Do you just lie because you have nothing better to do? Or because otherwise you really can't make a winning argument?
From the Boston.Com timeline:
quote:March 2003: Nuclear agency inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time but did not examine the explosives because the seals were not broken. The inspectors then pulled out of the country.
March 2003: The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq.
From Farmgirl:
quote:They have a huge window they could have disappeared during. Why are they bringing this up to try to pin on Bush at this time? (rhetorical question).
Obviously they could have been moved long before our victory over Husseim's regieme.
Yes, of course. They could have gone in and taken them any time from March 2003 until March 2003.
Don't forget, we're the country (at least, according to Donny Rumsfield) that "knew exactly" where all sorts of weapons of mass destruction were being kept. We're the country (we are, really) that can read the expiration sticker on a license plate from orbit. But, apparently, we can't see a small convoy of semi-tractor-trailers pulling out of a known high-explosive weapons depot laden down with enough explosives to knock down a dozen World Trade Centers.
BTW, Chad, love your
quote:Only an idiot (like John Kerry)
Can we call you to an asshole to your face, yet? Or should we wait?
--Steve
[edited to take the "g" out of "Chgad", out of respect]
quote: Can we call you to an asshole to your face, yet? Or should we wait?
I didn't say anything bad about anyone on this board. I'm talking about John Kerry.
Oh..I see how it is....threads that say "How STUPID is Bush" are fine, but say something negative about Messiah Kerry and WATCHOUT! personal vulgarities start a flinging.
Hey if you have nothing better to say, by all means call me names.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I do admit, I have called Bush an idiot numerous times before (though I'm holding back now, because I don't have enough time to dig up all those links). Please feel free to call Kerry an idiot. Only I would ask that you back it up with some facts--or at least some strong Republican innuendo.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: So your position is that it is okay to call people names?
I don't know. I seem to remember people calling the President a "Liar".
Also if it's back up you seek, then you have it. Kerry claimed the Bush Administration knew about the Flu Vaccine shortage for months. He was wrong. FDA says so.
Kerry claimed that Bush was responsible for those weapons going "missing", but as the timeline shows, the IAEA left them unattended before the invasion even began. Not Bush's fault that THEY left them unattended.
quote:Do you just lie because you have nothing better to do? Or because otherwise you really can't make a winning argument?
Wow, did you forget your Valium, ssywak? Or is this just your standard little pissed-off routine?
First, I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that our forces reached Al Qaqaa the very same day the inspectors pulled out. But your little being offended act pretty much requires this. Otherwise a window does exist.
Second, the seals don't indicate the explosives weren't taken before that. Seals are not impossible to fake.
Relying solely on that timeline, there is a sizable window for the explosives to disappear before the U.S. controlled the site.
The irony is that there's actual evidence in the form of additional information you could use to contradict the conclusions drawn from the timeline. One of the linked articles says the Pentagon has acknowledged that the explosives disappeared after the invasion. Of course, there's no source, nor an indication we controlled the site before it disappeared. But it's on point.
But you thought it would be better to be an insulting instead. Yay you.
Chad, a lot of people don't only care about people at this site being insulted. "Somebody else did it too" is not a defense of your actions. Several people voting for Kerrey noted the inappropriateness of the "How STUPID is Bush" post.
posted
Since when do two (alleged, poorly-if-at-all supported) lies = 1 Idiot?
Doesn't bode well for your man in the White House, mein freund.
Can someone whith links point out how Chad is so completely wrong in this? I'm trying to get out of work by 6:15 pm so I can get home to my family in time to have dinner with them. If no one takes up the gauntlet, I'll come back later and post some good references.
I'll start with this, though it's not really sufficient to nail Bush, it'll get some of us going in the right direction:
quote:The Food and Drug Administration officials documented "deviations" from best practices at Chiron's Liverpool plant in the middle of last year, John Taylor, the FDA's associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, told the Wall Street Journal.
The regulator said that "systemic quality-control issues" led inspectors to conclude that Chiron wouldn't necessarily be able to discover problems, identify the root cause and take steps to prevent similar issues from arising again.
But no contamination was found in finished vaccine last year, which prompted FDA officials to begin working with the company to try to correct the problems, Taylor told the newspaper.
And now I go home to my family. Hopefully, they haven't changed the locks on me again.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote: Kerry also criticized the administration for the shortage of flu vaccine.
