What Iraqis Really Think

[aimeecc]

Wow... I leave for a few days and all heck has broken loose. Now, I'm not for censorship, and this is a place for free expression, but can we all be adults (AD)? We don't have to agree or get along, but there is something to be said for respecting other people.
There is no need for anyone to defend anyone else. The fact that others came to Bris defense is because she's... well, liked and respected. AD - if you have to ask someone to defend you, are you worth defending? Why couldn't you be mature and post a simple gomen-asi, instead of continuing to rant and asking Bri to defend you?
On your opinion that US isn't a democracy, the majority of your posts are backed by no truth whatsoever. We restrict media? Come on. Anything but. In fact, I wish we would restrict them. Frankly, I don't need to see Brittney Spears ta-ta. Our media makes it a daily program to Bush bash and state how bad things are in Iraq without actually reporting any news. Not that I am a fan of Bush or the Iraq war, but the media is definitely left-wing. And they have the freedom to report on anything, no matter the truth.
The UN? What were they doing? Oh, yeah, having the inspectors kicked out, or when not kicked out, being refused in to see the facilities. Oh, yeah, that's real progress. So let's see... they were accused of having WMD (and rightfully so... they had the material, and the desire), and the refused to let inspectors inspect. Yet we were in the wrong? Oh, let us not forget that Saddam gased his own people for decades. Killing hundreds of thousands. Sarin and mustard gasses were discovered post-invasion. Hmmm... I wonder who he was going to use those on? If not a US target (and it probably wouldn't have been) then it would most likely be his own people (as usual) and then the US would be accused of doing nothing to stop him.
Stop accusing the US of being undemocratic without any facts to back it up.

[tw]

Originally Posted by aimeecc

Sarin and mustard gasses were discovered post-invasion.

Well that spin has long since been proven false - a complete outright lie that has no responsible sources but was promoted, as a lie, for a political agenda. The worst kind of spin.

[aimeecc]

No, that is a fact. Go check it yourself.

[tw]

Originally Posted by aimeecc

No, that is a fact. Go check it yourself.

You made the claim. Least you could do is provide some supporting facts. Well the facts have been repeatedly and widely published for a long time now. First the 75th Exploitation Task Force searched all over Iraq and found nothing. Then David Kay was assigned a (1000 man?) task force. When they could find no chemical weapons production, then the new theory was that Saddam had built a 'surge capacity' to quickly create those chemical weapons on demand.

When Kay went back to Iraq in August, he soon found that even his "surge capacity" theory for chemical weapons didn't hold up. The ISG could find no trace of such a program.

Meanwhile Cheney kept promoting spin - lies - on Meet the Press.

Cheney once again talked about links between Saddam's regime and bin Laden, claiming that Iraq's support for al-Qaeda was "clearly official policy". He once more cited the Czech report about Mohamed Atta in Praque as through it were still credible. He ignored the dispute over mobile bioweapons labs and insisted without equivocation that the US government had found "two of them" - even though David Kay had told him that was not true. ...

The lack of WMDs was but on worry for the Bush administration...

Russert asked If CIA analysts were to be proven wrong, "shouldn't we have a wholesale investigation into the intelligence failure ..."

"What failure", Cheney interjected. "That Saddam had biological, chemical, and developing a nuclear program", Russert replied.

"My guess is in the end they'll be proven right, Tim"

There is the spin source for mythical chemical weapons. The same source was 100% wrong about all WMDs - including chemical weapons. Same source even claimed an allied relationship between Saddam and bin Laden when every responsible person knew otherwise.

Liar also created that spin about chemical weapons found? That myth still survives? Even a 'surge capacity' never existed. Sarin and mustard gasses were NOT discovered post-invasion. And yet some spin doctors still promote the lie long after well proven false.

aimeecc - that is reality once we eliminate the spin promoted by Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. No sarin or mustard gas weapons were found. None. Nada. Even the production facilities - the 'surge capacity' - did not exist - in direct opposition to what you have posted. I checked it out long ago. I learned the facts by asking damning questions. Did you? Or did you just believe the first thing you were told? That would make you a perfect target for Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson.

