THEY FOUND THE WMD'S!....oh wait, no they didn't.

[Qdrop]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."


Oh, but wait...

Defense Department Disavows Santorum’s WMD Claims

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/21/dod-disavows-santorum/

[EN[i]GMA]

Well, to be fair, they were weapons of mass destruction, at one point in time.

Even though they aren't the mobile labs, or the unmanned drones, or the long range missiles, or the tons of anthrax, or the nukes, or, you get the idea.

Hey, a few dozen rusty shells is good enough for me!

That makes it all worth it.

[kaiser soze]

I bet the side of the containers say....MADE IN THE U..

they are grasping at straws to keep this war legit

[TimDoolan]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."


Oh, but wait...

Defense Department Disavows Santorum’s WMD Claims

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/21/dod-disavows-santorum/

The rockets which Sadaam was hiding contained Sarin, a deadly nerve agent which the U.N. had prohibitied. So Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction. That is a fact! To say they didn't is a flat out propaganda.


Qdrop, I am convinced that you are so committed to the Bush-lied position, nothing will allow you to move off of that position no matter what evidence is forthcoming.

[Echewta]

So who is doing the popaganda in the above story then Tim? The Defense Department or the Senators? One of them has to be. Its not Qdrop.

[Qdrop]

The rockets which Sadaam was hiding contained Sarin, a deadly nerve agent which the U.N. had prohibitied. So Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction. That is a fact! To say they didn't is a flat out propaganda.


Qdrop, I am convinced that you are so committed to the Bush-lied position, nothing will allow you to move off of that position no matter what evidence is forthcoming.

the missiles are real.
they are prohibited by the UN...true.

the problem here is that these are from pre-91'. and there existance has been known and documented. this is not new. this is not a new find.
but the GOP is parading it out like it is.
it's propaganda at election time.

[Schmeltz]

You ought to know, Doolan, that "facts" must always be examined in their proper context. Isolating the single fact that Iraq had sarin ignores the context, which is enlightening:


...intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitive nature, said the weapons were produced before the 1991 Gulf War and there is no evidence to date of chemical munitions manufactured since then. They said an assessment of the weapons concluded they are so degraded that they couldn't now be used as designed.

...

One official conceded that these pre-Gulf War weapons did not pose a threat to the U.S. military before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They were not maintained or part of any organized program run by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. - Associated Press (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_go_co/iraq_s_weapons)

So what this evidence actually reveals, I'm afraid, is that the anti-war crowd was right all along: Iraq had no stockpiles of WMDs, no program to manufacture or conceal them, and couldn't even maintain the small amounts of antiquated weaponry they did actually possess. But the way you (not to mention your partisan political leaders) leap at this non-starter of a story seems to indicate that you are so committed to the Republican party line that nothing will allow you to shift from that position no matter what evidence is forthcoming.

[TimDoolan]

So what this evidence actually reveals, I'm afraid, is that the anti-war crowd was right all along: Iraq had no stockpiles of WMDs, no program to manufacture or conceal them, and couldn't even maintain the small amounts of antiquated weaponry they did actually possess. But the way you (not to mention your partisan political leaders) leap at this non-starter of a story seems to indicate that you are so committed to the Republican party line that nothing will allow you to shift from that position no matter what evidence is forthcoming.

So you really think that since the wmds were made pre '91 they have no relevance to the war on terror? You really think Sadaam wouldn't have used them if he had the chance? Also, its not just the 500 wmds Santorum was talking about.

"Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.' According to Santorum, 'That means in addition to the 500, there are filled and unfilled munitions still believed to exist within the country.' Reading from the document, Santorum added, 'Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the Black Market. Use of these weapons by terrorist or insurgent groups would have implications for coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside of Iraq cannot be ruled out."




Also, if Iraq had no program to manufacture or conceal WMD's, why the fuck did Clinton bother with this?!!?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Desert_Fox


Hey look at this! HOLY SHIT

President Clinton announced a new policy toward Iraq of "regime change." On October 31, 1998 the president signed into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act." [2] [3] The new Act appropriated funds to Iraqi opposition groups in the hope of removing Saddam Hussein from power and replacing his regime with a democracy.

