Punishing the French
 

Well, it looks like the White House, against the advice of the State Department, wants to punish France. The plan is to snub them in NATO and not invite them to global conferences, at least the ones the US chooses to show up for.

It looks like our foreign policy is once more on a testosterone-fueled journey into new heights of arrogance and condescencion.

Hubris thy name is Bush.

Hubris Boy is Bush? Damn, we impotant here!

Where did you get this plan, Rich?

     Did you hear Frenches Mustard's recent press release? They say the only thing they have in common with the french is that they're both yellow!
... sorry ...
     I've been keeping that one to myself for days... It had to be let out.
     By the by, I heard the statue that was pulled down wasn't of Saddam. It seems it was actually of one of his doubles!
     Sorry... I'll leave now.

Once again, stupidity conquers all.

Why bother to punish the French? They are already French. Is that not sufficient?

rich ... links?

Poor Rich. Bet the black helicopters got him.:confused:

Your advertising piece for a gentleman who is likely to remain a minor candidate would probably have been better appreciated if you hadn't reposted in multiple forums.

We DO read here, you know ...

At the very least, proofread when you copy/paste it.

Sorry,

I was a bit angry about something I read elsewhere and I felt the need to proselytize. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.

:)

BTW:

I love freedom fries. I love eating them when I travel down the tree-lined freedom street [boulevard] and drive into the parking liberty [garage] building.

But anyway...

What really irks me about punishing the French is that they were only asking for the inspections to continue a few more months. They did not rule out force. They did not lie about their position. They did not try to spin up a scape-goat. Their sole violation of American trust is that they wanted to wait a little longer before we launched a war.

Since Iraq's vaunted bio and chem capabilities seem to have been a little exagerated, our entire justification for this war - and any qualms we might have with the French have even less ground.

How can the State department honestly attempt to enact punitive action against the French? This administration just seems to get worse and worse.

     This is a little off topic buy is anyone else as surprised by this? I thought for sure, that if there wasn't any really solid evidence we would still "find" some. What is the CIA doing? Maybe they need to recruit from the DC, LA or New Orleans police force to "find" evidence properly. I know of a couple of smaller police departments in Arkansas and Oklahoma that could find all the evidence anybody could ask for.
     Bitchy little jokes aside, I am surprised. Perhaps they'll find highly suggestive remanents in the rubble of a palace or two. It wouldn't take as much then, since they could say "the bulk" was blown up.

War between the extremists Runsfeld, Ashcroft, and Wolfovich against Colin Powell has been ongoing since the silly China Spy Plane incident. Appears an offensive is now starting against Powell with a speech by Newt Gingrich attacking Powell for what amounts to accusations of incompetence.

These are forces inside the administration (The Vulcans) that Powell talks describes when defining Christie Whitman as a wind dummy.

Seems to me the french had more up their sleeve than a few months delay. There was an awful lot of chuckin' and jivein' going on in the background.
I've been hearing a time line on what and how weapons were destroyed in the last few days before hostilities started. Is this just spin? bullshit? I don't know.

I have utter confidence in my government that the proper evidence will become manifest at the proper time.

I have utter confidence that even if the proper evidence does not get found, someone will find something - or they may just say that all the weapons were moved to Syria.

I like the claims that a senior Iraqi unnamed scientist came out of the woodwork to tell the Americans that Iraq destroyed everything they had- and cleaned up all the evidence - just as the Americans were advancing.

Does this make sense? If you had a gun, and someone was breaking into your house, would you destroy your gun so that the invader would not punish you when he found it? this stupid breakdown in reasoning is really getting agravating. The right seems to peddle the stupidest stories to the masses and they are totally willing to believe without question.

All hail the God King.

It seems like you're just engineering a situation where you're going to believe what you want to believe no matter what happens. If they do find WMD, are you going to assume they were planted? I mean, that's certainly possible, but I think we should at least wait and see what happens before we start speculating.

Juju,

If the administration was trying to be credible - and dispel any notions of planted evidence or malfeasnce, they would allow the United Nations inspectors to verify and help find any WMDs that they discover. The fact that they are denying entry to the U.N. leaves me in doubt.

These are the same people that said that aluminum tubes imported into Iraq were used for gas centrifuge uranium enrichment - which turned out to be a lie. They said that they had documented proof that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa - which turned out to be a very poor forgery. They cited a dossier as proof of Iraq's weapons program - that turned out to be a plagarized term paper written 10 years ago. They strained to link AL- Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's regime - which was tenious at best.

