One thing about wingnuts: Once they latch on to a lie they like, there’s virtually nothing that will get them to let go of it.
Take Scott Malensek, a writer over at the wingnut blog Flopping Aces:
In fact, most of the WMD claims that were made before the invasion turned out to be true.
No, mumbles. Those claims were pretty much dismissed as fantasy years ago, as Media Matters has documented:
Iraq’s aluminum tubes were intended to enrich uranium
In an October 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati, Bush told his audience, “Evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.” The “evidence” he went on to cite included the claim that Iraq had “attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” More than three months later, in his 2003 State of the Union address, the president repeated this claim: “Our intelligence sources tell us that he [Hussein] has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”
But in contrast to Bush’s firm statements, the various U.S. intelligence agencies disagreed over the purpose of the aluminum tubes—a dispute that the president was well aware of. While the CIA concluded that the tubes were suitable to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs, both Department of Energy (DOE) experts and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) had dissented from this view.
These agencies’ position that the tubes were “poorly suited” for uranium enrichment was included in the classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided to Congress in October 2002. Prior to his October 7 speech, the CIA delivered to the president a one-page summary of the NIE’s findings, which noted that DOE and INR believed the tubes were “intended for conventional weapons,” rather than a nuclear bomb. Despite this disagreement, he and other administration officials went on to repeatedly cite the tubes as solid evidence that Iraq’s nuclear program had been revived.
Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa
In his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” But months earlier, the CIA had voiced serious doubts about the basis for the uranium assertion and implored administration officials not to include it in Bush’s speeches.
Specifically, the agency sent two memos to the White House expressing such doubts. Further, then-CIA director George J. Tenet directly asked then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley not to use the claim. INR similarly responded in the October NIE that claims of Iraq seeking to purchase nuclear material from Africa were “highly dubious.” These warnings led the administration to remove a uranium reference from the October 2002 Cincinnati speech.
Nonetheless, they included the claim in the 2003 State of the Union. On July 22, 2003, Hadley took responsibility for the administration’s use of the claim in Bush’s State of the Union address. He acknowledged,”I should have asked that the 16 words be taken out.”
Iraq possessed stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons
In an October 5, 2002, radio address, Bush asserted that “Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons.” In his speech in Cincinnati two days later, he unequivocally declared that Iraq “possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.” Months later, on March 6, 2003, the president further claimed that “Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents.”
But the intelligence did not justify the president’s unequivocal claims. For example, a classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report published the in September 2002 had found “no reliable information” to substantiate the claim that Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons. Moreover, while the intelligence community believed Iraq possessed biological agents that could be quickly produced and weaponized, the October NIE made clear that the agencies lacked hard evidence to back up this assumption: “We had no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons, agents, or stockpiles at Baghdad’s disposal.”
Iraq’s unmanned drones could attack enemies near and far
In the year preceding the war, the president and other senior administration officials repeatedly emphasized the threat of Iraq mounting an attack on U.S. soil as a major rationale for war. In the October 7 speech, for example, Bush claimed that Iraq had a fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used to deliver chemical or biological weapons. “We’re concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States,” the president declared.
But the ability of these drones to carry out such attacks was a matter of dispute among intelligence agencies. While the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had endorsed the view that the Iraqi UAVs could be used by Iraq to attack its neighbors and possibly the United States, analysts at the U.S. Air Force—which controls the U.S. fleet of UAVs—dissented from this view in the October 2002 NIE. They contended that the planes were unarmed reconnaissance drones—a conclusion endorsed by analysts at the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.
But months later, Bush continued to cite the UAVs as a threat to the United States. On February 6, 2003, he said, “Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicles with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland.”
Iraq would mount unprovoked attack on U.S.
Moreover, the president’s broader claims suggesting Iraq’s ability to attack the U.S. without provocation overlooked the intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion that the likelihood of such an attack was minimal.
The NIE stated that an Iraqi attack on the U.S. would likely only occur if “Baghdad feared an attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent or unavoidable.” Moreover, the NIE classified the confidence level for this judgment as “low.” INR went a step further, concluding that Hussein was “unlikely to conduct clandestine attacks against the U.S. homeland even if [his] regime’s demise is imminent.”
As with the intelligence community’s conflicted assessments concerning the purpose of the aluminum tubes, the president was directly informed in January 2003 of the widely-held view that Iraq was unlikely to consider attacking the U.S. unless attacked first.
Despite having read the intelligence agencies’ assessment of the threat, Bush said on February 25, 2003, “The risk of doing nothing, the risk of the security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a madman with weapons of mass destruction, far exceeds the risks of any action we may be forced to take.” In his 2003 State of the Union address, he continued to emphasize the risk of an unprovoked Iraqi attack. “The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological, or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country,” he said in the speech. “The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it.”