[Qdrop]

So you really think that since the wmds were made pre '91 they have no relevance to the war on terror? You really think Sadaam wouldn't have used them if he had the chance? Also, its not just the 500 wmds Santorum was talking about. no one doubts the evil of Saddam....
but those munitions were basically deamed"unusable"...meaning they were in such a state of rust and decay that they were of no threat.


"Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.' According to Santorum, 'That means in addition to the 500, there are filled and unfilled munitions still believed to exist within the country.' Reading from the document, Santorum added, 'Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the Black Market. Use of these weapons by terrorist or insurgent groups would have implications for coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside of Iraq cannot be ruled out." no one is going to buy rusted, unusable missiles...except for a collector on Ebay or some shit.







Hey look at this! HOLY SHIT

President Clinton announced a new policy toward Iraq of "regime change." On October 31, 1998 the president signed into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act." [2] [3] The new Act appropriated funds to Iraqi opposition groups in the hope of removing Saddam Hussein from power and replacing his regime with a democracy.
Most people wanted Saddam out of power...and wanted a stable, democratic state in it's place. that's no secret.
it would mean an SAFE, industrial trade/market partner with the US.

Clinton was just hoping for an internal insurrection, rather than a US lead war.

Cheney and Rumsfield didn't want to wait....so they manufactured a false war instead.
the decision to attack Iraq directly was made BEFORE 9/11....this was part of the main agenda of the Bush Administration since before he was even elected.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/

[TimDoolan]

Clinton was just hoping for an internal insurrection, rather than a US lead war. Cheney and Rumsfield didn't want to wait....so they manufactured a false war instead the decision to attack Iraq directly was made BEFORE 9/11....this was part of the main agenda of the Bush Administration since before he was even elected.

I'm not surprised at this. By that time we had all of the neccesary intel to attack. 9/11 prompted us to demand the saddam cooperate. When we felt he had not, we ruined his shit.


Hoping, hoping, hoping hoping. That was Clintons presidency in a nutshell. Instead of taking action, he played ping pong with the palestineans and Iraq. Eventually the U.S. Cole was bombed and Al-Queda was alowed to flourish in Iraq, Syria and Iran.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/ That was very interesting, though, thanks.

[Qdrop]

By that time we had all of the neccesary intel to attack. "intel" isn't the word. the word would be "cohersion"

9/11 prompted us to demand the saddam cooperate. When we felt he had not, we ruined his shit. 9/11 gave the Bush Admin. the leverage they needed to go forward with thier pre-planned war.

and Al-Queda was alowed to flourish in Iraq, Syria and Iran. where do you get your info?


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/ That was very interesting, though, thanks.
yeah, watch that whole program (the 'watch online") and then come to this thread.
you'll feel a little foolish.

[Schmeltz]

So you really think that since the wmds were made pre '91 they have no relevance to the war on terror?


Uh... yes, I do. I'll quote this for you again - this time make sure to read it:


They said an assessment of the weapons concluded they are so degraded that they couldn't now be used as designed.


What is it you know that the internationally renowned experts who have actually examined this weaponry don't know? The consensus reached by everybody connected to this find, including the professionals who run your country's military forces and intelligence services, is that this weaponry is worthless. It's very telling that you choose to deliberately ignore their testimony in favour of the propaganda and hyperbole advanced by hardline elements of the current political party.

(It's equally telling, of course, that you have now attempted to divert this thread from its original subject into some meaningless criticism of the Clinton administration - but then, consistency and reason have never exactly been hallmarks of any Republican I've ever encountered.)


The new Act appropriated funds to Iraqi opposition groups in the hope of removing Saddam Hussein from power and replacing his regime with a democracy.


Who cares? Your country has spent decades interfering in the affairs of other nations via similar methods; this is nothing new. Hugo Chavez is convinced your government was behind the domestic coup that tried to overthrow him; this sounds very much like the same sort of thing. The commitment of enormous American military power to the destruction, occupation, and (maybe? eventually?) reconstruction of an entire nation is something else altogether, especially when based on fabricated intelligence, ideological fervour, and outright lies.