I am student of science. When a person makes a scientific claim, scientists maintain skepticism until the claim has been demonstrated to be valid, and other sceintists have verified the claim. The whole business of having an open and self-corrective scientific community makes maintaining a fraudulant claim almost impossible. In this open environment, truth is not a matter of trust, it is a matter of independent verififcation of initial claims.

The fact that the U.S. is going to exclude any international verification of WMDs found - takes any discoveries they make out of the realm of real, valid, verifiable proof, and makes them simply based upon faith that the government would not lie.

As you can see above, the govenrment certainly seems to have no problem using flassified documents, plagiarism, lies, and circumstantial evidence to pursue it's chosen course of action.

How can you think that blind faith is justified?

Without internaitonal verification, any discoveries are suspect.

If an administration lied to the world to start a war - then excluded the world from verifying any of the claims the administration made, how can you automatically assume that any discoveries are valid?

What is your burden of proof?

I agree, but without international oversight, I am going to have a hard time buying anything they find.

DId you know that the guy they picked to head the WMD search force is a very close friend of Condoleeza Rice? Is it really that far fetched to think that he might be a team player?

You could have answered Juju's question without projecting the hysterical opposite onto him.

Actually I guess you did answer Juju's question, just not directly.

BTW you're taking the side of the Iraqi Information Minister about the aluminum tubes.

I am taking the position of Mohamed El Baradei, the International Atomic Energy Association Director General regarding the aluminum tubes.

Here is a Wahington Post article about the subject. Most experts said that the aluminum tubes could not be used for unranium enrichment without massive reengineering, and that the technique would require advanced technology that Iraq did not possess.

The IAEA is very reliable. I tend to trust them far more than I trust the current administration.

My answer had the caveat that I would find any WMDS suspect without verification by an independent entity. If you prefer a one word answer, the answer is yes.

Since these excuses have been proved to be suspect, I wonder if they were thrown up to protect valid intelligence sources? You know, like when the end justifies the means everyone will forget these subterfuges and the spy network won't be comprimised. Not sure. just a thought. Maybe just a hope.

And where did ElBaradei get his information? When Iraq itself claimed it was using those tubes for reverse engineering rockets, he thought that was plausible. When it turned out the specifications for the tubes was higher than that the US specifies for its own rockets, and was increasing in precision, ElBaradei scrambled for another explanation.

Forgotten was the fact that they were illegal in the first place.

Undertoad,

The aluminum tubes fell under the bounds of dual use items and were not automatically illegal. I had not seen any articles where El Baradei rescinded his reservations about the aluminum tubes. Do you have a link?

They were not reverse engineering rockets, they were making rockets. They required massive modifications in order to be used in a gas centrifuge.

The specifications of the tubes was part of the reason why the U.N. though the Iraqi explanation was the more likely usage of the tubes. The tubes were too thin and not reinforced to a sufficent degree to be used for a gas centrifuge. They would have required additional mateiral and milling capabilities that Iraq did not have in order to modify them fir ilicit use.

If you have some proof, I will change my position, but barring thatm I will still maintain my position vis-a-vis the tubes.

here is one article noting how ElB. was still hanging with the reverse-engineering theory in late January.

You sure know a lot about milling aluminum tubes for centrifuge usage.

ElBaradei did not scramble for another explanation - except if you believe everything that right wing American extremists say. Even Tony Blair's government was more in agreement with ElBaradei in a report issued at the start of 2003.

Why were specification tolerances tighter? I do that on everything I reverse engineer. Only after a working model do we experiment and learn where tolerances can be relaxed.

Get a grip UT. Those aluminum tubes are part of a big campagin by the George Jr admininstration to claim Iraq was running a nuclear weapons program. At what point do you finally admit that the administration was lying? Even the George Jr administration quit trying to claim that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. When are you going to admit that the Geroge Jr administration will lie? This is not an honest administration. They even lied about all those Iraqis who would welcome us with open arms.

Of course the George Jr administration lied repeatedly about those aluminum tubes. Desparate to prove Iraq was running a nuclear program. Desperate for some viable fiction to prove it. They were so desperate to create lies then. They will also be desperate to create a phoney WMD program, if necessary. Why keep UN weapons inspectors out? No UN make "lies if necessary" just so much easier.

Tom, you don't have to help the reverse-engineering theory along, it was discarded.

Meanwhile, I'm taking wagers on WMD, and if anyone wants to offer odds I think it would be appropriate considering your levels of certainty. How about 3 to 1 on finding something that 90% of the public agrees is non-planted WMD?

