This is your typical spin - can you read the first quote AGAIN that I posted from Kerry - the one where he states using air or missle strikes...
After you do that for me - then we can go back to your comment - "I believe that most who voted to authorize the use of force would have preferred to use it as alast resort, not as an excuse to start a war".
This is your typical spin - can you read the first quote AGAIN that I posted from Kerry - the one where he states using air or missle strikes...
After you do that for me - then we can go back to your comment - "I believe that most who voted to authorize the use of force would have preferred to use it as alast resort, not as an excuse to start a war".
CHECK...AND MATE MUTHERFUCKER!
There are a couple of words you just omitted, "if appropriate", as it relates to air and missile strikes. Back again to my comment.
Been nice playin with DJ Jazzy - but not even you could spin out of that one... Better luck next time when we play "how to beat a lib with their own slippery spin"...
Let me ask you something? If you have a license to carry a gun, as do I, are you going to go out looking for a reason to kill somebody? I don't think that's what the license if for. I believe that most who voted to authorize the use of force would have preferred to use it as alast resort, not as an excuse to start a war.
If I have a gun license, congressional permission to use said gun without criminal repercussions, and a perceived (through hundreds and thousands of intelligence briefings from many different sources around the "neighborhood") direct threat to my family and loved ones as well as to my way of life in general you bet your ass I'm going looking for the people behind the threat.
Let me ask you something? If you have a license to carry a gun, as do I, are you going to go out looking for a reason to kill somebody? I don't think that's what the license if for. I believe that most who voted to authorize the use of force would have preferred to use it as alast resort, not as an excuse to start a war.
If I have a gun license, congressional permission to use said gun without criminal repercussions, and a perceived (through hundreds and thousands of intelligence briefings from many different sources around the "neighborhood") direct threat to my family and loved ones as well as to my way of life in general you bet your ass I'm going looking for the people behind the threat.
Why would you totally disregard the fact that the weapons inspectors' opinions did not support the theories which proved to be wrong?
From what I know, the exact sentence used by the UN was - "we are making slight progress"...
This obviously after they were kicked out for 3 years, continuing to misguide the UN inspectors, planting fake Iraqi scientists, moving trucks with supplies, etc...
Why can't you see that Mike?
Or, would you even let yourself see that... My guess is no...
Why would you totally disregard the fact that the weapons inspectors' opinions did not support the theories which proved to be wrong?
Did I miss something? Did Saddam somehow manage since this morning to PROVE that he didn't have the weapons? Or are you simply content to once again take his word for it over the word of your president?
The United States had reams of intelligence about Saddam’s WMD efforts in 1991. Saddam’s twelve year ‘cheat and retreat’ policy left nobody in doubt he had WMD’s. Even Hans Blix couldn’t account for 7500 liters of VX gas, 10,000 pounds of botulinim toxin, and a litany of other components. Not even the French claimed during its fight to stop the invasion of Iraq that it doubted Saddam had WMD’s. The mantra at the time wasn’t ‘Saddam is innocent’ but rather, ‘give inspectors more time.’(one that apparantly you still would choose to live by)
Even Blix himself made a statement before the war concerning the threat of WMDs being used against US soldiers: "Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said he does not believe Saddam's government will use chemical or biological weapons even as a last resort because it would turn world opinion in favor of the United States."Some people care about their reputation even after death," he said."
I wasn't aware that it had been proven yet, and I'm damn sure it hadn't even been considered at the time of the decision to launch the first strike. I thought that some intelligence sources had admitted to being overzealous and in some instances wrong for presenting faulty information to the president, but as far as I know the possibility still exists that the weapons were there (considering that a few days before the war Blix didn't think Iraq would use them because they cared about their reputation "even after death" I would tend to believe that he had some sort of idea that they were there)
I'm not about to rehash the WMD argument because it's been played out over and over on this board, but given the intel and not having the benefit of your perfect 20/20 hindsight, I still would have gone looking.
