2200 Deaths over in IragFollow

I've already set my stop/loss marker at 20,000 dead. Thanks for the info though, I appreciate you caring, but I've got it under control. You can stop posting numbers up like it's going to shake the resolve of those already....resolved.

Bleh...whatever. Why even fight back at this point? In my minds eye, many things have been set in motion and will conclude themselves one way or the other. I'm not sure that we'll have real "peace" again for some years to come, so what do those numbers mean anyway.

We can pull out of Iraq completely now I suppose, I don't mind...but only because I'm realtively certain that the fight will come to us, and hey, a fights a fight. In that situation though, we'd lose the upperhand, and it would be a bit tougher. But honestly, I'm more tired of fighting about fighting then I am of the actual fighting.

This will be torn to pieces, maybe I should just go back over it and fluff it up a bit. Or maybe I should just take my lumps, crack a beer, and say **** it. I choose the latter.

Huh? Were you asleep or maybe too young to remember back then? We *did* go to war with Saddam. We were talked out of removing him from his position in Iraq by the UN. And WMD were *certainly* a major part of the objectives there since they were part of the cease fire agreement Saddam signed.






Please tell me you're kidding. This is another example of the rhetoric overriding the facts.

Let's examine the text of Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address

The opening paragraph where he starts talking about Iraq:



Notice the bolded section. In case you're utterly unable to connect the simple dots, that's the cease fire agreement Saddam signed.

So yeah. Even George Bush would indeed say that it's about Iraq's violation of that cease fire agreement. It was the very first thing he talked about in reference to Iraq. It opens up and establishes the rationale for everything that follows.

Man. I'm not sure if your ignorance on this subject makes it easier or harder to argue it with you. On the one hand, it's ludicrously easy to disprove pretty much everything you state. On the other hand, you seem to be totally unable to recognize when facts have absolutely repudiated your assumptions.




Um. No. Absolutely incorrect. Congress is granted the power under the Constitution to declare war. The president is the Commander in Chief but *cannot* declare war. Additionally, Congress holds the pursestrings for the military. The whole reason this check exists is to ensure that neither side can control everything via the military.

Do I need to quote from the Constition on this? You're absolutely wrong here.



Because one of the major terms of the cease fire agreement Iraq signed in 91 was that it would dismantle their programs under UN supervision. How exactly do you expect someone to talk about the violation of the cease fire without mentioning the thing that he's doing that's in violation?

When you go to court for a speeding ticket, don't they mention speeding? Yeah. I think they do. Same deal.





*cough* I've presented my position repeatedly. Not sure what you're getting at. I show fallacies in your arguments because your arguments are rife with them. I *also* repeatedly make my own arguments, and when I do, I back them up with facts. I've shown that Congress did not declare war with Iraq because Iraq possessed WMD. I've shown that Bush's people did not come up with the words "mission accomplished" on that banner. I've also shown that any inference from those words that the Left presents is totally countered by the actual words Bush spoke in that speech. I've just now shown that Bush did indeed specifically reference the cease fire agreement with Iraq as an opener to the topic in his state of the union address just 2 months before we invaded.


If you want, I can *also* present my argument as to why I believe that the war in Iraq is worth fighting. Unfortunately, so far, we've gotten so hung up on disproving the rhetoric you seem to hold so dear, that I haven't even gotten to that point yet. You're so full of misinformation, that I can't really present an argument with you without establishing a few "facts" first. For example, if I believe the sky is blue and you believe it's green, we're going to have a hard time having a discussion about the best color to paint my house, right? Same deal here. As long as you believe that we went to war because Iraq possessed WMD, and Bush lied about how long we'd be at war, I can't even begin the topic of why the war is worth fighting.


Just trying to lay some groundrules and debunk the common myths out there about the Iraq war.



Um. Could you please provide a source for that? Because I don't recall ever seeing or hearing Bush say that. If you have a source for it, then provide it. If you don't, then aren't you just repeating hearsay? And isn't that what I've been talking about all along? The transcript of every speech Bush has made as president is likely available online somewhere (or can at least be referenced). I'd like to assume that someone wouldn't actually quote someone without checking first...

In fact. How about you provide sources for all your quotes while you're at it?




