Fact is: Mr. Kay didn't find any WMD program in an Iraq where every site and every place was open to him.
Wrong: Mr. Kay did find evidence of programs (dual-use of course), but he did not find large stockpiles or evidence of mass production activity. The Duelfer report also did not find stockpiles but did find evidence of: efforts to reconstitute nuclear programs, chemical and biological weapons experiments, and small-scale "terrorist" type chemical and biological weapons prototypes. Some key findings were:
Nuclear *Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq's ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.
*In the wake of Desert Storm, Iraq took steps to conceal key elements of its program and to preserve what it could of the professional capabilities of its nuclear scientific community. ISG found a limited number of post-1995 activities that would have aided the reconstitution of the nuclear weapons program once sanctions were lifted.
Chemical *The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions. Iraq implemented a rigorous and formalized system of nationwide research and production of chemicals, but ISG will not be able to resolve whether Iraq intended the system to underpin any CW related efforts.
*Iraq's historical ability to implement simple solutions to weaponization challenges allowed Iraq to retain the capability to weaponize CW agent when the need arose. Because of the risk of discovery and consequences for ending UN sanctions, Iraq would have significantly jeopardized its chances of having sanctions lifted or no longer enforced if the UN or foreign entity had discovered that Iraq had undertaken any weaponization activities.
*ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.
Biological *Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability. Nevertheless, after 1996 Iraq still had a significant dual-use capability--some declared--readily useful for BW if the Regime chose to use it to pursue a BW program. Moreover, Iraq still possessed its most important BW asset, the scientific know-how of its BW cadre.
*Depending on its scale, Iraq could have re-established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so, but ISG discovered no indications that the Regime was pursuing such a course.
*ISG judges that in 1991 and 1992, Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent. However ISG lacks evidence to document complete destruction. Iraq retained some BW-related seed stocks until their discovery after Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
*The IIS had a series of laboratories that conducted biological work including research into BW agents for assassination purposes until the mid-1990s. ISG has not been able to establish the scope and nature of the work at these laboratories or determine whether any of the work was related to military development of BW agent.
The point is not to look at what was wrong; there were mistaken assessments. The point is to find what was right. Saddam was in breach of sanctions, and his intentions were clear. Furthermore, the ISG did not investigate boarder act
The thing to remember here is THE IRAQIS WERE RIGHT!
I would not be so definitive on that. 1.) Syrian exile Nizar Nayyouf was on British Ch 5. in January 2004 saying that weapons and documents were smuggled to Syria. 2.) Former weapons inspector David Kay told the London Telegraph also in January that interviewed Iraqi official say a lot of material went to Syria. Although the downplayed this quite a bit. 3.) In October of 2003 Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, revealed that vehicle traffic on the Syrian border photographed by U.S. spy satellites. 4.) Early in the war Israel clamed that no weapons would be found in Iraq because they were all moved to Syria... I could go on with other reports of shipment of banned equipment that was found in scrap yards in Turkey and as far away as Amsterdam. Also there were reports going back to 2002 that Saddam kept documents on WMD programs in Syria (Defense & Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy Feb 2004).
Saddam had to save face, both nationally and internationally, so of course they are going to be belligerent. You can't expect them to just rollover and be happy about it. That isn't realistic and the Bush administration knew it.
Exactly why the Bush administration got so tough. In the wake of 9/11 the administration decided that it would no longer be tolerated period. National security, and some could argue world security, was put before Saddam's pride. Saddam lost the Gulf War, he agreed to the terms of the cease-fire, but he NEVER fulfilled that agreement.
...on the important things, on the substantive issues, they were fully cooperating with us.
No, they were not. Cooperation was improving; I will admit that. Destroying banned missiles at the astonishing rate of 2-3/day; I think it got to 9 on one day. Hardly an outstanding effort. As late as February of 2003, Hans Blix was saying that Iraq had still not make the "fundamental decision" to disarm. Also, Hans Blix was frustrated at the lack of documentation on chemical and biological agents especially compared to the nuclear documentation. Private interviews with scientists only occurred after we positioned 200,000 troops on the border in March of 2003. Only about 10 of 38 were reported to have taken place. Remember also that their families were not allowed to leave the country.
I think we won't know for sure for a few more years.
