Hi Neocon; Re: "First, there were numerous protective suits and toxin- specific antidotes."
Every military on the planet has "numerous protective suits". It doesn't mean that every military on the planet has WMDs, just that they're prepared to defend against them. Iran, Israel and Syria all have chemical and biological weapons. Israel regularly threatens its Arab neighbors. Iraq's relations with Iran are still frosty. In fact, Iran used chemical weapons against Iraq during the Iran / Iraq war. For Iraq to not have large quantities of protective suits would be rather bizarre. Same for the antidotes etc.
Re: "If they were there to protect against US forces, they would have been worn, and an array of antidotes would have been found."
No, the US military is extremely strong and doesn't need to slime people to win a battle. The suits &c., were for defending against the Iranians.
Re: ", there have been training manuals and small caches of toxins, such as would be available for training or research, at multiple sites."
Even the US military uses "small caches of toxins" to train its soldiers in how to defend against a chemical attack. Every reasonably large military on the planet trains this way.
Re: "Fourth, there was evidently a fair amount of nuclear material at the site that was looted, certainly enough for a dirty bomb."
(a) That material dates to before the Kuwait war. (b) It was just plain uranium, unenriched. (c) Note how the neocons switch positions on this subject, given that we just shot tons of highly radioactive depleted uranium all over the Iraqi countryside. The difference in radiation levels between depleted uranium and uranium is only a matter of about 30%. (d) The US military evidently didn't think the stuff was enough of a threat to put somebody on the ground to guard it. (e) If Saddam had wanted to give uranium to the terrorists you'd already be sweeping it out of NYC. Instead, the terrorists used box cutters.
Re: " Fifth, the very fact that the regime could not account for itself led the UN team itself to estimate large stockpiles of various toxins."
The US can't account for what it did with its chemical weapons either, LOL. Anyone who's spent any time in the military should know how fast even a super power's military loses stuff. You cowards were so scared of the WMD boogey-man that you got us stuck in a quagmire that will ruin our foreign policy for a decade.
Re: "Sixth, the regime behaved, down to the last, as if it had something to hide, even though it was courting war."
This is another case of "revisionism". Back a year ago, the neoconservatives were saying that Saddam would never agree to inspections. Then when he asked for them, they said he would never allow inspectors surprise access to military facilities. When he did, they said he would never allow inspectors into his palaces. When Saddam's palaces were inspected, the neoconservatives said that the US was in possession of secret intelligence that specified exactly where the WMDs were hidden. When the inspectors went to the places described by the US and no WMDs were found, the neocons claimed that the inspectors were alerting the Iraqis who were moving the stuff around.
What happened was that the neocons fooled themselves. They concluded that since Saddam had once hidden WMDs from inspectors, he must still be doing it today. Therefore an attack on Iraq would find the WMDs and justify the attack itself. Ooopsie.
Now it's clear that the neocon logic was faulty, just like the logic that said that we'd get lots of allies to help in Iraq (right now more than 80% of the troops on the ground are US, and that appears to be the way it will remain for the "forseeable" future). Just like their logic that the Iraqis would greet us as liberators. Just like their logic that the Iraqis would be as easy to pacify as the Japanese and Germans after WW2. Just like the logic that said that Iraq's neighbors would begin cooperating with us if we knocked over Iraq.
-- Carl |