Iraq could launch an attack in 45 minutes
On September 26, 2002, President Bush repeated a claim put forth by British intelligence that “the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order were given.” On September 28, he again made the claim in his weekly radio address.
But the administration chose not to consult the CIA before making this assertion. If they had, however, they would have learned that two weeks earlier, the agency had objected to the claim that Iraq could mount an attack so quickly. In discussions with the British government, the CIA had noted that the claim was based on a single, unreliable source and had advised British intelligence to remove it from a dossier they had compiled on Iraq’s weapons capability.
Like most wingnuts, Malensek never met a right-wing lie he wasn’t willing — even delighted — to repeat.
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Here’s my complete comment on WMD at Flopping Aces.
I didn’t/don’t trust GWB or any politician’s claims when it comes to war, so I went to the UN and other sources. Just two weeks before the war Hans Blix put out a report called, Unresolved Disarmament Issues. It’s basically a list of all the allegations towards Saddam’s Iraq-a list that the politicians and media couldn’t bear to read so they lumped it all together as “WMD”. If you go through that report, then read the ISG Duelfer Report that lists all the stuff that was found-the Resolved Disarmament Issues if you will, then it’s real clear that most of the allegations proved to be sound. Some were not, but the bulk of them were. Dr David Kay summed it up best,“It was reasonable to conclude that Iraq posed an imminent threat. What we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war,”
-1/28/04 Dr. David Kay testimony to Sen. Intel. CommitteeIf you look at the UN’s list of “WMD” allegations, and compare it to the Duelfer Report you’ll see that, yes, some proved not to be true, but most were in fact true.
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btw, in regards to the issues you listed above, I’d like to comment on them. First, let’s not kid ourselves that Media Matters is somehow unbiased and interested in truth not political propaganda. They are as much to the left as Newsbusters is to the right. If you want facts, look em up. The ISG Duelfer Report (and almost a half dozen other bi-partisan and/or independent investigations) have very in depth reports on WMD and pre-war intel….often with pictures for people who can’t spare the time to read thousands of pages.
Iraq’s aluminum tubes were intended to enrich uranium
The tubes ORDERED were designed with tolerances far in excess of mere disposable rockets, and that sent up concerns specifically because they were ordered from AQ Khan nuclear enrichment sources. Later, it was found that the tubes DELIVERED and those being made in Iraq were just for use as conventional artillery rockets, but…those were illegal as well-not WMD, but illegal.Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa
omg…those 16-words. Man, what a mess. According to the ISG report and (I believe the British Butler rpt) there was some effort to sell uranium to Iraq, but Iraq declined. Entire books have been written about those damn 16 words, but the fact remains that Iraq had hundreds of tons of low-grade enriched uranium…matl that could have been used to make thousands of dirty bombs if they wanted to. Interestingly enough, the IAEA had it in a shed in Tuwaitha w a padlock and a sticker on it. After the invasion, locals went on a looting binge, took all the stuff from the shed, and THEN the IAEA wigged out at the US about the dangers of the matl in Iraq. Apparently it was ok to have in Saddam’s hands, but not in the hands of anyone else? Doesn’t matter now. The US and Canada removed it.Iraq possessed stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons
This is a classic example of the Bush Admin taking UN claims, and then getting the blame when it turned out to not be true. However, while WMD stockpiles and programs were not found, the ISG report concluded that they had been dispersed and maintained in a way that would enable “breakout capability” or rapid restart. In 1999/2000 the UN described this capability as being able to make fresh, more potent chem/bio matl in a matter of hours when called upon. That matl was still in place in 2003 as pics in the ISG report show very clearly.Iraq’s unmanned drones could attack enemies near and far
Another example of a UN claim that was echoed by the Bush Admin and then falsely alleged as untrue. The ISG report shows pics of the drones, and shows pics of the disbursement sprayers. Had they been put together, yes, they would have been a threat. They were not. However, lets recall that this claim from the UN (and later the Bush Admin) stems from a 1997 German intel report that was deemed reliable enough to set the FBI on nationwide alert at the time. Subsequent to that 1997 German intel report, UNSCOM and later UNMOVIC continued to make the claim, and thus so did the Bush Admin.Iraq would mount unprovoked attack on U.S.
