It's official: No WMD's found in Iraq

The inspectors have been recalled to Langley.

from JoeUser Forums
I guess we weren't in as much danger as we thought...
Link

ABC news Australia's report
Link

Now before all you righties come unglued on me, i would like to point out that it was a bipartisan decision to go to war. No one disputes that.
Our government needs to make damn sure that they actually know what's going on before declaring war. The thing that upsets me is that the real WMD menace in the region (Iran) is blatantly pursuing WMD's and we sit idly by and do nothing.

We should have made a right turn and taken them out first.

Thanks for reading,
thatoneguyinslc
4,496 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
"The thing that upsets me is that the real WMD menace in the region (Iran) is blatantly pursuing WMD's and we sit idly by and do nothing."

For me, I do think we will end up officially at war with Iran. I also think we are already at war with them, the battlefields just happen to be in Iraq. I even agree with you that Iran may have been a bigger problem that Iraq, even at the time we returned to hostilities with Iraq. However, would the presence of WMD have been enough justification to go to war with Iran? It really wasn't even enough justification to return to war with Hussein in and of itself. However, WMD on top of the human rights violations and more importantly, Hussein's infractions of the Safwan Accords made war with Iraq much more justifyable than invading Iran.

You also bring up something that has been the basis of a question I have asked people for awhile now. People often ask "Where are the WMD?" Actually, that is a great question. Since we know that Suddam had WMD, where is it all now? Apparently for some, the question only matters as a mean of making Prs. Bush or Republicans look bad. The more important points of the question however, should be, who has them, what are they planning to do with them and what is the best way to deal with the answers.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Thank you Ted!
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Well I supported the war despite being convinced that WMD did not exist so makes no difference to my stance. I'm pretty embarrassed at the mess of the occupation though.

Paul.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
I didn't support the war because of this issue. I really think that we had more legitmate reasons to go in there and take Saddam out. But then again i'm still upset at bush 1.0 for not finishing the job in 1991.

Thanks for your comment!
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
I still think we should invade Israel. They have many more WMDs than any other country in the area.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I still think we should invade Israel. They have many more WMDs than any other country in the area


But they are not fanatics like other parts of the Middle East.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
But then again i'm still upset at bush 1.0 for not finishing the job in 1991.


I agree with you here. I still remember being in Southern Iraq, gearing up for a push into Baghdad. The Air Force and Navy had been "softening the target" and we figured that would be the next phase in the whole operation. Even though it wasn't our primary reason for being there, if we left Hussein in power then, we would only be returning someday to "finish the job". I remember more than a few converstations that centered around just that idea. Most of us left the Middle East, expecting that someday we'd be back.

"Diplomacy" prevailed and we left Hussein in power. "Diplomacy" promised that they had a better plan for holding Hussein to the terms of the Safwan Accords (The Ceasefire of 91).

I think the last decade+ should be written down in history books everywhere, as the ultimate example of how "diplomacy" failed.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
And America gave chemical weapons to IRAQ so that they could use them on Iranian Soldiers. ......... Pakistan has weapons of mass destruction (the ATOMIC BOMB) ... why not disarm them ..... oooops sorry I said that isn't Pakistan on America's side .......... for the moment
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't trust the Pakis either.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
And America gave chemical weapons to IRAQ so that they could use them on Iranian Soldiers. .........


Yeah, that was a pretty stupid call. If there is one policy both the left and the right need to get out off the agenda is, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
And America gave chemical weapons to IRAQ so that they could use them on Iranian Soldiers. .........


Yeah, that was a pretty stupid call. If there is one policy both the left and the right need to get off the agenda is, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
As for Iran, I don't think we are actually sitting idly by and doing nothing. I think we don't know what's being done, but that something is actually going on through those old evil "back channels." No evidence to offer up, just a suspicion.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
You're probably right Daiwa, but i think the current administration was a little too focused on finding non existant WMD's for too long when they could have been focusing on Iran and Syria.

Personally, i think Israel should do another surgical strike.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
We would not have been able to reach a definite conclusion about Iraq's WMD status without an invasion.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
I still think we should invade Israel. They have many more WMDs than any other country in the area.


How about America? They have more WMDs than any other nation.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Latour has a really really valid point here folks...But i think we are still #2 though.

Can anybody shed some light on this?
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
People always throw around the names of other nations that have WMD or fit one of the other reasons given by Prs. Bush to go back into Iraq. Doing this leaves out the major detail that none of those other nations broke the terms of a ceasefire with us.

