Straw's hope for WMD discovery

[hussar]

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says he remains hopeful that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq despite a Bush administration source alleging that none have yet been uncovered.

Mr Straw argued that just because it had been "difficult to obtain physical evidence... does not mean the evidence is not there".

He admitted that the security situation in Iraq "was worse than we anticipated" and disclosed that "a range of options" other than military intervention had been considered by the government in the moments leading up to war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3138042.stm

[jamesinca]

1. They are not going to make it easy for you are they.

<SNIP>

He admitted that the security situation in Iraq "was worse than we anticipated" and disclosed that "a range of options" other than military intervention had been considered by the government in the moments leading up to war.

<SNIP>

Problem is you went with the invasion option, now you have to live with your sins.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. True

Anybody ho supported this invasion should jave seen this situation coming. Those of us who marched against the attack ahead of it saw it.

The mantra given by the "Blair Democrats" and their supporters that support for Bush's invasion was right and now we much oppose the bungling of the occupation doesn't wash. The war against Iraq is a blunder from start to finish.

[dennis4868]

2. and I remain hopeful that....

the Chicago White Sox will win this years World Series but it aint going to happen!

[Jack Rabbit]

4. Straw looks like an idiot

I wish he'd just shut up. There were no WMDs. Case closed.

[cspiguy]

7. tell it to the Kurds in halbja. Idiot. Even Albright admitted he had

them. It's whether or not the UN should have handled the problem in a professional 21st century manner rather than the cowboy 18th century way * forced on the region and this country.

[AP]

13. I have to agree with that.

I think the question of whehter they existed is a media manipulation to HELP bush long term. It's a set up for 2004. Get people outraged. Make war the only topic of discussion. Then pull the carpet out from under the feet of the Dems who are only arguing about war. It'll be done the same way Nixon used a fucked-up war in Vietnam to WIN in 1972, despite economic malaise and a nascent Watergate scandal.

[jayfish]

15. Educate Yourself Before You Go Around Calling People Idiots

Link To NYTimes, Abridged, Archive

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60816FC3D5C0C728FDDA80894DB404482

Link To Un-Abridged Story Via Google

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=A+War+Crime+Or+an+Act+of+War%3F&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=c0d49f12.0302042351.ffb67ee%40posting.google.com&rnum=2

-SNIP-
"US Defense Intelligence Agency's report found both sides used gas during battle, and blamed Iranians for Kurdish deaths"
-SNIP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29¬Found=true

-SNIP-
"The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait -- which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors -- is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend."
-SNIP-

-SNIP-
A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.
-SNIP-

Oh, and BTW any chemical or biological weapons used during the Iran/Iraq war would have long ago have been rendered inert.

Jay


-Edited To Provide Link To Entire NYTimes Piece-

[ProfessorGAC]

16. Cowboys Were 19th Century

Nice name calling to emphasize your point.
The Professor

[Cappurr]

18. First of all....its not nice to refer to other posters as "idiot"

Second of all, the entire world knows Iraq had chemical weapons. He used them when WE WERE HIS ALLIES. No-one has EVER proved he had usable biological weapons nor has anyone proved he had nucular weapons. And it might be noted that we, the US, used chemical weapons in WWI. It might also be noted that we, the US, is the only country that ever used nukes.

So the fact that Iraq HAD chemical weapons in 1990 and had programs to develop biological weapons and nuclear weapons at the same time, says absolutely nothing about what he had AFTER the Gulf war took out most of his weapon factories, after the first inspection team destroyed a bunch of precursurs and AFTER Sadaam himself got rid of anything that might connect him to illegal WMD.

Anyone who knows even basic psychology of a man like Sadaam would know that the only thing he was "hiding" was that he was impotent....he didn't have the weapons that he believed gave him power over neighboring countries (particularly Israel) and he didn't want them to know it.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

21. Who's the idiot?

If he had them after 1991, where are they?

[Cappurr]

23. Well, DA

If you read the Inspection Reports and listed carefully to the inpectors, including David Kay, Ritter, all of them....they said they destroyed precurors. They destroyed whatever chemicals they found. They weren't even sure if they were weaponized, they only knew he tried to weaponize them. And if you listed further, you would have learned that the chemical weapons have a short shelf life....they go inert. So they are unusalble anyway.

The short answer to where they are is there aren't any. They were either bombed away, destroyed by the inspectors or destroyed by Sadaam. That doesn't mean he didn;t have dreams of one day reconstituting his programs. He buried some pieces of a centrifuge in someone's garden...where it remained from 1991 to 2003. Our experts have been in there interrogating every freaking person who had the slightest connection to these programs and they have come up with NADA. They all say the same thing. They were destroyed.

And if you can't understand why Sadaam wouldn't make that clear in a report (although he did try to in the last one....Bush just wouldn't accept it) then you have no conception of the pride and machoism of a man like Sadaam Hussein. He'd NEVER want to admit he submitted to any authority. He'd NEVER want to admit he didn't have powerful weapons. Hell, he wouldn't even admit he lost the Gulf War. And Bush knew that too....believe me he knew. Thats why they didn't want UN inspectors....they knew they wouldn't find anything.

[ProfessorGAC]

24. And, In Addition. . .

. . .until this invasion, what benefit would Saddam have by admitting he didn't have anything? By playing bait & switch with the inspectors, it made a toothless tiger seem as if he had something to hide.

With everything, including the programs, destroyed, his only hope of being "fearsome" was to pretend to be hiding things he didn't even have anymore.

Just adding to your already good list of thoughts, and extending your machismo reference.
The Professor

BTW: Welcome back, Cappurr

[jayfish]

25. I Think You Misinterpreted DANZs' Post.

Your analysis, however, was right on.