This is a misnomer as from 1990-2003 there were literally THOUSANDS of provoking actions on the part of Saddam and on the part of the west. Among these were 4 major air bombing campaigns conducted by the Clinton Admin, several attempts to spark rebellion in Iraq, an unknown number of assassination attempts, the UN blockade, the thousands of (right or wrong) no-fly-zone bombings and shoot-downs, and more. One could easily say that the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and formal US support for overthrowing Saddam is a provokation. What’s particularly scary is the text of the tape in the ISG report where Saddam (in 1991) clearly expressed his willingness to use wmd against the US irregardless of mutually assured destruction (ie he was not deterred). I suggest reading the transcript, and then considering how if deterrence then didn’t work…how could it ever?Iraq could launch an attack in 45 minutes
This is a good example of spin. It WAS a British allegation that the Iraqi forces could load artillery w WMD and use it in 45 minutes. An investigation into the claim found that British anti-war media exaggerated the claim and made it sound as if the world was 45minutes from the brink of armageddon. Here, the spin is that by somehow reiterating the British claim accurately, opponents of the war are equally doing the same unethical spin that the BBC was fined for doing.Please, read the facts. Dismiss the spin, and face the reality that there was no other way to remove Saddam, and that-as the Clinton Admin said, peace in the region would never come until he was removed…one way or the other.
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Unsourced?
I cited the UNMOVIC “Unresolved Disarmament Issues” report at least 3 times.
I mentioned the ISG Duelfer Report several times, and I mentioned the British Butler Report too.Do you want page numbers? Honestly, the entire UNMOVIC Unresolved Disarmament Issues Report and the entire ISG report are in question. The first is the UN list of allegations, and the second is what was found in Iraq (including pictures).
Do need links/unable to Google?
I’m happy to discuss it. This past election shows that we as a nation are now supposed to SUPPORT the war in Iraq and come together, to unite, to abandon the divisive politics of old and engage in a new kind of unity. Let’s unite on the facts not the spin from Media Matters and its polar opposite Newsbusters.
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Looks like meatbrain got sizzled.
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“What statements in the Media Matters excerpt I quoted above are false? Malensek cannot say. ”
-I went into detail and described how each one was false.“Citations? Not from Malensek. Apparently we should just take his word for it that this is what the report says.”
-Yes, the British Hutton Inquiry pegged the BBC and other media outlets (specifically listed in the rulings section) for exaggerating the claim about 45-minutes.
http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/“Is there a reason why Malensek is unable to provide them?”
It’s a very simple reason: there are almost 1200 of them.
there’s 129 pages in the UNMOVIC Unresolved Disarmament Issues Report of 3/6/03, and there’s 1000 pages in the ISG Duelfer Report.
http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/UNMOVIC%20UDI%20Working%20Document%206%20March%2003.pdfhttp://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/duelfer.html
in re: “Note also that the UN has magically become responsible for the claims made by the Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq. Presto change-o!”
I’d be happy to list some more examples if you’d like.
in re: “His claim that “most of the WMD claims that were made before the invasion turned out to be true” is so much self-congratulatory hot air.”
Not really. Would you like to see a VERY condensed list of what was found (too lazy to even look at the pictures in the ISG report let alone read 1000+ pages to be informed rather than parrot opposition talking points)?
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Oh yeah, btw…we’ve already been over this ground before with other meatheads. You can read it here at Flopping Aces (one of many threads that debunk your dated political talking points)
http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/16/5599/...and feel free to comment there as well. I suspect the pictures will be easier to understand. I’ve got a lot more pictures too if you’d like.
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I think in many ways this misses a more fundamental point: if it is okay for the United States to have WMD then why is it not okay for Iraq to possess WMDs? Why is it okay for Australia, Britain, China, Israel, India and other nations to have WMDs?
So take for instance the heading “Iraq’s unmanned drones could attack enemies near and far”. Why was this an argument for war against Iraq? It could very easily (and correctly) be rephrased to “America’s unmanned drones could attack enemies near and far”. And what’s even worse is it could be rephrased (again correctly) to “America’s unmanned drones have attacked enemies near and far”. (Since the start of August, U.S. drones have struck targets in Pakistan at least 19 times. The latest attack, one of the deadliest ever, killed 20. As reported by wired and various others.)
Using Bush’s own logic (and I can’t stress that enough), Pakistan now has justification to launch a war against the United States. And if Pakistan just so happens to kill innocent civilians during military operations, they can just apologize, say they only wanted to kill military installations or personnel and expect the American government and citizens to be okay with it since Pakistan would only be trying to “win the war”.
And further, if WMDs are so bad, then why has the United States “provided nearly half of the weapons sold to militaries in the developing world, as major arms sales to the most unstable regions—many already engaged in conflict—grew to the highest level in eight years”? (Reported in 2006 by The Boston Globe.)