I think Blix will definitely require physical sight of whatever the US "finds." I also think he'll be the first to say that they originated in an Iowan warehouse facility, as he is the current expert. :)

Did you read the article? El Baradei said that he thought the aluminum tubes were consistent with attempts to reverse engineer rockets. The report I read - by an engineer with the Federatin of American Scientists - described what Iraq had - what they needed to make a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment system, and what they needed to make rockets. His conclusion was that it would have been nearly impossible for Iraq to use the tubes for uranium enrichment. Then, about a month later I read the Washington Post article.

Note: Your article - which is entirely consistent with my original claim - was written in January. My article was written in March. SInce El Baradei does not change his tune in either article, I don't see how this porves me wrong.

The whole point is, Bush knew what El Bardei said. Bush knew what the scientific community said. Bush knew that they were not lying or playing politics. Bush then claimed in his state of the union address that the tubes were partial proof that Iraq had a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

I can't think of a more blatant lie.

As I said before, I have no doubt that we will find some WMDs. The problem is, I have a hard time believing anything this administration says.

There is an old Texas saying: Fool me once, shame one...shame on, you. Fool me twice... fool me, can't get fooled again.

Say What????:confused:

Bush said that. He was trying to get out foll me once shame on you, fool my twice shame on me. But his linguistic gears were a little creaky that day and he mangled the idiom beyond recognition.

I was trying to be humourific.

Oh, OK. I hadn't heard that particular fo...foux...faoux...fuck up. Thanks.:)

The bigger problem with all of this is that it's selective use of data. A boatload of stuff was presented over the last few months, and a bunch of people cherry-picked it for the things they felt they could punch holes in and then held up that rather small number of things as troubling evidence of some sort. If you tried that kind of stunt in science class, you'd get an F.

But don't take my word for it. Here's the whole "aluminum tubes" section of the Powell speech at the UN... notice how none of it is discredited by anything anyone here has posted, and notice how the parts they can't attempt to discredit are simply left alone. Explain the tubes without explaining the magnets? You can't:

     The dicussion of WMD's is interesting and all but isn't it past that? I mean the discussion is still going and question aren't being asked much outside of the UN. And Bush has made it pretty clear that he does't care about them.
     I'm just saying that the people still keeping score on it are in the minority, I did an unofficial poll of my own, (I do that a lot) most people didn't know about the tubes at all. Nobody seemed to care if they had them or not, saying that it was over either way. I'm not saying that my poll is perfect, but I know that I got the info I wanted from random people I met. No trick questions. I even met one guy that had never even heard of the Patriot Act...

Maybe you are right. Naybe just a few lies are okay. Maybe it is fine to knowingly use plagiarized documents to prove your case. Maybe it is fine to alter the statement and intent of OBL's recordings. Maybe it is fine to used forged documents.

My point is, if you lie a few times, believing you in the future is very difficult. I have seen scads of Bush lies. I have seen Powell lie several times. Many of Powell's testimony have been disproven ( like the chemical weapons plant that Blix visited the day after Powell's presentation - finding it without indoor electricity or plumbing ), most of his assertions relied on faith - that Powell was not dissembling.

How many lies does it take to damage one's credibility?

The only people I saw pushing that point of view were the Bush accolytes. The Federation of American Scientists disagreed with his take.

Everybody said this - the point was, the modifications required were immense, and Iraq was not thought to have the technology capable of making said modifications.

They were dual use items, which were selectively restricted at different times for different reasons. If they were going to be used for rockets, they are not in violation of the sanctions. If they were going to a nuclear weapons program they are. Powell believed the latter, the rest of the world believed the former.

Pencils were also restricted items because they contain graphite - which could be used in a nuclear reactor.

An assertion that could be true, but also may not be true. different weapons systems all have different specifications - this - in and of itself is not proof of anything. Most of the scientific community seem to think that the tubes specs. were not indicative of anything. The tubes still required massive reworking to function the way Powell is suggesting they functioned.

So, according to Powell, if you are going to make a missile, the surfaces of the missile should not be finished. Even though these things may be stored for several years, you cannot anodize them to keep the surface from getting damaged.

Poorly built weapons are unreliable. This line of argument is specious anyway. If you look at an artillery shell, a TOW missile, a Javelin, or any other weapons system, they are all polished, clean, and the aluminum has an anodized coating on it. Even the weapons that are about to be blow up are built well - because a soldier trusts his life to the reliability of a weapon.

Sort of like saying - we have intelligence from numerous African sources that Iraq tried to purchase fissile material from Nigeria. When does an unsubstantiated claim become the truth? I gues you have to give them your faith, but I have a hard time giving faith to liars.

An item that is true.

An item that is speculation. Followed by a link back to the pre gulf war weapons program. Does he have any proof or documentation that Iraq wanted to produce magnets that were 20-30 grams or is that just an assumption?

