Iraq's unaccounted for' weapons may have been accounting errors

[UpInArms]

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/09/08/national/a02090803_01.txt

No weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq, nor has any solid new evidence for them turned up in Washington or London. But what about Baghdad's patchy bookkeeping — the gaps that led U.N. inspectors to list Iraqi nerve agents and bioweapons material as unaccounted for?

Ex-inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that the ‘‘unaccountables'' may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

Some may represent miscounts, they say, and some may stem from Iraqi underlings' efforts to satisfy the boss by exaggerating reports on arms output in the 1980s.

<snip>

American officials at times used paperwork gaps to paint an ominous picture. President Bush last October spoke of ‘‘a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions.''

...more...

In the Helena Montana paper??? Will wonders never cease!

[ixion]

1. okay, so even if it is an accounting error

that still does not excuse the fact that tens of thousands of people have died. In fact, it makes it worse, IMO.

"Sorry about the invasion and all the death... our books were messed up."

I don't think so.

[UpInArms]

2. the USA will be ravaged by guilt

for the crimes committed by the BFEE -

"sorry" just won't cut it - and it's going to be an ugly day when the bills for this travesty start pouring in :mad:

[benfranklin1776]

3. Thank you.

Took the words right out of my mouth. That is an obscene travesty when you think about it : "Sorry we killed thousands of people, wrecked a country and bankrupted the treasury because of accounting errors"
Sorry to say, but this is not a simple math error which, once corrected, will resurrect the dead and unmaim the butchered.

This should explode, however, the myth once and for all about the allegedly superior efficiency of a Republican/MBA administration. They don't read reports and sure as hell can't balance a budget or account for how much money the Pentagon is spending so errors like this are expected par for the course. But the objective was always to go to war anyway for PNAC so I imagine very little effort was made to do a serious accounting of what weapons Iraq actually posessed.

[RapidCreek]

4. Jee Wiz...Ya think? Who ever would have guessed.

Does this mean we are gonna take out Kenny Lay next? Maybe we should blow the shit out of his kids first....just to keep in the front of the publics mind, the dangers of bad book keeping.

RC

[LanternWaste]

5. Going to war over accountants....sheesh

Ahhh....now we're going to war over bookeeping errors. Maybe Enron was ahead of the curve, after all. I am really beginning to think I'm in a bad cartoon...

[Robbien]

6. This would be laughable if it weren't so sad.

They knew Saddam liked to play games. So we went to war on the basis of creative bookkeeping. What a crock.

[Keithpotkin]

7. hmm...enron, worldcom....and saddam

all sloppy with the book keeping.

its those damn accountants...they are trying to take over the world.

[patdem]

8. Hell's Bell's I'm an accountant...you mean my next error might mean WAR?

Shit...I better watch my one's and two's more carefully! :grr:

[benfranklin1776]

9. Only if you are the Prez, VP, SecDEf or the National Security Adviser!

Otherwise not to worry. Interestingly though their errors have no professional repercussions whereas the rest of us mere mortals have no such comfortable margin for error.