"I lied about WMD to hasten Iraq war"

[TommyGunn]

Of course we've never meddled in ME affairs...

 

According to   SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace/Research Institute) America provided 1% of the arms sold to Iraq from the years 1973-2002.
Brazil sold them 2%, or twice as much.
Czechoslovakia sold them 7%
France 13%
And the former U.S.S.R. sold them 57%
So I think this bit of "blame America first" can be put to bed.
Unless you wanna send Brazil a nasty letter.
And maybe Russia a few.

Try DEFINING " meddl(ing) in ME affairs".   By some definitions we've "meddled" in the affairs of every country with whom we have diplomatic relations.

The POINT was not that, but how much munitions we shipped to Iraq.  The answer was 1% of the total of all that had been shipped there over a 29 years period.  Was that point lost on you?   
Or are you so intent on "blaming America first" you'll just move the goalposts all over the field no matter what is said ....... 

[makattak]

This is pure unadulterated blocks. Provide a scrap of evidence for any of these claims.

This is why I've stopped believing any "facts" Shootinstudent claims.

Heck, even the links he provides don't say what he claims they do.

[Monkeyleg]

This is pure unadulterated blocks. Provide a scrap of evidence for any of these claims.

Please refer to my last two posts in which I provided credible evidence to counter De Selby's claims that more Iraqi people are dying, and that the people and the country are poorer.

As for them being "ethnically cleansed", I can't find anything to refer to that either way. Who was cleansed? The Kurds? That was Saddam. The Shilites? Not to my knowledge. The Sunni's? Never read about that.

Most of us post opinions or, when we're posting information, provide sources for that information. In his posts, De Selby makes assertions that sound factual, but provides no documentation. The reader can believe what De Selby says or not believe it, but to figure out if he's right or not takes a lot of time because the onus for proof is put on the reader.

Reminds me of a certain president who says that he's reducing the debt by spending more money. It sounds good, but it's not true.

[GigaBuist]

Wait, are you telling me we went to war based on lies and half-truths that overstated the danger to the homeland?

Well, color me shocked.  You never hear of that kind of thing in the history books.

Hey, can we all promise each other NOT to fall for that one the next time it's tried?

[Tallpine]

Try DEFINING " meddl(ing) in ME affairs".   

The CIA helping to overthrow the govt in Iran back in the 1950s, for one.

[TommyGunn]

The CIA helping to overthrow the govt in Iran back in the 1950s, for one.

Very good! You get a gold star! (I wonder if anyone has written a book detailing all the cr@p the former Soviet Union has done with regards to "meddling in foreign affairs" via their intelligence services?  )

Now, how does that relate to how much munitions we sold to Iraq??

[GigaBuist]

Now, how does that relate to how much munitions we sold to Iraq??

It isn't how much we sold them that's the big deal.  It's what we sold them.  1982-1988 was a pretty busy time period.  Anthrax, botulin, mustard gas, etc.  Nasty stuff and they either got it from the US or with the help of the US.

That's not really disputed, is it?  I thought it was just considered common knowledge at this point.

[TommyGunn]

It isn't how much we sold them that's the big deal.  It's what we sold them.  1982-1988 was a pretty busy time period.  Anthrax, botulin, mustard gas, etc.  Nasty stuff and they either got it from the US or with the help of the US.

That's not really disputed, is it?  I thought it was just considered common knowledge at this point.

With regards to the biological stuff, it was my understanding that much of it was actually "precurser" stuff, not the actual material.
Given the nature of it I doubt that Iraq would have been unable to obtain it if we had not sold it and I am not even sure that we actually were the sole or even the largest supplier given how many other countries were involved in selling stuff to Iraq. The report I quoted in my previous post above from SIPRI listed ten other countries selling them stuff.
Like it or not we have done business with people who've "bitten" us before.  During WW2 a common refrain from Pacific Theater soldiers who, having been bombed by the Japanese, was that the bombs being dropped on them was simply "being returned to sender;"  ie; the steel they had been made from had been sold to the Japanese by America, before the war.  

[De Selby]

Monkeyleg,

You posted simple comparisons of numbers that don't actually relate to quality of life.  The death rate has more to do with population growth than killings; likewise, GDP growth does not equal more money for most Iraqis. This article gives a good summary of the statistics with an explanation: 
http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/08/life-in-iraq-before-and-after-invasion.html

In sum, Iraqis have an insanely high risk of violence (almost 20 percent chance of dying before 40!) and almost no prospects for finding employment that pays the bills. 

Perhaps this explains why Iraqis are hitting the streets in protests like Egyptians these days?

[Monkeyleg]

Hmmm, let see. I can believe numbers from the CIA, or I can believe a blog from someone I've never heard of, and believe De Selby.

What to do? What to do?

The per capita GDP doesn't equal more money for most Iraqi's? Who does it equal more money for, then? The Baathist party? Saddam? GW Bush?

I show that the death rate has gone down, and you say that has nothing to do with "the quality of life".  When we were arguing socialized health care, you used a country's death rate as a measure of the quality of health care.

Also, birth rates measure population growth. Death rates measure deaths, including killings.

As for protests in Iraq, is this what you're referring to? Sounds like a typical day in DC. This is from Reuters, by the way, not some right-wing extremist propaganda machine like Fox News.

[De Selby]

Monkeyleg,

I linked you to income figures and job prospects - that's how you measure how most people are doing.  GDP can expand by several orders of magnitude while leaving most people impoverished; per-capita GDP is a measurement based on population versus overall production.  It doesn't tell you who got the increase.

Now, for death rate, no, I did not use that in talking about healthcare - I used average life expectancy, which is also down in Iraq.  Also, if you look above, I did not say the death rate has nothing to do with "quality of life" - I said it's a measure of population growth, ie, specifically, the proportion of young versus old.  Life expectancy and homicide numbers tell you how many people are being killed and how long people get to live.