So two specious claims - put together - makes a compelling argument? What are the claims? Iraq had high specification aluminum tubes, and some Iraq officials wanted to buy a magnet plant. If you assume that Iraq is trying to reconstitute it's nuclear program - and work back from there, this makes perfect sense. If you are trying to determin if Iraq has a nuclear weapons program, these points don't make a compelling case.

DId Powell ever produce these communications? Or did he just claim that we intercepted them - and left it at that?

I have a relly hard time buying this guy's word. If that is all he offered, I can't really trust it.

I thought they had proof that Iraq was buying nuclear material from abroad.




I don't know. Maybe I am wrong. But I have not seen any reports that we have found any nuclear reactos or weapons plants. If we find chemical WMDs, but not a nuclear program, does that mean Powell was lying - or just all this just fall down the memoory hole?

Re: Punishing the French
 

Actually, my name is Mike.

Re: Re: Punishing the French
 

Mike Bush, by any chance?

Oh dear, look what just popped up:

UK Newspaper Says Documents Link Bin Laden to Iraq

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper said it had discovered documents showing Iraqi intelligence hosted an envoy from Osama bin Laden in 1998 and sought to meet the alleged September 11 mastermind in person.

I don't know. Maybe I am wrong. But I have not seen any reports that we have found any nuclear reactos or weapons plants. If we find chemical WMDs, but not a nuclear program, does that mean Powell was lying - or just all this just fall down the memoory hole?

While the embedded reporters were still there we were seeing one report per day. The Pentagon finally said all first reports are false because initial tests may well mean nothing. Now that the embedded reporters are gone, I'd wait a month or two before locking in so tightly on this "we'll find nothing" attitude.

Right now they are sifting through the papers in Baath party offices. Not only are they making al Qaeda connections, they've got a Brit MP taking million-dollar bribes to support the anti-war effort.

It's good to be back at this stuff; I'd gone on hiatus from serious posting in Current Events, but this thread's in Politics!

Documents *planted* by the evil Bush admin. :)

     Er, I didn't mean to suggest it was okay. I was more saying that no matter how right you are it won't matter. Most people have forgetten the reason... er... excuse for the war had anything to do with WMD.
     No, not everyone, and most likely not anyone on this board. Obviously though people that are reading this are the types to seek out a little more info. I'm saying that I think that finding nothing at all would have almost no effect of Bush at the national level. The people that keep track already have problems with Bush. So, nothing new here.
     Yeah, it might cause problems on the international level, but Bush has already pissed everyone off. Nothing new there.

This story is from the independent in UK.

Revealed: How the road to war was paved with lies

Intelligence agencies accuse Bush and Blair of distorting and fabricating evidence in rush to war
By Raymond Whitaker
27 April 2003


The case for invading Iraq to remove its weapons of mass destruction was based on selective use of intelligence, exaggeration, use of sources known to be discredited and outright fabrication, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

A high-level UK source said last night that intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious that briefings they gave political leaders were distorted in the rush to war with Iraq. "They ignored intelligence assessments which said Iraq was not a threat," the source said. Quoting an editorial in a Middle East newspaper which said, "Washington has to prove its case. If it does not, the world will for ever believe that it paved the road to war with lies", he added: "You can draw your own conclusions."

UN inspectors who left Iraq just before the war started were searching for four categories of weapons: nuclear, chemical, biological and missiles capable of flying beyond a range of 93 miles. They found ample evidence that Iraq was not co-operating, but none to support British and American assertions that Saddam Hussein's regime posed an imminent threat to the world.

On nuclear weapons, the British Government claimed that the former regime sought uranium feed material from the government of Niger in west Africa. This was based on letters later described by the International Atomic Energy Agency as crude forgeries.

On chemical weapons, a CIA report on the likelihood that Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction was partially declassified. The parts released were those which made it appear that the danger was high; only after pressure from Senator Bob Graham, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was the whole report declassified, including the conclusion that the chances of Iraq using chemical weapons were "very low" for the "foreseeable future".

On biological weapons, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, told the UN Security Council in February that the former regime had up to 18 mobile laboratories. He attributed the information to "defectors" from Iraq, without saying that their claims – including one of a "secret biological laboratory beneath the Saddam Hussein hospital in central Baghdad" – had repeatedly been disproved by UN weapons inspectors.

On missiles, Iraq accepted UN demands to destroy its al-Samoud weapons, despite disputing claims that they exceeded the permitted range. No banned Scud missiles were found before or since, but last week the Secretary of State for Defence, Geoff Hoon, suggested Scuds had been fired during the war. There is no proof any were in fact Scuds.

