Indefinite delay on weapons report

[Gman]

<snip>
LONDON: The US and Britain have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The London-based Sunday Times newspaper said inspectors had found no evidence any such arms exist.

Efforts by the Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, to scour Iraq for the past four months to uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons had so far ended in failure. (My bolding)
</snip>

So rather than report and formally acknowledge that Iraq had no WMD's, they just aren't going to publish the report that was promised.

Another day in Bizarro World.

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,7268831^912,00.html

---on edit--
You'll need to copy and paste the URL into your browser as the "^" messes up the link.

[grytpype]

1. Hopefully someone will leak it.

Leaks are the only way for the truth to come out, in the Bush Era.

[ewagner]

2. This still bothers me

This is the second or possibly third reference in British newspapers about the report being "shelved or delayed", and yet:

1. The American Press hasn't picked up a single word on it; and,

2. Administration Officials are stll giving the proverbial winks and nods to the American press. I'm particularly disturbed about the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who, just a week or so ago, made reference to the report being released and having "big surprises".

In football parlance: Is this a trap play? A draw? A screen?

Opinions please.

[Gman]

4. It's a Bumarooski

(Remember Bum Phillips and the Houston Oilers?)

The "report" isn't going to be released simply because it would draw attention to the fact that there actually and in fact were no WMD's in Iraq.

[indigo11153]

6. The dick

Chenney said on MTP that he still expected David Kay to come up with a report showing some "program" but he didn't say weapons so I bet the search isn't going well. Was he lying about this too? That would pretty much make everything he said a lie.
My thinking is this: There will be no report. If they find anything It will probably have "Made in American" on it. In other words. If Iraq had anything we sold it to them. I doubt they will want to report that Bush II went to war with Iraq to get weapons back that Bush I sold them.

[meegbear]

3. GASP!!

They're not gonna release a report? Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with THEY HAVEN'T FOUND ANYTHING?

[zbdent]

5. I love how one person somewhere referred to a

badly whited-out piece of paper with Osama Bin Laden under the white-out.

Like the Iraqis can't afford a shredder? How about a book of matches? You know, if you throw sand on a fire, you can put it out, but hey, Bush couldn't find sand in Iraq, so how should the Iraqis?

[pfitz59]

7. "Daddy, make the bad men go away!"

I can see Dubya cowering under the sheets with his Teddy bear.......

[KharmaTrain]

8. We Saw It Coming...

Now what a surprise. Actually I'm glad Kay is coming up empty. This Neocon was so damned sure that there were weapons there when he played Monday Morning Quarterback on MessyNBC then promised he had all sorts of goodies...remember that the "report" was being delayed so it would be concice?

I saw this latest noise coming a few weeks ago when the Repugnicans started floating talking points around stating that "Saddam didn't have a weapons program afterall, but bluffed about it"...so as to look big in the Arab World and somehow (North Korea style I guess) blackmail the U.N. in either lifting or modifying the sanctions. Also that Saddam and his cronies were making so much money off the embargo that they wanted it to continue, thus keeping up this game to continue sanctions and so on.

Now if Saddam had any type of WMD, to use the neocon's line, "Iraq's a big country"...they've had 5 months and not even a trace of an active, yet viable program. And this is with virtual carte-blanche to go anywhere in that country, guns blazing. You don't hide that amount of machinery or it's residue in basements.

Most important, it still make no sense that if Hussein had such weapons why they were never used as he knew he was outgunned and outmanned by the obviously developing U.S. invasion. Anyone remember that "line of death"...the supposed 100 mile radius of Baghdad where it was expected those weapons were to be used? Not only weren't they (and this was with Saddam's Army melting away) not even a canister of anything was found, lest the launching platforms that would obviously be needed.

The only WMD materials I've heard they've found in "quantity" have been HazMat suits. Think that if you're country was being threatened by a big power with every weapon in its arsenal, you wouldn't want to be as prepared as you could to survive? Also, if there were WMD programs that are active or its components...where did they go? If similar documentation, or lack of it, points to Iran or Syria, are we obligated to go after it, since that was our prime mission in the first place, no?

I think it's high time the U.N. stop coddling this regime and start its own investigations into the run-up to this invasion, how it was conducted and the aftermath...then turn names over to The Hague for further action!!!

[shirlden]

9. First they have to spin...then report

Note all the spin going on to change the WMD story into a "program" and "has capabilities" instead of "if we don't take him out today, he will nuke us all tomorrow or give his billions of tons of bio's and gas to terror-ists who are training all over Iraq right this second". Once they have the story all changed they will submit a report to match the story and then claim they were right all along. Isn't that what this bunch of lyin liers do? Fire, aim, ready !!

:bounce:

[barbaraann]

10. My nomination for most pathetic GOP excuse for not finding WMDs:

One of the rightwing talking heads actually said "there's a lot of sand in Iraq" and that's why it's hard to find the WMDs!!!!!!

Idiots. What did they expect--cotton candy?

[fob]

11. My "Shoe-in" of the week prediction...

The release of this report has been doing pretty stiff battle with the potential announcement of Gen Clark. The report will coincide with whenever his announcement comes. The second he utters "yes", Roverer releases the report.

Remember, you heard(read) it here, maybe first.

bush* are a national disgrace!

fob

[Caution]

12. Found one US reference to this article

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20030914-083610-4045r.htm

ONE FUCKING REFERENCE!

Can the media really be this bad? There are thousands of newspapers, radio stations, television stations, magazines, and here we see the government has utterly failed to find anything to back gong to fucking war?!?!?!

[WillyT]

13. Does This Count ???

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/iraq/main560449.shtml?cmp=EM8706

<snip>

Last week, in a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency chief said U.N. inspectors found Iraq's nuclear program in disarray and unlikely to be able to support an active effort to build weapons.

And...

Former weapons inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that what the U.S. alleged were "unaccountable" stockpiles may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.

<snip>

:shrug:

[peterh]

14. in a related type article today…

in a confidential report:
"No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq,"

and with regard to possible accounting glitches….some scary examples are being used:

A U.S. audit last year, for example, found the Pentagon had lost track of more than 1 million chemical-biological protective suits, said Conetta, of the Project on Defense Alternatives, a private think tank.

In perhaps the most striking example, U.S. government auditors found in 1994 that almost three tons of plutonium, enough for hundreds of nuclear bombs, had "vanished" from U.S. stocks, because of discrepancies between "book inventory" and "physical inventory."


I feel, with ever growing confidence, that this administration knew before hand what was in Iraq and what wasn’t….they just put lipstick on the pig and sold it and as the lipstick fades, it gets reapplied and marketed with a different color.

<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/15/iraq/main573255.shtml>

on edit: oops...link has been added

[Barrett808]

15. Can you post the link?

I remember these, and I can probably dig them up, but it would be so much more convenient if you could hand it over on a silver platter!

[snippy]

16. They have pictures of the delivery of WMD to Saddam.