Where are the WMD? (long)

“Exactly - the fact that 1) the Iraqis didn't even try to use chemical weapons, and 2) the US hasn't found any yet means:

The Bush boys that at least two and probably all three of the following are true: a) the Bush boys didn't know nearly as much as they claimed to know, b) the threat was no where as immense or immanent as the boys claimed, c) the UN inspections were nowhere near as ineffectice as the Bush boys claimed.”

“did anybody see oliver north's 'war stories' last night? it was really good. anyways, one of the soldiers was talking about his experience and he said....i've never seen a country so militarized, which is why these people live in such horrible conditions....

hiding something in a country the size of california would be very very simple. it could be in any of the houses(what 20 million citizens?).

ped, powell doesn't seem to me to be a niave person....”

“You guys sound like terrorist sympathizers bellyaching about how Bush and his evil cohorts pulled the wool over your eyes with the Great White Lie.

What I don't understand is with all those weapons in the streets how was this dictator able to stay in power. It kinda goes against the norm. Most dic.'s would want the people disarmed for easier control.

Just give it some time. Its a good size country and we are looking for tranportable material. That may have already been moved.”

“Don't question Bush. Only terrorists would do that.”

“If you use your right to criticize, you are only proving you don't deserve it.”

“Thing is Briar if they were moved that far out of site to avoid the inspectors - then doesn't it follow that inspections were keeping a lid on things?

Which is maybe why Phaed was cheering when Bush managed to push the inspections through, but stopped cheering when Bush pushed the war through.”

“We were told by the UN when the inspectors pulled out in '98 that Iraq was no longer a threat to its neighbors. Yes there was a concern about what was happening while inspectors weren't in the country over the last few years, but with US inteligence turned up a few notches, we were still making the occasional airstrike on what we believed were realistic threats.

Combine that with a much stricter regimen of inspections (which I gave credit to the Bush administration for pushing), and I believe Iraq was no threat. The "supplying terrorist" argument was a beautiful work of fiction, so far as the evidence has shown.

Strat, that I may be out of touch with mainstream thought is a compliment, and I appreciate you noticing!”

“Do you live anywhere near Waldron Arkansas? My former in-law grew up there. Last name Rice. Just wondering.”

“By the way, where's Saddam? Where's Bin Laden?”

“Strat, that I may be out of touch with mainstream thought is a compliment, and I appreciate you noticing!"
Phaedrus
11:27:25 AM
05/12/03

Not being mainstream doesn't necessarily mean going up stream.

Except in your case.”

“If you have any thoughts on the issues above, please feel free to post them, bacpac. I understand your schtick is one of truculent blindsiding, but every now and again, you might try actually making a point.”

“Quit whining Phaedy. You sound like a broken record.”

“Ohhh, we've got ALL the damning evidence on Saddam, we just can't tell you about it. Trust us on this one.

And the sheep did...”

“sheep?

Baaaaaaacpaaaaac”

“By Senator Robert Byrd,
May 23, 2003

Senate Floor Remarks - May 21, 2003



"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers."


Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually.


But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it – more than I would ever have believed – right on this Senate Floor.


Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein's direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear. It was a placebo for the anger.


Since the war's end, every subsequent revelation which has seemed to refute the previous dire claims of the Bush Administration has been brushed aside. Instead of addressing the contradictory evidence, the White House deftly changes the subject. No weapons of mass destruction have yet turned up, but we are told that they will in time. Perhaps they yet will. But, our costly and destructive bunker busting attack on Iraq seems to have proven, in the main, precisely the opposite of what we were told was the urgent reason to go in. It seems also to have, for the present, verified the assertions of Hans Blix and the inspection team he led, which President Bush and company so derided. As Blix always said, a lot of time will be needed to find such weapons, if they do, indeed, exist. Meanwhile Bin Laden is still on the loose and Saddam Hussein has come up missing.


The Administration assured the U.S. public and the world, over and over again, that an attack was necessary to protect our people and the world from terrorism. It assiduously worked to alarm the public and blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden until they virtually became one.


What has become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that Iraq was no immediate threat to the U.S. Ravaged by years of sanctions, Iraq did not even lift an airplane against us. Iraq's threatening death-dealing fleet of unmanned drones about which we heard so much morphed into one prototype made of plywood and string. Their missiles proved to be outdated and of limited range. Their army was quickly overwhelmed by our technology and our well trained troops.


