REPORT: IRAQ HAD NO WMDs AFTER 1994

[dArKeR]

Mar 2 2004

By Naveed Raja

Saddam Hussein had no significant weapons of mass destruction after 1994, meaning the case for war was based on a false premise, according to a report by UN weapons inspectors.

The claim - made by two unnamed diplomats in American newspaper USA Today - is based on facts leaked from a report by weapons inspectors that goes before the UN today, and which will be seen by the Security Council at the end of the week.

The report comes just weeks after former US chief weapons inspector David Kay embarrassed the US and UK governments by saying no WMDs would be found in Iraq.

The WMD claims are politically explosive because they would supersede pre-war UN reports. They said while no WMDs had been found, Iraq had not fully accounted for all weapons it had after the first Gulf War in 1991.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=14007683_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-REPORT%2D%2DIRAQ%2DHAD%2DNO%2DWMDs%2DAFTER%2D1994-name_page.html

[sonias]

1. There were no WMDs not since Gulf War #1

And Dr Kay said intelligence failures were to blame for the "wrong" assumption that WMDs were hidden in Iraq adding: "It turns out we were all wrong, probably in my judgement, and that's most disturbing.”
-----------------------------
Yeah right. How about that the inspections worked, and how they could have continued to work without costing us billions of dollars and Iraq thousands of lives.

The UK and US war machines knew, they just chose to ignore the intelligence and cherry pick what would be the best evidence for supporting a war. These lying bastard war mongers are traitors to their countries. They should be tried as war criminals.

Like Sean Pean said "if there is one thing an actor knows, besides that there were no WMDs..."

Sonia

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zero Gravitas]

8. Oh please

Clinton did not deliberately distort intelligence to come to a pre-conceived notion, and he did not invade Iraq. Bush did those things. Clinton did not. And by the time its is over how many Americans will have died? how many Iraqis? Will the trillion dollars we will end up spending on this misadventure really be worth it. Think about it a trillion fricking dollars! for what?

[Cooley Hurd]

18. Hi Mulletman!

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[wicket]

22. hahahahahaha!!!!

That picture still cracks me up hehehe :)

[bluestateguy]

3. So the Clinton policy worked

Inspections, sanctions, monitoring the no-fly zones and the threat of limited air strikes worked.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wuushew]

5. here let me edumicate you

Main Entry: 3lie
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): lied; ly·ing /'lI-i/
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lEogan; akin to Old High German liogan to lie, Old Church Slavonic lugati
intransitive senses
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
transitive senses : to bring about by telling lies <lied his way out of trouble>


Do you believe Clinton had an intent to decieve? Did Clinton unlike the Chimp have access to this report? What's that you say. I guess Clinton did not lie after all.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wuushew]

9. But BushCo still maintains WMD exist!

There has been no retraction. This simply adds more weight to what their own internal reports 2002 and prior also stated. Smirk will just play dumb while Tenet is publicly crucified much to the delight of freepers.

[trapper914]

12. Bush had the Defense Intel Estimate

in October 2002, but it was ignored. Among the gems in that report: The aluminum tubes were for rockets not centrifuges. Somehow, the aluminum tubes continued to be used as "evidence."

[Rose Siding]

10. Sure he lied...

And if anything in this new report contains information that was available from Kamel in 94, then Clinton would even have had access to this.

A Legacy of Lies
President Bush misled the nation about the threat Iraq posed. But he wasn't the first to do so.
By Seth Ackerman
February 20, 2004

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/02/02_402.html

snip

"It turns out we were all wrong… and that is most disturbing," Kay declared.

But who exactly got it wrong? Intelligence agencies obviously exaggerated Iraq's WMD potential, and it's well known that they were egged on by their political masters in the Bush administration. But that's not the whole story. In fact, Bush's manipulation of Iraq intelligence was built on a foundation established during the late 1990's, when Bill Clinton was in the White House.