We took the ceasefire agreement seriously enough to give all the occupied areas and assets of Iraq back to the Hussein regime and redeploy home.

The UN took it seriously enough to officially endorse it.

Hussein apparently only took it seriously until we left.

A return to hostilities has always been a valid justification to return to hostilities. If it isn't then a ceasefire isn't worth crap and we should never enter into one again.


((((Sorry about the triple posting, not sure what I did wrong that caused that.)))))
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
broke the terms of a ceasefire with us


I personally agree that this is a very important reason why Saddam needed to be removed. Rough states and dictators need to know that there is a line that cannot be crossed. The flouting of the ceasefire agreements and then jumping back across the line every time the US threathen needed to be answered in force. Failure to react to Saddam's attempts to break the ceasefire agreement (including sanctions) would have left the US looking weak and unable to enforce peace agreements.
The lead up to war was a complete mess though, especially when the US pushed resolution 1441 through the UN. This said surrecnder your WMD as proof of your ceasefire compliance. The fact that there were none totally messed up the legal arguements for war. It meant that while Saddam had broken ceasefire agreements inn the past, he wasn't actually in breach at the time the US went to war (as he complied with 1441). The US would have been much better off without any 1441 resolution, it hurt it much more than it helped.

Paul.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
'But they are not fanatics like other parts of the Middle East.'

Ah, don't you just love those irregular verbs ...
I am passionate / you are fanatical
I am free-thinking / you are traitorous

... and nouns:
I am a believer / you are a zealot
I am a freedom fighter / you are a terrorist
etc.
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
Paul, you make some very compelling points here. However, Res. 1441 was merely yet another example of the UN's inability to live up to its word.

Among other things, the Resolution required the government of Iraq to make a full report of all proscribed weapons and delivery systems (which included a lot more than just WMD) to the UNMOVIC and the IAEA no later than 30 days after the Res. was adopted. (Res. 1441, Item 1)

Futhermore, it required the inspections to be resumed no later than 45 days, with an updated report to the Security Council no later than 60 days after the adoption of the resolution. (item 5)

Res 1441 was adopted on 8 Nov 2002, which would make the suspense date for item 1, 8 Dec, 2002. The suspense dates for item 5 was 23 Dec 2002 and 7 Jan 2003 respectively.

Of course, we know that none of those requirements were satisfied by Iraq, yet the UN did nothing to address the breaches of yet another resolution. If was over a month after the latest last deadline for Iraq to comply that Prs. Bush ordered a full return to hostilities with the Hussein Regime. Link

Also, even though the UN did officially endorse the Safwan Accords, they were never a signatory of them. The Safwan Accords were signed by a representative of the U.S. and Iraq. The Gulf War of 1991 was not a UN operation.

It would have been great for all concerned if the UN would have lived up to its own rhetoric, but in the end the responsiblity of enforcing the ceasefire ultimately fell to the US.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
again the point is lost on the left..... its not so much having wmds its the willingness to USE THEM>>>>>
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
Parated2k,
Iraq did provide a detailed 70,000 page document complying with resolution 1441, and allowed the required inspections (including immediate inspection of presidential sites). They did therefore comply with resolution 1441. The fact that the US could not find any proof of WMD in the document or with the further inspections just increased the US's belief that Iraq was hiding WMD. France and Russia disagreed, suggesting that maybe WMD werre not there.
Despite this fact I still believed that removing Saddam was required for international peace. I believe that focussing on WMD in 1441 was a disasterous mistake for the US in terms of diplomacy and credability. It's just a pity that the follow up occupation was so messed up.

Paul.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
Paul, I agree that pushing for Res 1441 was not a good idea. It did nothing but give Suddam yet another chance that he didn't deserve. We won't even get started on the motivations of France, Germany and Russia to continuously side with Hussein. ;~D

The point is, Hussein never complied with all the terms of the Safwan Accords or really any of the applicable UN resolutions. As for the Resolutions, that was up to the UN to decide what to do about his non (or limited) compliance. However, the Safwan Accords (the actual ceasefire agreement) was up to the signatories (The US and Iraq) to uphold. If it were me, I would have used Hussein's lack of compliance with the terms of the ceasefire as the major issue, not WMD, but that wasn't up to me to decide. ;~D

I guess we'll just agree to disagree on our analysis and opinions of the past. Only time will tell whether the decisions made will turn out to be wrong or right.