The inspectors were 'HUMINT.' They were far more accurate, it turned out, than billions of dollars of satellitesBy Fareed Zakaria
NewsweekFeb. 9 issue - "We were all wrong," says weapons inspector David Kay. Actually, no. There was one group whose prewar estimates of Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological capabilities have turned out to be devastatingly close to reality—the U.N. inspectors. Consider what Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear agency, told the Security Council on March 7, 2003, after his team had done 247 inspections at 147 sites: "no evidence of resumed nuclear activities ... nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any related sites." He went on to say that evidence suggested Iraq had not imported uranium since 1990 and no longer had a centrifuge program. He concluded that Iraq's nuclear capabilities had been effectively dismantled by 1997 and its dual-use industrial plants had decayed. All these claims appear to be dead-on, based on Kay's findings.
Regarding chemical and biological weapons, the U.N. inspectors headed by Hans Blix conducted 731 inspections between November 2002 and March 2003. Despite claims by the U.S. government of the existence of specific stockpiles of weapons and active weapons programs, they found no evidence of either. In his reports to the Security Council, Blix was always judicious. "One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist," he said. "However, that possibility is also not excluded."
Blix wanted more evidence, arguing that the Iraqis were not providing trustworthy accounts of the destruction of their previously existing chemical and biological stockpiles. He asked that the Iraqis do more to convince him. Regarding missiles, despite administration claims that Iraq was churning out Scuds, the inspectors found none. They did, however, find some prohibited medium-range missiles, and were in the process of destroying them when the war began.
Why were the inspectors right and the administration wrong? Partly this has to do with political pressure. The CIA had been battered for 30 years by accusations from the right that it was soft on the Soviets, soft on the Chinese and most recently soft on Saddam. (Never mind that in almost every case, the agency was more accurate in its assessments than its neoconservative accusers. It lost the political battle.) The U.N. inspectors could actually make their assessments without fear. (Some in the administration did try to scare them. "We will not hesitate to discredit you," Vice President Cheney said to Blix before he began his job.)
More important, the inspectors were actually there on the ground and the American government was not. Some reports suggest that the United States did not have a single credible informant in Iraq before the war. The inspectors, on the other hand, were talking to scientists, engineers and bureaucrats for months. Yes, the officials were often trying to deceive them. But the inspectors were also picking up information along the way. We now all agree that the key missing ingredient in Iraq was human intelligence. Well, the inspectors were human intelligence. They were far more accurate, as it turned out, than billions of dollars of satellite and audio technologies. "What inspectors can often most valuably assess is not just the capabilities of the regime but its character and intentions," explains George Perkovitch, a leading nonproliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment.
Consider that with other rogue states—North Korea, Iran and Libya—American intelligence has also been wrong about WMD programs, except in those cases where it underestimated all three countries' developments. Why? Because Washington has no good human intelligence and no inspections to provide information. (Iran allowed a few inspections under old rules that are now discredited.) Washington has no diplomatic presence in any of these countries. And since we're not going to invade them any time soon, inspections might be the best option.
Inspections work if they are intrusive and coupled with threats of sanctions and the use of force. There is considerable international agreement on the need for tougher standards. ElBaradei, in his recent interview with NEWSWEEK, argued for tighter export controls, more inspections and a lower tolerance for enrichment and reprocessing activities (which could lead to weapons-grade material). But for such a system to work, for countries to agree to inspections, they would have to be directed by an international body.
The lesson here is not that force should never have been used. David Kay's picture of Iraq—an irrational, dysfunctional kleptocracy with a nasty history of WMD—was a danger and would have required action at some point. The real lesson is that international bodies like ElBaradei's can work. When supported by American power, they can actually accomplish more than even the world's sole superpower acting alone.
We now all agree that the key missing ingredient in Iraq was human intelligence. Well, the inspectors were human intelligence. They were far more accurate, as it turned out, than billions of dollars of satellite and audio technologies. "What inspectors can often most valuably assess is not just the capabilities of the regime but its character and intentions,"
Is this statement suggesting that Saddam's regime has righteous and just character and intentions?
Are we still talking about the same UN that elected a Syrian to head the security council during a time of war in which Syria was suspected of aiding Saddam?
The UN corruption runs so deep that anything remotely concerning the US is so far biased that even Michael Moore looks fair by comparison.
Show me a report that Saddam didn't have a hand in writing if you want me to believe it.
The argument for taking out the government of Syria is growing by the day. The only things holding back the Marines from seizing downtown Damascus and imprisoning Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as a war criminal are (a) the lack of manpower to prevent the place from collapsing into anarchic chaos before a transitional government can be set up, and (b) the literally hysterical objections of the State Department.