Granted my examples were simplified and abbreviated. If you listed every possible scenario which would lead to my possession of WMD's each one would be ridiculous. "...[I]f you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." --Spock.
Although this information is still in the revision process, Iraq had WMD's by its own admission. Iraq was supposed to prove that it had destroyed them, not that it did not have them. Notice that we were at the brink of war at least twice since the end of the first Gulf war, under Clinton (apparently he was also not satisfied either).
Your last statement is pure speculation and is very dependent on when you start the timeline; although I suspect you are correct at least in regards to how drastic the action would have had to be.
The burden of proof was not for Saddam to prove that he did not have weapons. It was to prove he destroyed the ones that he had. Prior to Gulf War 1, we knew he had a certain number of chemical and biological weapons; he had used them; he had declared such possession to the UN. But he never provided adequate proof that WMD were being destroyed. Defectors, like Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamel al Majid, had also helped uncovered covert operations in Iraq in 1995.
Assume that I have WMD's. Well I cannot produce such things out of thin air so I must have purchased the components for make such things. There are very few companies that deal in such commodities. Precursor to VX and sarin gas, and nuclear fuel are not molasses; companies keep careful records of purchases. My name, aliases, nor any know associates are not recorded as making such purchases. These items are also quit expensive to purchase, transport, and store. According to IRS records I do not make enough money to purchase these material or the equipment necessary to handle and process this material. Therefore either
A) I am a super-criminal mastermind who as happen to amassed an undisclosed fortune and though a large extremely loyal covert network managed to buy all the components I need to manufacture WMD's with absolutely no paper trail to me or anyone else involved in my evil plans or...
B) The inital assumption is wrong and I do not have any WMD's.
When your assumption leads to crazy statements like 2=3 then your assumption must be wrong.
Anyone with even a little bit of education knows that you can't prove a negative.
Wrong! You can prove a negative. You assume a positive and find something riduclous. It usually goes something like this. Let's suppose I want to prove that a system of equations have a no solutions. You begin by assuming that there is a solution. Do some proofing and find 3=4.
Secondly,... "Dr Blix told the UN that whereas recent concessions by the Iraqis could be regarded as active, and even proactive, three to four months into the new inspection process they could not be described as immediate co-operation."
Funny, I hear the Senate Intelligence Report said something different about "cherry-picking" intelligence. And who is confused on foreign policy? Let's see who chided the president for a "US only" strategy in Iraq and at the same time criticized the use of Afghan troops to get bin Laden. Saying that we should have done that one by ourselves. What happened to the spirit of inclusion? Then bi-lateral talks with N. Korea, which would undermine multi-lateral talks leaving us with NO leverage. Who proposed giving fuel rods to Iran (sound like N. Korea all over again... fool me once same on you...). Bush may not have a perfect grasp of foreign policy, but it is far superior to Kerry's.
"Well, after 12 years during which we have seen some weapons of mass destruction and some being destroyed before 1994, at any rate, but still a lot of question marks. I'm among the people who are the most curious to know whether they will find any or not. And for the U.S. to send in 250,000 men, I think that should also be something very interesting to know."
When the UN voted against invasion, he basically gave them the finger and went in anyway. (What would happen if a country other than the US did the same thing?
The UN never voted on a resolution against the invasion of Iraq!!! France, acting unilaterally, threated to veto any resolution that authorized the use for force eroding any support for a resolution that would do so. Yes, I will admit that Russia, China and Germany were also pushing for a "peaceful resolution" to the Iraq issue, and undecided member were seeking a compromise, but only France threatened to use its veto no mater what. (AP Headlines on UN resolutions Mar 10 to Mar 17 2003)
Now France, Russia, and China supplied over 90% for Iraq's military arsonal, and appear to be amoung the chief benifitiaries in the Oil-for-Food scandal. (NYT Oct 2 2004)
Don't let blind hatred for Bush blind you from the rest of the headlines.
yes iraq was a *sovereign nation*. a sovereign nation that signed a cease fire agreement at the end of gulf war 1. a sovereign nation that was not living up to the terms of that agreement. a sovereign nation that thumbed its nose at the global community when it demanded compliance with that agreement.
the legality was that iraq broke the cese fire agreement. if you can't get you mind around that, have some more kool-aid.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
I've recently switched to Gentoo. Stability is great! I do not run many service deamons, so I have minimal security needs. Bastille works good for me. I dispise MS business practices, and there tech support is terrible (or at least it was I haven't been really using MS at home for about 6 years, and haven't call for support in about 10 years). I am current running KDE and I love it. All the applications I want are availble for download and custom compliation. Gentoo has really streamlined dependency issues. True the first install can take a long time esp. on older machines, but that's only if you want it to. Binaries are availble as well.