Some American officials have all but conceded that the weapons of mass destruction campaign was simply a means to an end – a "global show of American power and democracy", as ABC News in the US put it. "We were not lying," it was told by one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." American and British teams claim they are scouring Iraq in search of definitive evidence but none has so far been found, even though the sites considered most promising have been searched, and senior figures such as Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister, intelligence chiefs and the man believed to be in charge of Iraq's chemical weapons programme are in custody.

Robin Cook, who as Foreign Secretary would have received high-level security briefings, said last week that "it was difficult to believe that Saddam had the capacity to hit us". Mr Cook resigned from the Government on the eve of war, but was still in the Cabinet as Leader of the House when it released highly contentious dossiers to bolster its case.

One report released last autumn by Tony Blair said that Iraq could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes, but last week Mr Hoon said that such weapons might have escaped detection because they had been dismantled and buried. A later Downing Street "intelligence" dossier was shown to have been largely plagiarised from three articles in academic publications. "You cannot just cherry-pick evidence that suits your case and ignore the rest. It is a cardinal rule of intelligence," said one aggrieved officer. "Yet that is what the PM is doing." Another said: "What we have is a few strands of highly circumstantial evidence, and to justify an attack on Iraq it is being presented as a cast-iron case. That really is not good enough."

Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who first pointed out Downing Street's plagiarism, said ministers had claimed before the war to have information which could not be disclosed because agents in Iraq would be endangered. "That doesn't apply any more, but they haven't come up with the evidence," he said. "They lack credibility."

Mr Rangwala said much of the information on WMDs had come from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress (INC), which received Pentagon money for intelligence-gathering. "The INC saw the demand, and provided what was needed," he said. "The implication is that they polluted the whole US intelligence effort."

Facing calls for proof of their allegations, senior members of both the US and British governments are suggesting that so-called WMDs were destroyed after the departure of UN inspectors on the eve of war – a possibility raised by President George Bush for the first time on Thursday.

This in itself, however, appears to be an example of what the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix called "shaky intelligence". An Iraqi scientist, writing under a pseudonym, said in a note slipped to a driver in a US convoy that he had proof information was kept from the inspectors, and that Iraqi officials had destroyed chemical weapons just before the war.

Other explanations for the failure to find WMDs include the possibility that they might have been smuggled to Syria, or so well hidden that they could take months, even years, to find. But last week it emerged that two of four American mobile teams in Iraq had been switched from looking for WMDs to other tasks, though three new teams from less specialised units were said to have been assigned to the quest for "unconventional weapons" – the less emotive term which is now preferred.

Mr Powell and Mr Bush both repeated last week that Iraq had WMDs. But one official said privately that "in the end, history and the American people will judge the US not by whether its officials found canisters of poison gas or vials of some biological agent [but] by whether this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America".

Used in accordance with the "fair use" provision of the constitution as non-comercial reprint.

Saddam's ability to directly attack us was not the issue as I understood it. His ability to hand off WOMDs, many of which are very difficult to track, to terrorists *was* the reason. That's why I supported this war.

As Colin Powell explained in the Feb 5 "show and tell" to the UN, a small amount of the Anthrax toxin did enormous damage. Enough to effectively shut down the post office and the Senate for a couple of weeks. What I was fearful of , as well as a substancial number of Americans, was that we would see these weapons/materials imported for use against us. Our economy is fragile and the possibility that people might become victims of terror WOMDs would seriously damage the economy, even if the chances of being directly affected are slim. Look at what the DC sniper did for the local economy. What were the true chances of being shot by malvo? Much less than being capped by the natives, but people stopped spending. It made a big difference, terror WOMDs would be exponentially worse.

Given the physical makeup of these substances, it would be extremely difficult to keep them out. Hell, we can't even keep Mexicans from sneaking over here in masses, how could we detect and intercept vials of chem or bio weapons? We aren't set up for that thorough of inspection at the ports etc. That would cost a fortune to set up the security and increase the cost of almost everything. Just look at the fustercluck the "new and improved" airline security has cost and caused.

Whether the true possibility of al-qeada getting Saddam's WOMDs is high or low, that's why *I* supported this massive, expensive military action.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81023,00.html

"Preventing Saddam from aiding terrorists is seen by a plurality as the most important reason to take military action. By a three-to-one margin Americans say the top reason for action is to keep Iraq from supplying weapons to terrorists, with 14 percent say the most important reason is to promote democracy and human rights and 10 percent say to secure oil supplies. Twenty percent say it is a combination of these."

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_...5E1702,00.html

FRANCE gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with US officials, The Sunday Times reported, quoting files it had found in the wreckage of the Iraqi foreign ministry.

The conservative British weekly said the information kept Saddam abreast of every development in US planning and may have helped him to prepare for war.

ruh-roh!