Consider these justifications, any one of which would be reason alone to rid Syria of the al-Assad pestilence:
Syria has a 600-mile border with Iraq. Al-Assad is orchestrating the insertion of thousands of Al Qaeda, Hizbollah, and other Jihadi terrorists into Iraq, arming them, and letting them come back to Syria and resupply. It is these foreign terrorists that are primarily responsible for the atrocities in Fallujah and elsewhere, killing US and Coalition soldiers as well as innocent Iraqis.
As arms inspector David Kay has noted, Saddam’s “missing WMD” were shipped to Syria before the war began. Starting in January 2004, Al-Assad began flying shipments of WMD components to Sudan to hide them in warehouses in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Afraid of the US response, Sudan’s leader Omar Bashir is now having second thoughts, and is ordering that Syria take back its Scud-C and Scud-D ballistic missiles and chemical weapons components.
On April 17, Jordanian police seized an amount of WMD chemicals being carried into Jordan from Syria by Al Qaeda terrorists. Three booby-trapped pickups were loaded with explosives and VX poison gas containers. Jordan’s King Abdullah and his intelligence chief General Kheir publicly announced that if the terrorists had succeeded in their confessed plan to detonate the VX in Amman near the American Embassy, over 20,000 people would have been massacred.
The evidence is becoming overwhelming that the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad provided the hiding place for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, that it has begun providing them to Al Qaeda terrorists, and that it is waging a proxy guerrilla war upon the U.S. and the Coalition military in Iraq.
Sanctions, such as those authorized by Congress last December in the Syrian Accountability Act, and other forms of political and economic pressure, are very rapidly becoming far-too-little-far-too-late solutions, and very dangerously so.
Twenty thousand human beings were almost slaughtered in Jordan this month. Whatever anarchic chaos occurs in Syria after a B2 strike obliterates the Presidential Palace in Damascus, it is preferable to al-Assad-backed terrorists succeeding in their next VX attempt.
Syria is leaving President Bush with little else than the military option. The sooner he exercises that option, the more lives will be saved, American, Jordanian, and Iraqi.
Funny that Kay resigned on January 23rd saying there were no WMDs, and then made this statement on January 25th:
""We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."
Here's another little tidbit of info that Mike and Snowie have no rebuttal for other than to say: "Yeah, but it's only one or two. Where are the rest?"
Monday, May 17/2004
The discovery of an Iraqi artillery shell armed with nerve gas has the liberal community and mass media in a panic.
The 155mm nerve gas shell was rigged to kill U.S. troops but it failed. U.S. Brig. General Mark Kimmitt confirmed the discovery during a news conference in Baghdad.
Yet, the discovery of nerve gas was followed by a second revelation. A second shell, equipped with mustard gas was found two weeks ago.
The mustard gas shell identified by the special WMD inspection team in Iraq appears to be one of 550 declared by Saddam to U.N. inspectors during the early 1990s. These shells disappeared later in 2002 when Hans Blix asked to see them.
The sudden discovery of nerve gas and mustard gas in Iraq can be added to two other recent events ignored by the mainstream media.
Saddam and Osama
The first took place during the 9/11 hearings when former Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen testified that in 1998 Saddam's top nerve gas experts met with several members of al Qaeda in Baghdad. Clearly, such a meeting places the top terrorist with the leading Middle East dictator in the same basket. The dangerous combination of two madmen, mixed with weapons of mass destruction, seems to blow the "no threat here" argument out of the water.
However, that is not enough for the left.
The second event, a foiled gas attack in Jordan, piles more facts higher and deeper. The attack, led by Al Qaeda operatives, reportedly could have killed 20,000 people. The Jordanians were very clear about the foiled attack, the weapon involved was deadly gas and the terrorists, based in Iraq, entered by the Syrian border.
Jordanian diplomats have informed me that the investigation into the foiled gas attack is still under way and that at least two other members of the terrorist team are still on the run. Still, this is not enough proof for the anti-war fanatics.
Kill U.N. Teams
It is very clear from what we have found so far that Iraq did have chemical weapons and was trying to hide its arsenal. The discrepancies between documentation, box markings and actual items found clearly show that an intentional effort was made by Iraqi troops to mislead U.N. inspection teams. In some cases false shipping documents written in English were discovered with the weapons.