I think if Bush was only concerned with getting re-elected, he would not have invaded Iraq, and he certainly has not pandered to his base. (High cost entitlement overhauls, suggesting amnesty to illegal immigrants)
someone correct me if i'm wrong... could one install a dvd player without agreeing to the licence... then proceed to reverse engineer the player and publish the source code.
When will A0L have a net 2 phone service... MS Messanger and dialpad.com offer net 2 phone for windoz but I can't find a linux alternative... (bastards)
My mp3 could tell if you bought a cd... the same scheme could be used to check your mp3 against copyrighted material... encourage and support bands that copyleft there material.
1) they didn't mention that css DOES NOT actually prevent copying at all!!!
2) they missed that before decss anyone that wanted to play a dvd had to buy dvd player from a company that bought a license from css in order to reproduce the the css algorithm. this licensing scheme is what the mpaa is really trying to protect by claiming css is copyright protection.
this case is about being able to play DVD's!!! the MPAA is not going after people who have cdr's and can make full copies of a dvd (bit for bit without using DeCSS). the MPAA is persuing this case because it infringes of their control over dvd players. i don't know how this even got to trial because CSS is not copyright protection!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry no link.e .htm
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_hom
http://www.acpropulsion.com/tzero_pages/tzero_home .htm
:-( Maybe you could ask them to put it up again.
But I see they only have the Corvette race up now. They used to have a Porsche and Ferrari
Fact is: Mr. Kay didn't find any WMD program in an Iraq where every site and every place was open to him.
Wrong: Mr. Kay did find evidence of programs (dual-use of course), but he did not find large stockpiles or evidence of mass production activity. The Duelfer report also did not find stockpiles but did find evidence of: efforts to reconstitute nuclear programs, chemical and biological weapons experiments, and small-scale "terrorist" type chemical and biological weapons prototypes. Some key findings were:
Nuclear
*Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq's ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.
*In the wake of Desert Storm, Iraq took steps to conceal key elements of its program and to preserve what it could of the professional capabilities of its nuclear scientific community. ISG found a limited number of post-1995 activities that would have aided the reconstitution of the nuclear weapons program once sanctions were lifted.
Chemical
*The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions. Iraq implemented a rigorous and formalized system of nationwide research and production of chemicals, but ISG will not be able to resolve whether Iraq intended the system to underpin any CW related efforts.
*Iraq's historical ability to implement simple solutions to weaponization challenges allowed Iraq to retain the capability to weaponize CW agent when the need arose. Because of the risk of discovery and consequences for ending UN sanctions, Iraq would have significantly jeopardized its chances of having sanctions lifted or no longer enforced if the UN or foreign entity had discovered that Iraq had undertaken any weaponization activities.
*ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.
Biological
*Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability. Nevertheless, after 1996 Iraq still had a significant dual-use capability--some declared--readily useful for BW if the Regime chose to use it to pursue a BW program. Moreover, Iraq still possessed its most important BW asset, the scientific know-how of its BW cadre.
*Depending on its scale, Iraq could have re-established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so, but ISG discovered no indications that the Regime was pursuing such a course.
*ISG judges that in 1991 and 1992, Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent. However ISG lacks evidence to document complete destruction. Iraq retained some BW-related seed stocks until their discovery after Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
*The IIS had a series of laboratories that conducted biological work including research into BW agents for assassination purposes until the mid-1990s. ISG has not been able to establish the scope and nature of the work at these laboratories or determine whether any of the work was related to military development of BW agent.
Source: http://www.odci.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/inde x.html (Duelfer Report)
The point is not to look at what was wrong; there were mistaken assessments. The point is to find what was right. Saddam was in breach of sanctions, and his intentions were clear. Furthermore, the ISG did not investigate boarder act
I would not be so definitive on that.
1.) Syrian exile Nizar Nayyouf was on British Ch 5. in January 2004 saying that weapons and documents were smuggled to Syria.