[aimeecc]

Originally Posted by tw

No sarin or mustard gas weapons were found. None. Nada. Even the production facilities - the 'surge capacity' - did not exist - in direct opposition to what you have posted. I checked it out long ago. I learned the facts by asking damning questions. Did you? Or did you just believe the first thing you were told? That would make you a perfect target for Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson.

You are the one spinning, so quit the accusations and do a google search. Almost every mainstream media reported on the finds. Or do I have to google for you? Or do you not believe the news? I can't find one mainstream media that claims it was a hoax of any sort. Or do you have your own intelligence agency you get your spin from?

I'm not a Limbaugh fan, can't say I've heard him in years.

Oh what the heck, I'll google for you for news
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081300530.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...aq-sarin_x.htm
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html

And don't forget the entire ISG findings, in which you cherry picked.
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profil...cal/index.html
Since you cherry pick your points, I will mine. Actually, I leave the majority in

On 30 September 2004 the ISG released its final report on Iraq's WMD programs. Its key findings regarding Iraqi chemical weapons programs were as follows.

Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable.

Iraq's CW program was crippled by the Gulf War and the legitimate chemical industry, which suffered under sanctions, only began to recover in the mid-1990s. Subsequent changes in the management of key military and civilian organizations, followed by an influx of funding and resources, provided Iraq with the ability to reinvigorate its industrial base.

The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf War and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions.

Iraq constructed a number of new plants starting in the mid-1990s that enhanced its chemical infrastructure, although its overall industry had not fully recovered from the effects of sanctions, and had not regained pre-1991 technical sophistication or production capabilities prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.

ISG investigated a series of key pre-OIF indicators involving the possible movement and storage of chemical weapons, focusing on 11 major depots assessed to have possible links to CW. A review of documents, interviews, available reporting, and site exploitations revealed alternate, plausible explanations for activities noted prior to OIF which, at the time, were believed to be CW-related.

[glatt]

From your links:

"Some of them are very corroded. They are probably not usable,"
"the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective.""

If you count these old corroded non-functioning shells left over from the Iran/Iraq war as WMDs, then I guess there were WMDs, but I think they have to work to be counted.

[Happy Monkey]

It's sorta a case of proving tw to be incorrect in one sentence-

"No sarin or mustard gas weapons were found. None. Nada."

- while simultaneously bolstering his argument and supporting the rest of his argument.

[tw]

Originally Posted by aimeecc

Oh what the heck, I'll google for you for news
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...081300530.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...aq-sarin_x.htm

You are doing what was required - provide supporting facts. Now you are indignant because forced to do what your were required? I am amused ... an emotion.

Your Washington Post citation discusses what would be an insurgent lab attempting to create some unknown chemicals. Why do you post this as proof of Saddam's WMD program? It is clearly not. A slew of dangerous chemicals not assembled to produce anything. Meanwhile we make semiconductors with same chemicals that were also used as chemical weapons. Does that prove I too am building a WMD? And still none of this has anything to do with Saddam as aimeecc claims. Even that Fallujah lab was apparently created after Saddam was gone.

Your usa.today article from 2004 of what Polish troops suspected was later found, as I recall, to not be weaponized chemicals. Meanwhile, periodically found were empty shells that were once part of Saddam's WMD program. Empty shells because that WMD program was destroyed by UN sanctions - again contradicting aimeecc's assertions.

David Kay who led the ISG effort strongly believed he would find these WMDs. But as reported repeatedly, no such weapons - including chemical weapons - were found.

One fact that still puzzles all is where something like 35% of the chemical weapons went. It was well known (except where spin remains popular) from interviews that Saddam ordered the destruction of his WMDs in 1995. Also known is that records of what and how much were destroyed where were poorly maintained or did not exist.

When he resigned in January 2004 as head of ISG, and from Fiasco by Thomas Ricks

David Kay ... announced that he concluded that Saddam Hussein had destroyed his weapons stockpiles in the 1990s, but had tried to bluff about still having them in order to maintain an image of power. "Everyone was wrong", Kay said. ...