The effort to find chemical or biological weapons is being hampered by the vast quantity of conventional munitions stored under dangerous conditions. The Iraqi Army was well known for storing chemical weapons with its conventional explosives.
The Iraqi program to hide its weapons programs from U.N. inspectors was no small effort. Aviation Week and Space Technology noted in an article published in September 2002 that Iraq went to great lengths to conceal its arms technology.
According to Aviation Week, the Iraqis tried to destroy a German aircraft and its crew on a U.N. mission. The Iraqis were trying to prevent documents produced by the U.N. inspectors from leaving the country.
The U.N. documents covered details found on Iraq's nuclear weapons programs and a blueprint for aggressive, military-backed, inspections to root out the underground WMD programs. The documents also contained "rough" details of Iraqi command authorities, weapons production and delivery systems.
France and Russia
Iraq did most of its killing using Russian-made MiG and Sukhoi aircraft equipped with chemical sprayers. In addition, Saddam used French-made artillery and helicopters to dump gas on the Iranians and his own people.
The 155mm shell found outside of Baghdad airport was made for Iraq's arsenal of French made artillery. Clearly, the shell was designed to meet French military standards to fire and used advanced safety techniques to protect Iraqi gunners.
It was that safety technique, of separating the nerve gas into two inert chemicals, and placing them in two chambers inside the shell, that foiled the terrorist attack. The "binary" chemical weapons design has a metal or plastic diaphragm designed to keep the two inert chemicals apart until the massive force or shock of firing it down a cannon bursts the wall, allowing the chemicals to mix.
Ironically, the binary weapons design originated inside the former Soviet Union. Saddam Hussein rose to power backed by Russian weapons and Russian money. Saddam still owes Moscow over $8 billion for the arms he purchased from Russia.
The primary Iraqi chemical weapons are nerve gas and mustard gas, a blistering agent, standard equipment for the 1980s Soviet era military machine.
According to "Russian Military Power" published in 1982, "It is known that the Soviets maintain stocks of CW (chemical weapons) agents." The two primary Russian chemical weapons in the 1982 Soviet inventory were "nerve" gas and "blistering agents - developments of mustard gas used so effectively in World War I."
Iraq obtained Russian chemical delivery systems and the same inventory of Russian made chemical weapons at the same time. Iraqi SU-22 Fitter attack jets have been armed with Warsaw Pact designed bombs filled with chemical weapons.
Iraq used these Russian jet fighters to drop chemical weapons on Iranian troops during the Iran/Iraq war. Iraq tried to use these SU-22 jets during the 1991 Gulf war and was foiled by the allied air superiority.
AND THIS IS MY FAVORITE PART:
The Next Attack
We are indeed fortunate that the two weapons discovered so far were not used correctly. However, it is clear, that much like cockroaches - when your find one it is an indication of many more. Saddam did not make just one - he made tons.
Saddam had 220 tons of nerve gas, counted previously by U.N. inspectors that he could not declare to Hans Blix. The deadly gas, and the delivery systems, vanished into the Iraqi desert and points beyond.
U.S. satellite's detected large convoys of unspecified equipment flowing over the Iraqi/Syrian border just prior to the war. The General in charge of our space assets has publicly noted the photos showing what appeared to be weaponry passed from Iraq to Syria.
We all know from the anti-war fanatics that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - the leftist media and pundits have pounded that assertion into the American TV fact file. We are told again and again that George Bush lied.
The recent discovery of nerve gas and mustard gas in Iraq is clearly proof that it was Saddam Hussein that was lying. Saddam lied about his weapons and has hidden more than one for future use.
The fact is the left will not be satisfied with the recent discovery. How many need to be found - two - ten - a thousand? The left does not feel that any number of these dangerous weapons reaches the level of adequate proof.
Yet, the one important question they will not answer is: How many have to die from such a weapon to qualify?
The truth is you two can't argue any of this because you know it happened. All you can do is offer your own personal feelings on the subject, (which we all know are so "blinded by hate" of George Bush) while offering little to no proof of the contrary.
Um...the most important reason besides the overwhelming congressional and intelligence support was... the people.
Wasnt the polls showing something like 80% of the US population wanted to invade??
See now if he hadnt of invaded what might of happened then...
At the time of those polls, the administration had the public convinced that Saddam and BinLadin were virtually co-conspirators in 9/11, which of course was totally false.
