Hi CobaltBlue; Dang it, my machine just crashed (Rambus piece of trash). So let me give my objections to this news:
(1) The Iraqi source refuses to be named. What kind of testimony do they call that at a trial? (ans: "a prevaricator")
(2) The paper he was interviewed is an unimportant Arabic only newspaper. This only increases the unimportance of the interview. If you can read it, maybe you can find the article here:
alquds.co.uk
(3) The intended audience for the quote is probably the Arabic world, not the English speaking world. If Saddam wanted to threaten the English speaking world he'd presumably use a less shadowy source.
(4) The quotes shown have been edited. In particular, the alleged Iraqi source didn't use the word "therefore". No context is shown. God only knows what was really going on here. One of my secrets of success is that when a question is inconclusive, I always go back to the original documents, but these have been obscured here.
(5) Anyone who has ever been at all extensively interviewed by a reporter will know that they make serious mistakes all the time. The typical mistake is to make statements more interesting.
(6) Since the interview was in a foreign language, there is a distinct possibility of errors in the translation. A full context helps eliminate these, sometimes.
(7) The basic fact is that there is no direct admission of the ownership of chemical weapons. This statement is "trash talk". Maybe you grew up in a nice neighborhood and don't know what trash talk is like. (A favorite: the other guy is not telling the truth when he talks about the great sex he's had with your mother.) I grew up on the other side of town, and I can recognize it when I see it. The fact that the interviewee chose an obscure newspaper and insisted on anonymity pretty much ices it. This is trash talk, ignore it.
(8) You've already been disappointed by the Jones act logic. Might I point out to you that the news of the US military chartering foreign ships for munitions was also widely reported around the world, but also not at all indicative of the actual situation?
If you want to make a prediction based on your observation of this, please do. War by the end of December, perhaps? A discovery of chemical weapons within the next 2 weeks?
The latest news is that the Iraqis are cooperating wonderfully. This is the objective reality. It doesn't necessarily mean that the Iraqis do not have chemical weapons, but as far as the Iraqis have admitted to owning chemical WMDs, no, the above mysterious article just doesn't cut it.
-- Carl
P.S. I looked around for translation into English by the Kuwaitis, but there is no such article. Maybe it will show up tomorrow. But if it does, the article will have started in the Arabic press, been reported by the English speaking press, then translated back into Arabic, and then posted back up on the Kuwaiti web site. If this was important Arab news about Iraq I think I'd have already read the official Kuwaiti translation. No dice, so my conclusion is that this is not significant.
The basic fact is that the world is flooded with contradictory information. |
