That's the trouble with misunderstanding the words "programs" and "weapons".

It states there are likely enough components to allow restarting a "program".

It does not state that there is any production of WMDs proceeding, which infers that the "WMDs" that may be in 'small stockpiles' are leftovers from before the Gulf War.

Here's what it leaves out: the supposed biological weapons [possibly left] in Iraq would have been rendered ineffective by virtue of the fact they have a short shelf life.

So if it's no longer toxic, is it still a WMD?

This all might be clearer here:

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Weapons_of_mass_destruction

Sorry, meant to post this link, which came from the above:

http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqweaponsc.html#csumm

...and, if you give any credibility to the people who were in Iraq, actively seeking WMDs, you might find this interesting:

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=38538

In it, a former senior UN Weapons Inspector says:
"In the spring of 1995, the executive director of UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission), my boss, was prepared to make a finding that Iraq had been fundamentally disarmed."

You're dancing around the subject. Please just one sentence from ANY semi-credible source saying pre 2003 "we believe Iraq has NO WMD's" That is what you claimed.

Edit, I see you just posted one, I'll look into it, Kudos:)

on page 267 of his book, Dick Clarke writes
" As studies by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Carnegie Endowment have made clear, both the CIA and the President failed to tell Congress and the American people that they were making judgements about the Iraqi WMD threat based on dated information. As WMD inspector David Kaye was forced to admit, "we were all wrong".

And these statements come from two people who actually believed they might exist.

Lendaddy: that's a fair charge. I want to find the clear, direct quotes as well.

The Ritter article is a good answer for a direct statement.

Here's more of it in context:

http://www.rense.com/general29/wesold.htm

Part of what irritates me about all this is that when Clinton shot 60-75 cruise missles at Bin Ladin's caves, the Cons laughed it off as a 'wag the dog' strategy. When Clinton bombed an aspirin factory on the strength of intelligence reports it was a weapons plant, again, the Cons pilloried him. now GW has bombed an entire country at the cost of 700+ American lives and God knows how many terrible injuries, and the Cons see nothing wrong with it.

The article you posted then goes on to say " But we wanted to progress the issue of disarmament to the point where we could talk about lifting economic sanctions. They were crippling Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to lose their lives. We had fundamentally disarmed Iraq: That meant 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons capability had been accounted for."

I won't attack it just because it's scott Ritter, but he still doesn't say he believed they had no WMD's.

Pretty direct:

"...Iraq had a massive chemical-weapons industry, with gigantic factories dedicated to the production of these deadly agents. They did use them against the Iranians and against the Kurds, which is one reason why the international community outlawed them in 1991. Once inspectors went into Iraq, we not only destroyed the factories and equipment that produced these agents, we also rounded up the weapons and the precursor chemicals that are mixed together to produce the deadly agent, and we eliminated them. We achieved tremendous success in this area. We eradicated their mustard-agent and their sarin- and tabun-agent production capability. If Iraq managed to hide some of their nerve agent from us, it has a shelf life of only five years, so today, with their factories destroyed, Iraq has no nerve-agent capability -- unless they reconstituted their manufacturing base, which no one has demonstrated.

...we uncovered their entire [VX] research-and-development plant, which had been bombed during Desert Storm and destroyed. Using documentation recovered from that, we were able to track down and discover Iraq's stockpile of VX, confirming that it had been destroyed. ... [But] the bottom line is -- even though the Iraqis lied to us about VX, and we still might have some concerns about this program, there is no VX production capability in Iraq today -- unless Iraq went out after 1998 and acquired all this technology that we had destroyed.

The third category of weapons of mass destruction is biological. I wanted to ask especially about anthrax.

For a biological weapon to work, you have to either turn it into an aerosol, with particles of a certain size which can be inhaled into your lungs, or a dry powder of a certain size, such as we found in the letters that were mailed in October. Iraq successfully produced biological agents: They produced anthrax and botulism toxin. But they never successfully produced a biological weapon. They did put agent -- liquid sludge -- into bombs and warheads, but the fact is, the only way that was going to kill you was if it actually landed on you. They had no way of disseminating the agent, it would have simply soaked into the ground where it landed. We destroyed the factories that produced this agent, we destroyed the production equipment, and we destroyed the pieces of technology that Iraq could have used to weaponize this agent.

