A month ago the British press broke the story of what's come to be called the Downing Street Memo, the confidential minute which confirmed that the British and American administrations had decided to invade Iraq as early as the spring of 2002. Want more evidence?
RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
...
The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did.
...
Tommy Franks, the allied commander, has since admitted this operation was designed to ?degrade? Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.
Not only was the invasion preordained, the war actually began in the spring of 2002 - long before the UN resolution that was supposed to give it some kind of legal cover.
No word yet on when impeachment proceedings begin.
Via Suburban Guerrilla.
Not gonna happen, pogge. Odd, isn't it? This is the most criminal administration in the history of a nation which hasn't exactly been free of them and nothing is going to happen. And this, right after Bill Clinton's blowjob. The irony level is so high down here that I've been able to give up my ferrous gluconate supplements.
Yes -- I remember this extra bombing was noted at the time, but as I recall it was passed off then as an attempt to nullify those awful WMDs which were all over Iraq. And just think how suprised they must have been that all of the extra bombing did not provoke Sadaam to use his WMD on the bombers at all. Why, one might even start to think that maybe, just maybe he didn't have . . . naahh, couldn't be!
The "itelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" line in the Downing Street Memo appeals to the conspiracy minded, but more likely indicate a British intel speak spin on the intelligence gathering and analysis related to Iraq's WMD program and terrorist ties.
The "wanted to remove Saddam, through military action" (which it should be remembered is, at best, 4th-hand reported in the memo), doesn't seem to rise to the level of "smoking gun." It's worth remembering that a non-military option, encouraging Shiite revolt after the first Gulf War, had previously been half-heartedly attempted and hundreds of thousands of Shiites paid with their lives.
Critic contend this proves that the decision to go to war was already made prior to the meeting, and many months before Congressional authorization. Ironically the memo itself provides the best evidence that while war may have seemed "inevitable," it was most certainly not decided on. Why? This line: "The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential," kicks off the major section of the memo where British options are discussed. What follows is a pretty accurate foretelling of the conditions upon which the "essential" involvement of the UK could be cemented. While UK support for a winning military strategy was indicated, "on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the [UN] ultimatum."
Interestingly you don't see critics address this section of the memo:
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
If Bush and Blair were "lying" about WMD, why would they be looking for contingencies to address the use of WMD's against US and UK troops?
And this war began in 1991, not 2002. The first two UN Security Council Resolutions (687 and 689) constituted the terms of the truce in the first Gulf War, whose violation was a legal cause of war.
This is noted in the "Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq" which is the title of a resolution passed by both the House and the Senate, with Democratic as well as Republican majorities, which can be seen here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html
You might note that in the 23 clauses, WMD is only mentioned twice. However the broken 16 Chapter VII UN resolutions is mentioned in 12 seperate clauses.
Apparently many on the left are ignorant of this resolution, as they continue to stubbornly put out the "the primary rationale for war was WMD" canard.
And I'm confused about your impeachment proceedings claim. Is this some kind of hope for the fact that Clinton was impeached for lying under oath?
If so, your argument is, to be polite, very weak. President Bush has not, to my knowledge, knowningly lied about anything - much less under oath.
More opinion masquerading as news by the MSM.
in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war is contradicted later in the article by General Tommy Franks has since admitted this operation was designed to "degrade" Iraqi air defences in the same way as the air attacks that began the 1991 Gulf war.
What a shock that, while preparing for possible war with Iraq, the US and UK would try to minimize the ongoing danger posed by Iraq's air defenses. Did the author of this story forget that:
1) In mid 2001, Iraq had made 2 attempts to shoot down a US surveillance plane in less than a week.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/07/25/iraq.attack/
2) In late 2002, Iraqi fighter planes shot down a US unmanned surveillance drone over southern Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2602049.stm
3) In mid 2001, Saddam told his air defence forces to continue surprising the US and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones. "So long as you weaken or terminate one of the enemy's means to target us... then this enemy will be forced to reconsider his position," said Hussein in a speech broadcast by Iraqi satellite television. As an added incentive, Hussein offered 10 million dinars to any Iraqi military unit that shoots down an enemy warplane and 5 million dinars for the capture of a US or British pilot.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/545/re4.htm
Indeed, this kind of thing - offering rewards for and shooting at coalition planes - was going on back in 1999.
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/08/t08191999_t0819asd.htm
Resolution 1441 said that "Iraq shall not take or threaten hostile acts directed against any representative or personnel of the UN or the IAEA or of any Member State taking action to uphold any Council resolution", and that previous resolutions had also decided that Iraq was obligated to "Cease hostile or provocative actions by its forces against all Member States". (Resolution 686)
The idea that this was "an attempt to provoke Saddam into giving the allies an excuse for war" seems to be supported nowhere, not in this story, and not in the memo they cite at the end.