My parents told me the toys came from Santa Clause. Even when I knew better I didn't care as long as they kept coming. The reasons Bush/Blair gave are now moot. What they/we do now will effect the future of the middle east orders of magnitude more than the reasons it started.

I think, in the context of what you're saying, 'affect' is the more appropriate word.

(edit - spelling error. :) )

You may be right but I was thinking differently. "The particular way in which something affects or influences something else: the effect of morine on the body." There's no doubt we will affect them at this point. However the way we effect them is critical. There was never any question we had making war down pat. Now comes the hard part.

French helped Iraq to stifle dissent

FRANCE colluded with the Iraqi secret service to undermine a Paris conference held by the prominent human rights group Indict, according to documents found in the foreign ministry in Baghdad.

ruh-roh!

Aluminum tubes back again (headed for NK this time):

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...ws/5725153.htm

BERLIN -The manager of a German company has been charged with trying to ship to China components that could have been used to help make nuclear weapons, prosecutors said Saturday.

The man, who wasn't identified, is accused of violating German export laws by failing to secure authorization for the shipment, said Eckard Maak, a spokesman for prosecutors in the southwestern city of Stuttgart.

He declined to elaborate or to comment on a report in the newsmagazine Der Spiegel that German authorities suspect the shipment - officially addressed to China's Shenyang Aircraft Corp. - was in fact destined for North Korea, currently under intense scrutiny over its nuclear program.

I have some Aluminum tubing in the back. Should I expect a visit from Hans (and the Marines)?

Don't worry honey. They won't even make it up the street ...

Just make sure you borrow the chipper/shredder, and let the fellah with the hogfarm know we'll be bringing up a couple contractor bags full of slop.

I love how Bush supporters dodge issues and offer scapegoats as arguments. UnderToad pointed to an article in which the Telegraph - which is the UK version of FOXNews - found references to Osama Bin Laden and a possible intetion to meet with OBL. What Toad does not point out was that - in 1998 - OBL was not guilty of any crimes against the U.S. or the west. Later in 1998, Washington blamed OBL for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa.

"The documents do not make clear whether the hoped-for meeting between Iraqi officials and bin Laden took place."

So a meeting - which may or may not have taken place - in 1998, before OBL was accused of attacking any U.S. interests - is proof that OBL and Iraq are in bed together.

Remember, it was just a few years ago that the United States counted Osama Bin Laden as an ally. Things change, and associations deteriorate. I would have to see some proof that Iraq was a little more involved with OBL than a document that talks about a meeting that occurred before we had a beef with OBL for me to truly buy the idea that Iraq was in collusion on 9-11 or other events.

Weren't we supposed to know where they were? We said we did. We said we had credible intelligence about what and where Iraq had these weapons. But now, after we have complete control of the country, we can find nothing? If Iraq had WMDs, why didn't they use them when we invaded?

What has changed? Now, you have thousands of Iraqi scientists, technicians, and weapons experts that are willing to sell their services to anyone with cash. We have created a stong undertow of anti-Americanism within the Muslim community. We have villified some of the allies that we need to fight a war against terrorism. We still have an unsecure border and spotty port inspections. More than any of that, we have not found any proof that Iraq even had the weapons we KNOW they have.

What was to stop Iraq from giving anything they had to terrorists before the attack? What can we do now it that was the case?

Has this war made us any safer?!

You know about the Federation of American Scientists report that the Anthrax sent to Tom Daschle's office was the same type, concentration, strain, and purity of American weapons grade Anthrax, right? The New York Times said the same thing.

Biological weapons can be manufactured in your garage, and a smart terrorist would simply bring the seed spores to America - then rely on the open American markets to buy the inubators, centrifuges, and filtration systems to make massive quantities on the substance.

None of this requires a foreign nation's support. How did attacking Iraq make this any less of a threat?

Why aren't we attacking the media then? The media love to grab a scary story - like ANthrax or the D.C. sniper, or the Duct tape - and make it into a public frenzy of hysteria and nonsense. Chemical and Bio weapons are not really weapons of mass destruction, but the corporate media - serving as the government's bullypulpit - whipped America up into a frenzy of fear - that does stifle the economy, but it also makes waging war incredibly easy. It keeps people from questioning authority, and it allows the people in power to paint anyone that disagrees with them as antiAmerican traitors.

As it stands, we will have another terrorist attack against America. This is simply becasue we have not addressed the underlying issues that motivate regular people with strong religious views - to pilot planes into buildings. We still have troops stationed all over the middle east. We still support Israel, regardless of what they do to the Palestinians, we now have invaded Afghanistan - and left it to fall apart, we also have invaded Iraq - which may also be falling apart. We've killed thousands of people - many more than the people that died in 9-11 - to avenge 9-11 ( which was really just revenge for previous insults and attacks ) , and we have not found OBL or Saddam Hussein.

