zonder, I've always thought you were a smart fellow.
Thanks. "Smart girl", please :-)
You're a worthy and worthwhile individual to differ with.
Likewise. Civil conversation is rare on SI these days.
>>>How about US knowing full well what Saddam was doing with the chemicals they sold him and continuing to support him anyway?<<<
You'll have to forgive my taking the "reporting" of the alternative media with a grain of salt.
That would be very understandable, had the links provided in that website were not the likes of Business Week, Sunday Herald, Washington Post, Associated Press, and New York Times.
Could you perhaps elaborate on which of these sources are "alternative media" for you?
Coming back to my point above, that the US continued to support Iraq knowing full well what the latter was doing with the chemicals they were provided:
[Hyperlinks don't show when pasted. Look in the website I provided to check the links to Washington Post, Associated Press, etc.]
According to congressional records from the early 1990s, the Reagan administration’s commerce department allowed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. companies exported chemical and biological agents to Iraq despite suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare. It was later discovered that these agents did indeed significantly contributed to the country’s weapons arsenal. [Sunday Herald 9/8/2002; The Times 12/31/02] Iraq was even provided with anthrax and bubonic plague viruses. [Washington Post 12/30/02]
ii Evidence.
(A) Summary.
(1) William Blum, a former employee of the State Department and author of the book, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, revealed in an article first published in 1998 that “the furnishing of chemical and biological materials by the United States to Iraq . . . markedly enhanced Iraq's CBW capability.” [Yellow Times 8/20/2002]
(B) 1994 Senate Committee Reports. [May 25 report and October 7 report]
(1) According to the reports, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved the export of the following agents to Iraq.
(a) Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(b) Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin. It was sold to Iraq right up until 1992. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(c) Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord and heart. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002]
(d) Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(e) Clotsridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness, gas gangrene. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(f) Clostridium tetani, highly toxigenic. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(g) Also, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli); genetic materials; human and bacterial DNA. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002]
(h) VX nerve gas. [Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(i) Pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas which can also be reverse engineered to create actual nerve gas. This was sold to Iraq in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. [Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(2) Additional US exports to Iraq, according the reports.
(a) Examples.
(i) Chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(ii) Chemical warfare filling equipment. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(iii) Missile fabrication equipment. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(iv) Missile system guidance equipment. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(b) Other.
(i) “Between 1985 and 1990 the US Commerce Department, for instance, licensed $1.5bn (£960m) of sales of technology which had military potential for Iraq.” [Scotsman 12/22/02]
(3) The Committee established a direct connection between what was sold by the U.S. to Iraq and what was removed by UN inspectors.
(a) Statments.
(i) In May 1994 the committee reported that the agents “were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction” and then four months later, in another report, it revealed “that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program.” [Yellow Times 8/20/2002]
(ii) Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said, “UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licences issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programmes.” He also explained that between January 1985 and August 1990, the “executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licences for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.” [Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(C) A 1995 letter from the Centers for Disease Control.
(1) Summary.
(a) Business Week reported, “In 1995, the Center for Disease Control & Prevention provided to then-Senator Donald Riegel (D-Mich.) a complete list of all biological materials -- including viruses, retroviruses, bacteria, and fungi -- that the CDC provided to Iraq from Oct. 1, 1984 through Oct. 13, 1993. Among the materials on the list are several types of dengue and sandfly fever virus, West Nile virus, and plague-infected mouse tissue smears. In his letter to Riegel, then-CDC Director David Satcher wrote: 'Most of the materials were non-infectious diagnostic reagents for detecting evidence of infections to mosquito-borne viruses’.” [Business Week 9/20/2002]
(2) Read the Letter
(3) Observations.
(a) James Tuite, a former Senate investigator.
(i) “We were freely exchanging pathogenic materials with a country that we knew had an active biological warfare program. The consequences should have been foreseen.” [cited in Business Week 9/20/2002]
[All these "Business Week 9/20/2002" etc are actually hyperlinks. Go to the website for the links into the actual articles].
I don't know much about weapons inspection techniques or the unique forensics attendant to it, but I'd imagine that there would be some evidence of either of those outcomes - destroyed or (let's call it) neutralized - that would be evident to inspectors.
I believe the exact opposite is more correct - there is an evidence when something exists rather than when it does not. My understanding of chemicals is that traces remain even if they are moved from one place in anticipation of inspectors (Blix also said this), which can then be detected with "sniffers". So, you see, it is not as if Saddam's agents moving chemicals from a factory a day before inspectors (or something) would mean they would not detect their presence. Inspectors test not just the air, but also the water and the soil.
Chemical weapons can even be remote-detected:
cla.sc.edu
So the question is, "Where is the proof of the continuation of Iraq's chemical & biological warfare program?" It is not in the air, not in the water or the soil. And for all their state of the art devices, the US cannot come up with a lead for the inspectors to find them.
If this was the war on drugs, you would expect at least a single bust, right?
I dislike and don't trust the U.N
As you wish. Try to understand if the rest of the world (ex-US) does not trust the US but trusts the international body of the UN, especially as the US crusade on Iraq looks more imperialist (war for oil) and less based on evidence by day.
it is the state (versus private individuals) harboring terrorism
I would be interested in how you prove that, especially with the recent understanding that the "Al-Qaeda camp" Powell showed to the UN is in the northern no-fly zone, and NOT under Saddam's control.
how isn't it within your right to determine that your parents were wrong, and undertake action to correct those perceived wrongs?
Because I am a citizen (not the police) and it is not within any citizen's rights to take the law in his hands, and start executing people right and left because he thinks the police force is too lenient.
I believe that ones' defense is paramount to all concerns, including those of the prevailing legal framework.
Are you suggesting that the imminent US invasion of Iraq is somehow "self-defense"? I would be interested to hear your reasoning for this statement. Do please also include your argument for how this invasion will make the world a safer place for Americans. |