Of course. Blindly accepting is a bad idea. But that's not what I'm doing. I'm accepting the democratic decision made by our elected leaders. I don't have to prove anything other then the majority of the people *we* elected to represent us voted on this. In a representative democracy (or republic if you prefer), that's how we make decisions. We elect representatives, and they make choices for us. It's not "wrong" to allow them to do that. And it's not "wrong" for them to make those choices and determinations. That's what we elected them to do!

That's why you have to show that their decision was wrong. More to the point, it can't just be a moral judgement. You need to show that some fact they listed is incorrect. Congress is certainly free to make a decision as a body that you (or any of a number of people) may not agree with. That's the whole point of a republic. We start with the assumption that not all people will arrive at the same conclusion given the same information, so we have a voting process based on that information to decide what the majority want to do. That's the basis of democracy. By definition, not everyone is going to agree on everything. Thus, a decision by Congress is only "wrong" if it can be shown that the data they used to make their decision was incorrect. We have to assume that any moral arguments you (or anyone else) can make were *also* made by one or more members of Congress. Ultimately Congress as a body determined that those 22 things represented sufficient cause all on their own for military action in Iraq. So only by showing factual inaccuracy in those 22 things can the decision even vaguely be called into question. You're free to disagree with it, but it's not "blindly following the government" if the majority of the representatives, each elected by a majority of their respective states/districts, arrived at that decision. That's exactly the government system we have. Calling it to question calls into question everything about it and the very concept of a republic.

And just because this is so fun and easy...




First off. You don't think that the Iraq government attempting to assassinate a former president of the US doesn't say volumes about the means they might use to attack us? And doesn't the fact that North Korea (for example) *hasn't* done anything like that kinda bump them down a notch in terms of their likelyhood to do something else underhanded (like sneaking a WMD into one of our cities and firing it off). Dunno. Seems kinda logical to me and silly to discount it. That's also only one point.

You don't have to take each point that literaly. How about we generalize a bit more. Find me any other country that meets the following criteria:

1. Currently under a cease fire agreement with the US

2. Currently under UN sanction for failure to meet the terms of that agreement.

3. Has the capability to produce various WMDs.

4. Has used WMD both in war and peacetime in the past.

5. Has connections to a number of known terrorist organizations including but not limited to Al-queda.

6. Has commited large scale slaughter of different political/ethnic groups within its own borders in the last 20 years.


I could probably go on, but I don't want to just repeat the 22 points. Those are the biggies anyway. And there isn't a single other country that meets just those. The entire list of 22 is just to establish every greivance we have with Iraq. I don't need to come even close to listing them all to get a list that excludes every country except Iraq. I was even nice and left off the whole attempted assassination thing (even though I do think it's significant since it tells us about Iraq's willingness to use stealth to attack us).

How about it? See. I've proven everything I've said. You've proven nothing. How about doing just this one thing?





Oh noes! Not the bottom line!...



Huh? Ad hominum attack followed by laughable claim. You haven't actually backed up a single thing you've said. Not one. Sheesh.



Absolutely incorrect. You are free to "attack" what this administration does. But I'm going to poke holes in your attack when I see them. And in your case, there are a lot of holes. I'm all for questioning the government. What I'm not for is doing so with such ridiculously flawed and partisan arguments. And I'm going to argue against such things as often and as strongly as I can.



Wow! You just proved my point. Um... What did Bush say that was a lie. Find me one example please.


I guess part of my problem is that what you believe to be "common knowledge" is so incredibly wrong it's not even funny. Need I go down the list of things you've stated in this thread with absolute certainty and which I've completely disproven?

"Common knowledge" is fine and all, but shouldn't you actually get your facts straight at some point? And when it's directly disproven, shouldn't you educate yourself as to the facts instead of continuing to cling to the false information becuase it's "commmon knowledge"? If everyone on the planet thinks the earth is flat, that doesn't make it so. Common knowledge and common ignorance aren't really that far apart. And if you make absolutely no effort to establish the facts of the issue, then you can't possibly know which is which, right?

Sheesh. You're amazing. Never seen someone cling to ignorance so strongly.



