Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Iraq's WMD's.

Iraq's WMD's.
Thread Tools
BadKosh
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 07:48 AM
 
So, despite the PR campaign WMD's WERE in Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...pons.html?_r=0
     
subego
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 09:04 AM
 
Meh. If this is what we invaded over I'd prefer we were just imperialist dogs.
     
Shaddim
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: 46 & 2
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 10:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Meh. If this is what we invaded over I'd prefer we were just imperialist dogs.
They had enough to potentially kill or maim >1 million people, and that's a moderate estimate. Of course they were there, the CIA wasn't entirely incompetent, but that doesn't make for "good" news.

Now, however, no one cares, especially not anyone who made their careers off smearing the invasion in the first place. Not that I still agree with it, it was still a waste of time and resources.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
subego
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 10:50 AM
 
Whatever amount was there didn't seem too big a concern for the administration considering the laughably low priority their capture was given during the invasion.
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 12:16 PM
 
They sent a bunch to Syria.
     
OAW
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 01:40 PM
 
This again? Really? This is a classic example of how people hear what they want to hear and therefore end up arguing points that are not even in dispute.

It's amazing how so much energy was expended on the right trying to prove that Iraq had WMD when that was never the issue. Of course Iraq had WMD ... the US government sold it to them! And that was all fine and dandy when it was being used against Iran. The real question was whether or not Iraq still had a viable WMD stockpile and/or an active WMD development program WHEN THE US INVADED? And the answer to that question was then and still is unequivocally NO! As indicated by the article in the OP.

The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.
OAW
     
Shaddim
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: 46 & 2
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 02:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
This again? Really? This is a classic example of how people hear what they want to hear and therefore end up arguing points that are not even in dispute.

It's amazing how so much energy was expended on the right trying to prove that Iraq had WMD when that was never the issue. Of course Iraq had WMD ... the US government sold it to them! And that was all fine and dandy when it was being used against Iran. The real question was whether or not Iraq still had a viable WMD stockpile and/or an active WMD development program WHEN THE US INVADED? And the answer to that question was then and still is unequivocally NO! As indicated by the article in the OP.
For those who are wondering, your memories aren't scrambled.

http://forums.macnn.com/95/political...m/#post2705381

Having said that, having a nuclear deterrent is rather effective at preventing invasions by larger and better equipped military force. Which is exactly why the US went after Iraq and it's non-existent chemical and biological WMDs instead of North Korea and it's confirmed nuclear WMDs.

OAW
The same US that believed Iraq had WMDs and used it as a pretext to start a war?

OAW
Yes, some have gone from "they're non-existent" to "of course Iraq had WMD". Who can forget the media at that time, either?

CNN.com - Report: No WMD stockpiles in Iraq - Oct 7, 2004

"Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes."


Apparently he did have them, tens of thousands of them, they were simply hidden far more effectively than we'd imagined.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
The Final Dakar
Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 02:21 PM
 
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Hussein was hiding an active weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of international will and at the world’s risk. United Nations inspectors said they could not find evidence for these claims.

Then, during the long occupation, American troops began encountering old chemical munitions in hidden caches and roadside bombs. Typically 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets, they were remnants of an arms program Iraq had rushed into production in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them.
That is a failure of intelligence, not a success.
     
OAW
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 02:55 PM
 
Allow me to dispense with this f*ckery in short order ...

Originally Posted by Shaddim View Post
For those who are wondering, your memories aren't scrambled.

http://forums.macnn.com/95/political...m/#post2705381

Originally Posted by OAW
Having said that, having a nuclear deterrent is rather effective at preventing invasions by larger and better equipped military force. Which is exactly why the US went after Iraq and it's non-existent chemical and biological WMDs instead of North Korea and it's confirmed nuclear WMDs.

OAW
Originally Posted by OAW
The same US that believed Iraq had WMDs and used it as a pretext to start a war?

OAW
Yes, some have gone from "they're non-existent" to "of course Iraq had WMD". Who can forget the media at that time, either?
Since Shaddim wishes to reference a 2005 OAW post in order to take it completely out of context ... perhaps we can clear this all up with a 2003 OAW post in the "Saddam's WMD threat -- an examination of a taboo" thread where I expressed the exact same position I'm saying here nearly a decade later:

Originally Posted by OAW
2. Prior to the Gulf War, Saddam was our "boy". The recipient of millions in economic and military aide. In fact, all these WMD (chemical and bio) that the US is harping on now were sold to him by the US government. Using chemical weapons was cool with the US when he was killing Iranians. After all, the US supported Saddam because he ran a secular government and was opposed to spread of fundamentalist Islam which had taken hold in Iran. The fact that Iraq was majority Shia (Saddam and his ruling clique are from the minority Sunni sect) just like Iran made Saddam and the US really nervous. When Saddam invaded Iran he bit off more than he could chew. The Iranians started to use "human wave" attacks to repel the Iraqi invaders (they could do this because of their large population and high birth rate) and were so successful that Saddam's government was in serious danger of being defeated. So the US tacitly approved when Saddam used chemical weapons against Iranian troops in order to keep from having his ass handed to him. Eventually, the war ended because neither side could defeat the other. Now the Bush administration has the audacity to say "He used chemical weapons against his neighbors!". Bunch of HYPOCRITES. Especially since many of them (i.e. Rumsfeld) were the ones who supplied Saddam with the weapons and the military intelligence in the first place.
So clearly I have not gone from "they're non-existent" to "of course Iraq had WMD". And apparently the only one around here with the "scrambled memory" is Shaddim. Or perhaps it's just a case of convenient amnesia?

