Noam Chomsky: There were means to develop WMDs in 100's of Iraq sites

[IndyOp]

...and the sites were systematically looted after the US ordered UN inspecters out and then failed to guard the sites. And now where are the dangerous biotoxins, the means to hide precision equipment to be used to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, the means to develop chemical weapons? Maybe they will wind up in New York.

The common knowledge is now "No WMDs found in Iraq." That leaves people room to conclude: The Bush administration made a mistake by invading when the weapons weren't there, but we are safer anyway because, goodness knows, Iraq hasn't been acquiring weapons since we've been there.

Update the common knowledge to "Rumsfeld/Bush invasion dramatically increased risk of terrorist/nuclear attack" and we have an obvious illustration of how Rethug leadership puts us in DANGER. An attack on Iran will raise the risk of terrorism to a level of 100% certainty.

On Edit: Of course Iraq DID NOT HAVE WMDs at the time of the invasion. They were years and years (?) away from being able to have WMDs even if the UN inspectors had stopped their mission to destroy the means to create them. Even IF Iraq had had WMDs, the war would still have been pre-emptive (and thus against international law and immoral). THE POINT IS THIS: Everything the Bush administration does puts us in GRAVE DANGER.

AMY GOODMAN: In this first broadcast interview upon publication of his book, Professor Noam Chomsky joins us today from Boston for the hour. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Noam.

<snip>

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Professor Chomsky, in the early parts of the book, especially on the issue of the one characteristic of a failed state, which is its increasing failure to protect its own citizens, you lay out a pretty comprehensive look at what the, especially in the Bush years, the war on terrorism has meant in terms of protecting the American people. And you lay out clearly, especially since the war, the invasion of Iraq, that terrorist, major terrorist action and activity around the world has increased substantially. And also, you talk about the dangers of a possible nuclear -- nuclear weapons being used against the United States. Could you expand on that a little bit?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, there has been a very serious threat of nuclear war. It's not -- unfortunately, it's not much discussed among the public. <snip>

And Bush administration policies have, again, consciously been carried out in a way, which they know is likely to increase the threat of terror. The most obvious example is the Iraq invasion. That was undertaken with the anticipation that it would be very likely to increase the threat of terror and also nuclear proliferation. And, in fact, that's exactly what happened, according to the judgment of the C.I.A., National Intelligence Council, foreign intelligence agencies, independent specialists. They all point out that, yes, as anticipated, it increased the threat of terror. In fact, it did so in ways well beyond what was anticipated.

To mention just one, we commonly read that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq. Well, it's not totally accurate. There were means to develop weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and known to be in Iraq. They were under guard by U.N. inspectors, who were dismantling them. When Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest sent in their troops, they neglected to instruct them to guard these sites. The U.N. inspectors were expelled, the sites were left unguarded. The inspectors continued their work by satellite and reported that over a hundred sites had been looted, in fact, systematically looted, not just somebody walking in, but careful looting. That included dangerous biotoxins, means to hide precision equipment to be used to develop nuclear weapons and missiles, means to develop chemical weapons and so on. All of this has disappeared. One hates to imagine where it's disappeared to, but it could end up in New York.

Friday, March 31st, 2006
EXCLUSIVE...Noam Chomsky on Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/31/148254>

Monday, April 3rd, 2006
Noam Chomsky on Iraq Troop Withdrawal, Haiti, Democracy in Latin America and the Israeli Elections
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/03/1319200>

[ShortnFiery]

1. Another *Home Run* for the Masters of War ...

And yes, Wu's ON FIRST, Pooty Putin's ON SECOND and Exxon Mobil's ON THIRD

Oh, and it's Rummy - still AT BAT! - with Halliburton sittin' pretty on schedule erecting USA's Mega Iraqi Embassy (complements of Philippine slave laborers) and fully securing profits from future USA Concentration Camps contracts ... they're a WARMIN' UP in the BULL PEN. :grr: :nuke:

[IndyOp]

2. Have you seen this information elsewhere before?

I remember a story in the corporate media about the looting of one site. The story was on a some little TV station news (affiliate, not national) about weapons at a site having been looted because they weren't guarded -- but I've been walking around thinking they found nothing related to WMDs until I saw this interview with Chomsky.

:shrug:

[rooboy]

4. Nobody "FOUND" any WMD...

the only stuff there was under the control of the United Nations, not the Iraqi government. It wasn't there to be "found", because everyone knew where it was. It wasn't the propert of the Iraqi government.

[rman]

26. All that was there was the means to develop -

(under guard of the UN) - there were no WMDs as such.

Anyway there indeed was nothing to be "found".

[htuttle]

6. It was fairly well known before the invasion..

...that the UN had several sites in Iraq under guard and locked doors, especially at Tuwaitha.

It wasn't really "found" -- there had been UN personnel at those sites for several years as part of the truce agreement at the end of the first Gulf war and agreements worked out by the Clinton administration. Just before the US invaded, Bush forced the UN guards out and the sites were left unguarded until long, long after the US invaded. By the time troops decided to pay it a visit, and it had been looted, just as the UN inspectors had warned when they were forced to leave.

