Chief US Inspector: Saddam Diminishing Threat, No WMD Or Concrete Development Program

[jyl]

On the heels of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's unfortunate moment of candor (about there being no hard evidence of a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam), here is another government report that the Administration probably doesn't welcome:

From a Washington Post story today, about the report of the Chief US Weapons Inspector in Iraq.

"The government's most definitive account of Iraq's arms programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said yesterday.

The officials said that the 1,000-page report by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speech that Iraq had posed "a gathering threat."

The officials said Duelfer, an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, found that the state of Hussein's weapons-development programs and knowledge base was less in 2003, when the war began, than it was in 1998, when international inspectors left Iraq."

Sounds like the report will be available soon, and we'll get some more details.

Nevertheless, I am sure certain candidates will be out on the campaign trail tommorrow, telling supporters that Saddam used his WMD arsenal to help al Qaeda carry out 9/11.

[dd74]

Just to be hypothetical here, but isn't all this a bit after the fact. Yes, I'm still ticked off there's no concrete connection, and that we may have been misled, but that doesn't nearly concern me as much as our exit strategy, or lack thereof.

This should be Kerry's next focus...

[jyl]

I guess I'm not that forgiving. When the government lies us into a war, and two years later is still lying about it - brazenly and openly - I tend to think they are lying about other things, one of which might be their exit strategy, the uninterrupted execution of which is supposed to be a reason to re-elect them.

[red ufo]

These threads don't do well unless your belittling muslims or liberals to the resident neoCONS..

[CamB]

Bush now talking about how Saddam could have advised terrorists about biological weapons.

Now that "weapons programmes" is no longer really there.

After the halcion days of "stockpiles".

I agree it's due to intelligence failures. I also think you need to ask yourself if (a) that is enough for heads to roll, and (b) is this not proof that being a little reticent in invading foreign countries is warranted.

Note also, Dueffler (sp?) has stated that the getting past the sanctions was Saddam's #1 goal and that he was becoming more bold as sanctions eased. I guess I hindsight suggests that a UN style process - increasing sanctions (let's ignore oil for food program at the moment) and recommencing weapons inspections would have worked just fine...

[red ufo]

Originally posted by CamB
Bush now talking about how Saddam could have advised terrorists about biological weapons.

Now that "weapons programmes" is no longer really there.

After the halcion days of "stockpiles".

I agree it's due to intelligence failures. I also think you need to ask yourself if (a) that is enough for heads to roll, and (b) is this not proof that being a little reticent in invading foreign countries is warranted.

Note also, Dueffler (sp?) has stated that the getting past the sanctions was Saddam's #1 goal and that he was becoming more bold as sanctions eased. I guess I hindsight suggests that a UN style process - increasing sanctions (let's ignore oil for food program at the moment) and recommencing weapons inspections would have worked just fine...

Its not due to intelligence failure, thats a bull****.

Its due to Bush promoting and selling the Iraq war on behalf of his neocon cabinet. They took old CIA data and cherry picked it until they could spin it to a gullible media monopoly.

DUMBSfield had a special office cherry pick the data needed to help the president campaign for the Iraq war. Cheney visited the CIA what 16 times? The CIA was under pressure to come up with something to make the president happy.

[mikester]

Hey, they were wrong but who cares?

Oh - wait - I do.

Yep - I care and they don't get my vote.

[gaijinda]

I am betting Hussein is wishing he would have allowed unfettered inspections before this war.. If he had played his cards right, he still might be in power. When you consider the reactor bombed by the Israelis back in '82 and pictures of the gassed Kurds this guy was never getting the benifit of the doubt. Not after 9/11.

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a
particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

[Aurel]

Yes, but Saddam could have been disarmed by peacefull means, such as constant weapons inspections, and a little bit of bombing on startegic facilities when warranted. This is what Kerry meant.
Not a stupid invasion that lead to chaos and a surge in Al Qaeda new vocations.

Aurel

[cegerer]

Let's see if I've got this correct: we've got a dictator who has an undisputed record of using WMDs on his own people. He's massacred hundreds of thousands of men, women and children and dumped them in mass graves scattered thru-out Iraq - most of which haven't even been found yet! Iraq has even formed a Society for the Preservation of Mass Graves and are engaged in ongoing recovery and investigations. Saddam thumbed his nose at all sorts of feel-good UN sanctions and interfered with 'needle-in-the-haystack' UN weapons searches for how many years?