"We now know the administration knew ahead of time that there wasn't going to be enough vaccine," Kerry asserted as he campaigned in Ohio. The administration has denied it had any warning.
quote: "The administration, we've learned today, is playing fast and loose again with the facts and the truth to the American people because they pretended and they've acted surprised that we didn't have the vaccines," Kerry said at a nursing school. "Rather than tell the truth to the American people, they've acted surprised and pretended it just sort of happened on their watch."
quote: A Food and Drug Administration statement disputed the British account, saying "there had been no communication" between the U.S. and British governments on the matter until the British government acted earlier this week.
quote:But you thought it would be better to be an insulting ^%$^%#(*& instead. Yay you.
Actually, the "an" was supposed to be removed, not the " ^%$^%#(*&."
You see, if you take a moment to breathe before posting, you can often avoid making ^%$^%#(*&ish posts. But sometimes you don't get all the edits in correctly.
posted
Just a small correction, HMX is not "high melting point explosive." It is an acronym for High Molecular weight RDX. It is the most powerful non-nuclear explosive used by any military.
posted
So...the weapons of mass destruction we said we knew Hussein had (even though we knew he didn't really have them), he didn't have.
And the weapons that we said we knew he had (and that he really did have), we ignored so that others could have them.
And somewhere in there we're supposed to infer competence? And we're supposed to give it the keys to our country for the next four years? If my kid was that inept, I wouldn't give him the keys to my car.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
By the time people figure out that Bush had nothing to do with the material disappearing the media will have forgotten about it, sort of like the Jenin "massacre."
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posted
But, shouldn't common sense had told his admistration to secure these weapons RIGHT AT THE VERY BEGINNING of the war?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Second, the seals don't indicate the explosives weren't taken before that. Seals are not impossible to fake.
Okay, I've got a question. I know absolutely nothing about how facilities such as this one are sealed. What does that mean? Are the doors and windows welded shut? Is a hermetic dome lowered over the site? Is there just police tape strung up across the door? Maybe a blob of wax pressed into the lock with a signet ring? What?
Unless we know what it really means to say that the place was sealed, any speculations as to whether or not the seal could have been broken and a new one put into place without its being noticed is pretty baseless.
Steve, while I agree with your positions, damn! And accusing Farmgirl of lying? She's been here long enough, and has been an active enough forum member for you to know that it isn't in keeping with her character to pull stuff out of her ass. She can be mistaken, sure--any of us can. I think it's fairly likely that the explosives were taken from Iraq during the US's watch myself. But a liar? Seriously, how does it help your position to level an accusation like that at her?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:And somewhere in there we're supposed to infer competence? And we're supposed to give it the keys to our country for the next four years? If my kid was that inept, I wouldn't give him the keys to my car.
Well said. I'll be stealing that line, just so you know.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Let's see, before the war began, this place was a known and DOCUMENTED warehouse of high explosives.
And somehow our folks in charge of the war didn't keep an eye on this? No satellite imagery, no fly-overs, no unmanned drones, no nothing?
And someone didn't say, "Hey, let's drop a few bunkerbusters on this and make sure it doesn't fall into anyone's hands."
Or say, "Hey, the observers just up and left the place, let's drop a couple of sticks of paratroopers there to hold the place?"
Nope, we protected the oil fields instead.
Incompetence. Lack of foresight. Or it was planned.
I'm sorry, but while I think that the war in Iraq was pretty much an inevitability, if not a necessity, I have never seen a group of politicians and military leaders botch a job this completely and extensively.
Did they get their cues from the French efforts in Indochina? Did Arthur Andersen do the planning and troop count estimates?
Pathetic from stem to stern and it is purely on the quality of our individual soldiery that we haven't completely lost this whole ball of wax.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
People are forgetting that this building was only ONE of a huge complex.
Also, those with short memories might forget that when the war started we all thought they had WMD's. So you don't just drop paratroopers into hostile territory with the weaponry available now. It worked (but was still a massacre) in WWII but that was 50 years ago.
The onset of the invasion was to start from the outsides and push inwards.
But remember we didn't have a "vice" effect because we couldn't invade from the northern country and had to invade from the south.
For those "grasping at straws" in an effort to try and place blame on the President.
We knew the Germans had concentration camps. We didn't paratrooper soldiers into those areas to sit and "secure" them.
posted
Um, Chad, we did insert members of the 101st on the opening day of the war on oil fields in western Iraq.
They didn't receive ground support for quite some time.
Also, in WWII, we didn't drop paratroops deep in the heart of Germany for numerous reasons. First and foremost was after the disaster of Operation Market Garden. Secondly, German forces were still slugging it out and very dangerous up until the fall of Berlin. Iraq, certainly wasn't the same.