Again. If you're going to put words in someone's mouth, please provide a source for your information. Or are you still just going on "common knowledge"? And where Iraq can strike with weapons is irrelevant. The terms of the agreement they signed didn't say "You can't build WMD if you have missiles capable of striking outside the Middle east". They said (among other things) that Iraq will voluntarily disarm it's WMD. It would turn over all information about it's WMD programs. The burden of proof of compliance was on Iraq, not on us.

But hey. Don't take my word for it. Read the UN resolution for yourself.



Woah. Hold on there. So what's the alternative. Can we agree that the terrorists didn't make the decision to do the 9/11 attacks in the 8 months between when Bush took office and those attacks occured? So clearly, no policy Bush enacted caused those attacks. Clearly also, if we changed nothing about our foreign policy in the ME after the 9/11 attacks, we would only be keeping that policy which caused them to occur.

This is a whole topic in itself. However, without getting into too much detail, simple logic says that if we change nothing, then we'll just end up with more attacks like 9/11. Clearly also, our previous policies resulted in groups of Arabs pissed off enough at us to fly airplanes into buildings and kill 3000 people. I don't know about you, but that's about as "pissed off" as you can get.

I'll ask a simple question: If the 9/11 terrorists had had the ability to set off a nuke in a large city instead of flying planes into buildings, do you think they would have done it? Yes or no?

I tend to think yes. That simple logical argument means that the only thing preventing such an attack is us preventing groups like Al-queda from ever getting a nuke. Same logic applies to a lesser degree with other WMD (bio and chem weapons), for the exact same reasons.


Given that, does it not make sense to attempt to prevent the probably development and production of WMD in the Middle East? And, given that, since we already have a cause for war with Iraq, and it's (at that time) the only nation capable of building such weapons in the Middle East (except Isreal), doesn't it make sense to use that cause to remove the power in place?

That's what you're not getting. You think I'm blindly following the Bush administration. The fact is that I happen to agree with the foreign policy actions being taken (for the most part). I agree with Congress' decision to declare war. I agree with Bushs' approach to the Middle East. And at the very least, unless you can present an alternative that is substantially different from the previous policies which resulted in 9/11, I can't really see how you can argue against it. Sure. You *can*. But you're not going to persuade very many people if you can't present a better solution.

And that's where I think most people get into trouble with this issue. You're thinking of it as a "we're causing a problem" situation. But the fact is that we were already in a problem. We need a solution. The Republicans came up with one and have implemented it. The Democrats have done nothing but argue that the solution is a bad one. But unless they can produce a "better" solution, that's really an irrelevant argument. We don't have the luxury of doing nothing. Our current status (as of 20020) was that of being the target for large scale terrorist attacks. That's the status quo of the situation. Show me a policy from the left that even attempts to change that status quo and you might have a point. But you haven't (and to my knowledge *no one* has).

Until someone presents an alternative that is better the Bush's plan, arguments from the Left on the Iraq war are pretty much a waste of time. Unfortunately, election politics seem to have much more to do with Liberal thought right now then anything else. That's why all we're hearing is attacks saying how Bush is "wrong", but nothing about how they'd do things better. The focus is entirely on convincing the people that Bush is "wrong" and "evil" in the hopes that they'll never notice that the Dems haven't presented anything else. Thankfully, the majority of people saw through that facade in 2004. I suspect that they'll still see through it in 2006 as well, despite massive mudslinging in the last couple years.



This is an amazing statement, coming from someone who's had virtually every single point he's made debunked in this thread. Talk about arguing from a position of ignorance...

First off. You don't think that the Iraq government attempting to assassinate a former president of the US doesn't say volumes about the means they might use to attack us?
-----------------------------------------------

hahahaha, rofl.

lets see. when did THAT happen? umm, mabe when we were sending in hundreds of cruse missles to every location where we thought Iraq,s president might be? when we were carpet bombing every one of his pallaces? killing his familey? butchering his countrymen?

its called WAR, not ASSINATION.

the WAR ended. the threat was GONE. no more airforce. no more navy. no more heavy artilllary. no more THREAT.

just alot of oil we couldnt controll..........

BTW, does north korea have any oil? thought not.

Did I say Bush was the cause of the terroist attacks once? You just made an incorrect assumption. You also assumed I'm a liberal, when I am just opposed to this war. You fail.




What does that have to do with the war on Iraq? You still don't get it. Iraq was not connected to 9/11 in any way. None of the terrorists were born in Iraq. Osama Bin Laden was not in Iraq. You fail again.