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Socketplug, all nations are not equal. For example, by your logic, if it’s acceptable for the various peoples/nations of The Congo to use cannibalism as a weapon of war, then it would be ok for the US to do so. By your logic, if warlords in Somalia can use piracy on the high seas and starvation as tactics, so can the United States.
No. A dictatorial regime like Saddam’s may or may not have the “right” to have certain weapons, but it’s not logical to let dictators have them. It seems to me there is a difference between having a right, and something BEING right. Like we all have the right to free speech, but we are also held to account for how we use it. If we yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s our right, but it is wrong. We have the right to bear arms, but if we use them to commit murder, then it’s wrong.
Now, in the case of Saddam, he actually LOST his right to have WMD at the will of the United Nations. It was numerous UN resolutions that said he did not have the right to have XYZ (and while many people refer to XYZ as WMD, a more detailed listing can be found in the UN Unresolved Disarmament Issues Report of 3/6/03).
I would like to think that every nation has the right to own nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons because every nation is responsible enough to be trusted with them, but the very nature of owning them shows that logic to be false hope for if every nation could be trusted equally, then there’d be no need to have them.
Saddam was a state sponsor of terrorism. He had openly threatened the US daily. He was in violation of UN resolutions, and post-war investigations have shown that his regime had operational ties to Al Queda groups.
All other reasonable avenues of removing Saddam had been avoided for well over a decade, occasionally tried with less and less success, and there was a long list of other reasons for the war (it wasn’t just about WMD, or just oil, or just a daddy complex).
Oh, as to the last thing about providing weapons to half the world…you’ll notice that most of the time terrorists use AK47s, RPGs, and eastern bloc weapons. Most of the time, our allies rely on our weapons to defend themselves. Saddam’s forces didn’t use M16’s and M1 Abrams tanks. Al Queda doesn’t use them either. Our allies do. One might wonder what would happen if our allies were unarmed, and terrorists, rogue regimes, etc still were?
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“Why is it okay for Australia, Britain, China, Israel, India and other nations to have WMDs?”
Except for Israel, the UN lets em. Saddam was not allowed according to the UN.Are you equating the posession of a weapon (be it drone or nuke or wmd) in the hands of an American soldier the same as if that weapon were held by one of Saddam’s Republican Guard, or a terrorist?
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It’s pretty clear that Meatbrain is the one who is stuck on stupid and continues to repeat the lies long after they have been shown to be false.
I’ll bet he still believes Sarah Palin ordered $150,000 in clothes for the campaign.
These libs will believe anything that supports their prejudices.
Kudos to Scott for his reasoned, well considered replies.
Frankly, I think it was a waste of time as Meat Brain is clearly an idiot!
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You still think Iraq did not try to acquire Uranium in Africa???
While you are at it, illuminate me on how well you understand you were played with the smears on Sarah Palin….
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Let’s examine this claim, shall we? Here’s one of the statements made in the Media Matters excerpt I included in my post:
[A] classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report published the in September 2002 had found “no reliable information” to substantiate the claim that Iraq was producing or stockpiling chemical weapons.
What exactly did Malensek say that described how this statement was false?
If you click on the actual report link provided, you’ll see an example of just why media matters is to be held suspect for partisan spin. From the link:
The Defense Department released on June 7 an unclassified excerpt of
an earlier Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study on Iraq’s chemical
warfare (CW) program in which it stated that there is “no reliable
information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical
weapons, or where Iraq has—or will—establish its chemical
warfare agent production facilities.”But the excerpt, drawn from a classified DIA study published in
September 2002, also Stated that “Iraq will develop various elements
of its chemical industry to achieve self-sufficiency in producing the
chemical precursors required for CW agent production.” The full
excerpt is based on the DIA’s analysis titled: “Iraq—Key WMD
Facilities—An Operational Support Study.”The official unclassified excerpt was leaked to the media on June 6.