If only some people could muster one-tenth the outrage they have for anything Bush does, and direct it towards people like Saddam and the head-sawing jihadists.
This is the most criminal administration in the history of a nation...
Apparently Melanie has never heard of the Clinton administration and is unaware of the biggest scandal ever in Canadian politics going on right now - courtesy of the Liberal Party.
they continue to stubbornly put out the "the primary rationale for war was WMD" canard
I could trot out the endless quotes from Bush, Cheney, Rice et. al. to demonstrate that it's no canard but frankly I can't be bothered any more. It was the "gathering threat" that was used to justify the invasion to Congress, the American people and the UN.
What a shock that, while preparing for possible war with Iraq...
But you've just finished arguing that they weren't preparing for war with Iraq. Which is it? And was that before or after they decided they were still at war? The story keeps changing.
If only some people could muster one-tenth the outrage they have for anything Bush does
Ah, the perennial favorite. If you oppose Bush, you must be objectively pro-Saddam. You're not going to sell that one here.
Apparently Melanie has never heard of the Clinton administration
You have no idea how out to lunch you are with that statement. But of course extramarital oral sex is much more scandalous than taking a country to war with false claims.
the biggest scandal ever in Canadian politics
I'm on record as suggesting that the Martin government should resign. That said, all this talk of the "biggest scandal ever" reveals ignorance of our history.
This is slightly off-topic, but how did the UN manage to jump from "Resolution 689" in 1991 to "Resolution 1441" in 2002? Did it really pass as many resolutions during the Nineties as it did in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties put together?
This blog is pathetic. Maybe you should get a clue before posting.
This blog rocks! Maybe you should read a newspaper before blogging.
Where do all these pro war people hide? They seem to hide for months and then when we DARE criticize the current (and infalliable) US administration and they come out in droves. What gives? I digress. On topic. I think that we all pretty much know that this war was founded on a lie. The question is now what do about it? It seems that no one is willing to step up and challenge the President. It's unfortunate that blind patriotism will be the downfall of a once great country.
I can't follow Stop's logic either. Were the U.S. and UK preparing for war or not? The bombing and the leaked rationale for the bombing in the summer of 2002 appear to contradict the Foreign Office guidelines for "necessary and proportionate response" only, not "minimizing" or softening up in preparation for invasion.
What bothers me more is the likely ignorance of the American public, then and now, of what the U.S. and the UK had been doing in the skies over Iraq, in their peoples' names, for a decade before they decided to invade. Tony Blair went to war in defiance of his people, many of whom knew that this sort of thing had been going on at a lower level for a decade. But the invasion would not have happened, could not have happened, without the overwhelming support of the American electorate. And I should think that even now, the majority of American voters don't know or care that they had already been bombing the hell out of Iraq for years before the invasion.
It all seems to depend on that undefeatable ignorance. Amazing.
All right, let's do a "compare and contrast".
Back in the good old days before WWII, before Britain went to war against Germany, the Brits did absolutely everything they could to avoid this war. They kept on and on negotiating with Hitler and signing "peace in our time" declaraions even after he had started to invade his neighbours. Britain finally declared war on Germany only after Hitler repeatedly broke treaties and kept on invading. The US, in its turn, refused to declare war on Germany for two more years, even when Britain was being attacked directly.
Compare this to events of the year before the invasion of Iraq. From 2002 on, the US and Britain did everything they could to provoke and justify this war. The major players in the Bush administration had been saying for years that America needed to go to war against Iraq, and Blair agreed. So they repeatedly bombed Iraq's military sites, trashed the efforts which Iraq made to comply with UN resolutions, magnified weak intelligence findings to justify war while refusing to share their documentation with the IAEA and the UN inspectors, bugged the UN, ignored millions of people around the world who marched in anti-war demonstrations, moved large numbers of troops and material into Kuwait months before the war began, made a big show of assembling a "coalition of the willing" to support the war, and finally they ended up promoting the nutty idea that the 1991 war had never really ended, to provide legal cover for an invasion without a second Security Council resolution.
The contrast is pretty graphic, isn't it?
I could trot out the endless quotes from Bush, Cheney, Rice et. al. to demonstrate that it's no canard but frankly I can't be bothered any more. It was the "gathering threat" that was used to justify the invasion to Congress, the American people and the UN.
The Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq is the title of a resolution passed by both the House and the Senate, with Democratic as well as Republican majorities, is a matter of public record:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html
But you've just finished arguing that they weren't preparing for war with Iraq. Which is it? And was that before or after they decided they were still at war? The story keeps changing.