In any event, I'll just reiterate what I said in my original post in this thread ....

Originally Posted by OAW
The real question was whether or not Iraq still had a viable WMD stockpile and/or an active WMD development program WHEN THE US INVADED? And the answer to that question was then and still is unequivocally NO!
OAW
     
Shaddim
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: 46 & 2
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 02:57 PM
 
There are FAR, FAR more that have been found now (and are continuing to be found) than the, "they're part of an abandoned program" line can account for.

Were there some old stockpiles from the previous Iran/Iraq wars? Absolutely. It wouldn't surprise me if Saddam himself had forgotten about them. However, he also had newer weapons, but when the US invasion was imminent he had them buried by the 10s-of-thousands, and now they're polluting the groundwater in large sections of the country, potentially putting all of Iraq's citizens at risk.

Should the US have invaded, even with current chemical WMDs? No, we had more important matters to attend to. It was about Dubya trying to finish his daddy's war, "saving family honor" or some crap like that and of course it became a colossal waste of lives, money, and time. Setting aside all the loss of life, and the years we wasted, let's look at the financial cost. We spent $2.2 Trillion on Iraq. That's an estimated $88 Million per WMD that Iraq had. Mind-boggling...
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
Shaddim
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: 46 & 2
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 03:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Allow me to dispense with this f*ckery in short order ...

Since Shaddim wishes to reference a 2005 OAW post in order to take it completely out of context ... perhaps we can clear this all up with a 2003 OAW post in the "Saddam's WMD threat -- an examination of a taboo" thread where I expressed the exact same position I'm saying here nearly a decade later:

So clearly I have not gone from "they're non-existent" to "of course Iraq had WMD". And apparently the only one around here with the "scrambled memory" is Shaddim. Or perhaps it's just a case of convenient amnesia?

In any event, I'll just reiterate what I said in my original post in this thread ....

OAW
Right, you didn't say Iraq's chemical WMDs were non-existent, must be a typo.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
The Final Dakar
Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 03:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by Shaddim View Post
It was about Dubya trying to finish his daddy's war, "saving family honor" or some crap like that
There's a line he said in public early on about "He tried to assassinate my daddy" and I've been sure that was the major motivation for him ever since.
     
OAW
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 03:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by Shaddim
Right, you didn't say Iraq's chemical WMDs were non-existent, must be a typo.
Naturally I have no expectation that you will simply acknowledge that you were in error. That would be too much like right. So I'll let my 2003, 2005, and 2014 posts on the topic of WMDs in Iraq speak for themselves. It's one thing to disagree with my position. But it's quite another to claim inconsistency within my own position when clearly none exists. But you do you dude ...

OAW
     
Shaddim
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: 46 & 2
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 03:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
There's a line he said in public early on about "He tried to assassinate my daddy" and I've been sure that was the major motivation for him ever since.
Yep, I'd say it was probably >95% of his motivation.

Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Naturally I have no expectation that you will simply acknowledge that you were in error. That would be too much like right. So I'll let my 2003, 2005, and 2014 posts on the topic of WMDs in Iraq speak for themselves. It's one thing to disagree with my position. But it's quite another to claim inconsistency within my own position when clearly none exists. But you do you dude ...

OAW
Error? It's right there, in black and white, and reading the posts before and after throughout that entire thread doesn't change its context. I can pull up 100s of other posts from other Leftist members saying the exact same thing at that time, because it was a very common talking point.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
OAW
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 03:38 PM
 
Shaddim seriously. Are you really suggesting that in the 2005 post that you referenced I was using the term "nonexistent" to mean that Saddam had never had WMDs at all? Ever? At no point in time? Despite me clearly stating that to be the case in the 2003 post? And countless others around here? Are you suggesting that it did not occur to you that the crippling economic sanctions and extremely intrusive weapons inspections regime that was implemented after the first Gulf War was the overall "context". A WMD inspection and destruction regime that was COMMON KNOWLEDGE at the time and therefore didn't need to be spelled out in every single post? Are you actually suggesting that the concept never occurred to you that the term "nonexistent" in light of all that implied at the point in time the US was gearing up for a second Gulf War?

I'm just trying to get a sense of just how willfully obtuse you are willing to be here.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Oct 15, 2014 at 04:05 PM. )
     
Shaddim
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: 46 & 2
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 04:17 PM
 
Nope, I don't believe that had anything to do with it. See, back in 2003 most people, including the media and the DNC, believed Hussein had hidden the WMDs somewhere in Iraq, we simply hadn't found them yet. As the mid-term elections of 2004 drew near, however, the Left shifted to a stance of "he never had WMDs" and ran with it, using it as political fodder. Now that 1000s of them are turning up at the bottoms of lakes, landfills, and old mineral mines, who cares? It's ancient history.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
OAW
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 04:28 PM
 
Rigggghhhttttt. I think Dakar originally blessed us with this one which seems most appropriate in response to such revisionist history.



OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Oct 15, 2014 at 05:01 PM. )
     
reader50
Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 04:46 PM
 
Maybe you two could put each other on Ignore?
     
OAW
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Oct 15, 2014, 04:58 PM
 
Meh. No need for all that. He stayed on topic with me so I stayed on topic with him. Just like I said I would. And when the topic is respected he actually does make positive contributions to the forum.

OAW
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:59 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,