In October 2004, Charles Duefler, who succeeded Kay as head of the ISG, produced the groups final findings. There was no such arsenal, the weapons inspector concluded in a one-thousand page report. Saddam has eliminated his weapons in the early 1990s, but had tried to perserve the intellectual and physical ability to restart the weapons programs at some point. Duelfer also said that he had found no evidence of an effort to buy uranium from other countries. And he testified to the Senate that, as some analysts had suspected, the aluminum tubes Iraq was buying, which the Bush administration had made central to the arugment that Iraq was developing a nuclear capability, were indeed for conventional military rockets.

Kay further explains where so much of these false rumors come from.

"This was a vice president who was well read in the intelligence and knew the details of the WMD issue" ... But Kay did see a problem in Cheney's analytical view: "He kept remembering little facts that he thought proved big conclusions. The problem with intelligence is that little facts often don't prove anything, let alone something big. They're just pieces of puzzles - sometimes just pieces that don't even make a puzzle."

Let's move on to that Duefler report - the final ISG report in October 2004. Key findings from Regime Strategic Intent:

Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted. ...

Saddam’s primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with UN inspections—to gain support for lifting sanctions—with his intention to preserve Iraq’s intellectual capital for WMD ...

Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991 ... Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. ...

The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam.

IOW Saddam would have restarted his WMD programs due to an Iranian threat. But he had no plans and had no actions. aimeecc ignored that important fact. Saddam had no plans and had no actions. Saddam needed sanctions to end so that he could address his Iranian threat. He had no intent to attack America despite popular myth (spin) that suggested otherwise. Saddam did everything necessary to meet UN restrictions while still bluffing - because Saddam's threat was Iran - not America or Israel.

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

Above quote directly contradicts aimeecc's claims.

Iraq’s CW program was crippled by the Gulf war and the legitimate chemical industry, which suffered under sanctions, only began to recover in the mid-1990s.

Saddam did not even have capacity to start a legitamite chemical industry - let alone a weapons program.

Iraq implemented a rigorous and formalized system of nationwide research and production of chemicals, but ISG will not be able to resolve whether Iraq intended the system to underpin any CW related efforts.

As noted above, even I worked in transistor factories that use chemicals also used for chemical warfare. Using spin, both Saddam and I could be accused of a chemical weapons program.

Because of the risk of discovery and consequences for ending UN sanctions, Iraq would have significantly jeopardized its chances of having sanctions lifted or no longer enforced if the UN or foreign entity had discovered that Iraq had undertaken any weaponization activities.

Which means Saddam had no ongoing WMD programs or WMD weapons stored as amieecc would assume.

Iraq initially chose not to fully declare its CW weapons and infrastructure, a decision usually attributed to Husayn Kamil and implemented by senior personnel including his senior deputy, Amer al-Sa’adi.
• Anticipating that inspections would be an ineffective and short-lived inconvenience, Iraqi leaders decided in early April 1991 to hide signifi cant components of the CW program, including weapons, precursors, and equipment.
• Following a particularly invasive IAEA inspection in late-June 1991, Saddam ordered Dr. Mahmud Faraj Bilal, former deputy of the CW program, to destroy all hidden CW and BW materials, according to an interview with Bilal after OIF.
• Available evidence indicates Iraq destroyed its hidden CW weapons and precursors, but key documentation and dual-use equipment were retained and were later discovered by inspectors. ...

In August 1995, ... Saddam’s son-in-law and head of Iraq’s WMD programs, Husayn Kamil, fled the country. Saddam made a decision at that time to declare virtually all hidden information and material they felt was significant on Iraq’s programs, turning over WMD documentation, including 12 trunks of CW documents.

But then tw has been saying same all along. Saddam terminated all chemical weapons programs in direct contradition to posts by aimeecc.

aimeecc - your interpretation of the final SIG report forgets to include parts where Saddam then gave up all his chemical weapons. Forgetting that part is called telling a half truth - also described as spin. Such forgetfulness is also found among those others who use poltical agendas rather than facts. Saddam was not a threat to anyone in 2001. Why do you believe he had WMDs when he clearly did not? Why do you forget to mention the bottom line conclusions bluntly stated by both David Kay and by Deufler's reports? Saddam had no WMDs no matter how you spin it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It was well known (except where spin remains popular) from interviews that Saddam ordered the destruction of his WMDs in 1995. Also known is that records of what and how much were destroyed where were poorly maintained or did not exist.