Presently our loyal military personnel continue their mission of diligently searching for WMD. They have so far turned up only fertilizer, vacuum cleaners, conventional weapons, and the occasional buried swimming pool. They are misused on such a mission and they continue to be at grave risk. But, the Bush team's extensive hype of WMD in Iraq as justification for a preemptive invasion has become more than embarrassing. It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power. Were our troops needlessly put at risk? Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?


What makes me cringe even more is the continued claim that we are "liberators." The facts don't seem to support the label we have so euphemistically attached to ourselves. True, we have unseated a brutal, despicable despot, but "liberation" implies the follow up of freedom, self-determination and a better life for the common people. In fact, if the situation in Iraq is the result of "liberation," we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years.


Despite our high-blown claims of a better life for the Iraqi people, water is scarce, and often foul, electricity is a sometime thing, food is in short supply, hospitals are stacked with the wounded and maimed, historic treasures of the region and of the Iraqi people have been looted, and nuclear material may have been disseminated to heaven knows where, while U.S. troops, on orders, looked on and guarded the oil supply.


Meanwhile, lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and refurbish its oil industry are awarded to Administration cronies, without benefit of competitive bidding, and the U.S. steadfastly resists offers of U.N. assistance to participate. Is there any wonder that the real motives of the U.S. government are the subject of worldwide speculation and mistrust?


And in what may be the most damaging development, the U.S. appears to be pushing off Iraq's clamor for self-government. Jay Garner has been summarily replaced, and it is becoming all too clear that the smiling face of the U.S. as liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier. The image of the boot on the throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom. Chaos and rioting only exacerbate that image, as U.S. soldiers try to sustain order in a land ravaged by poverty and disease. "Regime change" in Iraq has so far meant anarchy, curbed only by an occupying military force and a U.S. administrative presence that is evasive about if and when it intends to depart.


Democracy and Freedom cannot be force fed at the point of an occupier's gun. To think otherwise is folly. One has to stop and ponder. How could we have been so impossibly naive? How could we expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and government in a country so riven with religious, territorial, and tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds with the galloping materialism which drives the western-style economies?


As so many warned this Administration before it launched its misguided war on Iraq, there is evidence that our crack down in Iraq is likely to convince 1,000 new Bin Ladens to plan other horrors of the type we have seen in the past several days. Instead of damaging the terrorists, we have given them new fuel for their fury. We did not complete our mission in Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it appears that Al Queda is back with a vengeance. We have returned to orange alert in the U.S., and we may well have destabilized the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood. We have alienated friends around the globe with our dissembling and our haughty insistence on punishing former friends who may not see things quite our way.


The path of diplomacy and reason have gone out the window to be replaced by force, unilateralism, and punishment for transgressions. I read most recently with amazement our harsh castigation of Turkey, our longtime friend and strategic ally. It is astonishing that our government is berating the new Turkish government for conducting its affairs in accordance with its own Constitution and its democratic institutions.


Indeed, we may have sparked a new international arms race as countries move ahead to develop WMD as a last ditch attempt to ward off a possible preemptive strike from a newly belligerent U.S. which claims the right to hit where it wants. In fact, there is little to constrain this President. Congress, in what will go down in history as its most unfortunate act, handed away its power to declare war for the foreseeable future and empowered this President to wage war at will.


As if that were not bad enough, members of Congress are reluctant to ask questions which are begging to be asked. How long will we occupy Iraq? We have already heard disputes on the numbers of troops which will be needed to retain order. What is the truth? How costly will the occupation and rebuilding be? No one has given a straight answer. How will we afford this long-term massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious crisis in domestic healthcare, afford behemoth military spending and give away billions in tax cuts amidst a deficit which has climbed to over $340 billion for this year alone? If the President's tax cut passes it will be $400 billion. We cower in the shadows while false statements proliferate. We accept soft answers and shaky explanations because to demand the truth is hard, or unpopular, or may be politically costly.


But, I contend that, through it all, the people know. The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood – when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie – not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory.


And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.”

“Do the Republicans have a viable candidate for 2004?”

“LOL”

“why is it that all these anti-invasion articles act like the day the main fighting was over, everything is expected to be in the desired end state? how can anyone expect that the infrastructure of the country would be just fine (water/utilities). i also wish they would explain the eden like state of these systems prior to the invasion. everyone knows there were wmd's. they will turn up. this great demand that they should have surfaced by now is a little comical also. does he think he is enlightening the masses to the fact someone pulled the fleece over their eyes? i guess not all of us felt this dire need of immediate proof.

this article reads to me like somebody just wanted to hear themselves talk again. it is the same old thing that has been said since the week after the main fighting ended.


blah, blah blah....”

