quote:The government's most definitive account of Iraq's arms programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said yesterday.
The officials said that the 1,000-page report by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speech that Iraq had posed "a gathering threat."
The officials said Duelfer, an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, found that the state of Hussein's weapons-development programs and knowledge base was less advanced in 2003, when the war began, than it was in 1998, when international inspectors left Iraq.
"They have not found anything yet," said one U.S. official who had been briefed on the report.
A senior U.S. government official said that the report includes comments Hussein made to debriefers after his capture that bolster administration assertions, including his statement that his past possession of weapons of mass destruction "was one of the reasons he had survived so long." He also maintained such weapons saved his government by halting Iranian ground offensives during the Iran-Iraq war and deterred coalition forces from pressing on to Baghdad during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the official said.
The official also said that Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group had uncovered Iraqi plans for ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 kilometers and for a 1,000-kilometer-range cruise missile, farther than the 150-kilometer range permitted by the United Nations, the senior official said.
The official said Duelfer will tell Congress in the report and in testimony today that Hussein intended to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programs if he were freed of the U.N. sanctions that prevented him from getting needed materials.
Duelfer's report said Hussein was pursuing an aggressive effort to subvert the international sanctions through illegal financing and procurement efforts, officials said. The official said the report states that Hussein had the intent to resume full-scale weapons of mass destruction efforts after the sanctions were eliminated, and details Hussein's efforts to hinder international inspectors and preserve his weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
In short, our own investigation shows that Saddam was trying to get WMDs, yet U.N. sanctions alone (even without weapons inspectors) not only stopped his progress, but actually succeeded in causing a regress in Iraq's weapons programs. Saddam was getting weaker by the year.
So, how can we still maintain the argument that U.N. sanctions were ineffective against Iraq? It seems to me that this proves that not only were the effective in preventing the advancement of his programs, but also that if they had continued to be in place, Saddam's weapons programs would have continued to weaken and he would have become less of a threat - not more of a threat.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
It's nice to have information available now that we invaded the country that we didn't have then.
That's why hindsight is always 20/20.
Would've been nice had he never kicked the inspectors out or that Clinton had done something more than the "more of the same" year over year.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
No, it would have been nice had Bush not assumed "more of the same" had failed before letting the inspectors finish their job. Then we might have known "more of the same" was working before deciding to launch an invasion.
posted
Also, Libya is proof that Sanctions coupled with Military use is also effective.
People tend to think twice at flipping their noses at you when you actually follow through on your threats.
It's like a gang of hoodlums provoking and proding someone who warns them to back off but does nothing, but then finally goes off and literally kicks the @ss of one of the hoodlums.
You get a pack of hoodlums less likely to provoke and prod and more apt to hearing your warnings and threats of reprisal.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
If Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, it would have been a whole lot simpler for him to simply allow the U.N. to see and verify that fact. The only reason everyone continued to believe he had them was that he kept playing stupid little games, which now seem calculated to make us believe he had them. Think about it:
1. Saddam had possessed and used such weapons in the past.
2. Saddam agreed to get rid of all such weapons.
3. When the U.N. attempted to verify his compliance, Saddam refused to cooperate, making it impossible for anyone to discover that he had in fact gotten rid of them, and leading everyone to believe that he really did have something to hide.
I certainly can't blame anyone for continuing to believe Saddam had WMD's, or for acting on that belief when Saddam persisted in antagonizing the entire rest of the world.
quote: No, it would have been nice had Bush not assumed "more of the same" had failed before letting the inspectors finish their job. Then we might have known "more of the same" was working before deciding to launch an invasion.
I think 10 years was plenty of time. Also we don't know if Sadaam would have allowed the inspectors to remain. If his past treatment of the inspections was any indication (and I don't think in my opinion you can ignore it) we can't say that inspections would have worked because we can't assume they wouldn't have been kicked out again.
And that still leaves Sadaam in power which the report says he had the desire to aquire WMD's.
quote:A senior U.S. government official said that the report ,includes comments Hussein made to debriefers after his capture that bolster administration assertions, including his statement that his past possession of weapons of mass destruction "was one of the reasons he had survived so long." He also maintained such weapons saved his government by halting Iranian ground offensives during the Iran-Iraq war and deterred coalition forces from pressing on to Baghdad during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the official said.
The official also said that Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group had uncovered Iraqi plans for ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 kilometers and for a 1,000-kilometer-range cruise missile, farther than the 150-kilometer range permitted by the United Nations, the senior official said.
