Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (71759)	2/6/2003 12:32:14 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

The aluminum tubes that Saddam was found to have attempted to smuggle into Iraq--they are banned by the UN, so he was ilegally smuggling them--were manufactured to specifications which far exceeded the ones in effect for conventional weapons, mostly rockets, which the US requires for its own conventional weaponry. Unless you believe that Saddam's conventional weapons are more sophisticated than ours--an opinion which requires passage directly through the looking glass into the Twilight Zone--then you have to admit that the tubes were going to be used for nefarious purposes. I know from squat about these tubes. Most likely you are not in much better shape. The point made by several commentators on Wednesday afternoon is (1) there is a serious debate, which Powell recognized in his testimony, about uses of these tubes; (2) that it's not completely clear, thus, that having them is a strong argument Saddam is attempting to increase his nuclear capabilities; (3) thus, if they are in violation simply by being there but it could be credibly argued they are not for nuclear purposes, the violation would be a mild one; (4) thus, as a controversial point it might have been wiser for Powell to leave them out of his speech, less that controversy slightly undermine the strength of other arguments The only half-way decent counter-argument is that that Powell was lying about the tubes. Always offering friendly posts, aren't you. No sarcasm there. No.