Wait a minute, don't put that one on me.
Oh I think I can put that on you. After all, it would seem that YOU concur that any possession of WMDs by Iraq was cause to "start praying real hard"..
Something about such a case meaning we're in "deep doo-doo".
Message 19475431
Not easy to be in "deep doo-doo", unless you believe the non-accountability for that many weapons poses a grave, or even FUTURE imminent, threat against the US and other nations.
And if you perceive danger in such a scenario, I find it amazing that you seemed perfectly happy to permit UNMOVIC to keep searching for another 12 years for something Iraq was supposed to account for in the first place..
After all, this was supposed to be an inspection, not an investigation.. The burden of proof was upon the Baathists to convince the UN inspectors that they had fully complied.
Why didn't the US allow the UN inspectors to complete the effort with Iraq in attempting to assess how many weapons may have been destroyed?
"With" Iraq? That implies cooperation. And what insane delusion convinces you that Iraq was being cooperative?
Iraq was NOT cooperating. And had not been cooperating since July, 1998, with the discovery of 6,000 unaccounted for WMD warheads from the Iran-Iraq war. And even when they coughed up that document in November, 2002, they offered no explanation for those weapons remaining unaccounted for.
No change.. no cooperation.. and UNMOVIC was at an impasse.
We claimed we had proof that Iraq had WMD before we initiated an invasion; where is it?
NOW wait a minute.. WE KNEW Iraq possessed WMDs previously because he actually used them against his enemies..
And we know because they were required to provide documents as to the extent of their WMD programs and inventories.
We accounted for, and destroyed, the remaining stocks that Iraq claimed to have remaining (officially).
But when they tell you that they can account for 19,000 warheads because they were expended in the war against Iran, AND THEN you discover that they OUTRIGHT LIED about that amount by fully 1/3 (33%) and that 6,000 warheads were unaccounted for, don't you have an obligation to ask they are and why they weren't accounted for as existing (and not expended) inventory??..
And when Saddam refuses to answer that question, or to cooperate at all with UNSCOM, are we just supposed to just do nothing?
Considering that you believe such a situation would place us in "deep doo-doo" indicates that you need to rethink your position on the issue.
We would like to find them. We clearly must try and fill in the pieces of the puzzle as to what happened to them. But it was NOT our responsibility to account for them. That was Saddam's.
Why wasn't the US able to determine that the Niger documents were forgeries?
Good question.. As Mr. Wilson and his wife, as well as the rest of the CIA analysts.
But one thing is firm.. British Intelligence (whom Bush quoted in his SOTU speech) remains convinced there was some Niger-Iraq connection. And given the French connections to Niger's Uranium mining industry, it wouldn't susprise me.
...why was Kuwait told that they didn't need gas masks for it's population?
And who told them that? The US? The same nation that was forcing its own troops to operate in MOPP 3 at all times? Another relatively inane question.
Even Saddam's generals believed the Baathists possess Chemical weapons. Or more interestingly, they believed all of their fellow Generals had control over them (and these guys beleived that someone else had them).. Bottom line, Saddam permitted the belief that Iraq still possessed chemical weapons to persist in his military.
Now maybe you're a psychic, but I'm not. I have to have proof, or at least feel really comfortable that EVERY cooperation is being extended to me. And that was clearly not the case in Iraq.
If the US is convinced that there are WMD out there somewhere in Iraq, why are we reducing the forces available to find them?
We have 1400 DIA officers/contractors over there searching for WMDs. That's FAR MORE than UNSCOM/UNMOVIC ever possessed. Wanna sign up and go yourself?
If the US is convinced that there are WMD out there in Iraq, why do they refuse to let the UN inspectors back in to help out?
They are entirely welcome to join and assist, so far as I know. But not under UN control because UNMOVIC no longer is authorized to exist (I believe it was authorized to exist for only 90 days).
And besides, the UN can't even secure its own headquarters, let alone support and finance an inspection process, let alone not politicize it.
Hawk |