2.) Former weapons inspector David Kay told the London Telegraph also in January that interviewed Iraqi official say a lot of material went to Syria. Although the downplayed this quite a bit.
3.) In October of 2003 Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, revealed that vehicle traffic on the Syrian border photographed by U.S. spy satellites.
4.) Early in the war Israel clamed that no weapons would be found in Iraq because they were all moved to Syria...
I could go on with other reports of shipment of banned equipment that was found in scrap yards in Turkey and as far away as Amsterdam. Also there were reports going back to 2002 that Saddam kept documents on WMD programs in Syria (Defense & Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy Feb 2004).
Saddam had to save face, both nationally and internationally, so of course they are going to be belligerent. You can't expect them to just rollover and be happy about it. That isn't realistic and the Bush administration knew it.
Exactly why the Bush administration got so tough. In the wake of 9/11 the administration decided that it would no longer be tolerated period. National security, and some could argue world security, was put before Saddam's pride. Saddam lost the Gulf War, he agreed to the terms of the cease-fire, but he NEVER fulfilled that agreement.
No, they were not. Cooperation was improving; I will admit that. Destroying banned missiles at the astonishing rate of 2-3/day; I think it got to 9 on one day. Hardly an outstanding effort. As late as February of 2003, Hans Blix was saying that Iraq had still not make the "fundamental decision" to disarm. Also, Hans Blix was frustrated at the lack of documentation on chemical and biological agents especially compared to the nuclear documentation. Private interviews with scientists only occurred after we positioned 200,000 troops on the border in March of 2003. Only about 10 of 38 were reported to have taken place. Remember also that their families were not allowed to leave the country.
I think we won't know for sure for a few more years.
Granted my examples were simplified and abbreviated. If you listed every possible scenario which would lead to my possession of WMD's each one would be ridiculous. "...[I]f you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." --Spock.
s is_timeline_1990-1996 s is_timeline_1997-2000 s is_timeline_2001-2003.
However, Iraq is a very different story see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_cri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_cri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_cri
Although this information is still in the revision process, Iraq had WMD's by its own admission. Iraq was supposed to prove that it had destroyed them, not that it did not have them. Notice that we were at the brink of war at least twice since the end of the first Gulf war, under Clinton (apparently he was also not satisfied either).
Your last statement is pure speculation and is very dependent on when you start the timeline; although I suspect you are correct at least in regards to how drastic the action would have had to be.
The burden of proof was not for Saddam to prove that he did not have weapons. It was to prove he destroyed the ones that he had. Prior to Gulf War 1, we knew he had a certain number of chemical and biological weapons; he had used them; he had declared such possession to the UN. But he never provided adequate proof that WMD were being destroyed. Defectors, like Saddam's son-in-law Hussein Kamel al Majid, had also helped uncovered covert operations in Iraq in 1995.
s is_timeline_1990-1996
Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_cri
In my opinion 9/11 was merely a catalyst for was has clearly been building since 1991.
Here let me try.
...
Assume that I have WMD's. Well I cannot produce such things out of thin air so I must have purchased the components for make such things. There are very few companies that deal in such commodities. Precursor to VX and sarin gas, and nuclear fuel are not molasses; companies keep careful records of purchases. My name, aliases, nor any know associates are not recorded as making such purchases. These items are also quit expensive to purchase, transport, and store. According to IRS records I do not make enough money to purchase these material or the equipment necessary to handle and process this material. Therefore either
A) I am a super-criminal mastermind who as happen to amassed an undisclosed fortune and though a large extremely loyal covert network managed to buy all the components I need to manufacture WMD's with absolutely no paper trail to me or anyone else involved in my evil plans or
B) The inital assumption is wrong and I do not have any WMD's.
When your assumption leads to crazy statements like 2=3 then your assumption must be wrong.
Anyone with even a little bit of education knows that you can't prove a negative.
...
Wrong! You can prove a negative. You assume a positive and find something riduclous. It usually goes something like this. Let's suppose I want to prove that a system of equations have a no solutions. You begin by assuming that there is a solution. Do some proofing and find 3=4.
Secondly,
"Dr Blix told the UN that whereas recent concessions by the Iraqis could be regarded as active, and even proactive, three to four months into the new inspection process they could not be described as immediate co-operation."