There was some concern that Iraq might have produced more anthrax than they declared. But liquid bulk agent of the type that Iraq produced has a maximum shelf life under ideal conditions of three years. After that it germinates and becomes useless sludge. For Iraq to have biological weapons today, they would not only have to reconstitute the manufacturing base to produce biological agent, but they would have to perfect the technology to turn that agent into a weapon, to aerosolize it or turn it into dry powder. They didn't have that capability in December 1998, and no one has demonstrated that they have that capability today."

Remember, the "technology", precursor chemicals and components they would have had to buy was tightly tracked.

The weird thing about the Iraqis is that they tried to get ahold of nuclear triggering devices, but had no nuclear weapon program -- leading to the conclusion floated by some in the CIA (CYA, nowadays) that Saddam's people were lying to him about the state of weapons programs.

Not sure how credible you think Saddam's son-in-law is, but there's that part, as well [again quoting Ritter]:

"Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected in August 1995. We achieved our final breakthrough prior to his defection. I have the transcripts of the debriefs of the son-in-law, Hussein Kamal. Listen to what he said: "I ordered in 1993 that all remaining weapons be destroyed. Today in Iraq there are no weapons. We destroyed them all." How does Dick Cheney turn that statement into one saying Saddam Hussein's son-in-law spilled the beans about Iraq's weapons program? All he did was confirm our conclusion that in fact these weapons had been destroyed."

Good point. . . .and at that time the lib's were saying "so what if the pres had one of his young subordinate staffers give him a BJ."

Well, apparently his actions DID cost us dearly. When the puplic can't discern if the dog is wagging his tail, or vice-versa. . .we have a huge problem.

Now we have self-promoting a-holes like Clarke attempting to undermine the current pres with the same doubt as Clinton carried.

Lib's were crying foul then when the only precievable thing at stake was a popularity contest.

Now, after we realize the depth of the current threat, the lib's are doing the same thing they faulted the con's for. -nice- (and stupid!)

"Good point. . . .and at that time the lib's were saying "so what if the pres had one of his young subordinate staffers give him a BJ."

Well, apparently his actions DID cost us dearly. When the puplic can't discern if the dog is wagging his tail, or vice-versa. . .we have a huge problem."

I haven't a clue about what you're attempting to conclude here.

If Clinton didn't have to worry about the appearance of a 'wag the dog' strategy, he could have been effective against binlauden and his crew.

Ritter left the military and took a high paying job working for Iraqi (Saddam's) interests. Seems like a slight conflict of interest to me. Why would you consider his report to be factual?

"If Clinton didn't have to worry about the appearance of a 'wag the dog' strategy, he could have been effective against binlauden and his crew."

The movie "Wag the Dog" was based on Reagan's actions after the Beruit barracks bombing; attacking Grenada.

So you think the right wing critics -- who never considered anything but the single purpose of thwarting everything Clinton attempted -- have no blame in Bin Ladin's continued survival?

Perhaps you forgot, there was the all-encompassing $61 million investigation of whitewater, law firm billing, bimbos, etc. -- all of which distracted from the real issues confronting the U.S.

F: "Ritter left the military and took a high paying job working for Iraqi (Saddam's) interests. Seems like a slight conflict of interest to me. Why would you consider his report to be factual?"

Gee, I don't know. Could it be because he was actually there in Iraq working to find WMDs?

Should we dump Rumsfeld because of the photo of him shaking hands with Saddam?

Should we dump Bush because of his family's ties to the Bin Ladin family?

Nobody doesn't have a "slight conflict of interest" here.

Funny that libs condemn Cheney for having once worked for Haliburton..but has no financial interest in the company...but an ex major in the military, Ritter gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by Iraq and then comes out with the conclusion that there are no WMD there...and he is believable.

Cheney is on a 'deferred salary' from Halliburton that will finally be paid off in 2006, I believe. He is holding options on 8,000,000 shares. To say he has no 'financial interest' is absurd in the extreme.

Ritter spent seven years in Iraq -- by all accounts doggedly pursuing WMDs and distrusting everything the Iraqis told him. I've not seen any criticism of his performance.

Yeah, that's right. Like you'd pass up the chance to get blown in the oval office.

Oh, and here's the score:

Getting head = one man being humiliated and his marriage hitting the rocks.

Attacking a country while not using one's head = near 800 U.S. troops dead, world hatred, deficit, chaos, political coverups, and a deeply divided country.

Hmmm...at least this isn't a playoff series. :rolleyes:

BTW: not that I care about libs or cons, I just have to say the libs picked a better (and infinitely more important) fight...