I did? How did you deduce that?
To wit my reply: "Ironically the memo itself provides the best evidence that while war may have seemed "inevitable," it was most certainly not decided on."
Ah, the perennial favorite. If you oppose Bush, you must be objectively pro-Saddam. You're not going to sell that one here.
Ah, we do everything we can to to demoralize the war effort, promote propaganda for the terrorists, always take the word of terrorists over the US military, march on the streets with signs saying "we support our troops when they shoot their officers", but don't you dare question our patriotism!
But of course extramarital oral sex is much more scandalous than taking a country to war with false claims.
Right. Do I need to go into all the scandals that comprised the woefully corrupt Clinton administration? Interesting that you ignore the fact that Clinton lied under oath. But we all know how swearing to tell the truth while placing your hand on the Bible means nothing to leftists. Their utter contempt for the Bible is well known.
That said, all this talk of the "biggest scandal ever [in Canadian politics]" reveals ignorance of our history.
From the URL of this blog, I was under the impression that this was a Canadian blog. I guess it isn't.
The US, in its turn, refused to declare war on Germany for two more years, even when Britain was being attacked directly.
And why should they have declared war on a country that did not declare war on them and presented absolutely no threat to the US whatsoever (like the Balkans represented no threat whatsoever to the US before Clinton bombed them - and with no "permission slip" from the UN)? Why did Canada declare war on Germany? Ah, the old days of Canada's warmongering. They are unable to do that these days, thanks to the decimation of the troops courtesy of the Liberal Party.
trashed the efforts which Iraq made to comply with UN resolutions
Oh yeah. Saddam was doing all he could to comply with the UN resolutions and the broken ceasefire. Keep on deluding yourself.
magnified weak intelligence findings to justify war
They were the only ones in the world! Honest they were!
ignored millions of people around the world who marched in anti-war demonstrations,
Ah. They ignored the Saddamites and Marxists across the world. Boo hoo.
made a big show of assembling a "coalition of the willing" to support the war,
You sound like John Kerry - mocking the 40 some countries in the coalition.
and finally they ended up promoting the nutty idea that the 1991 war had never really ended
Good grief. Are you serious or trolling? Have you even read Resolutions 687 and 689?
"The Saddamites and Marxists around the world": yee hee hee.
Are there Marxists "around the world"? No doubt.
But Saddamites? You have actually convinced yourself that Saddam Hussein had become the leader of an international political movement?
Ah, well. Always good to wake up laughing.
Ah, we do everything we can to to demoralize the war effort, promote propaganda for the terrorists, always take the word of terrorists over the US military, march on the streets with signs saying "we support our troops when they shoot their officers", but don't you dare question our patriotism!
I see straw people.
It always come down to this. The cheerleaders for the war on Iraq always push the idea that there were only two alternatives: absolute support for Bush's policy or absolute support for Saddam. It's nonsense but from that flows the rest of the nonsense, i.e. you're either with us or against us, you're either a member of the 101st Chairborne or you're a traitor.
My idea of supporting the troops would be to not send them into harm's way when it isn't necessary.
I opposed the invasion for a variety of reasons, all of which have turned out to be right: no WMD to speak of, no operational relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda, no rose petals for the troops and an American administration that was just too incompetent to take action without making a complete mess of it.
no operational relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda,
Let's just ignore the ruling - in a court of law - by Clinton-appointed federal judge Harold Baer that Iraq was involved in 9-11. Pogge says there was no link! And what about what King Abdullah of Jordan said last week? Is he a CIA operative?
no rose petals for the troops
But a statue of George Bush to be put up in Baghdad to replace the fallen Saddam statue - if the mayor of Baghdad has his way. I hope that happens. Seeing the exploding heads of leftists worldwide would be entertaining, indeed.
and an American administration that was just too incompetent to take action without making a complete mess of it.
Yep. Liberating 50 million people and 2 countries that were under totalitarian regimes and just had free elections is a sure sign of incompetency. If you want to talk incompetence, let's talk about Clinton's misadventure in the Balkans. The troops would be home by 1996, right?
The impeachment canard has been answered, Pogge. It's been investigated twice. It's been op/ed'd to death. Talking heads almost choked on it. It's been used as a political football. And there's been an election (you may have heard about it) in which the people had the opportunity to voice their opinion about it all.
It's over Pogge.
It's time to move on.
A ruling in a court of law? You're kidding, right? This is the evidence you're relying on to prove that Iraq was involved in 9/11?