You still don't get it. Why does a country have to be under a cease-fire with us to go to war with them? War should *ALWAYS* be used as a last resort not when countries disagree, but when they are actually some sort of threat to the freedoms we enjoy in America, such as the right to live. That's whats wrong with all of your points. You believe violating a contract is justification for 2,200 deaths. That is why you are a despicable human being.





Oh really? Did the FBI tell you that through the radio transmissions you recieve in your tin foil hat? Let me prove you absolutely wrong.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html

Never had weapons of mass destruction.




He seems to be the only one who believes it, along with you, his goat he feeds with a little baby bottle. Suck it hard.



The only things Iraq is guilty of is a) trying to decieve us and b) violating an agreement. Anything that happened before 1995 is irrelevant to this case, that was the era of the First Gulf War. You cannot declare war on a country because you did so in the past. Everything in your logic is skewed. You seem to want to go to war of any act of defiance of America, are the lives worth it?



Harold Pinter, nobel prize winner said:



This sums up everything I'm saying. It doesn't matter what is in those whereas statements because none of them are good enough for war.

And <<**if**>> they were hypothetically, if any one of them is violated we must declare on whatever country did it, or we can not say we are morally correct.

Bush sold the war to America through the use of these lies, that's what is important. If he had just said "Iraq violated a cease-fire and we gotta go kick their butts. Heheheehehehe" Do you think anyone would support him? If he said "They tried to assasinate my daddy!" Would people rush to support the war? A war cannot occur if no one in America supports it. That was Bush's job and he did it well. Little did he know that every time you lie it comes back to bite you in the ***.


Your reasons for war are outdated, not worthy of war, or false. You lose at life. I don't know why I bother though, you cling to your ignorance so strongly...

Edited, Sat Jan 21 03:38:24 2006 by sonicmonkeys

Way to miss the point. I was talking about a general policy change in the Middle East. One part of that policy change was not letting Iraq play games with the WMD inspections and Un sanctions anymore. The previous policy resulted in 9/11. The new policy resulted in an invasion of Afghanistan and establishment of a democracy in that country, and the invasion of Iraq and an establishment of a democracy there.

My point, which you've missed utterly, is that it's somewhat pointless to simply argue that Bush's actions and policy is "wrong". You need to present an alternative that is "better", or your whole argument is irrelevant. Get it?

So far, no one has provided a better alternative. That's why the Dem position on this issue is weak, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary. It's all about "blaming Bush", but no one stops to say how they'd do it better. That's why at the end of the day, no matter how much it seems like Bush is betting bashed for his policies, people keep voting to support him.




Um... When the contract being violated is a cease fire agreement, yeah. Do you even know what a cease fire agreement is? Frankly, you lose the whole thing in this one paragraph.




Strawman. I didn't say he had them. Just as Congress didn't say he did when they authorized the war. Have you even been paying attention to what I've been writing over and over for the last 2 pages? Sheesh!

That finding is only significant if you believe that we went to war because Iraq possessed (present tense) WMD. I've been arguing this entire thread that we *didn't* go to war for that reason. How about you go back and read it instead of continuting to ignore the point?


And the rest of your post is just more "head in the sand" bleating. At least read what I write instead of arguing the party line. I'm challenging your assumptions about why we went to war. I've presented significant evidence to back up my assertion. But instead of responding to my argument, you keep arguing based on the very assumption I'm challenging.


Sigh. Way to miss the entire thread.

I'm hoping someone else will read the verbose rants above and paraphrase for those of us that avoid 10Mb posts.

Gbaji, are you that ****** from Crossfire that used to wear the bowtie? I wouldn't doubt it.

Three points on this:

(actually, a quick subpoint): Funny how just a few posts ago you were claiming that Congress didn't have the power to declare war. Now you're in agreement? Kinda blows the whole "I never disagreed with that" argument, when you couldn't even agree that Congress declared war in the first place... (end subpoint)

1. So. You're basically saying that because a reason that was *not* used to justify the war in Iraq (possession of WMD by Iraq) turned out not to be true, that this somehow invalidates the war in Iraq? Cause I'm not really following that logic. Whether that was believed to be true or not does not change the validity of the listed causes for war in the resolution Congresss signed. Ultimately, that's what matters the most.