I think there was something like thousands of tons of Semtex (or some other military explosive) looted out of those sites after the invasion, too, because Rumsfeld decided they didn't need to be guarded.

[IndyOp]

8. So the material was left over from the pre-Gulf War Hussein regime...

I know that Scott Ritter says that UNSCOM accounted for and destroyed 90% of Hussein's stockpiles between the Gulf War and Iraq War. So what Chomsky is referring to is the 10% UNSCOM was still in the process of destroying - with the co-operation of the Iraqis.

Chomsky's point that the materials are now 'out there' instead of having been left under guard of UN inspecters who were dismantling them and making us safer is still relevant - yes?

The invasion was stupendously stupid for a few 100,000 reasons -- one of them is that significant stockpiles were looted by people who don't want to have them...

Right?

Everything the * administration does makes us less safe.

[htuttle]

20. That's my understanding of it

There was no new production of chemical or biological weapons, and no new research done on nuclear weapons after Gulf War I. All that was left were stockpiles from before the war that the UN was in the process of destroying. What they had left was all under UN guard until they were pulled by Bush before he invaded Iraq.

[DrRang]

13. Hundreds of tons of conventional weapons looted from Al Qaqaa (sp?)

[ShortnFiery]

14. I have not dug in to do the research ...

However, to date, I only know of "mom and pop" corruption geting unearthed. Heaven forbid we would hold a MAJOR WAR PROFITEERING CORPORATION to task. Why, the *decider* will have none of that type of justice.

BIG Money Mega-Corporations = Double Plus Good in BushBotWorld views.

[tocqueville]

3. the description isn't accurate, exaggerated and only giving

"arguments" to freepers

besides higtech explosives, a couple of tons of yellowcake was diverted and went probably to Iran. But you don't make "small nuclear devices" with yellowcake. At worse you could make a dirty bomb of which the radioactive impact would mostly be ... psychological...

Chomsky doesn't know what he is talking about, and causes more harm with his inuendos "they could strike here" than his criticism of BUsh. If I was a neocon I'd spin on that bullshit : "Even Chomsky acknowledges that..."

[IndyOp]

5. Do you have links to information?

I know Chomsky's track record - he is often right. I don't know your track record.

Also: Whether or not it is good 'strategy' - I believe in telling the truth. I want the truth

[tocqueville]

10. phone any nuclear scientist and ask

if you can make "small nuclear devices" with yellowcake

Plenty of articles have been written on that stuff in 2004 I think, when the Al Quaqua looting was discovered. I don't have any links, I'd have to do some googling. But I know I am right...

"There's also the threat of dirty bombs, small nuclear explosions. Small means not so small, but in comparison with a major attack, which would pretty much exterminate civilized life. The U.S. intelligence community regards the threat of a dirty bomb, say in New York, in the next decade as being probably greater than 50%. And those threats increase as the threat of terror increases."

this above is COMPLETE BULLSHIT.

Or you have small NUCLEAR explosions (at least Hiroshima level) and to exterminate civilized life, you'd need MANY of them. Japan wasn't "exterminated" with two bombs...

OR you have dirty bombs : a truckload of conventional explosives mixed with radioactive material. THe deadliest effect would be the conventional explosion. The radioactivity would be spread on a certain area by the wind and cause some problems that would decline rapidly with some reclaiming. It wouldn't even get to the Chernobyl level.

The atmospheric testing of nuclear devices in the sixties were "dirty bombs" of a magnitude that makes Chernobyl a trifle in comparison. And civilization (?) still stands...

[On the Road]

7. Certainly Chomsky Knows That

Iraq had battlefield chemical weapons, at least at one point, as well as biological agents supplied by the CDC.

He also had equipment like centrifuges which could be used for enriching uranium or other parts of the process to build a nuclear weapon. In Al Qaida's hands, it could be worthless, but the Iranians might make good use of it.

"They could strike here" stops becoming a Freeper argument when it's the Bush administration that allowed them to strike here.

[IndyOp]

9. What do you think? Any chance that they want to strike Iran

because they know Iran has some of Iraq's stockpiles -- stolen from beneath US military's noses? :shrug:

I don't think it is a mistake at all that the sites were left unguarded - Chomsky's major point is that every decision the * administration makes is made specifically to increase terrorism and nuclear proliferation.

[tocqueville]

11. Saddam had nothing according to CIA (read the latest reports)

you need more than centrifuges to make a nuclear device. YOu need polonium activators and hight tech tecknology to compress the stuff to a critical mass.

And even if the Iranians "had the bomb" (which means a couple) would they be that stupid to launch the five they'll have in five years from now against a country that has 2000 ? And with what means ? Sending a package with Western Union ?