...... and yet, we've still got the libs thinking we can all hold hands, impose more sanctions, do more weapons inspections and work this out diplomatically .......

[Bleyseng]

cegerer, I don't see you over there looking for these so called WMD in Iraq. Since we gave them most of these weapons in the 80's to fight Iran ......I am surprised Bush seems to think Iraq was making them.

Geoff

[on-ramp]

weapons of mass destruction was the primary justification for the invasion. Leading up to the military aggression, Bush repeatedly asked Saddam to disarm. this is a fact. Since then, thousands upon thousands of people have been killed.

why is there no accountability in our government?

[Aurel]

Common Cerger, you know better than this: Saddam torturing and killing his own people was not the primary reason to invade Iraq. If such was the case, Sudan should be invaded right now, because they are starving their own people to commit genocide, and they dont even bother putting them in mass graves. No, the true reason for invading Iraq was finding Saddams WMDs..errr...I mean freeing the Iraqui people..errr, no, I mean, preventing terrorism....errr...by seizing their oil. Yes that is it, I got it: preventing terrorism by seizing their oil. That nasty oil that can buy WMDs can`t stay in their hands. Or they must use it to buy their democracy. Even if they did not ask to. Does the mob ask you if you want to buy their pizza tomato sauce ?

Aurel

[white87911]

I quote from one of G.W.B. state of the union speeches, well after the invasion, that the was "evidence of weapons of mass destruction related activities"

Now that is a justification for war!

I mean if I were to search google for how to build a "dirty bomb" I guess that I am guilty of "weapons of mass destruction related activities"

Oh crap, please dont send this to the current admistration, what would I explain to my neigbors after my home was invaded and the terrorist used it as as home base now that my property was is complete disaray?

[911pcars]

I think we have enough evidence from several sources to arrive at a consensus.

IMHO, the primary shame of our administration's foray into this war under false pretenses is this:

1000 American sons and daughters, mothers and fathers are dead ... so far (10/6/04).

The rest of the list is equally disturbing. I'll take that back. That and innocent Iraqi civilian deaths (including children) - these are the most disturbing. The wasted money and misplaced energy pales in comparison.

That's the only conclusion I can come up with.

Sherwood

[dtw]

Last Thursday, Kerry - in no uncertain terms - declared his support for the war. His only misgiving was that Bush didn't rally more support in the UN before committing.

Read that again if you didn't watch the debate: Kerry - in front of the President and on national TV - supported the war.

Doesn't that make it all OK?

[CamB]

I can't remember if he instead referred to supporting the use of force. And important - if subtle - difference.

[jyl]

Hey, this is interesting. From a Washington Post article today:

Administration officials spent yesterday trying to refocus the attention of reporters on the disclosures in the report that many U.S. allies, top foreign officials and major international figures secretly helped Hussein generate more than $11 billion in illegal income in violation of U.N. sanctions. The report contains a long list of foreign officials and companies involved in helping Iraq -- while the names of Americans were blacked out because of privacy considerations.

I'd sure like to see the American names on that list.

[CamB]

I'd sure like to see the reactions of those foreign officials in finding out that their names are public property while there are US names which have "privacy considerations". I say release them all and let the shame start.

[island911]

Originally posted by dtw
Last Thursday, Kerry - in no uncertain terms - declared his support for the war. His only misgiving was that Bush didn't rally more support in the UN before committing.

Read that again if you didn't watch the debate: Kerry - in front of the President and on national TV - supported the war.

Doesn't that make it all OK?

I would like to hear a lib response to that question.
(though, I do believe the lib's are focused on the time when Kerry was against the war . . .before he was against it, and after he voted for it.)

I would also like a lib's response to why, whenever one of these reports states no evidence of . .. they repeate it as "no existance of".

Furthermre, if Bush is the evil evil dictorial President the lib's have framed him as, then how in the world could these reports conclude "no evidence of WMD?

...isn't Bush so dastardly underhanded that he would have had Halliburton plant a football field worth of WMD, right after the coalition troops marched over all of those innocent Iraqii children?

Lib's -- power hungery zealots.