But if you want to argue that the american public was misinformed as to the reasons we needed to invade Iraq, then you might have an argument. But then you need to actually adress *who* misinformed the public. And that brings us to point 2...

2. Bush was not the only one to say that Iraq possessed WMD. Not by a long shot. The last time I had this argument, I listed off the Dem politicians who all made *exactly* the same statements that Bush did, in many cases years before Bush took office. Bill Clinton stated repeatedly between 1997 and 2000 that Iraq possessed WMD, and used that "fact" as justification for multiple airstrikes (only coincidentally timed to coincide with news of various investigations of his administration I'm sure!). Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Carl Levin, Madeleine Albright, Joseph Leiberman, Jay Rockefeller, Harry Reid, and John Edwards all made statements that Iraq possessed WMD as strong or stronger then Bush did, and in most cases (again) years before Bush took office.

So. Can you really lay the blame for this misunderstanding of that fact on the Bush administration when the Clinton administration and most of Congress (on both sides) had been saying that Saddam still possessed WMD 5 years before Bush decided to invade?

3. And the final point is simple. You keep saying "Bush lied" to the american public. But in order to lie, you have to know that what you are saying is false (please let's avoid a freaking debate on what a lie is? Pretty please!?). I think that given the long history of assumption that Iraq did have WMD, it's not unreasonable for Bush to simply have acted on that assumption. It's not like he just decided to make it up one day. He was only one in a long list of politicians and policymakers who believed that was true.

The only substantive difference between the Bush administration and the Clinton administration is that Clinton appears to have believed Iraq possessed WMD but responded to that by using it as an excuse to lob bombs at Iraq when it was convenient politically for him to do so. Bush believed exactly the same thing and decided to do something about it. I'd argue there's a far stronger case that the Clinton administration cooked up the "lie" in this case to allow them to distract the public's attention from issues at home, and Bush believed the lie and decided to invade (oops!). That's just one theory, but it's far more sensible then thinking that Bush built a time machine so he could go back and create a lie that he could use years later when he took office to invade Iraq.

Because the time machine argument is the only way your position makes sense. The "Bush administration" can't have created a lie that existed for at least 3 years before Bush took office. There was no Bush administration when the assumption that Iraq possessed WMD came to be. How on earth can he have started it?




Fine. Take it up with Congress then. Don't blame the Bush administration. They didn't take part in the vote.

See how easy that is?




Which is wonderful, for someone who completely missed the point.

The strawman is that I said that Iraq "possessed the capability to produce WMD". You responded with a link saying that Iraq did not possess actual WMDs.

You do understand the difference between actually having something, and having the capability to build something, right? That's the strawman. Iraq most certainly retained the ability to build WMD at any time it wanted. It may not have actually possessed any, but that's not really the most significant issue, and it's not even a significant part of the Bush administrations argument for war (nor was it Congress' either). It was always about what will happen down the line. If Iraq retains the ability to build WMDs, then as soon as the UN sanctions and inspections end, they'll go right back to building them. At that point, given his history, it would be very likely that he might use 3rd party groups (like a terrorist group) to use them against us (just as he used a terrorist squad to attempt to kill Bush sr with a bomb in Kuwait in case you're still confused how that fits in).

It's really not that confusing. What I find astounding is that you argue that you were lied to because we went to war "because Iraq possessed WMD", yet even when I say over and over that it wasn't about possessing (present tense) WMD, but capability to build WMDs, you keep on interpreting that as "possessing WMD" (ie: the same thing). Geee... I wonder why people like you were so confused about why we went to war?

Funny thing is that I don't feel I was lied to. Not even a little bit. But that's because I took the time to become informed about the actual reasons we were invading Iraq, instead of simply responding to the knee-jerk rhetoric out there. I always understood that Iraq actually having WMS was never the key issue. It was their capability to produce, and their desire to do so that mattered.




You get that definition out of a crackerjack box? Sheesh. It's the "temporary" cessation of a conflict. In general, a cease fire exists between the time two sides agree to meet to discuss peace terms and either those terms are finalized (and a treaty is signed), or one or the other side decideds to resume hostilities. Cease fire agreements themselves often have terms (ie: "We wont attack eachother for the next week", or "we will stop hostilities for 1 month to try to reach a peace agreement we can all agree to"). The assumption of a cease fire is that it's only in effect as long as both parties agree to it. It's not a formal peace treaty at all, and as soon as the terms of the cease fire are violated/ended, hostilities may be resumed by either party if they wish.

