Dubla,
We are probably talking across-purposes, apologies for any misunderstandings.
HS
No Evidence Against Iraq, You Say?
by DakotaRed 49 Replies latest jw friends
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dubla
for the skeptical:
No civilians were in the facility, which U.S. Central Command said was "clearly marked as a hospital by a flag with a Red Crescent." Marines confiscated more than 200 weapons, more than 3,000 chemical suits with masks and Iraqi military uniforms in the hospital, and found a T-55 tank in the hospital compound, Central Command said.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/25/sprj.irq.nasiriya.hospital/index.html
i wonder why the current iraqi military would need quick access to chemical suits? maybe they think we are going to fire chemical weapons on them..?....yeah, thats probably it.
aa
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Realist
fact is so far no WMD were found in iraq (neither by the inspectors nor the military) and none were used.
powell brought all the available evidence gathered against iraq before the security council and what he presented was pittiful. from faked pictures over reports simply copied from a thesis written 12 years ago.
lastly how trustworthy is an interview given by a defector to the media? can you trust someone who gives info to the media for XXX$ ?
imho not compellig at all.
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dubla
realist-
i was just wondering aloud why they would need quick access to these chem suits. i was hoping someone could shed some light on this need.
aa
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Realist
well lets wait if that story is true and whether these suits were indeed ready for quick use.
the use of chem weapons as last resort would be understandable but absolutely stupid.
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dubla
the use of chem weapons as last resort would be understandable
how would that be understandable? youve maintained all along that theres no way in hell saddam has them! lol, okay.
aa
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dubla
realist-
btw, the fact that they were hiding them in a hospital along with their military supplies, and fighting out of this hospital, already shows they were available for quick access. these hospitals are not used by the military, they are only using it in a time of conflict as an ambush point....kind of like putting on civilian clothes and fighting (in fact the iraqi soldiers that surrendered at that hospital were wearing civilian clothes).
aa
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Realist
dubla,
youve maintained all along that theres no way in hell saddam has them!
with all due respect that is not what i have said. i said the evidence presented by the US is very weak and most likely just propaganda and that i don't think that he has any apprechiable amounts left.
the use of such weapons would be understanable in the sense that a drowning man is grabbing every straw. it would be stupid however since it wouldn't rescue saddam but make him a crazy man even in the arab world (and i assume he wants to be remembered as great leader at least) and at the same time give the US the ligitimacy they were hoping for all along.
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dubla
with all due respect that is not what i have said. i said the evidence presented by the US is very weak and most likely just propaganda and that i don't think that he has any apprechiable amounts left.
oic......i guess i got confused when you said this (bold mine).....
that is rediculous... iraq has no WMD.... hence he cannot further disarm!
i foolishly took that to mean you believed he had NO wmd, as you put it, and he couldnt further disarm because he didnt have ANY wmd........but what you really meant, was that you didnt THINK he had any appreciable amounts left. gotcha.
aa
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William Penwell
In this report, which originally aired Sept. 11, 1990, FRONTLINE examined how Saddam Hussein built Iraq's massive arsenal of tanks, planes, missiles, and chemical weapons during the 1980s. Correspondent Hodding Carter investigated the complicity of the U.S. and European governments, as well as Western corporations, in creating the Iraqi military machine the world was then trying to stop.ANNOUNCER: Today, the world may be united against Saddam Hussein, but for the past decade he has been building a war machine with help from Moscow to Washington.
Senator ALFONSE D'AMATO, (R) New York: It was a totally uneven policy. There was not a tilt towards Iraq, there was a wholesale rush to Iraq.
HODDING CARTER, FRONTLINE: Officially, most Western nations --
ANNOUNCER: Correspondent Hodding Carter investigates how the West provided the key technology, and the most dangerous weapons that we now face. Tonight: The Arming of Iraq.
Mr. HODDING CARTER, Narrator: Over 100,000 American troops are still pouring into Saudi Arabia in the biggest buildup of U.S. forces overseas since the Vietnam War, part of the world's attempt to force Iraq to rethink its conquest of Kuwait.
But the very scale of this military response is powerful testimony that the world has already made a big mistake in failing to control the arsenal and contain the ambitions of Saddam Hussein.
Since he seized the presidency of Iraq in 1979, Saddam Hussein has made no secret of his ambitions to become the preeminent power in the Persian Gulf and the sword of the Arabs against the West. And his strategy to achieve that power was equally clear: military strength and the will to use it.
In 1980, Hussein attacked neighboring Iran, initiating a bloody conflict that would last eight years. When the ceasefire ended that fighting in 1988, Iraq had built a million-man army and spent over $50 billion on military hardware.
Last winter, in Baghdad's annual Army Day parade, Hussein displayed some of Iraq's extraordinary arsenal, bought with billions of its oil revenues and with loans from its Arab neighbors. At least half of Iraq's conventional weapons were purchased from its ally, the Soviet Union, but France was also a major source, providing its sophisticated Mirage fighters and deadly Exocet missiles. And there were many others -- China, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Egypt and Brazil. At one point, in the 1980s, Iraq was the biggest importer of arms in the world.
What Hussein did not put on show this day were his most frightening weapons. According to intelligence sources, he has been developing his own sophisticated chemical, missile, and nuclear capacity. Three plants are now producing deadly chemical and biological weapons. Four complexes are involved in the research, development and testing of missiles. And at least four sites are involved in a uranium enrichment program to build nuclear weapons. To develop this sophisticated arsenal of non-conventional weapons, Saddam Hussein turned to the West.
Officially, most Western nations participated in a total arms embargo against Iraq during the 1980s, but as we shall see in this broadcast, Western companies, primarily in Germany and Great Britain, but also in the United States, sold Iraq the key technology for its chemical, missile, and nuclear programs. As we shall also see, many Western governments seemed remarkably indifferent, if not enthusiastic, about those deals. And here in Washington, the government consistently followed a policy which allowed and perhaps encouraged the extraordinary growth of Saddam Hussein's arsenal and his power.
This is a complicated story of miscalculation, deceit and greed, and it leads inevitably to the conclusion that the most dangerous weapons Western forces face today in the desert are in many ways our own creation.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/arming.html