Navy Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA), stepped forward the same day to clarify his agency’s
2002 assessment of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, saying “DIA
joined in the intelligence community assessment … that they had a
weapons of mass destruction program in place.”Jacoby made his remarks during a media availability on Capitol Hill at
the invitation of Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman John
Warner (Republican, Virginia) following a closed hearing on the
missions of the 75th Exploitation Task Force and the Iraq Survey Group—both of which are involved in the search for information relating
to Iraq’s WMD. Warner said Jacoby’s clarification—first made during
the closed committee session—had interest to the public at large.Jacoby was responding to questions raised after the June 6 press
reports suggesting that in the lead-up to policy decisions about Iraqi
weapons capabilities, the DIA found there was no reliable information
that Iraq was producing and stockpiling chemical weapons. The DIA
director said the quote appearing in media reporting was actually a
single sentence lifted out of a much longer planning document.“It talks about the fact that at the time, in September 2002, we could
not specifically pin down individual facilities operating as part of
the weapons of mass destruction programs, specifically, the chemical
warfare portion,” he said, according to an unofficial transcript of
the exchange with reporters. “It is not, in any way, intended to
portray the fact that we had doubts that such a program existed …
was active, or … was part of the Iraqi WMD infrastructure” Jacoby
added.“We did not have doubts about the existence of the program,” the
director said. As of September 2002, he continued, “we could not
reliably pin down, for somebody who was doing contingency planning,
specific facilities, locations or production that was underway at a
specific location at that point in time.”Asked if additional information surfaced about Iraq after September,
Jacoby said: “there was (a) continuing flow of information coming in
to us for analysis and assessment during that whole period.”Prior to Jacoby’s clarification, media reporting about the DIA study
fueled a brewing controversy by suggesting that elements of the Bush
administration may have shaded or exaggerated existing intelligence
about Iraq’s WMD programs to gain support for the war in 2003.Excerpt from the Silberman-Robb Report:
The Commission also found no evidence of “politicization” even under the broader definition used by the CIA’s Ombudsman for Politicization, which is not limited solely to the case in which a policymaker applies overt pressure on an analyst to change an assessment. The definition adopted by the CIA is broader, and includes any “unprofessional manipulation of information and judgments” by intelligence officers to please what those officers perceive to be policymakers’ preferences (p. 188).
We conclude that good-faith efforts by intelligence consumers to understand the bases for analytic judgments, far from constituting “politicization,” are entirely legitimate. This is the case even if policymakers raise questions because they do not like the conclusions or are seeking evidence to support policy preferences. Those who must use intelligence are entitled to insist that they be fully informed as to both the evidence and the analysis (p. 189; footnote omitted).
Excerpt from the SSCI Report on Iraq Prewar Intelligence:
The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgements related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities (p. 284).
The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq’s links to terrorism. (p. 363)
Senate Select Committee on Intell Phase II Report:
REPORT ON WHETHER PUBLIC STATEMENTS REGARDING IRAQ
BY U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WERE SUBSTANTIATED
BY INTELLIGENCE INFORMATIONCHEMICAL
Conclusions
(U) Conclusion 3: Statements in the major speeches analyzed, as well additional statements, regarding Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons were substantiated by intelligence information. Intelligence assessments, including the December 2000 ICA stated that Iraq had retained up to 100 metric tons of its chemical weapons stockpile. The October 2002 NIE provided a range of 100 to 500 metric tons of chemical weapons.
(U) Conclusion 4: Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing. The intelligence community assessed that Saddam Hussein wanted to have chemical weapons production capability and that Iraq was seeking to hide such capability in its dual use chemical industry. Intelligence assessments, especially prior to the October 2002 NIE, clearly stated that analysts could not confirm that production was ongoing.
Amendment 68 – Strike the above conclusion and insert Conclusion 4: Statements by senior policymakers regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities were all substantiated by intelligence information.
Comment – We dispute several of the contentions in this conclusion. The intelligence community assessed both before and after the NIE that Iraq had a chemical weapons production capability, not just that Saddam wanted one. (See the CIA SEM Dec 2001 – “Iraq in the past several years has rebuilt a covert chemical weapons production capability by reconstructing dual-use industrial facilities and developing new chemical plants ….”) Most of the assessments which judged that actual production was ongoing were contemporaneous with the NIE or slightly prior (see Tenet’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee and SSCI below and the unclassified White Paper), but not all of them. More importantly, prior to the production of the NIE, no policymakers said that production was ongoing. If the report concludes that such statement is not substantiated, the report should clearly identify it so that it can be analyzed.
• We assess that Iraq retains a stockpile of at least 100 tons of agent … Moreover, Iraq is rebuilding former chemical weapons facilities, developing plants, and trying to procure chemical warfare-related items covertly … Based on these construction and procurement activities, we assess that Iraq has a covert chemical weapons production capability embedded in its civilian industry. Tenet testimony before SASC and SSCI, September 16, 2002.
• The main production building at Fallujah III chemical plant appears to have resumed operation, according to _ … The Intelligence Community suspects this site supports production of CW precursors as well as the biological warfare agent ricin, extracted from castor oil beans. INR, Iraq: Suspect CBW Production Facility Active, November 5,2001.
Postwar Findings
(U) The Committee reported on postwar findings on Iraq’s chemical weapons program in its September 2006 report, Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments. The Committee found the following.
