest mountain country in northern Europe. They had weapons, skis, a radio, 18 packs of explosive - and poison capsules in case they were caught.

After struggling through terrible snowstorms for 11 days, the group reached a mountain top overlooking the remote site, descended into a gorge and climbed up the other side to attack on February 28. They penetrated the plant through a cable conduit, and detonated a series of explosions that spilt half a tonne of the painstakingly collected heavy water. No one was injured in the raid; five commandos got away to neutral Sweden, and four spent five months eluding capture before escaping to Britain by sea.

A German general described the Telemark operation as the finest coup he had ever heard of. It delayed the research by a year. Yet the Germans soon had the plant going again, and work was only brought to a halt by a heavy raid of US bombers. It took another Norwegian operation - sinking a ferry carrying heavy water to Germany in 1944 - to bring the Nazi nuclear program to a permanent halt.

After the war, Helberg, now famous across Scandinavia, returned to his outdoor life, opening up mountain tracks and shelters for hikers and climbers. He is survived by Ragnhild, his wife of 53 years.

smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/ … 56623.html

75

Blueface:

Yup nothing new under the sun. Reminds me of the Israelis taking out Osirek (built by the French surely?) nuclear plant in 1981? or 1983?

I cannot even begin to imagine what the Middle East would be like today had Iraq had nuclear weapons in the early 1990s when Saddam decided to invade Kuwait.

76

Two points relating to the Helberg article:

The nations involved were in a state of war, so defeating each other’s WMD programs was a legitimate war aim. The Norwegian action is not a precedent for peacetime: It does not give the right to unilaterally attack another country that may be developing WMD during peacetime.

The United States remains the only country to have offensively used nuclear weapons - on a country which at the time had been suing for peace for months.

77

Did the Japanese want to surrender? or just negotiate? Just curious. I had not heard that they were trying to end the war months before the nuclear bombs.

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[quote=“Soddom”]Two points relating to the Helberg article:

The nations involved were in a state of war, so defeating each other’s WMD programs was a legitimate war aim. The Norwegian action is not a precedent for peacetime: It does not give the right to unilaterally attack another country that may be developing WMD during peacetime.[/quote]

Soddom, the 1990 war was not concluded. It was not “peacetime”… it was a conditional cease-fire. Saddam failed to comply with the conditions of that cease-fire. The firing re-commenced.

Surely only because we debeloped it first. Thank God we did.

The conditions were unconditional surrender. Japan had not yet agreed to that.

79

The historical records show that the American negotiator with the Japanese expressed outrage with Truman’s intransigence and unwillingness to take the Japanese peace proposals seriously. There’s no doubt in the mind of many that Truman was most anxious to show off this weapon to the world, most particularly to the Russians. One bomb was too many, two was callous.

80

The Japanese showed themselves to be quite tough and not very concerned with human rights during the entire war. Given the Japanese refusal to budge an inch during the entire Pacific War despite horrendous losses, why would the “negotiations” prove that they were in fact honest brokers in any peace agreement.

I also believe that up to that time, it was highly customary to seek unconditional surrender for any nation initiating a conflict against another at the time.

Interesting point about how the US action against Iraq was an unprecedented pre-emptive strike. And Pearl Harbor…

Anyway, I can kind of see your point Soddom but having known foreigners who were interned by the Japanese or POWs during the war, I kind of have a hard time sympathizing with the tragedies that befell them with the nuclear attacks. Furthermore any land invasion of the island would have been far more costly in terms of Allied and Japanese civilian lives.