The "no chem weapons used" is part of a long list of "was predicted, didn't happen" items.

-- No missiles fired on Israel
-- At least one dam was wired with explosives, but never blown up
-- Several bridges were wired, but never blown up
-- Not a hint of any Iraqi Air Force, even on day one before their runways were made unusable
-- They could have easily created humanitarian crises, causing refugees to clog the roads and slow the military
-- They could have engineered more specific bombing of civilians to try to create more anti-war fervor
-- They could have started terrorism elsewhere in the world

...and much more. It suggests that there have been serious hits to that "command and control". And maybe some incredible intelligence work.

Having the living shit bombed out of you tends to too, lets face it, not much to loose really. It's possible they didn't want ot burn all thier bridges, actually thought they could take out the giant, death by 1000 raids on supply convoys etc, who knows.

Hey, that's always good advice!

Was a bad joke and that was a truely horrible bit of typing *sighs*.

Aparantly US troops removed some 'drums of white powder' from an Islamic training camp in the North, interesting. TV here also had pics from there of papers with chemistry forumlas on them.

By editing my post in the quote, you make it less obvious that I was making fun of jaguar.

the presence of chems doesn't much affect the moral impetus for the war. it does two things:

1) demonstrates the impotence of the UN inspection program as currently constituted. It reinforces that the inspectors function effectively ONLY in their capacity as auditors and regulators of voluntary compliance with non-proliferation treaties. They cannot, and should not, be used as bird dogs .

2) demonstrates the necessary conditions as being fulfilled for the enforcement of UN 1441 by force. They possess banned weapons not disclosed, and undertook a program of deception to obscure that fact. Note that this is not the moral justification for the war, it is merely the legal justification as pertaining to the UN charter [different topic, different thread on the validity of THAT premise!]

They did not blow bridges has more to do with an American strategy to make bridge destruction difficult. Bridges were wired to blow well in advance. But cluster bombs that explode on contact with ground took out wires to those explosives, took out the detonator man, and yet did not damage the bridge.

Ooops. Sorry.