In his ruling, Baer concluded that lawyers for the two victims "have shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida" and collaborated in or supported al-Qaida's Sept. 11 attacks. Baer said lawyers relied heavily on "classically hearsay" evidence, including reports that a Sept. 11 hijacker met an Iraqi consul to Prague, Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks to the United Nations about connections between Iraq and terrorism, and defectors' descriptions of the use of an Iraq camp to train terrorists.
Note that "The judge ruled against them by default in January after they failed to respond to the lawsuits brought on behalf of two of the trade center dead"
In other words, some people used hearsay (Colin Powell's lies to the United Nations, among others) to convince a judge without any counter-arguments from the respondents that Iraq somehow supported 9/11, and even without any counter-arguments, they could only barely convince him. That's some evidence you've got there.
Oh, and speaking of the reports that one of the hijackers met with an Iraqi consul in Prague? According to the Washington Post from May 1, 2002:
No Link Between Hijacker, Iraq Found, U.S. Says
by Walter Pincus
There is no evidence that the alleged leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta, met in April 2001 with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, a finding that eliminates a once-suggested link between the terrorist attacks and the government of President Saddam Hussein, according to a senior administration official. [[snip]] FBI and CIA analysts who went over thousands of travel records concluded that "there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the U.S." at the time he was supposed to be in Prague, the official said. [[snip]] "We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said in a speech in San Francisco last month, setting out for the first time the extent of the investigation and its results.
In other words, Judge Baer's ruling was based on hearsay, at least two bits of which (Atta met the Iraqis in Prague and Colin Powell's presentation to the UN) are known to be false.
Pogge says there was no link!
The U.S. Senate said so too. Thickslab dealt with this quite nicely. All this "evidence" has been proven bogus.
But a statue of George Bush ...
A statue makes him a hero? There were statues of Saddam Hussein, too.
Liberating 50 million people and 2 countries...
The issue is incompetence. Can you look at the state of Iraq two years after the invasion and tell me that the Bush administration mounted a well-planned occupation effort? If you can, you haven't been paying attention for two years.
It's time to move on.
This from someone who can't stop talking about Bill Clinton.
"Stop the CBC propaganda" ironic don't you think? I guess he/she could actually claim some expertise in the use of propaganda.
Basically it's a waste of time to argue with these blowhards they don't listen, they just keep repeating their spew until everyone gives up.
Judge Baer ruled there was enough proof to persuade a reasonable jury.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-05-07-911-judge-awards_x.htm
And the 9-11 report said there was no evidence of Saddam and Al Qaeda working together to atack the US in the 1990s.
And if you read Page 3 of the report, you will see this:
With al Qaeda as its foundation, Bin Ladin sought to build a broader Islamic army that also included terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Somalia and Eritrea. Not all groups from these states agreed to join, but at least one from each did. With a multinational council intended to promote common goals, coordinate targeting and authorize asset sharing for terrorist operations, this Islamic force represented a new level of collaboration among diverse terrorist groups.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_15.pdf
I bet the CBC didn't report that.
I can imagine the response to this: I see straw people.
Can you look at the state of Iraq two years after the invasion and tell me that the Bush administration mounted a well-planned occupation effort? If you can, you haven't been paying attention for two years.
Clearly you haven't been paying attention.
http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/04/good-news-from-iraq-part-25.html
This is part 25. Scroll down about a third of the way and you can read parts 1 to 24 if you are interested in educating yourself to what is going on in Iraq. I suggest reading the Iraqi blogs too. They paint an entirely different picture of Iraq than the leftwing media does.
And everything Chrenkoff posts is backed up with links.
Enjoy.
I forgot to bold one more word from Page 3 of the 9-11 report:
With a multinational council intended to promote common goals, coordinate targeting...
I'm always amazed at the Orwellian world that the far left resides in.
Bush enforces a broken ceasefire and 16 broken Chapter VII UN resolutions and the left wants to impeach him.
Clinton is impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, accepts a 5 year suspension of his law license, pays a $25,000 fine, is found in contempt for lying in his January 1998 testimony when he denied the Lewinsky affair, is ordered to pay $90,000 to Paula Jones's lawyers, loots the White House before leaving office, and the left just shrugs it off by saying, "It was only a blowjob."
And what about what King Abdullah of Jordan said last week? Is he a CIA operative?
Now, this is the one interesting and intelligent question that "Stop" has asked. I figure that the answer is certainly at least "something like that." Does anyone know the more precise answer? Or would it matter? King Abdullah is certainly part of the extended American administration.