Faced with the need to justify an economically devastating and internationally unpopular embargo of Iraq, the Clinton administration engaged in a pattern of stretching and distorting weapons data to bolster their claim that Saddam Hussein was still hiding an illicit arsenal. The Clinton White House never used that "intelligence" to push for an invasion of Iraq, as Bush so effectively did. But in its desperate quest to salvage a crumbling Iraq policy, the Clinton White House laid the groundwork for the deceptions of their successors.

snip

In fact, there is compelling evidence to suggest that the Clinton administration's false alarms on Iraqi weapons, like Bush's, were much more than just honest mistakes. One astonishing series of events in particular illustrates the ways in which the Clinton White House cleared the path for Bush's war.

-- more --

[Zero Gravitas]

16. so its Clinton's fault

that Bush recklessly invaded Iraq? I should have guessed that. :eyes:

[Rose Siding]

20. You jumped to an erroneous conclusion

I like Clinton, but neither he nor bush dealt with Iraq well. The sanctions were a brutally poor "solution", but bush's war of choice is off the charts.

One needn't refuse to acknowledge Clinton's faults to find him less onerous than bush.

[wuushew]

23. What other choices were there?

(A)Assassinate Hussein, illegal and dangerous because someone would bump off a POTUS or Israeli head of state as a justifiable rebuttal.

(B)Invasion = illegal and immoral


(C)Allow oil via the U.N. to be traded for food and medicine. Although virtually guaranteeing the destruction of the overall economy. You can't force a country to be prosperous. WMD unlike conventional arms can be manufactured from benign civilian materials. So then again I ask what is the proper course of action?

[Rose Siding]

26. I'm not sure.

I do believe there were unexamined alternatives. I saw an interview on NOW that addressed one. Here is some information:

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/inspections.html

Iraq is surrounded by as many as 300,000 troops. Thousands of precision-guided missiles are aimed at Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. It is, as more than one observer has said this week, a watershed moment for everyone concerned; Saddam Hussein, the fractured United Nations, the President of the United States, the troops at the ready, and the Iraqi civilians.
Jessica Tuchman Mathews has been taking this all in from her offices in the heart of Washington D.C. She is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). The Endowment held a series of discussions on the Iraq situation from late April to late July of 2002. Participants included a former U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and retired Air Force General, several former UNSCOM (United Nations Special Council on Iraq) inspectors, former IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Iraq Action Team members, scholars and diplomats.

Together they produced the report "Iraq, A New Approach." The document suggests a tactic called "coercive inspections" — "in which a multinational military force created by the UN Security Council would enable international inspections teams to operate effectively in Iraq. The U.S. would forswear unilateral military action against Iraq as long as inspections worked unhindered. This 'comply or else' tactic would place the burden of choosing war squarely on Saddam Hussein."

Download the complete report

[Zero Gravitas]

24. Clinton had many faults

but saying that he is in part responsible for Bush's mistakes is going too far.

[Rose Siding]

25. Too far, perhaps, if I'd said that.

"saying that he is in part responsible for Bush's mistakes is going too far"

Again, you seem to have seen something that wasn't there. It's hard enough for people to get along without projecting a flawed interpretation of their meaning.

I do hold him responsible for his own mistakes and at this point, exaggerating the threat seems to have been a mistake.

[xray s]

7. It hurts, don't it?

Bill Clinton took care of Saddam's WMD...some Presidents stand up to tyrants, and some just shake their hand...

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[trapper914]

13. Still trying to make that Saddam/Osama link?

That dog won't hunt.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[xray s]

19. Hey...at least Clinton didn't create those two Frankensteins

We can thank Reagan and Bush for that...blowbacks a bitch, ain't it jawnybnsc?

[chopper]

21. here y'go

"Clinton did nothing about OBL"

if by 'nothing' you mean 'quite a bit', then yeah. Clinton was so obsessed with getting Bin Laden that even congress was wondering what was going on.

"and he did nothing about Saddam"

if by 'nothing' you mean sanctions, fly-overs, bombings and inspections which kept Saddam from making any weapons, then yeah.

"Whether or not you believe he stopped Saddam's weapons programs means nothing to me."

good to know.

"The fact that he allowed these two men to foment"

'foment'?

"and ultimately unleash jihad on the United States is still as shameful."

if you can show me any substantial proof at all that Saddam and OBL were in cahoots, or that Saddam had anything to do with 911, i'll give you a dollar.