[IndyOp]

12. A. Read the CIA reports where? B. I know that Iran is a decade away

from having WMD. C. Even if Iran DID have WMD -- we still have no right to wage an illegal and immoral pre-emptive war on them. Period.

[tocqueville]

16. here you have all the IAEA/CIA stuff

http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iraq/index.html

12 January 2005
United States intelligence officials confirm the search for weapons of mass destruction has been brought to a halt. US chief investigator for the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer reported in 2004 that his team had found no stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons at the time of the US-led invasion, and now asserts they have not found any since. The belief in the existence of such a stockpile had been the main reason cited for the war in Iraq.

--"US Gives up Search for Iraq WMDs," BBC, 12 January 2005.
12 January 2005
With the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq discontinued, the Iraq Survey Group's 30 September 2004 report, which maintains there are no stockpiles of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Iraq, is considered the definitive account of the CIA's findings. The search lasted until this date due to the administration's suspicion that weapons had been taken out of Iraq or hidden well within the country; however intelligence officials have come to the conclusion that such speculation is highly unlikely.
--Dafna Linzer, "Search for Banned Arms in Iraq Ended Last Month; Critical September Report to be Final Word," Washington Post, 12 January 2005.

27 January 2005
Jafar Dhia Jafar, commonly known as the father of Iraq's nuclear program, says his country's pursuit of nuclear weapons ended with the invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Jafar asserts he was three years away from achieving nuclear capabilities at the time, with a team of about 8,000 people involved in the nuclear program, but Operation Desert Storm prevented further developments.
--Doug Mellgren, "1991 Gulf War Stopped Baghdad's Atomic and Biological Weapons, Top Iraqi Scientist Says," Associated Press, 27 January 2005.

______________________________________________________________

of course terrorists could theorytically come upon a crude nuclear device and send it inside a container to a US harbour and blow it. But a nation would never do that unless the power of first strike would be so devastating that even a minor counter attack could be "acceptable". Only 3 nations have that possibility besides the US : Russia, France and probably China, because they have nuclear submarines equipped with MIRVs. The UK has it in theory, but must get permission first from the US to get the codes.

For countries like Pakistan, India, Israel and eventually Iran, nuclear capacity plays only the role of a LOCAL deterrent, but not as an attack weapon.

[IndyOp]

22. No STOCKPILES of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons

On edit: To clarify, Tocqueville's, replies all say there were No STOCKPILES of WMDS - agreed. Chomsky is not saying there *were* stockpiles --

Chomsky is discussing MEANS OF PRODUCING weapons --

:shrug:

[Wonk]

23. Between what I've got in my laundry room and under the kitchen sink, I too

have the means to potentially produce chemical weapons. Chlorine gas would probably be the easiest. It's high school level chemistry.

[IndyOp]

24. When Chomsky appears on DemocracyNow! concerned about you --

then I will know that you have a whole lot more than what is in your laundry and kitchen.

Come on. Chomsky isn't a gadfly.

[rman]

25. Chomsky is discussing "means to DEVELOP...

...under guard by U.N. inspectors, who were dismantling them."

Chomsky is not saying there were means of producing WMDs (it's not about weapons per se).

[mdmc]

27. thanks for the info

[On the Road]

18. Of Course You Need More Than Centrifuges

At one point, Saddam had an active nuclear program which was pretty much disabled by the UN inspectors. But there was still equipment and materiel sitting around that could be useful to any other country wanting to pursue a similar course.

And I am absolutely worried about Iran using the bomb, especially under their current government. Most of the time, charges of reckless irrationality are just propaganda, but Ahmadinejad is an exception. He's gone out of his way to embody a warmonger, and it may not be an act.

Not that an invasion is a great idea, either. Bush has put the country in a fine pickle, which is the point of the article.

[tocqueville]

19. I argue against Chomsky, not the fact that Iran is a problem

besides Iran has huge own uranium resources, so the stolen yellowcake is only the cherry on the cake. I see the biggest problem in Iran becoming nuclear, the result that Egypt and Saudi Arabia would counter it very rapidly by getting nuclear themselves.

Iran use of the bomb is only an attempt to become a big player in the region, not to use it. The only use they could have for it is to nuke Israel into oblivion, willing to pay the price of a "minor" retaliation : 6 millions weigh light against 80, specially when your territory is 100 times bigger.

[NNN0LHI]

15. Even the so called "experts" never look at the real screw up involved here

Screw the old crap that the inspectors kept laying around that was worthless or they would have destroyed it.

My question is where the fuck did all of Iraq's nuclear scientists go?

My guess would be where the money is at.

Don

[IndyOp]

21. Where did Iraq's nuclear scientists go? Good question.

If we are lucky they are driving cabs in Kuwait.

If we aren't so lucky they are now in the employ of other nations. The Iraq population (was) very, very, very well educated.

:(

[mdmc]

17. too bad political leaders don't listen to Chomsky

both dems and pukes think that the iraq war has made us safer. Thanks Hillary and Chuck (my senators)! Thanks w!