(The Press Association Limited March 7 2003)
Funny, I hear the Senate Intelligence Report said something different about "cherry-picking" intelligence. And who is confused on foreign policy? Let's see who chided the president for a "US only" strategy in Iraq and at the same time criticized the use of Afghan troops to get bin Laden. Saying that we should have done that one by ourselves. What happened to the spirit of inclusion? Then bi-lateral talks with N. Korea, which would undermine multi-lateral talks leaving us with NO leverage. Who proposed giving fuel rods to Iran (sound like N. Korea all over again ... fool me once same on you ...). Bush may not have a perfect grasp of foreign policy, but it is far superior to Kerry's.
"Well, after 12 years during which we have seen some weapons of mass destruction and some being destroyed before 1994, at any rate, but still a lot of question marks. I'm among the people who are the most curious to know whether they will find any or not. And for the U.S. to send in 250,000 men, I think that should also be something very interesting to know."
Hans Blix (March 19 2003, CNN)
*emphasis added*
When the UN voted against invasion, he basically gave them the finger and went in anyway. (What would happen if a country other than the US did the same thing?
The UN never voted on a resolution against the invasion of Iraq!!! France, acting unilaterally, threated to veto any resolution that authorized the use for force eroding any support for a resolution that would do so. Yes, I will admit that Russia, China and Germany were also pushing for a "peaceful resolution" to the Iraq issue, and undecided member were seeking a compromise, but only France threatened to use its veto no mater what. (AP Headlines on UN resolutions Mar 10 to Mar 17 2003)
Now France, Russia, and China supplied over 90% for Iraq's military arsonal, and appear to be amoung the chief benifitiaries in the Oil-for-Food scandal. (NYT Oct 2 2004)
Don't let blind hatred for Bush blind you from the rest of the headlines.
yes iraq was a *sovereign nation*. a sovereign nation that signed a cease fire agreement at the end of gulf war 1. a sovereign nation that was not living up to the terms of that agreement. a sovereign nation that thumbed its nose at the global community when it demanded compliance with that agreement.
the legality was that iraq broke the cese fire agreement. if you can't get you mind around that, have some more kool-aid.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
Take a closer look at the article. IT IS AN ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE! THe only part writen by Fox News is the headline.
Granted Mac OS's, in general, have the slickest interfaces around, but dragging the cdrom to the trashcan to eject it is not very intuitive.
I've recently switched to Gentoo. Stability is great! I do not run many service deamons, so I have minimal security needs. Bastille works good for me. I dispise MS business practices, and there tech support is terrible (or at least it was I haven't been really using MS at home for about 6 years, and haven't call for support in about 10 years). I am current running KDE and I love it. All the applications I want are availble for download and custom compliation. Gentoo has really streamlined dependency issues. True the first install can take a long time esp. on older machines, but that's only if you want it to. Binaries are availble as well.
I think if Bush was only concerned with getting re-elected, he would not have invaded Iraq, and he certainly has not pandered to his base. (High cost entitlement overhauls, suggesting amnesty to illegal immigrants)
The internet was a DARPA research project. Would you care to complain about that?
Now they can sue themselves!!!
someone correct me if i'm wrong ... could one install a dvd player without agreeing to the licence ... then proceed to reverse engineer the player and publish the source code.
When will A0L have a net 2 phone service ... MS Messanger and dialpad.com offer net 2 phone for windoz but I can't find a linux alternative ... (bastards)
My mp3 could tell if you bought a cd ... the same scheme could be used to check your mp3 against copyrighted material ... encourage and support bands that copyleft there material.
What about the people who teach TCP/IP, and networking ... hell all computer science !!!
1) they didn't mention that css DOES NOT actually prevent copying at all!!!
2) they missed that before decss anyone that wanted to play a dvd had to buy dvd player from a company that bought a license from css in order to reproduce the the css algorithm. this licensing scheme is what the mpaa is really trying to protect by claiming css is copyright protection.
this case is about being able to play DVD's!!! the MPAA is not going after people who have cdr's and can make full copies of a dvd (bit for bit without using DeCSS). the MPAA is persuing this case because it infringes of their control over dvd players. i don't know how this even got to trial because CSS is not copyright protection!!!
i want my five minutes back!