"Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq"
So I suppose that this means that the Democrats have lied when they claimed that Bush lied. I have always thought that those accusing Bush of lying were deliberately distorting what the word "lie" means, so I guess that means that they were always lying, but by their definition of "lying" it must be obvious that they were lying.
The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.
Here is a video that is very interesting. Sadam's claim that all weapons were destroyed was "a lie." The administration has sat on this information because it apparently doesn't want to have this debate over again. I don't have a clue what the administration is thinking on all this. Here they have the evidence that shows that the WMDs were there and they fight about releasing even a small portion of that evidence.
Update: Here is the Democrat's response:
Democrats downplayed the intelligence report, saying that a lengthy 2005 report from the top U.S. weapons inspector contemplated that such munitions would be found. A defense official told FOX News that the weapons probably can't be used in their current form because of their age, but the report notes that they are still hazardous and possibly lethal to coalition forces.
This report contains all the response need: "but the report notes that they are still hazardous and possibly lethal to coalition forces."
Here is a video that is very interesting. Sadam's claim that all weapons were destroyed was "a lie." The administration has sat on this information because it apparently doesn't want to have this debate over again. I don't have a clue what the administration is thinking on all this. Here they have the evidence that shows that the WMDs were there and they fight about releasing even a small portion of that evidence.
Update: Here is the Democrat's response:
This report contains all the response need: "but the report notes that they are still hazardous and possibly lethal to coalition forces."
posted by John Lott at 12:50 AM
14 Comments:
Democrats lie? Drive by media lie? Say it isn't so.
While it's true that Curt Weldon does have a fixation on the intelligence bunch, it's Weldon's thought that this was buried precisely because US intel did not want their own errors (yes/no/maybe) to be public.
I haven't figured that out, either, but that's his thought.
Come on John, one does not even have to look outside the article itself to find that the "WMD found in Iraq" are essentially irrelevant:
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."
Rusted cannisters of inert sludge that used to be chemical weapons are not, in fact, WMD. And certainly nobody would have ever supported invading and occupying the country in order to destroy these useless artifacts.
It was never about whether or not Saddam had scattered goodies hidden somewhere. I vehemently opposed this war and I even I said he probably had something somewhere (while also noting that it would be degraded and useless, btw), it was about whether he posed a threat to us.
He quite clearly did NOT. And that is no lie.
Guav, please read what I posted: "Sadam's claim that all weapons were destroyed was 'a lie.'" The discussion was whether Sadam HAD WMDs. It was not simply about when they were made. It was that they had these weapons and that Sadam was not cooperating with the UN inspection teams to check out what Iraq had.
In any case, Iraq apparently did have facitilies to make WMDs, though this small part of the report doesn't go through it. Read Rich Miniter's book, Disinformation.
"The discussion was whether Sadam HAD WMDs. It was not simply about when they were made."
No, it was about whether he had 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents and an advanced nuclear weapons development program—not whether or not there was a 15 year-old shell buried somewhere full of sludge.
"Sadam was not cooperating with the UN inspection teams to check out what Iraq had"
He wasn't cooperating in 1998, which is why we pulled them out and launched Operation Desert Fox specifically to target Saddam's remaining WMD capabilities—the scraps that were left after 8 years of UN inspections and weapons destruction. And in that respect, Desert Fox was a huge success. According to the U.S. Central Command & Department of Defense, of the 100 targets on the list for Desert Fox, 87 were hit, breakdown as follows:
-COMMAND AND CONTROL: 18 of 20 targets hit
-REPUBLICAN GUARDS: 9 of 9 targets hit
-ECONOMIC: 1 of 1 targets hit
-AIRFIELDS: 5 of 6 targets hit
-AIR DEFENSES: 24 of 34 targets hit
-WMD SECURITY: 18 of 18 targets hit
-WMD INDUSTRY AND PRODUCTION: 12 of 12 targets hit
What did Republicans at the time have to say about Clinton's plan to destroy Saddam's remaining WMD capability? They complained about it. They hooted and hollered about Clinton's actions by saying that he was trying to distract the nation from that far more important topic—blowjobs.
"I cannot support this military action."
—Republican majority leader in the Senate, Trent Lott
"The President's motives in this attack is itself a powerful argument for impeachment."
—House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX)
"We do not even trust him when he orders the american military into action. We believe he is a shameless liar and it is time for him to step down."
—Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
"It's certainly rather suspicious timing, I think the president is shameless in what he would do to stay in office."
—Tillie Fowler (R-Florida)
"It is obvious that they're (the Clinton White House) doing everything they can to postpone the vote on this impeachment in order to try to get whatever kind of leverage they can, and the American people ought to be as outraged as I am about it."
—Gerald Solomon (R-New York)
But in 2002 and 2003, Saddam WAS cooperating. We didn't invade because he wasn't cooperating, we invaded because the administration was set upon doing so, even though the inspectors we out in said that they had found nothing, and wanted more time.
In 2003 it was WE who were not cooperating with the inspection teams. If they were allowed to do their job completely, we still would have found these useless rusted shells, but it wouldn't have taken billions of dollars, tens of thousands of Iraqi and American lives, a complete loss of credibility, and being bogged down in what we have turned into a terrorist training ground.
