Zar

Hmmm...

We'll see what this is, but if they have buried lab equipment in decent condition, and it hasn't been totally destroyed, that isn't good, you have to admit. And if it is dual use equipment and meant for, say, aspirin or vaccines, why bury it?

In the big picture, I still don't see why the inspectors couldn't have eventually found this. Wrecking a country for doing something other countries get away with scott free isn't a serious effort to get rid of these weapons. I really think the world would be a safer place if everyone with these kinds of weapons -- and worse, nukes -- were pressured to get rid of them, and not just a few select targets so that one side can keep them in peace while the other side gets the death penalty. That might put some faith back into the system.

Of course, that can't happen, because then, well, "our" side wouldn't be able to crush "their" side at will and we might have to deal with nations in a diplomatic manner, instead of destroying anyone who looks at us the wrong way or who tries to follow what we have already done. This is the unmentionable truth that no one dares to contemplate.

The SwampThing

Ahh, what a joke!! That stuttering fool Jack Straw wouldn�t know what Bush has planned even if it came up from behind and bite him in the ass!!
The british are what is commonly known as "canon fodder"! They are to be used and tossed just like yesterdays laundry.
We see Tony Blair standing all proud for being part of the "coalition", but little he knows that he is being used...
Puppets and more puppets! And just who is the "master of puppets"? Not Bush, that�s for shure, he doesn�t even know what a puppet is!!!
Tony Blair is trying so hard to be the 52nd state, that he forgot the simple basics of politics:keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
They will make rather poor figures when the US starts yet another war without them even knowing about it!!
When the US first striked Iraq, Tony Blair and his staff found out thru the media, just like the rest of us...How dumb is that??

The US works in a "need to know" bases, and Blair doesn�t need to know.
We see Tony Blair stating everyday that the UN will play a vital role in post-war Iraq, but we all know what the Bush administration thinks of the UN, don�t we?
They just want the UN to pick up the tab, and pay for all the rebuilding and dirty work, but they will have no real powers whatsoever...
And while Blair goes on sucking up to Dubya and kissing ass, the real plans are being drawned behind his back!!
I wonder what he will say when the shit hits the fan?
Will he say that he knew all along?
If he admits to have knowned all along, he also admits to have been lying to the british people and to the world.
If he admits that he didn�t know at all, he passes as the biggest fool that ever existed!!
It�s a no-win situation, no matter how you look at it...

If the PNAC freaks get their way, the world will live out its worst nightmares. The Iraqi campaign has already succeded to give birth to hundreds of new Bin Ladens. If on top of that we add a Syrian campaign, it will turn the whole middle-east into a killing field!
How can any politician be so irresponsible?

In the event of a war in Syria, thousands of foreign fighters will flow to the region to fight the "jihad". Even western people will join the fight.
I am considering doing the same myself...
Russia will not stand idle watching this happen, nor will Germany and France.Even China is already looking sideways to the US, fearing a Korean campaign.
Basicly, this whole thing is a unmittigated disaster, waiting to happen.
And unless Bush tones down in his accusations, this disaster will happen sooner than anyone could even expect...

Maybe that�s what the world needs: a good old nuclear disaster, to send the human race back in time, turning us all into dumb cavemen starting all over again...

Gurdur

Try not to fantasize. The USA is not a policeman, simply a rogue nation acting unilaterally.

Kosh, you stuffed up your statement by using the present tense.

The Iraqi's obviously weren't producing anything with buried trucks.


Now to restate the painfully obvious:
The actual point I made was that you were wrong to say WMD's had been found, They have not. Only the means of producing them (if confirmed) has so far been found.
Since the Bush admin has insisted actual WMD's exist, using said putative existence as a pretext for invasion, then they must prove their claims.
Merely finding the means of production does not prove the existence of the product.

Am I being clear enough yet ?

Oh, and BTW, "moving the goalposts" as you do here is a fallacy of complex questioning and also a fallacy of composition.

Kosh

Yup, they just had that equipment around just case they might want to use it someday.

echidna

OK peacenik, yes I am surprised that no WMD�s have surfaced by now. No, I never claimed concrete proof of their existence in Iraq, nonetheless there seemed to be strong circumstantial evidence. And even recently, additional circumstantial evidence in chemical suits, military gas masks, nerve agent antidote supplies, & now hidden mobile laboratories. Why bother to hide these laboratories at all ? This is hardly the action of an innocent.

So can anyone still safely say categorically that there are still not WMD�s hidden ? I don�t see how. Would you be so bold as to state categorically that there are still no WMD�s ? Honestly, are you also a little surprised that these weapons have not been found to date ? If they were to be found tomorrow, would you be amazed then ?

Ultimately none of us know for sure & never have. But I for one, always felt a need to act, even if only based on strong suspicions. Yes, sometimes suspicions are wrong.

The question remains, if Saddam categorically had no WMD�s, then why did he try so hard to block efforts to find these weapons ? There is no doubt he was evasive and obstructive in dealing with inspectors, to the point where Blix complained repeatedly & Richard Butler voiced strong suspicions as to their existence as well.