“It was sure great reading about all the solutions he proposed. (Ha!)”

“Please tell me no one takes Byrd seriously anymore.”

“I caught his speech on cspan the other day. He speaks very slowly and cleary. Very slowly and clearly.”

“So bush needs more time to find the WMD that we had rock-solid intelligence on?

Next, they'll be sending O.J. in to find them (and continue his search for the real killers).”

“The WMD were hidden by a Satanic Cult.....”

“phaedrus, do you truley believe there were no biological/chemical weapons being worked on in iraq?”

“Nope. I've never said that.

I did say that Iraq, while UN weapons investigators were present, was no threat to the US. The Bush administration told the American public that we were under a grave danger from Iraq due specifically to WMD. We couldn't even let inspections continue, sograve was the danger. We had to act immediately. I want to see the proof.

We lost soldiers in Iraq. What was the need for their sacrifice? I would like to see this danger we have so narrowly escaped.”

“i wasn't assuming that you said there weren't any, i was asking if you truley thought there weren't.

your assuming we have escaped this danger. maybe the fact that these weapons can't be found is due to them being moved to, or given to, factions that have the capability to use them. i don't know this, time will tell. i would bet that they were there. not just because bush said so, but because my brother did. where they went, who knows. i just hope one doesn't show up on yours or my doorstep as proof.”

“No, Baume, the point I was making is that we went to war on a pretense that is looking more and more implausible.

For Iraq to have been a danger to the US, they would need to have had some sort of WMD and the capability and opportunity to use them.”

“haven't you ever seen something somewhere and then when you went to get it is wasn't there? you know, like your car keys or something?”

“You aren't serious, are you?”

“you had to ask?”

“I agree,I've lost my keys.Kilos of Afgan opium.”

“Give it up Phed... They are going to beleive what they want because they still have faith in mr bush. Its doesnt matter to them if Bush lied about Iraqs WMD's or its nuke program or its missle capabilities. They are sheep and deserved to be fleeced (and other things normally done to sheep that the good taste matt requested prevents me from mentioning...)”

“i like how people who may agree with any conservative ideas are classified as "sheep" and are never able to think for themselves. nice canned answer. i've only read that one more times than i can count. some deep, original thinking.”

“The truth is neither liberal nor conservative.

we went to war in Iraq because:
Iraq had WMD's that posed an immediate threat to the US.
Iraq had long range missles which were banned.
Iraq had an ongoing nuke program.
Iraq was supporting al-q
Iraq refused to cooperate with UN inspections.

to date :
no WMD's were found
no long range missles were found
the nuke plants were abandoned
no proof of al-q involvement

I dont by any means claim Iraq to be innocent. While Saddam might not have given his official support to al-q, I have no doubt he approved of their actions.

It is also interesting that the head inspector has accused the US of using the inspections as a means of gathering military intelligence.

Doesnt this suggest that there was a slight bit of exageration? Doesnt it concern you that we have invaded Iraq on what now appears to be false pretense? Or are you pleased that we seem to be turning into dangerous and aggressive conquers bent on world domination?

I have no love for war. I supported our intervention in Afganistan because our safety required it. Iraq however posed no such threat. Have we really defended ourselves or did we murder Iraqis simply because they were led by someone we didnt like? I cannot turn a blind eye and I cannot beleive it was a mistake.

Some say we need more time. How long do you think we should comb the sands of Iraq for a trace of their massive stockpile? Or do you actually beleive Iraq would spirit away thousands of weapons without anyone noticing?

One way or the other we Demand PROOF because we are of good conscience and wish to do our duty as US citizens. We want the truth and if indeed we were lied to then we want justice for those responsible.”

“that is a bit more original and much deeper.”

“My opinions maybe similar to others but They havent been cut and pasted from anyones propaganda machine. Thanks for the compliment but perhaps you might consider posting a response while Im off on holiday :}

I hate to agitate and run but theres a heavy pack and a lot of trail that needs me.”