(U) Following the war, the Iraq Survey Group conducted its review of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs and found that there ”were no caches of CW munitions and no single rounds of CW munitions.” Additionally, “the ISO has high confidence that there are no CW present in the Iraqi inventory.,,81 Some pre-1991 chemical weapons munitions have been found since the end of the combat operations.
(U) The ISO found no credible evidence indicating Iraq resumed its chemical weapons program after 1991, but said that “Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable.
(U) The ISO investigated whether Iraq had intended to produce chemical weapons through its civilian chemical industry. It found that Iraq had an inherent capability to use its civilian industry for sulfur mustard CW agents, but did not find any production units that had been configured to produce CW agents or key chemical precursors. The ISO found that Iraq did not have a capability to produce nerve agents.
Amendment 69 – Strike the postwar findings section.
Comment – We do not believe that postwar findings are in any way relevant to whether policymakers’ statements made prior to the war were substantiated by intelligence available at the time. This information was already reported in another Phase II report, is unnecessary, and is likely to mislead readers who might think statements are unsubstantiated if they turned out to be wrong.
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meatbrain,
I posted a comment last night that is in your spam filter (probably too many links). Can you fish me out, please? Thank you.
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Meatbrain, I’ve read the lefty tripe talking points you faithfully regurgitated on Sarah Palin. It’s a pack of lies from start to finish. I’d bother to go point by point if I thought you were intellectually honest enough to admit when you are wrong, but it is abundantly clear to me that you lack that capacity.
You’ll have to ask Scott what he meant by “Iraq declined” but anyone who has read the Butler report, or this declassified State Dept. Intelligence report knows that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium in Africa:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan23/DX71.pdf
The 16 words in Bush’s State of the Union address were correct and the people who say he was lying are themselves lying.
That would include you.
Both Scott and Wordsmith have sent you considerate and well documented replies and thus far, you have not permitted them to be seen in your comment’s section.
You reject an honest debate from civil and reasonable opponents. This tells me you are an IDIOT and a coward.
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Thank you, meatbrain. Much appreciated.
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Darn spamfilters-love em/hate em….gotta have em.
Meatbrain, earlier I mentioned (several times in fact) that the Bush Admin WMD claims were largely just parroted points leftover from the last Dec98 UNSCOM inspector report, echoed by the Bush Admin in the six month political runup to war from Sept02-Mar03, and echoed again by UNMOVIC inspectors on 6Mar03. I was accused of somehow not citing things well enough. That’s surely true as I didn’t give full bibliographical citations. However, I did link to the 3/6/03 report, and to further illustrate my point I’d like to list some of the WMD accusations made before invading Iraq. They span the entire 129 pages, but would be easy enough to find in that report. In short…please understand that I respect and even agree with people’s lack of trust in GWB’s pre-war WMD claims. So here are the UN’s allegations (allegations that the Bush Admin parroted PRIOR to the UN report) (following are direct quotes from UN btw):
Security Council resolution 687 (1991) called for the destruction, removal or rendering harmless, inter alia, of all Iraq’s research, development, support and manufacturing facilities related to CW activity.
UNSCOM also estimated that based on unaccounted for growth media, Iraq’s potential production of anthrax could have been in the range of about 15,000 to 25,000 litres.
Based on all the available evidence, the strong presumption is that about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and may still exist.
In December 1998, there were over 20 spray dryers and 70 freeze dryers under inventory control including some of these items that could be used for the drying of bulk BW agent. In addition, there was evidence that Iraq was developing the capability of indigenously manufacturing spray dryers.
Iraq currently possesses the technology and materials, including fermenters, bacterial growth media and seed stock, to enable it to produce anthrax. Many of the skilled personnel familiar with anthrax production have been transferred to civilian industries.
Since Iraq produced more botulinum toxin than other agents and it still possesses the expertise and possibly the seed stock, material inputs (such as growth media), and equipment (fermenters), then production at least at the scale of its pre-1991 level could be rapidly recommenced.
The production and downstream processing equipment needed for Clostridium perfringens is available in Iraq in the civilian sector such as at vaccine plants.
Based on its estimate of the amounts of various types of media unaccounted for, UNSCOM estimated that the quantities of additional undeclared agent that potentially could have been produced were: 3,000 – 11,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 6,000 – 16,000 litres of anthrax, up to 5,600 litres of Clostridium perfringens, and a significant quantity of an unknown bacterial agent.
The assertion that aflatoxin was one of the agents investigated by Iraq in its BW programme is supported by the analysis of video tapes of field trials found in the Haidar Farm cache as well as documents and information provided by Iraq. There is little doubt that, as Iraq declared, aflatoxin was designated as agent C for the purposes of research, development and production.