Dear guav:
1) As I noted in my post, " the report notes that they are still hazardous and possibly lethal to coalition forces."
2) I don't see what hitting 87 or 100 targets proves about anything. First, there is almost no way that we could have known where all the targets were. Second, we didn't hit 100 percent of the targets. Third, it is not clear that we could have destroyed 100 percent of what was in those targets. In any case, the point that we did not get every thing is proven by this new evidence. Right?
First of all, I was under the impression that this was a NEW batch uncovered—as it turns out, it's not. This is a totally recycled story, and not even the White House is talking about it. The only person bringing it up is Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Fox—everyone else has just responded to it.
These are the same "WMD" that were found in January 2004, more than two years ago, and everyone discussed it then. Furthermore, all of this was already covered in the ISG final report. There is absolutely nothing new about this startling revelation.
"the report notes that they are still hazardous and possibly lethal to coalition forces."
Which would be irrelevant if coaltition forces weren't there, having gone into Iraq to uncover the rusted shells that are only a threat to them, should they be in Iraq in the first place.
See what I'm getting at here?
Dear guav:
Many of these finds have been reported previously, though the total has not. The problem is that if everyone knows the fact here, why are so many people saying that Bush was wrong about WMDs? Or worse that he lied about it?
Here is the bottom line: Sadam was hiding WMDs, they were still harmful, this is apparently just a small fraction of the classified evidence of WMDs in Iraq, and Bush was correct that there were WMDs (though this was just one of many reasons that he gave for the war).
My question to you is why is anyone still claiming that there weren't WMDs in Iraq? Why are Dems claiming that Bush lied still when according you everyone has know all this well before the 2004 election? Why isn't your response that of course the Dems are lying about Bush lying?
The problem is that if everyone knows the fact here, why are so many people saying that Bush was wrong about WMDs?
Because he was wrong.
The case presented to the nation and to the world was not that Saddam had a few rusted leftovers that MIGHT be dangerous to coalition troops (as you can see, IEDs are working just fine), but that Saddam had vast stockpiles, a nuclear program, and was going to attack us.
But all of that is wrong. He did not have vast stockpiles. He had no nuclear program. And he was not going to attack us. This administration took us to war on false pretenses, whether or not they were intentionally false or not.
(As far as calling Bush a liar, this administration has floated enough whoppers having nothing to do with the war whatsoever that it cannot be claimed that Bush is not a lair. Of course he is a liar, he is a US president. If he wasn't a liar he'd have never made it this far in government.)
Furthermore, chemical weapons are not weapons of mass destruction in any functional sense—tactically, chemical weapons are only effective when used upon an unsuspecting military force in a battlefield situation (or sleeping Kurds) and even then, the effect is entirely limited to the immediate area of contamination.
But as far as terrorism goes they are not WMD—they don't actually destroy anything. When released in an enclosed area upon an unsuspecting populace, death rates will naturally be higher. This is why subways are the usual targets. That doesn't say much however, as a man with a handgun and a few extra magazines during rush hour at Grand Central could manage to kill quite a few if he so desired. As far as terrorism goes, chemical weapons are not very good at killing people, just at terrorizing people. They're also EXTREMELY hard to deploy, which is why nobody bothers with them in the first place.
A home made nailbomb worries me far more than chemical weapons do, and I ride the NYC subway every day.
P.S. why are so many people saying that Bush was wrong about WMDs?
Because he was. Bush, on Wednesday October 6th 2004 said:
"The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there."
It's clearly demonstratable that Bush was, in fact, wrong. Whether or not he purposefully misled people is a different topic for discussion, but I don't think it can be argued that he was not wrong.
Bush was not wrong about the weapons being there, which is what is meant when people say that he lied. Your quote either shows him saying the opposite or that he was simply relaying to people the reports as they were made to him (hint that is not lying). In any case, this NEW report shows that they did have WMD. It took some time to find the weapons and there are still more that are in the classified part of the report. Do you understand what the term NEW means about the 500 number?
By the way, Sarin gas does not degrade. Anthrax was also able to be produced in large quantities.
Dear saturdaynightspecial:
Thanks for the comment, but when you say "and the wars always require the lies (WMD's)," what are the lies on WMD that you are referring to? A lie requires you say something that you know is false. Every intelligence service in the world (Russia and France's included) believed that Iraq had WMD. You would think that given how hard Russia and France fought against the war, they wouldn't have helped "lie" to give Bush cover to do what they didn't want him to do. In any case, it clearly looks as if Bush was right. Sadam wasn't being honest about the chemical weapons that he had.
Dear saturdaynightspecial:
You cover a lot of ground here, but I dont think that you answered my question, and you certainly didn't clearly point to a clear statement. I haven't seen any evidence provided by anyone in this discussion that Bush lied, other than just the assertion that he did. I am sorry that you grew up in the household that you describe, but I don't see the relevance at all for Bush. As an aside, unlike most politicians, Bush is letting the military run the day to day operations of this war.
John:
Some of these comments are rather removed from rationality and reality.
You have a lot of patience.
I hope your rational behavior will be taken as a model for others. However, I doubt the probability per individual is over 1%.
Keep up the good work.
Robert Ferguson
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