The terrorists on 9-11 did not need WMDs. They did just fine with unconventional methods of destruction. I doubt that we will be able to stop a similarly motivated group of people that want to destroy us more - now that we have ripped through Iraq and Afghanistan.

You can't. That is the point. It does not take a national effort to create biological weapons or biotoxins. It takes 100 bucks worth of lab equipment and a modicum of intellect.

All we can do is try to catch the guys we can find, and press them to give us information. Then we need to actually come up with a valid and equitable deal for the Palestinians, we need to remove the sanctions on Iraq, and we need to remove our military bases from all over the freakin world. If we could also avoid bombing civilians, bombing aspirin factories, leeching the Iraqi oil, villifying allies, and rejoin the world community, I think this would also go a long way toward removing these zealots motivations for hating us.

They don;t hate us because of freedom, Britney Spears, or liberty. They hate us because we have supported brutal dictators, unfair policies, genocide, and ethnic cleansing in the middle east. They hate us because we selectively ignore U.N. resolutions against Israel, while we enforce U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

The problem is, this war will not help limit the development or proliferation of WMDs. If anything, it will cause nations to accelerate their nuclear programs, and it will give terrorists a new recruiting tool for the terrorist attacks in the future.

The opinions of the poorly infomed FAUX News viewers do not convince me that this war was a good idea. Personally I have a different reason for this war.

I think that the PNAC people were itching to gain acces to Iraq for strategic reasons. They also wanted to showcase the AMerican military systems - to boost sales of technology to other nations and to scare any challengers. I think that some of the peopl ein the administration did not like that Iraq changed its curency for oil deals to the Euro from the dollar. I think that OPEC was going to also change their currency of trade to the Euro - which would encourage a mass international exodus to the Euro and deeply devalue the dollar - with dire economic impact.

I do not think that the suffering people in Iraq were of any concern. There is suffering all over the world - why should we be concerned with Iraq's suffering? I also found it Ironic that the people that were advocating this war were the people that were trading with Iraq after he gassed the Iranians and the Kurds - which does not exactly lend a great deal of credibility to their intentions.

Undertoad thinks that the activities of the French negate any of concerns about the lies in this run up to war. Well, if the French intelligence knew as much about Iraq's WMD program as the U.S. did, and they knew that Iraq did not have a WMD program, why wouldn't they try to maintain diplomatic relations and communication with Iraq? How could France have helped Iraq prepare for war? It was strikingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that the U.S. was going to attack before the summer. It was obvious to everyone that Iraq was going to be attacked.

Iraq was under constant surveillance, and inspectors were on the ground - If Iraq was hiding WMDs, they were doing it without the help of the French - What kind of help could they have given anyway?!?!

You think that France was the only nation to suppress dissent?!?! Ever hear of the Dixie Chicks?


I don't know. Every few days, we say we found some WMD material. The day after, in small print, the story is retracted as the later tests confirmed nothing.

If Iraq had no WMDs, I do not think the French were wrong to maintain diplomatic relations with Iraq.

But none of this matters. The French were only asking for more time. They never said they would not support an attack - they just wanted the inspections to be allowed to search Iraq. They also did not want an automatic trigger for war. God forbid, they were trying to make sure there was a valid reason to attack before the bullets started flying - damn traitors.

Did they have ulterios motives? Yes. I don't think there is an international action - including our own - that does not have various ulterior motives. Does that mean they were wrong to disagree with the U.S. and deserve to be punished? No. Not any more than anyone else who disagrees with us.

Oh yes, the inspections. They just need more time, right?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...27/MN99456.DTL

The SF Chronicle sends a reporter to sift through papers in Baghdad. Although the Iraqi spy agency location he goes to has been bombed, and subsequently looted of anything valuable, he can still open up a red notebook and find notes from last September from Iraqi officials, explaining how to beat the upcoming inspections and how scientists should behave during interviews.

The first item in the note is listed as "the entry of inspection teams" -- an apparent reference to the anticipated visits of U.N. weapons inspectors, which were later authorized under U.N. Resolution 1441. The inspectors' mission was to ascertain whether Iraq still possessed chemical, biological or nuclear arms.

Among subsequent annotations are: "evacuating the new equipment," "the files to be moved with the index," "erasing everything related to the information" and "the records (space) evacuating in the house along with inventory."

These notations, often written in incomplete sentences, are not entirely clear, but they suggest that important records and equipment were to be removed from one or more private homes, and placed elsewhere -- possibly in other private homes.