Iraq has demonstrated the ability to manufacture both chemical and biological equipment, such as simple process equipment and fermenters.
While Iraq’s inventory of aerial chemical and biological bombs was presumably eliminated, its ability to reconstitute that inventory remains largely intact.
Iraq still had significant stocks of conventional 122-mm warheads and 155-mm projectiles similar to those previously modified for use with chemical agents. Iraq’s industries appear fully capable of modifying these conventional munitions for use with chemical agents as well as the indigenous production of most or all of their components.
Except for the artillery rocket and three aerial bombs filled with VX for corrosion and stability tests, Iraq declared that VX had not been weaponized. However, in April/May 1998, UNSCOM took remnants of missile warheads that had been unilaterally destroyed by Iraq for analysis. The analysis showed traces of VX degradation products, and a chemical known to be a stabilizer for VX.
There are 550 Mustard filled shells and up to 450 mustard filled aerial bombs unaccounted for since 1998. The mustard filled shells account for a couple of tonnes of agent while the aerial bombs account for approximately 70 tonnes
Iraq is self-sufficient with respect to the availability of starting materials required for production of Mustard
It is known that Iraq had tested different types of aerial spray or other devices capable of disseminating Mustard agent.
Of concern is the more general question of Iraq’s intentions with respect to RPVs as CBW delivery systems and the relationship to the spray tank development.
Given Iraq’s history of concealment with respect to its VX programme it cannot be excluded that it has retained some capability with regard to VX.
Iraq’s account of the number of bombs and warheads filled with anthrax has changed on several occasions.
There has been a surge of activity in the missile technology field in Iraq in the past four years.
In attempting to acquire not only operational missiles but also the associated know-how and the means of production of a two-stage missile with a solid rocket motor and a liquid propulsion engine, Iraq had apparently sought to establish a sound technological basis for an industrial infrastructure capable of producing an advanced short-range ballistic missile (SRBM – up to 1000 kilometres range).
A number of areas of uncertainty regarding Iraq ballistic missile programmes still exist. Many of these relate to Iraq’s unilateral destruction of missile components and propellants. Other areas relate to imports, accountancy and material balance questions.
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but not a coward, then an idiot. No no, not then.
Curious how the 9/11 commission report is attacked as biased and hostile by right-wing bloggers when it is inconvenient to their worldview reconstruction project.
Note how the apologists cherrypick their own evidence—first it’s centrifuge tubes, then shadowy meetings. Media Matters’ reporting is biased, oh yes. Rice and Powell repudiate and retract their own remarks (viz: rocket tubes, for instance, and mobile labs).
One nice nutshell: a quote, David Kay:
“The CIA was so convinced that Iraq had the weapons that absence of evidence was taken as proof that the … program wasn’t working.”A nice mirror to this sudden flareup of evidence-based nostalgia. Or my personal favorite, which sums up the whole Iraq war fiasco—one of Rotkoff’s famous war haiku:
Rumsfeld is a dick
Won’t flow the forces we need
We will be too light.Highly opinionated people are susceptible to confirmation bias. Conservatives who have just gotten their ass kicked in an election are particularly susceptible. (Liberals of course have their own foibles.)
Good luck with your newfound attention to evidentiary detail, wingnuts. That ship has sailed, though. If your president had not been so baldly happy making his own reality, a lot of good men would still be alive today, and your smarmy apologetics diminish their service and sacrifice. There may be merit in the argument over, say, the al Qaeda meetings—doubtful, though, because the political (read Rove and Cheney) so tainted the process, and therefore the honor, of civilian intelligence (thus saith real people I know, by the way, in addition to a raft of smart and moderate writers like Bob Woodward.) Bush screwed the pooch. Screech on.
ice
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ice9 demonstrates very well the fallacy that liberal means open-minded.
My intention in the posts here and at FA is not to defend Pres Bush, but to point out that there is a bigger problem-a problem that cannot be resolved so simply as to just pull a voting booth lever. Ignoring that bigger problem and accepting the deliberately dividing propaganda of the left is to open this nation up to further attacks.
But I digress and wonder…how will meatheads like meatbrain, ice9, and more angry/faux-open-minded liberals support Pres Obama’s war in Iraq for the next 2-3yrs? How will they embrace Pres Obama’s Afghanistan policy of pre-emptive, unilateral attacks on a sovereign nation (Pakistan) even though (per Sen Obama’s interview w CNN’s Lara Logan) Obama himself admits that his Afghanistan/Pakistan policy is the same as Bush’s?
If two people embrace and pursue the same policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and towards Iran…and those policies are only opposed when the person w an R next to their name pursues them, then it’s logical to determine that the problem isn’t the policies, but the person. Obama has a D next to his name, can read a teleprompter, and is charismatic so the policies are good when he follows em, but not when GWB does. That’s partisanship-not patriotism.