Basically, we just dropped the ball on this one. There's not much wiggle room. Our goals in the war were to push on to Baghdad, secure Basra and hold the oil fields. In their haste, they forgot this one, very important, site.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: In their haste, they forgot this one, very important, site.
It's not a "site" it's a complex of multiple buildings. EDIT: To give an idea we searched 32 Bunkers and 87 other buildings at that "site" when we arrived. And it appears the materials were missing by that time.
And the concentration camps weren't in the heart of Germany. They were in other countries like Poland, etc. There were no concentration camps in the "heart of Germany". The attitude towards Jews wouldn't allow them to be housed near cities, etc.
posted
Ok... So, let's make this clear... They protected oil fields instead of explosives and foreign civilians? Can you see why I am so disgusted and morally exausted by this administration? If it isn't Bush's fault, then who's fault is it? It seems like this war from the beginning has been some vaudeville show gone wrong only when things go wrong like this in a war it causes needless death and distrustion!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
It's war Syn. It's not perfect. Point to me one war where everything went "perfect".
It doesn't exist.
First it's complaining that we didn't protect the museums, then we didn't protect the services, now it's that we didn't protect one site of several hundred that contained weapons. (yes, several hundred sites)
Then it's "we sent too many troops so now we're spread too thin" for the people holding the "draft is imminent if you elect Bush" people.
Or the other side that says we sent to few and needed to send more, but not more American troops but foreign, even though they won't send any more troops.
I give up. You want to blame Bush? Be my guest, but by that logic, Clinton is responsible for 9/11 because he let Bin Laden go because he "had no legal justification for taking him into US custody" when offered.
Is that the road of thinking we want to go down?
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Syn, while I agree that protecting known ammo dumps and such should definitely have been a priority, I also think that it was essential to guard to oil fields as well. Don't you? Remember what Hussain did to the oil fields of Kuwait as he retreated from them? He set fire to them. Great, greasy smoke producing, environment destroying, resouce wasting fires that took ages to contain. There was every reason to believe that he would do this to his own oil fields rather than let them fall into enemy hands. This would have been a very bad thing for the environment and for the people of Iraq both.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
And throw into the equation the belief he had WMD's and would use them on our troops. Then factor in that we had a TON of troops north of Iraq waiting for a "green light" that never came that then had to be shipped/flown to the SOUTHERN border to invade.
The Goal was Bagdad and removing Hussein and his regime from Power, then going out and finding the WMD's by reinserting the inspectors and then rebuilding the country and placing it in the hands of the people to rule.
I'll post this again as I think it's important:
quote: Timeline on missing explosives in Iraq By Associated Press, 10/25/2004 16:24
ADVERTISEMENT
1991: The International Atomic Energy Agency placed a seal over storage bunkers holding conventional explosives known as HMX and RDX at the Al-Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad as part of U.N. sanctions that ordered the dismantlement of Iraq's nuclear program after the Gulf War. HMX is a ''dual use'' substance powerful enough to ignite the fissile material in an atomic bomb and set off a nuclear chain reaction.
January 2003: IAEA inspectors viewed the explosives at Al-Qaqaa for the last time. The inspectors took an inventory and again placed storage bunkers at Al-Qaqaa under agency seal.
February 2003: IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations that Iraq had declared that ''HMX previously under IAEA seal had been transferred for use in the production of industrial explosives.'' This apparently did not include the HMX that remained under seal at Al-Qaqaa.
March 2003: Nuclear agency inspectors visited Al-Qaqaa for the last time but did not examine the explosives because the seals were not broken. The inspectors then pulled out of the country.
March 2003: The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq.
After the invasion: The Pentagon said Monday that ''coalition forces were present in the vicinity at various times during and after major combat operations. The forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at the facility, but found no indicators of WMD (weapons of mass destruction). While some explosive material was discovered, none of it carried IAEA seals.
Oct. 10, 2004: Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology told the nuclear agency that 377 tons of explosives had disappeared from the Al-Qaqaa facility. The Iraqis said the materials were stolen and looted because of a lack of security.
Oct. 15, 2004: The IAEA informed the U.S. mission in Vienna about the disappearance. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice was informed days later, and she informed President Bush, according to White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
Oct. 23-24, 2004: The Pentagon ordered the U.S. military command in Baghdad and the Iraq Survey Group to investigate the IAEA report, the Pentagon official said, adding it was not clear how or by whom the explosives were taken or whether any of the material had been used in insurgent attacks.