Because both at a governmental level as well as at the public level, Saddam�s behaviour alone was enough to raise strong suspicions as to their existence. If the US was truly intent on invasion using WMD�s only as a pretence, then in his game of evasiveness and brinksmanship with the US, Saddam played his role to perfection by overtly resisting those who might prove his innocence. Sure, he never halted the inspection process, but at the same time it continued at a snail�s pace with Saddam apparently treating the UN inspectors with contempt. The only way to achieve concessions during the inspection process was through military threats & pressure and there was never a concession made without military threat. Really, with or without US consideration, there must be a limit as to how long this game can continue.

Why bother concealing laboratories ? If laboratories are worth concealing, and can be concealed, then might other things also be concealed ?

The SwampThing

Let�s assume for a moment that a WMD is found:
Would it matter? I say no it wouldn�t. Why? Because this whole thing revoved around the certainty that Saddam was crazy enough to use such weapons... Well, if Saddam was such a threat, howcome he didn�t use them, if he had them?
The fact is, Saddam is not the crazy blood furious mad man, with his finger on the button that Bush described to the world...

Even if a weapon was found, the simple fact that Iraq did not use such weapons sugests there was never any real threat as Bush wanted to make us believe. And that means Bush lied to everybody.
Honestly, i believe Iraq has the means to build those weapons, but has no such weapons.Saddam posed no credible threat to anyone. Infact, both wars where Saddam was involved were brought upon by the US:
THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR: the US convinced Saddam to declare war on Iran, to avenge the Embassy hostage incident, and to try to tone down the emerging threat of shiite fundamentalism. Saddam did not just declare war for the hell of it, he was instructed to do it by the CIA.
THE KUWAIT INVASION: The US knew about it, and even gave the OK, thru the person of the american embassador.
The Embassador, when questioned by the Iraqi authorities about the subsequent atempt to stop the kuwaiti drilling of iraqi oil wells, said yes and declared that the US would not do anything to stop it or condemn it.
Kuwait was pumping oil from wells over the Iraq-Kuwait border, that belonged to both nations.But Kuwait refused to respect the quotas, wich was costing Iraq a lot of money, billions infact...

So, in both ocasions the US has meddled with other nations affairs, and gave false testimonies.
Even the Halabja incident, used to present Saddam as a mad dictator and a genocidal maniac, has been twisted to point to Saddam as the guilty party when infact it were the iranians who launched that devastating attack on that small border village...

Saddam has been demonized, in a campaign designed to portray him as a crazed up demonic lunatic who could attack the world without warning... Wich is false.
Saddam represented a threat only to his own countrymen, thru his brutal tactics and political repression.
Yes, he killed thousands.Yes, he murdered his opponents. Yes, he starved his people...
But that is not what this war was about!!
Acording to Bush and Rumsfeld, Saddam was a real threat to the US. But how??? Did he have any means of attacking the US? No.
Did he have the weapons to use against the US? Problably not.
Did he have the intention to do it? Certainlly not!! Oposite to what Bush wants us to believe, Saddam was not crazy. Paranoid yes, but crazy no.
Even the supposed links to Al Qaeda were fabricated!!! Saddam was secular, he hated fundamentalists even more than the US!!
He feared them, because of what happened in Iran! He would never take sides with them.

Even if some weapons of mass destruction were ever found, the real fundament for the war would not exist...
By waging this unlawfull war, the US has alianated the entire world, mocked the UN, and created a new arms race like we have never seen. Diplomacy will never work anymore, countries will attack others, now that the US has opened the precedent.
More than ever, most nations will try to buy or build WMDs because they see them as the only real deterrant to a US strike.
The UN is finished, NATO is finished, the nuclear proliferation treaty has gone out the window, and most leaders will become paranoid!
Hell, even i have gotten paranoid!!!

Thank you so much, Bush!!! You are the man!! :notworthy
(SARCASM)

peacenik

Look of course there is going to be "strong circumstantial evidence" of WMD's because we all know that Iraq possessed WMD's prior to and up until the Gulf War. Hell we supplied them with WMD's in the 1980s. So yes, there will be circumstantial evidence, just a person who used drugs up until a couple of years prior to a drug raid may still have a bong stashed away in their closet. But this doesn't prove that they didn't destroy the WMD's. Even Colin Powell admitted that Weapons Inspector's successfully destroyed most of Iraq's WMD's from the Gulf War during weapons inspections in the 1980s.

Optional

SwampThing -

I haven't heard this before. Do you have a link?

-me

Larry

$100 billion or more. That's one hell of an expensive conspiracy! Combine that with the political demize of Blair, the allienation of the US from a good chunk of countries, and the sheer numbers who would have to be involved, and you have to conclude that either there is something to what they are saying, or they are completely insane.

Leaving out your political alliances, what makes more sense to you?

Kosh

Really? Care to cite any evidence for that claim?

Sure, maybe one that they forgot about. But let's make the analogy fit the circumstances. If that "former" drug user is found with a stash of 11, recently purchased and buried bongs, that's evidence of an intent to take up the weed again.

It's statements like this that make us wonder if you're truly informed about things. The Gulf war occurred in Jan-Feb, 1991, not during the 1980s.....

Saying that past weapons were destroyed does not automatically mean that no new weapons have been built. You do see that, don't you?