The official said Duelfer will tell Congress in the report and in testimony today that Hussein intended to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programs if he were freed of the U.N. sanctions that prevented him from getting needed materials.
Emphasis added that you didn't add.
So let's play devil's advocate. If the weapons inspectors found he had no WMD's then that means we would have to justify sanctions against him, which would have been hard to do at best. So then we have to drop our sanctions, which then allows him to restart his weapons programs as he planned....
There's alot more in that story than you emphasized.
It will be interesting to see what his testimony reveals.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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They had only returned for months when Bush attacked.
quote:If the weapons inspectors found he had no WMD's then that means we would have to justify sanctions against him, which would have been hard to do at best. So then we have to drop our sanctions, which then allows him to restart his weapons programs as he planned....
Okay, so you're saying a WAR is justified even without any WMD's, but mere sanctions would not have been?
The sanctions did not exist because Saddam had WMDs. They existed because he invaded another country.
quote:There's alot more in that story than you emphasized.
Yes, but it all amounts to what I said. Everything you quoted is about how Saddam wanted WMDs, which is clear. The fact that he wanted it so badly yet still could not get it because of U.N. sanctions, is what proves so clearly that U.N. sanctions work.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
It's unsurprising that Saddam wanted people to think he had WMD. It's similar to N. Korea's concerns at being over-powered by other nations. It's the only way to assert power as a small country, in their eyes.
Our incompetence in intelligence and lying about intelligence is not sufficient to go to war, however. With another however, is that we're there now and we NEED to do things right. Which I don't think we're doing (see electricity, water supplies, and general instability remaining in the region). I'm not going to protest about more or less troops getting sent to Iraq. But I am going to call our administration liars and fools.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote: The sanctions did not exist because Saddam had WMDs. They existed because he invaded another country.
To clarify the sanctions were placed on his country because of his invasion, but remained after his withdrawl from foreign soil because they were contingent upon his disarming of his weapons programs. It is very clear in the UN resolutions what the conditions were for having those sanctions removed. It was even argued by Tariq Aziz before the UN security council and the answer was that for sanctions to be lifted he would have to disarm.
Now if we find out that he was indeed "disarmed" and had no Weapons programs or WMD's, then what happens to the sanctions? You have to remove them. And as your report stated, once that happens, the barrier stopping him from getting WMD's is now gone and he would be actively persuing acquiring and developing them.
I realize that this is as assumptive as believing that continued inspections would actually have worked.
posted
Either President Bush knew that WMD were not existant in Iraq, but used that as an excuse to invade (not for oil, but to promote the neo-con theory that a democracy in Iraq will bring peace to the region), or he was fooled, completely, by a two bit dictator.
Saddam wanted President Bush to believe he had WMD so he could negotiate better terms. He played the US and the UN and a dozen other countries like fiddles at the country fair.
Unfortunately he got caught up in his own lies and played his hand just a bit too far.
He bluffed.
We believed his bluff, at a great price.
A price he didn't think we would pay.
Because American's don't bluff with war.
I am of the opinion that President Bush was fooled, but others in his cabinet were aware of the possibility that the WMD didn't exist, but were willing to gamble with soldiers lives in order to try their little experiment in nation building.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
The report also mentions (hey, this wasn't in your quotes, Tres) that the Iraqi's use of chemical weapons was much more extensive than previously thought.
So . . . where did all those weapons go?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
That the intelligence committees of the developed world with the Iraq frequency tuned in believed he had WMD's. It wasn't the President who was duped by Sadaam. It was the intelligence committees.
Place the blame where it in fact lies, which is with the Intelligence Committees that had wrong information.
Example: Mutliple Doctors diagnose you with terminal cancer, so you submit yourself to Kemo. After a year, it is learned you actually don't have cancer. Whose fault is it? Yours for acting on the information you were given? Or those who are paid to provide you with reliable information but failed. Remember "Multiple" Doctors said you had it.
posted
So what's your opinion about the aluminum tubes? Or that idiotic memo that was forged and rather blatantly so?
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
fugu wrote a long and pertinent post about this in Kasie H's thread here about 1/3 of the way down the page. The NYT link is here.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Duelfer said yesterday that while Sadaam had no nuclear capabilities, his findings showed that he was actively working toward getting them.
He also explained that many of the chemical weapons Iraq had possession of during the Gulf War had been destroyed, but the facilities for the production of the weapons had not, and Sadaam was implementing the research and development of chemical weapons inspite of sanctions against Iraq. Ditto with biological weapons.