Oct. 25, 2004: ElBaradei reports the explosives' disappearance to the U.N. Security Council after The New York Times reports the cache is missing.
posted
Again, none of those were in the cities. All were accessible to "paratroopers" in the same way Al Qaqaa was "outside of Baghdad".
You also intentionally left off all the concentration camps OUTSIDE of Germany.
Can you list them?
And you need to focus on the words "OUTSIDE". As I claimed, none of them were in the cities of those German towns you mentioned. Why? For the reasons I listed.
So basically, all your post did was say there were concentration camps in Germany OUTSIDE of their cities.
quote: They were in other countries like Poland, etc.
I was wrong with that statement. Some were. None of them had paratroopers drop in to "secure" them.
EDIT: I refer to this "excellent" map of concentration camps here.
quote: And the concentration camps weren't in the heart of Germany. They were in other countries like Poland, etc. There were no concentration camps in the "heart of Germany". The attitude towards Jews wouldn't allow them to be housed near cities, etc.
I've gotta work with what you say and do, rather than what you MEAN to say and do. Just like when we evaluate our government's efforts.
We have to look at what has been done more than what they MEANT to do.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Also, you brought up the question of Concentration Camps in Germany. I felt that a list of the horrors elsewhere wouldn't contribute in this particular sense, since any reference to them in this discussion would be completely spurious (since they were in the region the Soviets were working in and completely out of the range of our delivery airplanes).
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Seriously Chad, where do you get this stuff? Do you know you're just making things up when you say them, or do you honestly believe them and then realize that you were wrong? Or all all of your gaffes like this just misspeakings? You seem like a decent guy, but I can't think of another poster here who has stated so many things that were clearly, unambiguously, factually wrong. What's up with that?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
By the way, I ask that with a complete lack of rancor or heat. I'm honestly puzzled by it, and would love to know what's going on in your mind when you present facts like that.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
I admitted I was wrong with the comment on none in Germany. I wasn't thinking. But there most definately were concentration camps in France, Belgium, etc. as well. You did leave those out:
posted
Oh yeah, I know you admitted you were wrong; you generally do, and it's something that I definitely appreciate. What I'm wondering about is what's going on when you first relate the facts that you then later retract. Did you have a really bad civics teacher in high school that filled his students with misinformation or something? I can't tell you the number of things I've just accepted as true that were taught to me as a child, that I just never bothered to examine as an adult until I made reference to them and then thought "wait, that doesn't sound right? Is it?"
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
No, I was just focused on the camps being "removed" from the general populace (like why the ghetto's were removed from cities and their populations removed to outside of the cities.) and made the mistake of saying all of Germany instead of Germany's cities, etc.
I just had an idea in mind, and portrayed it rather poorly and wrongly.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:I just had an idea in mind, and portrayed it rather poorly and wrongly.
Well, all of us do that more often than we'd like. I do appreciate your willingness to retract statments when they're shown to be false, by the way; that's not something that everyone is able to do.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I don't WANT to blame Bush. I don't WANT to blame anyone. But the situation warrants some blame as to the claims that were made on this war from the outset.
Those claims, across the board, were:
Iraq was capable of producing WMDs and that they had at least some stocks of them, along with the wherewithal to use them.
This has yet to be proved.
That there was some link between Al Qaeda and Saddam's government.
Even the strongest evidence for this has proven to be remarkably shaky, if existent at all.
That we could secure a country and establish a democratic state for the benefit of all Iraqis.
This is noble, but we are having a hard time with the security aspect of this. Also, large numbers of Iraqis apparently feel they will have no say in the government (Al-Sadr brigades and other insurgents).
That we would be able to deny Iraqi resources and weaponry from the hands of terrorists.
This isn't proving close to true, and the recent release of this info in particular points to something much worse on the horizon.
That we would be able to handle all of these tasks, plus rebuilding, with our forces on hand and those of our coalition allies.
No. We simply have not been able to.
That we could afford this.
The checks are beginning to bounce.
That it was Mission:Accomplished.
It may be Mission:Impossible if we don't get ourselves right about this.
Like I said, I don't WANT to blame anyone. But the mission isn't going like they said it would. It has, however, gone as it more rationally should have been expected to go.
Our government pushed a far, far too optimistic evaluation of the war on us before it began. Had they said, this will be hard and it will take a long time, but it is for a greater good then we would be looking at this with different eyes.
But they didn't say that, did they?
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