In this case, we had a cease fire agreement that said we would halt major combat operations against Iraq as long as Iraq was showing a good faith effort towards meeting the terms in the cease fire. If they were found to meet those terms, a formal peace would be established via UN resolution. In this case, Iraq pretty much met zero of the terms in the cease fire. They showed no indication they would *ever* meet the terms. Under those conditions the US (and anyone else involved in the original 91 gulf war) are free to resume hostilities. Cease fires aren't permanent.

Let me clarify. A cease fire remains in effect as long as both parties wish it to. Not one moment more. It's not egocentric at all. That's what a cease-fire is. Both sides agree not to shoot at eachother while they work out terms. In this case, we believed that after 11 years of stalling, Iraq had no intention of ever meeting the terms we set, so we resumed hostilities. I'm still confused why this is so difficult for some people to understand.




The point is that there shouldn't have been any sanctions in the first place. There should not have been any weapons inspections either. Iraq was supposed to voluntarily and openly meet the terms of the cease fire (which included their WMD programs). The UN was not required to "enforce" the terms of the cease fire. What's the point of enforcing it? If you have to force someone to meet the terms of a cease fire so you can declare peace, isn't that a bit silly? A treaty like that is meaningless if the parties aren't both in agreement. Clearly, Iraq was not. Therefore clearly, the correct response is to resume hostilities either until they are willing to accept and meet the terms, or until the current government is removed from power and replaced with one that will.


That's how wars work, just in case you were confused...



I'll reply to your proposed plan for Iraq in another post.

Edited, Mon Jan 23 22:21:56 2006 by gbaji

Ok. Right off the bat I see a problem. Points 1 and 3 are contradictory. First, you say we shouldn't use war except as a last resort when the US is threatended (presumably we can replace "US" with any given country that might be considering military action and apply this to all nations). But then you say that the sanctions will contain the "threat" that every country in the global community will declar war if they don't disarm or allow inspections.

Um... What if they don't disarm or allow inspections, but some people (I'll be polite and not call them idiots) insist that that does not represent a "threat" to the US? Isn't that exactly what happened? Can you prove that in all cases, a nation not meeting the terms of a UN resolution means it's directly being threatened? I don't think so at all.

You seem to half "get it". Sanctions have no power unless there is the underlying threat of military action if they aren't met. But at what point do we decide that it's time to take military action? After 10 years? 20? 30? In the case of Iraq, even after 11 years of failure to comply (and not just a little bit of a failure), the UN as a body was still unwilling to use force to enforce its own sanctions. Instead, it proceeded to spend that 11 years making 12 more resolutions, each stating that Iraq had failed to meet the last one and resolving that they should.

The threat of war you list in point 3 *must* be used when a nation doesn't meet the terms required of them, or the entire thing collapses. That's the point that a lot of people don't seem to get. The power of those sanctions flow from that threat. If you are unwilling to carry it out, then the sanctions have no power, and the entire UN becomes a meaningless institution. It was abundantly obvious to anyone who was paying attention that the UN as a group had no intention of ever taking military action against Iraq regardless of how flagrantly Iraq violated the terms of the cease fire. And Saddam took advantage of that. He was counting on the UN not taking action unless he actually attacked someone else.

You need to redefine point 1 to be "the US agrees to go to war if terms of a UN resolution are ignored to the point where it feels it must take military action in order to enforce said resolution, and where it feels its interests are sufficiently involved to justify military action in the first place". You can redefine it how you wish, but you can't simply define it as requiring a direct threat.

On a side note. You are aware that your rules are scarily similar to the global policies that resulted in both WW1 and WW2, right? Countries only taking action if they were directly attacked, meaning that no one stepped in to stop agressors until it was too late and everyone got sucked into a massive conflict. If we are to attempt to have a global body (like the UN) that mediates conflicts with the goal to prevent large world wars in the future, then it's critically important that the UN as a body recognizes that it may have to conduct military operations as part of it's goal, and member nations must be willing to step up as part of those operations even when they are not themselves directly threatened.