Now keep in mind there are trailer loads of these kinds of documents, and you can bet the reporters are not at the really good locations.

On OBL: the OBL connection was considered impossible by the anti-war folks only about a month ago. They're religiously incompatible, we heard. Now we find out OBL's invited to the palaces, and you want to play this information down. Riiiight.

1998, if you recall, was when OBL suddenly focused attacks on the US, hitting the USS Cole and, in all probability, starting planning for 2001. It was the year when the Taliban went completely pro-OBL. Coincidence?

One of the early findings in Iraq was a airplane fuselage mockup - a training ground for hijackers. Coincidence?

A month from now we'll know a lot more. If you don't want to heed my adivce that's fine, but I will make it my personal goal to make sure that you look like an idiot, at the possible expense of the patience of our readership.

Lastly, I am not a Bush supporter. I watch about 4 hours of Fox news per week, amongst the roughly 30 hours of news I watch per week.

30 hours a week my ass...more like 90. :)

The article you posted has cast a lot of doubt in my mind about Iraq. Before the war, I though Iraq certainly had WMDs. Part of my objection to the war was that Iraq would chem/bio weapons against our troops, and that large numbers of civilians would be killed by this. As the war went on, and we sacked Baghdad, I could not believe that Iraq would not have used their only ace in the hole. As the entire country fell, and our inspections teams went in - unemcumbered - I started to think that - maybe Kamal Hussein was right, maybe they did destroy their WMD program.

Now, I still have a hard time believing that a military would not use it's ace in the hole - especially when the end was obviously nigh. The iraqi papers don't really say anything conclusive, but they are contributing to the mounting doubt that I have about whether or not Iraq possessed WMDs.

As the article states, "Many other questions remain. For example, the notes do not prove:"

• Whether any documents related to weapons of mass destruction were found as a result of the Mukhabarat's orders or were moved to agents' homes.
• Whether other Iraqi government agencies were undertaking similar discussions and planning relating to the U.N. weapons inspectors.
• Whether other Iraqi government agencies were undertaking similar discussions and planning relating to the U.N. weapons inspectors.
• Whether the Iraqi government possessed any weapons of mass destruction or might merely have been concerned about other embarrassing documents that could cause problems.

I would like to know, one way or another, but I think that this is going to be an issue that will never be resolved.

I still feel that this war will cause more problems in the long run than it solved in the short - term.

People thought that OBL would not want to work with Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein was a secular infidel that suppressed the Shias and the Kurds while he lived in the lap of luxury. According to the document you cited, Iraq was courting Bin Laden, not the other way around.

People thought that Saddam Hussein would not give WMDs to terrorists like OBL - because of the possibility that the terrorists might turn them against Saddam.

Yes, but he was vocally calling for a jihad against America since shortly after the first Gulf War.

The Taliban were never anti-OBL. The Taliban were not in Iraq, either. Much of the Taliban was made up of ex-mujahadeen and people that fought with OBL. It is not surprising that they would support him.

I don't think it is a coincidence. I think Iraq was training troops and Fedeyeen in unconventional tactics. I would not be surprised if those tactics include terrorism or counterterrorism. The terrorists that hijacked the planes on 9-11 trained in America - at flight schools here. Does that mean that we support terrorism?

I am not naive. I think Saddam did support terrorists. But I also think that fighting terrorism by invading countries is like removing cancer with a baseball bat. If we don;t look at the cause's these people have for hating us, we will never be able to destroy all the places where terrorists can train, and all the people willing to kill us.

Good to see I have a new enemy. :).

I apologize for calling you a Bush supporter. I cannot stomach Faux News - and I definitely could not stomach 4 hours of it. But if you are only getting your news from the cable networks, keep in mind that they are only presenting about 50% of the picture. There are a lot of other things that are happening that never get covered by the corporate media.

Here is what British Intelligence says about the links between OBL and Saddam Hussein.

I only watched a smidge of news last week, mostly MSNBC. But I make it a point to watch some Fox News each week. Even though it's laughable at times, it's important to me to get another side of the media machine.

Actually, I feel so relaxed now that I've been out of the media loop for over a week. I should do that more often...I find that half the stuff in the news is just crap anyway.

My post from 20 days ago where I point out that WMD use was only one of a number of things that was expected but didn't happen.

I have never voted for a Bush for any office, but I might in 2004. I'm very uncommitted. Time will tell.

Sometimes, I find that it's easier to convince someone of your points if you're as succinct as possible. The reason for this is that the more someone has to read, the more they have to remember. And eventually they just stop trying to remember everything you said because it's too much.

Just a tip. :)