Duelfer said at least three times that sanctions on Iraq were eroding, and that Sadaam had every intention of reinitiating active development of nuclear, chemical, and biological weaponry as soon as he could get away with it.
Sanctions, in other words, were not working.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Duelfer said yesterday that while Sadaam had no nuclear capabilities, his findings showed that he was actively working toward getting them.
You can't sanction away desires. You can only prevent nations from achieving those desires.
And despite all of Saddam's efforts, which Duelfer documented, Saddam's weapons program WEAKENED between 1998 and our invasion. This means sanction were working. In fact, it is ever BETTER proof of the effectiveness of sanctions than it would be had Saddam not been trying to circumvent them. If Saddam was trying to circumvent the sanctions yet could not, it means they were doing their job.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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I find the claim "Sanctions worked" regarding a report that so obviously claimed they were failing and what would happen when they did...a comical statement.
posted
Saddam's intentions to restart the weapons program were entirely based on interviews with him this year. He had no concrete "working towards," that we can find.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Ah...I'm failing to see how the once leader of the country claiming what he'd do if sanctions were lifted and just finding that out...is a rebuttal...
Maybe I'm not understanding your point.
Sorry, I'm thick headed sometimes.
Just to summarize my point. The UN had changed the sanctions on Iraq because Iraq complained (No American inspectors, XX amount of time notice before an inspection, sanctions being lifted if we allow inspectors, etc.) and were moving towards actual "lifting" of the sanctions....
Why?
Because UN member countries were illegally trading/accepting bribes from Iraq while sanctions were in place.
So let's just be a bush hater for a moment and say that the Inspectors stayed for a while longer and concluded that Sadaam had no WMD's.
Guess what? Sanctions get lifted because the terms of those sanctions are fulfilled (disarmament).
But wait!
Sadaam (now that he's captured) said as soon as Sanctions were lifted he would seek to gain WMD's again as a "deterrent to Iran"
But of course he would "never" even think of giving that knowledge or materials to people who want to harm, maim and destroy the US would he? It's not like he dislikes us or anything or shown any hostility towards us right?
Sanctions working?
Sanctions only put on "hold" Sadaam's plans to get WMD's. They did nothing for keeping him from acquiring them once those sanctions would be lifted.
Sanctions worked? Not from eliminating the threat. They only put the threat on hold.
posted
Duelfer's comments this morning made it clear that Sadaam was projecting more than a desire-- the capability was there, and so was the intent.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
The proof is in the pudding. Saddam's weapons capability decreased between 1998 and the invasion, during which only the sanctions were between him and his established goal of getting those WMDs. Thus, you can deny it all you want but sanctions worked. The proof is right there.
The WMD program diminished under sanctions.
quote:Guess what? Sanctions get lifted because the terms of those sanctions are fulfilled (disarmament).
But wait!
Sadaam (now that he's captured) said as soon as Sanctions were lifted he would seek to gain WMD's again as a "deterrent to Iran"
So what? Iraq has a right to do that, once sanctions are completely gone, unless they agree not to.
And if the U.N. thinks Iraq is still a threat, all it has to do is keep the sanctions.
quote:Sanctions only put on "hold" Sadaam's plans to get WMD's. They did nothing for keeping him from acquiring them once those sanctions would be lifted.
That's like complaining that convincts are merely putting their escape on "hold" until they are free to walk out the prison door legally.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote: That's like complaining that convincts are merely putting their escape on "hold" until they are free to walk out the prison door legally.
A better analogy would be it's like a rapist in jail claiming and planning to rape as soon as his term is finished. Being in Jail only puts that plan on hold. Legally he may fulfil his term in prison, but you haven't removed the threat that he'd rape again and in fact is planning to.
How do you remove that threat?
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: I am of the opinion that President Bush was fooled, but others in his cabinet were aware of the possibility that the WMD didn't exist, but were willing to gamble with soldiers lives in order to try their little experiment in nation building.
I agree. From the beginning I think this war has been about building a "road map of peace." Oil is the blood of capitalism which is the skeleton of democracy. It is strategically advantageous to give Israel allies and not let a mass murderer control the world’s largest supply of oil.
