SubscribeDespite the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information about the amounts of banned weapons or where they are hidden, according to administration officials and members of Congress.
As the Bush administration prepares to attack Iraq this week, it is doing so on the basis of a number of allegations against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that have been challenged -- and in some cases disproved -- by the United Nations, European governments and even U.S. intelligence reports.Part of the problem is that there were reports within the government or military that weren't made public until after the invasion, including these:
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Some of the administration's evidence -- such as Bush's assertion that Iraq sought to purchase uranium -- has been refuted by subsequent discoveries.
So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.-- Dick Cheney
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All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques.
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Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq.
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Now what kind of government are you going to establish? Is it going to be a Kurdish government, or a Shi'ia government, or a Sunni government, or maybe a government based on the old Baathist Party, or some mixture thereof? You will have, I think by that time, lost the support of the Arab coalition that was so crucial to our operations over there.
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I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today, we'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
Throughout the life of ISG and SCP-B, there were only two occasions where chemical weapons were found. The first was a sarin mortar shell which had been reworked into a roadside improvised explosive device by insurgents. The second was a handful of 122-millimeter rocket warheads filled with inert mustard gas that was recovered near Babylon. Both were thought to be remainders from the Iran-Iraq War and were useless as offensive weapons. Both were later destroyed by ISG personnel. In late 2004 the ISG and the MCTs undertook some counter insurgency operations, although many details remain classified. There were other missions and organizations operating within the ISG which are Top Secret and are unlikely to be declassified anytime soon.It is a stupid argument. It is just this kind of misshaping of reality that allowed the war to happen. What was important is, Iraq was not a threat to anybody at all (with the possible exception of Saddam's involvement with Palestinian groups).
sorry, that's not helpful (though true).
One thing you might research in relation to this is when the New York Times ran an article about the White House deciding to focus on pushing a war on Iraq post 9/11. I remember reading it in very early 2002. This, to me, was the biggest proof that the W administration had no interest in really being focused on al Qaeda after that event, as they knew that Iraq had no ties to that group. Instead, they decided to use 9/11 to push their Forever War. If they wanted closure on 9/11, they would have focused on Afghanistan and Bin Laden.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:44 AM on March 21, 2007