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: Neocon who wrote (107961)	7/25/2003 11:20:35 AM
From: Noel de Leon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

From a Danish newspaper, Weekend Avisen: An interview with Rolf Ekéus, former UN weapon inspector in Irak. My translation; Kelly was a very intelligent scientist who was a victim of a political game he didn't understand. Kelly, in fact, broke the secrets of Iraq's biological weapons program. The stockpiles of weapons were never found as is the case today, but Kelly and others found out that the Iraqi production equipment was installed so that it was possible to change the particle size of the biological material. Large particles(pesticides) fall to earth and stay there, smaller particles stay airborne(WMDs). It is also important to look at production figures and compare them to raw materials. Is it reasonable that a factory only produces 20% of its capacity? Can such a factory be converted to a weapons factory? These questions have to be answered by scientists, engineers, and process technicians who specifically were assigned to look for connections of the above type. This is contrary to the UN resolution which specifies that UNMOVIC look for the remains of old weapons programs. It is ironic that the US forces are looking for stockpiles of something that breaks down after weeks and months. Saddam had destroyed all the weapons after the first Gulf war. He had converted the programs to JIT production, out of necessity. What has this to do with fundamentalism? Well first of all the intransigence of the US and others as to how to find the WMDs. The fundamental belief of the US and its supporters is that Iraqi WMDs exist, just as they did prior to Gulf War I. Typical Maginot line mentality(politicians always want to fight the last war again). Secondly, the refusal to accept any divergent point of view and incorporate it into one's world view. This has been a characteristic of the BushII regime, witness the utter rejection of the use of UN inspectors just prior to GWII and the campaign to discredit Blix and the UN. Incidentally, Ekéus points out that Russia and France had a negative attitude towards UNSCOM(which had identified the production facility problem). So UNSCOM was not kept active and the inspectors were relegated to advisor status. I won't go on with Ekéus' interview other than to say that it was necessary to do something about Saddam because of security(WMDs), economic(oil), and humanitarian(torture and murder) reasons. My opinion about Bush II's regime is that they lied. It may turn out that it wasn't necessary to do so. BushII's military have been looking in the wrong places for the WMDs, they were/are not in rockets, drums, or other storage facilities. They were/are in the factory/production design.