Jay

[Jack Rabbit]

26. Mr. Cspiguy

I am quite aware that Saddam possesed WMDs at least as recently as 1991. I am very well versed on what Halabjah was. I have made reference to both facts in countless post and in this article that ran on the home page of DU in July.

I believe you are very much aware that Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld and other members of the junta on this side of the Pond, as well as Blair, Straw, Hoon and other members of the British government on the other side of the Pond, we saying for months to anybody who would listen that Saddam still possessed such weapons, that they knew how much he possessed and where they were. That was the issue. Not whether Saddam ever possessed WMDs, but did he possess them during the time that the Bush and his allies were insisting that he did.

The fact is that there were no WMDs as the Bushies and the Blairites claimed. They knew or had reasons to know that there were none. It is time for them to shut up. The next time Bush or Blair or Straw or any of the others speaks on the subject should be before an international tribunal to apologize to the world before each is sentenced to thirty years in prison.

[AP]

12. Although I'm sure there was no imminent threat that SH was going

to attack the west, I agree with Pallast that we know SH had WMD, because we sold them to him, and because Saudi Arabia gave SH millions for a nuclear program.

The thing that Straw knows perfectly well is tha the US isn't interested in finding WMD if it's going to hurt Blair and encourage Americans to nominate an anti-war democrat to run against Bush.

I think Straw's right -- there are WMDs there which the media could spin into a a story justifying the invasion according to the (outrageous) terms of the invasion.

The US isn't interested in finding them, however.

[T_i_B]

20. Quoting Greg Palast eh?

Even he thinks Blair lied

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=242&row=2

Blair is in the doghouse with his own Labour Party for having been caught in a fib. Seems the Brits have their knickers in a twist about their leader's ludicrous fabrication of evidence that Saddam Hussein had jars of bad bugs, piles of atomic mud and an evil chemistry set in his basement capable of wiping away London. I've just read a Parliamentary report in which Blair's own minister calls his boss' claims about the bogus Weapons of Mass Destruction, 'a bunch of Horlicks.' The phrase defies translation, but you get the idea.

[AP]

27. Pallast hates Clinton too.

And the interesting thing about Pallast is that, in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, several times he says, "Blair is awful because Gordon Brown did (x)"

Pallast isn't my litmus test for voting for a politician because NOBODY's liberal enough for him, but he says two interesting things without meaning to say them in support of Blair. He says in TBDMCB that it's always the far left that destroys the left in British politics, and he says the SH had WMD -- we know because we sold them, and because SA gave him millions of dollars for a nuclear program. I see he has changed his tune, but you can read TBDMCB for yourself.

[T_i_B]

5. I hope for a cheque for £1 million adressed to me in the post tomorrow.

Doesn't mean it is going to happen does it?

[Jacobin]

6. These bastards will be saying the same thing five years from now

"Just because we haven't found them in the past five years, doesn't mean they aren't there"

[rocktivity]

8. No WMDs "have YET been uncovered"?

...Jack Straw says he remains hopeful that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq despite a Bush administration source alleging that none have yet been uncovered.
ALLEGING? YET? What does that mean? If it means that The Pretzel-Dunce is, or is planning to, sit on any WMDs found with the intent of springing them on the public at the most politically expidient time, he's guilty of treason AND of needlessly murdering our soldiers!

...the report would publish computer programmes, files, pictures and paperwork which it says shows that Saddam Hussein's regime was attempting to develop a weapons of mass destruction programme.
But that's not why Bush invaded. Bush invaded because he said that Hussein actually had a)WMDs and b) THE ABILITY TO LAUNCH THEM AT AMERICA WITHIN 45 MINUTES. If the report can't back THAT up, you're toast, matey.

Mr Straw argued that just because it had been "difficult to obtain physical evidence...does not mean the evidence is not there".
It also doesn't mean that it IS there, eh what?


rocknation

[underpants]

10. Ever positive ever forward never admit you are wrong

These Brits are taking the play right out of W's (Rove) playbook. they are trying to run an American PR campaign in an environment (media/public opinion) that is not the same. I'm getting the feeling that Blair and Straw are getting their lines from Rove too and the only say this for the 'Murkan audience to hear, they know it ain't selling over there.

[The Magistrate]

11. Indeed, Ma'am

The old absence of evidence is not evidence of absence wheeze. Past a certain point, though, it really is, and in this case, that point has long since been reached.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Straw's Hope:

As we say in the UK:
There's two Hopes, Bob Hope and No Hope. Bob's out of town....

(PS: I quite liked Bob Hope. But he had a good innings, I guess)

[ProfessorGAC]

14. This Circular Logic Is Really Making Me Mad

This is a regular conservative talking point now. I've heard people on CSPAN call-in shows say "The absense of evidence is not evidence of absence." This is bascially what Straw is saying.

How convenient it must be to suggest that because we haven't found them THEY MUST EXIST! They exist because Jack Straw says so?

The thing that really rankles me though, is the inference that somehow we must prove their non-existence, or accept their word.

So, to these idiots, i have a question: How does anyone prove the absence of anything?
The Professor

[Dead_Parrot]

17. LOL. I wonder if...

I could tell my bank that I have £5 million in my account. OK, they can't see it, but as you say, absense of evidence is not evidence of absence....

:silly:

But I think Enron already did that...

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Enron! Funny Stuff!

Good catch!
The Professor

[underpants]

19. But if someone asks were all the money is going.......

THEY are told that THEY must prove it. Ooooookay.

I have to remember that one "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

Damn I wish we had the copy/paste thing when I was in elementary school that would have made the whole chalkboard thing MUCH easier.

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"