Care to dig yourself in any deeper?

[TimDoolan]

Your country has spent decades interfering in the affairs of other nations via similar methods; this is nothing new. Hugo Chavez is convinced your government was behind the domestic coup that tried to overthrow him; this sounds very much like the same sort of thing. The commitment of enormous American military power to the destruction, occupation, and (maybe? eventually?) reconstruction of an entire nation is something else altogether, especially when based on fabricated intelligence, ideological fervour, and outright lies. Care to dig yourself in any deeper?

If you think what Bush did was such an abhorrence, answer me this. How does keeping Sadaam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?

[Echewta]

Because we kept saddam in check which kept Iraq in check. Saddam did something we haven't been able to do for years.

[Schmeltz]

How does keeping Sadaam in power promote peace and justice in Iraq?


Ah, how infinitely clever. To simply ignore the pertinent points raised by one's opponent and sidetrack the debate into terms that you feel are perfectly indefensible and guaranteed to prove the legitimacy of the party line. Well, if only for the sake of making myself feel good, I suppose I'll play the game - but I refuse to play it by your rules.

Sorry, but I will not admit that it is necessarily a good thing to keep a vicious, malignant, exploitative, tin-pot dictator in power. To allow Saddam and his ilk (a broad category that would include various individuals from various ostensibly different backgrounds, from Robert Mugabe to Hu Jintao to George W. Bush) to exercise their distorted and perverted whims of power over countless millions of perfectly innocent people is abhorrent. I think one thing on which we can all agree, as I have expressed many times before, is that the kinds of abuses of political power perpetuated by people like Saddam Hussein are a blot on contemporary human society. Atrocities of unamiginable magnitude, horrors beyond the power of language to describe, mind-bogglingly animalistic behaviour - none of this should be excused. None of this should be tolerated. You would think we would know better. Yes, I agree: Saddam Hussein is a bad person who ought to be punished for his crimes.

But.

BUT.

What you are explicitly suggesting is that the subjection of the Iraqi people to occupation by the world's most powerful military entity is better than the tyranny to which they were subjected by Saddam Hussein. And, even more appalling than this, what you are suggesting is that the chaos unleashed upon these people in the form of a destructive militarist anarchy equally unimaginable and atrocious by our own standards is somehow better than the abuse and horror they suffered under Saddam.

Sorry, but I do not agree. I do not consider that the agony undergone by these people at the hands of the West's leading power is necessarily more tolerable or beneficent than that which they underwent at the hands of a homegrown dictator. This is nothing more than a masturbatory illusion, parrotted by people completely out of touch with reality. Look at the news that comes out of Iraq every day, for Christ's sake! What if 85 American factory workers were abducted by masked gunmen in Denver tomorrow? What do you think the general reaction would be? How do you think things would change in your country if a car bomb was detonated in DC next week and sixty people were killed? What if you had to line up with everybody else in your neighbourhood for twelve or fourteen hours a day simply on the strength of finding a job to keep your family fed for a day or two at a time? What if drinking water and electricity and phone service were luxuries you counted on for a few hours a day instead of second thoughts to be taken for granted?

Jesus H, buddy! For me to sit here and read the kind of silly ideological bullshit you crank out is almost a surreal experience! Have you ever actually thought about the savage, barbaric reality that people are experiencing thanks to your support of the machine? Have you ever tried to think about what it might be like to be on the receiving end of the most horrifically nightmarish incarnation of military power ever produced in human history - regardless of the intentions that might be behind it? Do you honestly think that there is any real practical difference between the Republican Guard who kills your son and rapes your daughter, and the American troops who gun down your brother and drop phosphorus bombs on your house? WHAT THE FUCK, MAN. Use your fucking head!

There is no more peace and justice in Iraq now than there was under Saddam. Comparing your own experience to that of the average Iraqi ought to tell you that, if you're using your own brain instead of mindlessly repeating the Republican party line. It's very very easy for you to sit at your computer and insist that dirt-poor people across the globe should put up with an experience that you cannot even imagine in your worst nightmares simply because you have some kind of skewed personal faith in your deadbeat president. Wake the fuck up! You're not even asking the right questions, let alone looking for the proper answers.