I am still debating in my head whether the war is worth it. I admit I am leaning towards it "is" being worth it. However, I think the administration could not muster support to go to war for a strategic purpose. I think they were fooled, and happy to be fooled, so they could have a pretext for a war that a Democracy would never sanction. I don't know whether to applaud them or hide under the covers, but Bush got exactly what his advisors wanted. It will take decades to see if it was worth it.
Now it is about rebuilding the infrastructure and winning the hearts and minds of the people. Frankly I hear too many partisan reports to have any confidence to guess to what extent we are welcome or unwelcome--now that we are there. I am assuming the people don't want a civil war.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Because Iraq invaded Kuwait and was then defeated.
quote:A better analogy would be it's like a rapist in jail claiming and planning to rape as soon as his term is finished. Being in Jail only puts that plan on hold. Legally he may fulfil his term in prison, but you haven't removed the threat that he'd rape again and in fact is planning to.
How do you remove that threat?
Well, you certainly don't murder him because his legally prescribed sentence is almost up.
posted
"It's unsurprising that Saddam wanted people to think he had WMD. It's similar to N. Korea's concerns at being over-powered by other nations. It's the only way to assert power as a small country, in their eyes."
This is especially true considering Iran's nuclear ambitions. Good post dabbler.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:I'll be clearer: what were the sanctions meant to accomplish?
Punish Iraq for its invasion and disarm it of the most dangerous parts of its arsenal that it could use to attack again.
This is precisely what was accomplished. This report reveals it succeeded in disarming Iraq, and was continuing to weaken Iraq's military capacity to attack again even after inspectors left.
posted
So Xapo, do you then advocate the lifting of sanctions while Sadaam was in power, which allows him to trade with whomever he wishes? And you can't say that "No, because he wanted to acquire WMD's if sanctions were ever lifted", because we would have never known that had we not deposed him.
So since the sanctions worked in your opinion and you think that is the route we should have gone...
All conditions of the sanctions being in place would be made which means they would have been removed while Sadaam would still be in power.
posted
Sanctions hurt the Iraqi people not Saddam. Plus Saddam was a ruthless dictator. His human rights violations alone were an excellent reason to invade.
Posts: 473 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
That's what is so funny. You speak to any US hating muslims (and I have) they accuse the US of killing upwards of 1million Iraqis from the sanctions. Even though it was the UN who put them in place. It's probably the Excuse our...excuse me...John Kerry's "friends" the French and etc. (who won't be sending any troops to Iraq regardless) used to illegally open black market trade with Iraq and Sadaam.
I was amazed when we invaded palaces and found FOOTLOCKERS full of millions of dollars of $$$, while his citizens couldn't get basic medical supplies.
So far, if the Muslims who claim the Sanctions have killed 1million Iraqis are right, then the War has cost LESS than a prolonged UN Sancioning would.
So you choose, 1 million more Iraqis dead due to sanctions or the tens of thousands since war overthrew Sadaam and allowed Aid to begin flowing freely into the country?
Google that sanction related topic about Iraq.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I am not saying they didnt hurt his WMD program. I intended to suggest that he wasnt starving. He was still living in his luxurious palaces while his people struggled.
I have no doubt that sanctions diminished his ability to produce WMD's.
Posts: 473 | Registered: Sep 2001
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posted
Nobody is under the impression that sanctions are supposed to solve all the world's problems. They are a strategic move designed to achieve certain goals at certain costs. They achieved that goal in this case.
But it's rather absurd to say that this war, which has made Iraq even more dangerous now than under the sanctions, is killing fewer than sanctions - especially considering your 1 million number is something you've just made up and attibuted to "America-haters." None of your links includes a figure like that or evidence to back it up.
Furthermore, the war has not solved the possibility of future WMDs any more than sanctions did. Iraq is just as capable, if not more capable under a different ruler, to get WMDs in the future. And given Saddam did not help Al Qaeda, it's easily possible the next ruler will be more dangerous to our security than Saddam. This is a country where anti-Americanism is extremely high, after all.
quote: And you can't say that "No, because he wanted to acquire WMD's if sanctions were ever lifted", because we would have never known that had we not deposed him.
Wait.
Did you just say we didn't know he wanted those types of weapons before we deposed him?
That is funny...Bush used that to go to war! , so how did we not know that before the war?
posted
But "some liberals (the Yahoo kind )" said Bush lied, so then that means he "Lied" about Sadaam wanting to have WMD because publicly Sadaam never admitted he wanted to get them as soon as the Sanctions were lifted.
So did Bush lie about the WMD's and Sadaam wanting them or was it true?
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