(let’s see how long this stays in the spam filiter)
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Scott,
(Sorry for the delay.) I believe you missed the point. All nations are equal. Not exactly equal, as in they all have the same population or the same border shape, but they are equal under the law (international law). So we can apply the same standards to one as to all (also known as the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you).
For example, by your logic, if it’s acceptable for the various peoples/nations of The Congo to use cannibalism as a weapon of war, then it would be ok for the US to do so.
Cannibalism in general is wrong, since nobody wants to be cannibalized, and even in war is completely unnecessary (since you can capture or kill someone without cannibalizing them). It is also a crime under the Geneva Conventions (Common Article 3) which prohibits “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” as well as “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” So it is wrong for any country to cannibalize.
Say, for example, the DRC decides to commit cannibalism against the Sudanese. This does not give Sudan the right to cannibalize the people of the DRC since cannibalism is wrong in the first place. The argument would then be: since the people of the DRC wouldn’t want to be cannibalized why are they committing such acts on the Sudanese. If the Sudanese then committed cannibalism as well (in response to being cannibalized), then both countries are committing war crimes, since you cannot justify a wrong because some else does it. Presumably the DRC would then increase their attacks because of the horrific actions of the Sudanese and then the Sudanese would follow suit and, congratulations, you have a cycle of violence. (Also, those who committed the crime should be charge and punished as specified by international law.)
My original point still stands: Americans (as would another other country for that matter) would be very angry if Pakistan were to launch unmanned drones and killed innocent civilians so why do Americans think it is alright to do to Pakistan what they would not want done to their country? My argument was not a call for Pakistan to attack the United States. My argument was to show how America’s actions are unjustified (and I used Bush’s own argument regarding unmanned drones).
However, let’s return back to the morbid topic of cannibalism. There are situations where you could potentially justify it. So take for instance Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which was an airline flight carrying 45 people that crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972 (it was made into the movie “Alive” staring Ethan Hawke). Long story short, the survivors were very short on supplies and (from wikipedia.org)
even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. Furthermore, there was no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain. The group thus survived by collectively making a decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. This decision was not taken lightly, as most were classmates or close friends.
...
Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later.Complicated stuff. And returning to WMDs you said:
No. A dictatorial regime like Saddam’s may or may not have the “right” to have certain weapons, but it’s not logical to let dictators have them. It seems to me there is a difference between having a right, and something BEING right. Like we all have the right to free speech, but we are also held to account for how we use it. If we yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s our right, but it is wrong.
If it is not logical to “let dictators have them”, then why does the United States continue to provide them to highly repressive countries such as Saudi Arabia? If Bush feels the Unites States has a right to WMDs to protect itself then he cannot claim other nations (which presumably also need and/or want protection) do not have that right.
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Dang it! I’d hoped to conceal my close-mindedness for a few days more. Cocktosten.
That a word means another word, or stands for it, or denotes or connotes it, isn’t a fallacy. Read up. Fallacies are broad errors in reasoning, such as the notion that if one point of evidence is rebutted, all other points of evidence are too. If the rocket tubes could be used for centrifuges, the war is justified—that would be a fallacy.
Scott’s purpose must be different. Perhaps he intends to rehabilitate the case for war in Iraq one point at a time.
And I will support Obama’s war program. A key dimension of Bush’s, and war apologists and weasel-logicked conservatives generally, is to politicize what should be sober, intelligent judgements; to whore out the office for more power, in other words. Once committed, however, we must carry through, regardless of the corrupt motives that started the whole mess. Precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous. We broke it. That does not exonerate Bush, and his flaky minions, from responsibility. And Bush is the emblem of the moment; if he’s not a reasonable leader for the nation, and a leader for the party, then he is unworthy of office and of admiration. That’s my whole point. This ex-post-facto parsing is demeaning to the dead and maimed.
If by the Pakistan comment you…shit, I don’t know. I’ve read it twice and don’t know what the hell you mean. The macho posturing of neocon twits like the suety man’s man Jonah Goldberg badly damage our ability to put a hellfire missile up the ass of true enemies, wherever they may be, and then look the local pasha in the eye and make a case for good behavior. Bush and his mealy-mouthed apologists-
present company very much includedhave if anything damaged our ability to pursue targets into Pakistan or Sumatra or Athens, put 7.62mm holes in them, and dare the locals to do anything more than grouse to the appropriate committee at the Arab League. Whinging about arcane evidence that Iraq was a fair cop-yesterday’s lotto.ice
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