I cannot even express to you how angry I am that people can think like this. It engrages me beyond the bounds of all reason. Be thankful that I am as powerless and useless as I really am, because things would be very different if I had history's most powerful military creation at my beck and call. Or so I'd like to think, anyway.

[TimDoolan]

Ah, how infinitely clever. To simply ignore the pertinent points raised by one's opponent and sidetrack the debate into terms that you feel are perfectly indefensible and guaranteed to prove the legitimacy of the party line. Well, if only for the sake of making myself feel good, I suppose I'll play the game - but I refuse to play it by your rules.

Sorry, but I will not admit that it is necessarily a good thing to keep a vicious, malignant, exploitative, tin-pot dictator in power. To allow Saddam and his ilk (a broad category that would include various individuals from various ostensibly different backgrounds, from Robert Mugabe to Hu Jintao to George W. Bush) to exercise their distorted and perverted whims of power over countless millions of perfectly innocent people is abhorrent. I think one thing on which we can all agree, as I have expressed many times before, is that the kinds of abuses of political power perpetuated by people like Saddam Hussein are a blot on contemporary human society. Atrocities of unamiginable magnitude, horrors beyond the power of language to describe, mind-bogglingly animalistic behaviour - none of this should be excused. None of this should be tolerated. You would think we would know better. Yes, I agree: Saddam Hussein is a bad person who ought to be punished for his crimes.

But.

BUT.

What you are explicitly suggesting is that the subjection of the Iraqi people to occupation by the world's most powerful military entity is better than the tyranny to which they were subjected by Saddam Hussein. And, even more appalling than this, what you are suggesting is that the chaos unleashed upon these people in the form of a destructive militarist anarchy equally unimaginable and atrocious by our own standards is somehow better than the abuse and horror they suffered under Saddam.

Sorry, but I do not agree. I do not consider that the agony undergone by these people at the hands of the West's leading power is necessarily more tolerable or beneficent than that which they underwent at the hands of a homegrown dictator. This is nothing more than a masturbatory illusion, parrotted by people completely out of touch with reality. Look at the news that comes out of Iraq every day, for Christ's sake! What if 85 American factory workers were abducted by masked gunmen in Denver tomorrow? What do you think the general reaction would be? How do you think things would change in your country if a car bomb was detonated in DC next week and sixty people were killed? What if you had to line up with everybody else in your neighbourhood for twelve or fourteen hours a day simply on the strength of finding a job to keep your family fed for a day or two at a time? What if drinking water and electricity and phone service were luxuries you counted on for a few hours a day instead of second thoughts to be taken for granted?

Jesus H, buddy! For me to sit here and read the kind of silly ideological bullshit you crank out is almost a surreal experience! Have you ever actually thought about the savage, barbaric reality that people are experiencing thanks to your support of the machine? Have you ever tried to think about what it might be like to be on the receiving end of the most horrifically nightmarish incarnation of military power ever produced in human history - regardless of the intentions that might be behind it? Do you honestly think that there is any real practical difference between the Republican Guard who kills your son and rapes your daughter, and the American troops who gun down your brother and drop phosphorus bombs on your house? WHAT THE FUCK, MAN. Use your fucking head!

There is no more peace and justice in Iraq now than there was under Saddam. Comparing your own experience to that of the average Iraqi ought to tell you that, if you're using your own brain instead of mindlessly repeating the Republican party line. It's very very easy for you to sit at your computer and insist that dirt-poor people across the globe should put up with an experience that you cannot even imagine in your worst nightmares simply because you have some kind of skewed personal faith in your deadbeat president. Wake the fuck up! You're not even asking the right questions, let alone looking for the proper answers.

I cannot even express to you how angry I am that people can think like this. It engrages me beyond the bounds of all reason. Be thankful that I am as powerless and useless as I really am, because things would be very different if I had history's most powerful military creation at my beck and call. Or so I'd like to think, anyway.

I do not have any "personal faith in Bush," I just agree on the policy on war with Iraq. Chill the fuck out.