Actually, Baer didn't say "there was enough proof to persuade a reasonable jury." He said
"Their opinions, coupled with their qualifications as experts on this issue, provide a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts." (emphasis mine)
And remember, not only were the respondents absent, SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS THE PLAINTIFFS USED ARE KNOWN TO BE FALSE.
As for Clinton: nobody died because he got a blow job in the oval office.
It's always nice when your opponent provides the material to defeat his own argument. If you read on in the pdf document that Stop linked to you'll come to the second last paragraph on page 5.
Bin Laden also explored possible cooperation with Iraq during his time in Sudan, despite his opposition to Hussein's secular regime. Bin Laden had in fact at one time sponsered anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Sudanese, to protect their own ties with Iraq, reportedly persuaded Bin Laden to cease this support and arranged for contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A senior Iraqi intelligence officer reportedly made three visits to Sudan, finally meeting Bin Laden in 1994 [yes, we're going back over ten freakin' years here]. Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded. There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior Bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.
In other words, you plucked a quote out of context and completely ignored the fact that in the context of this discussion, the conclusions of that same report contradict your position.
In this, as in the case of the Baer trial, you're cherry-picking, quoting out of context and generally misrepresenting the significance of your sources.
You're right about one thing, though. It's time to move on. Because you've brought nothing new to the discussion.
Oh yeah, and it's all Clinton's fault.
Hah. That really shut him up.
Great blog, by the way, POGGE. Post more! ;)
I love it when the left's searing hatred affects their reading comprehension. As I said:
And the 9-11 report said there was no evidence of Saddam and Al Qaeda working together to attack the US in the 1990s.
You quoted the exact part that I was looking at. The report is talking about the 1990s, not 9-11. But I'm sure you'll find some way to blame it on Bush. Bush is to blame for EVERYTHING!
Actually, Baer didn't say "there was enough proof to persuade a reasonable jury."
The lies of the left never cease to amaze me. I will cite a leftwing source as my proof:
The testimony, Baer wrote, barely established a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq but offered enough proof to persuade a reasonable jury.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-05-07-911-judge-awards_x.htm
Game.Set.Match.
You quoted USA Today. I quoted from the actual judgement, Judge Baer's own words.
And remember, he relied on testimony that we now know is false. Even the US Government itself now admits that Atta never met any Iraqi officials in Prague.
You said:
And the 9-11 report said there was no evidence of Saddam and Al Qaeda working together to atack the US in the 1990s.
Exactly. The report says that there was no evidence of Saddam and Al Qaeda working together to attack the US in the 1990s. Good that you agree. The report does not state that Saddam and Al Qaeda co-operated to plan 9-11.
Remember this quote? You said:
Let's just ignore the ruling - in a court of law - by Clinton-appointed federal judge Harold Baer that Iraq was involved in 9-11.
This is a blatant lie. See my quote of Judge Baer. He did not rule that Iraq was involved in 9-11. He ruled that the uncontested evidence he was shown - some of which is now known to be false -- provided "a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences which could lead to the conclusion that Iraq provided material support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts."
In other words, the uncontested, false evidence he was shown could lead to inferences which might lead a jury to conclude that Iraq supported Al Qaeda. That's your smoking gun. Wow.
And remember, he relied on testimony that we now know is false. Even the US Government itself now admits that Atta never met any Iraqi officials in Prague.
Nonsense. Czech intelligence swears to this day that they met.
You are ingoring a ruling in a court of law because your blind hatred of George Bush won't allow you to think rationally.
Are you expecting DNA evidence?
I don?t understand this. How can WMD material be missing from Iraq, when it never ever existed?
UN: NONEXISTENT WMD EQUIPMENT MISSING
UNITED NATIONS - U.N. satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq, U.N. weapons inspectors said in a report obtained Thursday.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003 so they have been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N. monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
In the report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons inspector Demetrius Perricos said he?s reached no conclusions about who removed the items or where they went. He said it could have been moved elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.
He said the missing material can be used for legitimate purposes. ?However, they can also be utilized for prohibited purposes if in a good state of repair.?
He said imagery analysts have identified 109 sites that have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees, up from 90 reported in March.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050603/ap_on_re_mi_ea/un_weapons_inspectors_5
109 sites of something that never ever existed! Simply amazing!
I don't understand this. How could an administration that invaded Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction have failed to secure this material?
And by the way: the missing material can be used for legitimate purposes
And this is material that the UN inspectors were aware of before the invasion. Had Bush not forced them out so he could run Shock and Awe, they never would have lost track of it.
None of this is new.
You are ingoring a ruling in a court of law
Actually he quoted directly from the ruling.
your blind hatred of George Bush won't allow you to think rationally
Do you really think this is effective? It's not.
Still nothing new.