What's wrong with that plan specifically is that it ignores the actual terms of the UN resolution that made up the cease fire agreement. You keep limiting the terms to Iraq "possessing WMD", but those *aren't* the terms of the cease fire. Sanctions aren't supposed to keep him from having WMD. He's supposed to willingling give them up. Inspectors finding evidence that Iraq "possess WMD" is not the only criteria. But let's look at the relevant bits.

Specifically paragraphs 8 through 14. Let's see just how many things they violated:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:

(a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;

(b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

Oops. Note. It's not just weapons. It's all related subsystems and compounds, and all research (like those documents found hidden in a scientists home long after the resolution), development, support and manufacturing facilities.

And it's supposed to be "unconditional". Let's glance at Hans Blix's statement on the matter:



Hmmm... So. 11 years later. Still not "unconditionally" disarming. This isn't the Bush administration saying this. This is the guy the UN hired to do the report of the UN inspection progress. Despite this, the UN as a body decided to continue following a course that had failed for 11 years. Gotta wonder about that. Maybe they were following your flawed rules above?

9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:

(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;

Didn't get this. Certainly not within 15 days. Heck. We were still wrangling with them on this 11 years later. If Iraq had complied to this, we would not have needed to have weapons inspectors combing the Iraqi countryside for 11 years looking for weapons materials. Use your noggin. It really is that obvious.

(b) The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such approval:

You'd think with all these "15 days"/"45 days" concepts that maybe after 11 years something would have been done? You'd almost think that they expected immediate compliance from Iraq on this issue. While I'm sure the UN got this stuff done on time, Iraq certainly did not follow up with the same degree of urgency.

(i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities, based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission itself;

This is the weapons inspectors. Note, They're only supposed to inspect and verify that Iraq was doing what it said. Their job is not to look for WMDs, but to witness Iraq declaring and destroying them. Hmmm... Failed that one too.

(ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph 8 (a) above, including items at the additional locations designated by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 (b) (i) above and the destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission, of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified under paragraph 8 (b) above;

Oh wait! But this is all hinged on Iraq actually providing that list of weapons, facilities, documents, and materials mentioned in paragraph 8. But since they didn't do that (or at least didn't provide a nearly complete list), the rest of this stuff can't really be called done either, can it?

(iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;

We'll get to this part later...

10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9 above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of this resolution;

Wait! Let's read that carefully. They shall "unconditionally" undertake not to use, develop, construct, or acquire those items. Um... So when we found tons of the stuff in 1995 (four years after this resolution was signed) did that not count? So it's not a violation if Iraq gets caught and then admits that they were hiding stuff? Hmmm... another violation.

11. Invites Iraq to reaffirm unconditionally its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968;

12. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above; to submit to the Secretary-General and the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution a declaration of the locations, amounts, and types of all items specified above; to place all of its nuclear-weapons-usable materials under the exclusive control, for custody and removal, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General discussed in paragraph 9 (b) above; to accept, in accordance with the arrangements provided for in paragraph 13 below, urgent on-site inspection and the destruction, removal or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items specified above; and to accept the plan discussed in paragraph 13 below for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of its compliance with these undertakings;

This last bit is especially important. Note that everything here is also covered under the broader "WMD" provisions in the paragraph above it. But I'm going to mention this specifically.

Remember the whole Joe Wilson deal? Where Bush stated that Iraq "sought to obtain a significant quantity of uranium from Africa" (Niger as it turns out)? Remember Wilson's op-ed piece where he states that he was outraged about that statement in Bush's SOTU speech because he was the guy who went to Niger to look into the issue and he determined that Iraq did not buy any uranium so there was nothing to it? Guess what he didn't tell you? That's yet another strawman. While he certainly did establish that Iraq did not purchase uranium from Niger, in the process he did prove that Irag *tried* to buy uranium from Niger. In fact, it was his report to the CIA about the attempted purchase that prompted Bush's statement in the speech.

Point being that Wilson never debunked what Bush said. This is another case of arguing against something that wasn't said, and is remarkably similar to the "possessed WMD versus having capability and intent to build WMD" argument earlier. Bush didn't say that Iraq obtained uranium. He only said Iraq "sought to obtain" uranium.