So, we know they were destroyed because somebody said so. Were these the same somebodys that told us who to send to Gitmo?

[tw]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

So, we know they were destroyed because somebody said so. Were these the same somebodys that told us who to send to Gitmo?

We know they were destroyed because the people who said so did so without torture, were tested by professional interviewers confirming their stories against others testimony, and because many of the interviewees even implicating themselves by being so honest. The report notes how interviewers were surprised how many were so candid about everything. The Duefler report includes a section on why they know their report is so accurate.

Furthermore hard evidence confirms what was discovered in those interviews. The facts were overwhelming. Gitmo was not taking Iraqi prisoners. Gen Miller had not yet started up American torture chambers in two cell blocks in Abu Ghiad.

However later on as the administration was frustrated with no finding WMDs, then torture was approved. One Iraqi General was killed in Abu Ghriad while being tortured because he would not give up WMDs - so that report says. But then he could not give up what did not exist. So Americans basically murdered that man for no reason other than Cheney's poltical agenda.

Don't miss another fact also included in previous posted quotes. Claims by both George Jr and Cheney use 11 September to justify "Mission Accomplished". Many posts by another here denies that fact. But again, he often uses poltical agendas to justify his conclusions. The reality was both George Jr and Cheney claimed Saddam was allied with bin Laden. To say otherwise is to rewrite history - to spin it.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by tw

One Iraqi General was killed in Abu Ghriad while being tortured because he would not give up WMDs - so that report says. But then he could not give up what did not exist. So Americans basically murdered that man for no reason other than Cheney's poltical agenda.

Where is this report? I missed that one. Please cite.

[aimeecc]

Originally Posted by tw

You are doing what was required - provide supporting facts. Now you are indignant because forced to do what your were required? I am amused ... an emotion.

Actually, I had first asked you to back up your claim that the finding of WMDs was a hoax. You have yet to post any of you "hoax" facts.

Let's see... since you are too lazy to find any more information...

New York Time May 18, 2004
NERVE AGENT
Army Discovers Old Iraqi Shell Holding Sarin, Illicit Weapon
By DEXTER FILKINS

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 17 — American commanders said Monday that they discovered an Iraqi artillery shell last week containing sarin, one of the deadly nerve agents that Saddam Hussein said he had destroyed before the war began last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/in...rint&position=

Is Sarin used to wash clothes in? I guess that's the new way to do laundry - wash it in an artillery shell filled with Sarin. Because every one knows that artillery shells containing Sarin can be used for things other than a weapon.

Wait - I thought you said all of these artillery shells filled with Sarin were destroyed by Saddam years before the invasion? Than how can it be?

BTW, most people don't need someone else to google news for things that were reported widely on. If this was some random news event that only one newspaper reported on... well, than I don't mind finding it for you. But dozens of newspapers (hundreds if you count international media), mainstream new sources, have reported multiple times on findings of either actual weapons, or the chemicals used to produce them. Just because you choose to tune out the news that does not support your point of view does not negate your responsibility as a spewer of facts (and spewer of spin) to know about the real actual facts.

[lookout123]

Actually, I had first asked you to back up your claim that the finding of WMDs was a hoax. You have yet to post any of you "hoax" facts.

I'm telling you it is useless. TW finds it completely unnecessary to provide support for his arguments once he "knows" them to be true. It is your job to go find the info he knows to prove you are enlightened.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by lookout123

I'm telling you it is useless. TW finds it completely unnecessary to provide support for his arguments once he "knows" them to be true. It is your job to go find the info he knows to prove you are enlightened.

The classic and well documented approach to a Conspiracy Theorist argument...

[aimeecc]

I know... but I have to occasionally defend myself against the all knowing but doesn't need to back up his statements with facts tw.

I never claimed to be enlightened ...