“i can't argue the points your making. don't want to. i just don't feel the overwhelming need to have this immediate proof. i agree with the overall need there was to remove sadam and the fact that it was time to do it. i don't think there was an overnight danger, i do feel there was an immenant one. maybe not to the soil we live on at the hands of sadam, but through others using iraqi means. i don't feel we are bent on conquering the world. in my opinion, it is very hard to be the only superpower on the face of the earth. history shows that whenever there is an empire (i use this as a collective term), the smaller nations unite to ensure their survival. it has happened time and again throughout history. the united states has managed, until recent times, to not only stave off the flow, but be held in high esteem throughout most of the world. this has been done by many great diplomats being humble, generous and strong. the current administration, in my opinion, has pretty much failed in the diplomacy department. they have appeared to be arrogant and self centered. when you act like this and have the majority of money and military strength on the face of the earth, it causes fear in all other nations. even your closest allies. that appears to be where we are and it will take a very humble, strong and gracious diplomatic effort to reverse what has happened in this area. with that being said, i take pride in what this country does for much of the world. i don't enjoy seeing anyone die in war, on either side. i hate to see towers falling to the ground and killing innocent people also.

call me a sheep if you will, but i agreed with getting sadam out of there.


baaaaaaa, baaaaaaa”

“Too bad we didn't back up the Iraqi dissidents 12 years ago. I think formenting revolution and then leaving them to twist in the wind was criminal at best.

As to the recent action, I have one question for George II... Why the continually shifting justifications?

And now some people seem to be pretending that freeing the Iraqi people was the main purpose all along.

It's just bizarre.”

“thanks phaed....that settles it .....i'm going to be a liberal now...just to try it out...see what the big deal is...

tilt, swear me in...”

“I dunno 'bout no Liberal swearing in, but How's About This:

Repeat this Discordian Affirmation:

All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some
sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in
some sense, true and meaningless in some sense,
false and meaningless in some sense, and true and
false and meaningless in some sense.


THEN, read all this crap.

Then this.
And this.
And these, too.

Do a Google search on 'fnord' and follow every link until you think you've got the hang of it, then drink a beer and don't call me in the morning.”

“lmao tilt, you have WAY to much time on your hands....although i once had a principal that played a mean accordian...


i was just crackin open my first of 12 red dog's.......hopefully it will ease my pain...”

“uh oh. gotta go. I think those commies on 60 Minutes are starting up.”

“my wife's watchin this dr sencitive(wally or sumthin) crap on PBS....uhhmm...i mean, my liberal training is on....

roony was halarious last week, talkin bout his eyebrows!”

“I've always thought Iraq had some chemical weapons. I actually believed they had enough and US intelligence was good enough that some would have surfaced by now. I was wrong.

At this point, it seems very clear that Iraqi chemical weapons were less of a threat at the time the US invaded Iraq, than when Iraq was using them against Iran and the US continued to assist Iraq.”

“Nope! It's all gone.

They put it in a suitcase and took it to Damascus.”

“I still like the theory that the wily Saddam loaded it all into condoms, made camels swallow them, and drove the whole bunch of them to Damascus.”

“Though Iraq is no longer a primary source for weapons of mass
destruction to asymmetric Jihadi proxies, the whereabouts of
Iraq's biological and nuclear WMD remains a serious concern.
As The Federalist noted last November, our intelligence sources
indicate that Iraq's biological weapons -- particularly large
quantities of weaponized anthrax and possibly two crude nuclear
devices -- were moved out of Iraq through Syria in late October,
while the French were busy obstructing U.S. efforts to get the
UN Security Council on board for an allied campaign against Iraq.

According to our analysts, while al-Qa'ida cells around the world
have been dealt a severe blow in the last year of preemptive
covert and overt operations, their Jihadi terrorist cells in at
least six U.S. urban centers on the East Coast -- cells materially
supported by domestic Islamic groups -- remain largely intact.
The next tier of attacks, when -- NOT "IF" -- they occur, will
likely be against multiple urban targets in a narrow time frame
for maximum effect, with the objective of substantially disrupting
continuity of government and commerce over wide geographic sections
of the nation.”

“HERE are your weapons!!!

At Heathrow Airport today an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor, and a graphical calculator. Authorities believe he
is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction...






8-)”

“Not THAT again! LOL


Wow, Strat. Those guys at the Federalist (any connection to the Federalist Society?)... you know they will say ANYthing to cover for George. And TRY to blame it on the French, LOLOL

Are the camels alright?”

“In the recent issues of the "New Yorker" there is a cartoon. There are three dogs, two of undefined breed, looking at a well groomed french poodle. One of the two says, "I think I'm beginning to like the French a bit more!" :-)”