Now. Read this section. Specifically where it states in clear language: "Iraq shall unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material or any subsystems or components or any research, development, support or manufacturing facilities related to the above".

Hmmm... You could argue that since Iraq didn't actually obtain the materials they tried to buy, that it's not a violation. However, that's kinda splitting hairs. Clearly, if Iraq is attempting to obtain uranium then they are actively trying to violate the terms of the cease fire. The fact that they failed doesn't exonerate them. They clearly have no intent to honor the agreement. And this is not in 1995 either. More like 1998 IIRC...

And on a side note. What do you *think* they were going to do with the uranium they purchased? It was on the sanctioned materials lists, so it's not like they could have built a nuclear power plant with it or anything. And they'd have had a heck of a time building a nuke under the current conditions. The only logical use for uranium under those conditions is to construct radiological devices, most likely with the intent to use human delivery systems for them (ie: terrroists). Either that, or just hide it somewhere until the sanctions and inspections end, and then get a jump start on restarting its nuclear weapons program.

Either alternative is a pretty clear violation of the terms of paragraph 8, right? They're supposed to be unconditionally turning over all WMD related materials, not obtaining more in secret. Think about it...

13. Requests the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, through the Secretary-General, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission as provided for in the plan of the Secretary-General in paragraph 9 (b) above, to carry out immediate on-site inspection of Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any additional locations by the Special Commission; to develop a plan for submission to the Security Council within forty-five days calling for the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless as appropriate of all items listed in paragraph 12 above; to carry out the plan within forty-five days following approval by the Security Council; and to develop a plan, taking into account the rights and obligations of Iraq under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1 July 1968, for the future ongoing monitoring and verification of Iraq's compliance with paragraph 12 above, including an inventory of all nuclear material in Iraq subject to the Agency's verification and inspections to confirm that Agency safeguards cover all relevant nuclear activities in Iraq, to be submitted to the Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage of the present resolution;

This one actually kinda got met. But only because it's pretty darn hard to hide active nuclear weapons materials. Um... But they still hid everthing they could after the fact in terms of documents, scientists, and secondary materials. Which is still a violation of the terms of the agreement. Iraq can't just decide to only meet some terms and call it a day. They must meet all of them, or at least show good faith in their efforts. Can anyone argue that anything Iraq did with regards to this agreement was done in "good faith"? I certainly don't think so.

14. Takes note that the actions to be taken by Iraq in paragraphs 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 of the present resolution represent steps towards the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons;


Hmmm... Do you really think that Iraq's actions between 1991 and 2002 were in keeping with this stated goal? I don't think so.

Again. This is *only* the bits relevant to WMDs. Of the terms Iraq was required to meet, it pretty much failed on every single count. The rest of the resolution is similar.


My point is that you (and lots of other people, so don't feel like I'm singling you out!) keep oversimplifying the issue down to whether or not Iraq physically possessed constructed and ready to use warheads with biological, chemical, or nuclear payloads. But that was *not* the extent of the requirements. While the news agencies made a big deal out of the physical weapons (cause they're scary!), and certainly you can find a zillion soundbites from various politicians on both sides taling about those physical weapons (for much the same reason), the meat of the issue wasn't about the weapons themselves. It was about the materials, the documents, the scientists, the facilities, and the overall productive capability involving those weapons. You tend to believe it's just about the weapons themselves because that's all your news reported. You've likely never read the UN resolution, nor really read any of the speeches about Iraq's lack of compliance except probably those bits that had to do directly with the weapons themselves.

Were you decieved? Maybe. But it's not deception so much as ignorance of the whole facts. Just because the news only rattles off the one paragraph in a document that mentions WMDs, or the one sentence from a speech that does, does not mean that there weren't other terms and statements made. You just didn't hear them. You are a victim of the keyhole nature of the news media far more then any overarching conspiracy by your elected officials to snowball you. No one kept the whole facts from you. They just didn't broadcast it into your living room on your TV for easy consumption. It's not the responsibility of the government to inform you. That's your job. If you believed that we went to war because Iraq possessed WMD and *only* for that reason, then you didn't inform yourself as to why we really went there.

And that's not my fault. Or Bush's. Or Congresses. It's yours...

Edited, Mon Jan 23 23:53:35 2006 by gbaji