dubla,
do you agree that hussein obviously didn'T pose a military threat to anyone?
also you did quite a bit of speculation in your last post as to why hussein didn't use his WMD. how about the obvious...he didn'T have any?
lastly...do you consider FOX news a neutral source of information?
PS: just wanted to add this article about the search for WMD...its from today's NYtimes
U.S. May Have to Allow Others to Inspect Iraqi Arms
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
he Bush administration may be legally bound to let independent inspectors confirm any findings of unconventional weapons in Iraq, administration and independent arms experts said. But they added that the White House, which has resisted help from the United Nations in the search for weapons, may decide to ignore such legalities.
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The administration is debating its obligations under arms control treaties that govern chemical, biological and nuclear arms, an official involved in the discussions said in an interview.
"If we gain control, then theoretically they're ours," the official said of Iraqi unconventional arms. "Someone could argue that because we now own them, we have to meet all the requirements" of the weapon treaties, which predate recent United Nations inspections of Iraq.
The official added that the Pentagon, which has responsibility for any discovered Iraqi arms, wants no outside help. "But people are thinking about that," he added. "Although the current guidance is not to plan to operate with an international organization, that doesn't mean that won't change."
Last week, when asked about possible doubts about chemical finds, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said measures had been put in place to diminish the chance that someone might tamper with battlefield evidence or exploit a murky situation to charge fraud, incompetence or self-deception. "We've got people who have been alerted to the importance of chain of custody," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters.
A White House official said the White House would have no public comment on the debate over independent inspectors.
Outside the government, weapon experts have argued for the United States to let international inspectors help identify and destroy any discovered unconventional weapons in Iraq. They say that independent confirmation would help convince skeptics that the war was just.
Washington cited the need to disarm Iraq as the main reason for the invasion. Yet, so far, no unambiguous evidence has come to light demonstrating that Iraq possessed such prohibited weapons.
"Bush's credibility is hanging in the balance," said Dr. Elisa D. Harris, a Clinton administration arms control official now at the University of Maryland.
For weeks, advancing troops have reported signs of chemical arms: gas masks, protective suits, nerve gas antidotes, training manuals, barrels of suspicious chemicals and a cache of mysterious shells. While the military has undertaken many tests and inspections, none of the chemicals have been proven to be warfare agents, rather than pesticides or other legitimate chemicals they can closely resemble.
Administration and private experts said one treaty that may require letting independent weapon inspectors into Iraq is the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, which 150 nations, including the United States, have signed.
The treaty bars the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical arms. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague and known as the O.P.C.W., polices the treaty around the globe and in the United States, which is slowly destroying its old stockpiles of chemical arms.
Though Iraq did not sign the treaty, several leading experts said the United States, by taking possession of Iraqi chemical arms, would fall under its provisions even though the treaty makes no explicit reference to the responsibilities of a victor in war.
"The spirit of the treaty is that the destruction of chemical weapons globally is up to the O.P.C.W. to verify," said Barry Kellman, director of the International Weapons Control Center at DePaul University in Chicago and co-author of a book on how states can meet treaty duties. "If we find chemical weapons, the O.P.C.W. should supervise their destruction."
Mary E. Hoinkes, general counsel of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Clinton administration, said the crucial issue was who determines the fate of captured chemical weapons. "If we're talking about destroying them after hostilities are over, collecting them and destroying them, that's when the obligations kick in," she said.
Experts said the reverse might also be argued. Under international law, some noted, obligations usually run to states rather than particular governments or controlling forces. The nuclear issue is clearer, legal experts agreed. That is because Iraq signed the 1968 Nonproliferation Treaty, which aims to bar the spread of nuclear weapons. The treaty's enforcement arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna and known as the I.A.E.A., has teams of inspectors that regularly checked Iraq's nuclear facilities before the war.
Thomas Graham Jr., general counsel of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Carter, Reagan and first Bush administrations, said there was no question that the United States had to let in I.A.E.A. inspectors. "If we didn't," he said, "we'd be accessory to a violation."
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the I.A.E.A., has publicly called for the Bush administration to let his inspectors into Iraq when the fighting stops. Late last week, an agency spokesman in Vienna said it had so far received no reply.
he Bush administration may be legally bound to let independent inspectors confirm any findings of unconventional weapons in Iraq, administration and independent arms experts said. But they added that the White House, which has resisted help from the United Nations in the search for weapons, may decide to ignore such legalities.