Also, mobs of people in DC who so threaten government buildings that they need to be shot at to disperse them are not common.  You do also realised that the Prime Minister recently announced he won't run for another term, in response to the protests?  Protests all over are demanding the restoration of basic services and the resignations of local governors. 

There's more protest activity right now, and more violence to stop it, in Iraq than in Iran.

[roo_ster]

It isn't how much we sold them that's the big deal.  It's what we sold them.  1982-1988 was a pretty busy time period.  Anthrax, botulin, mustard gas, etc.  Nasty stuff and they either got it from the US or with the help of the US.

That's not really disputed, is it?  I thought it was just considered common knowledge at this point.

Only by people with any knowledge WRT ITAR and similar laws & regulations pertaining to commerce with foreign nations.

Thing is, unless we are willing to place a complete trade embargo on a country, they will have access to the materials & methods for producing chemical weapons and biological weapons.  If the locals want to build an aspirin factory and then do so, they now have the capability to produce all sorts of nasty stuff. (This may lead to misunderstandings as to chem weapons productions facilities.  Ask Bill Clinton about it.)

Heck, read up on some of the meth cooking recipes and note how mundane the ingredients are.  Well, those same ingredients can also produce phosgene, used as a chemical weapon during WWI.  Think there is any will on anyone's part to restrict all common household cleaning products?  Didn't think so.

[Monkeyleg]

I linked you to income figures and job prospects - that's how you measure how most people are doing.

You provided a link to a blog whose author doesn't even post his name. If this were high school, and you used such a source as reference for your term paper, you'd flunk.

I'm not going to spend hours or even days going over the blogger's numbers to see if they're correct or not.

How about posting more credible sources?

Now, on that "population growth" thing (again using the  CIA World Factbook):

Iraq 2010 Population: 29,671,605
Iraq 2002 Population: 24,001,816
Difference= +23.6%

Stable government, beloved by its citizens:
Iran 2010 Population: 76,923,300
Iran 2002 Population: 66,622,704
Difference= +15.6%

[De Selby]

You provided a link to a blog whose author doesn't even post his name. If this were high school, and you used such a source as reference for your term paper, you'd flunk.

I'm not going to spend hours or even days going over the blogger's numbers to see if they're correct or not.

How about posting more credible sources?

Now, on that "population growth" thing (again using the  CIA World Factbook):

Iraq 2010 Population: 29,671,605
Iraq 2002 Population: 24,001,816
Difference= +23.6%

Stable government, beloved by its citizens:
Iran 2010 Population: 76,923,300
Iran 2002 Population: 66,622,704
Difference= +15.6%

Luckily, that blogger cited his work, so you don't need to spend hours to check it. 

It takes less than a minute, however, to think about how population figures don't say much.  Population explodes because babies are being born, not because a country is doing well. 

An explanation of death rate is here, which also illustrates why your citation doesn't actually tell you anything meaningful about life in Iraq (but the blogger's citations do):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate

Note that the crude death rate as defined above and applied to a whole population can give a misleading impression. The crude death rate depends on the age (and gender) specific mortality rates and the age (and gender) distribution of the population. The number of deaths per 1000 people can be higher for developed nations than in less-developed countries, despite life expectancy being higher in developed countries due to standards of health being better. This happens because developed countries typically have a completely different population age distribution, with a much higher proportion of older people, due to both lower recent birth rates and lower mortality rates. A more complete picture of mortality is given by a life table which shows the mortality rate separately for each age. A life table is necessary to give a good estimate of life expectancy.

If you look in the CIA world fact book's notes, you'll see that "death rate" means "crude death rate".

[Buzzcook]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/index.html

"In fact, Secretary Powell was not told that one of the sources he was given as a source of this information had indeed been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a liar, a fabricator," says David Kay, who served as the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. That source, an Iraqi defector who had never been debriefed by the CIA, was known within the intelligence community as "Curveball."

That's from 2005. We knew Curveball was lying when the government was using his information.

Way past time that the Bush administration was investigated for war crimes.

[Jamisjockey]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/index.html

That's from 2005. We knew Curveball was lying when the government was using his information.

Way past time that the Bush administration was investigated for war crimes.

 

All your link proves is that the intelligence community is incompetent.

[Buzzcook]

All your link proves is that the intelligence community is incompetent.

All the link proves is that the Bush administration knew it was using false information in order to justify an illegal war.

[Jamisjockey]

All the link proves is that the Bush administration knew it was using false information in order to justify an illegal war.

Let me guess: They needed the illegal war to make Halliburton rich, right?

[Monkeyleg]

No, JJ, it was to avenge Saddam's plot to kill Bush I.

No, wait a minute. It was so we could get cheap gas.

No, that's not it. It was to boost GW's poll numbers.

That's not it, either. It was so Bush could fly a fighter plane again, when he went on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

[RevDisk]

Wait, are you telling me we went to war based on lies and half-truths that overstated the danger to the homeland?

Well, color me shocked.  You never hear of that kind of thing in the history books.

BWAHAHAHA, yea, funny how that works.   "Sure, we started the last X wars under false or misleading pretenses, but this time we're telling the truth!"   I'm not pointing at America.  That's how MOST wars are sold to the people, going back to the Roman empire.  pfft, I'm sure the Sumerians did the same thing. 

Six or eight thousand years later, some tricks never grow old.

[Scout26]

The WMD's was just ONE reason we went to war with Iraq. 

There were 17 violated UN resolutions.

Violation of the 1991 Ceasefire Agreement.

Numerous attempts to target/shoot down our aircraft patrolling the No-Fly zones.

An yes he was trying to get WMD's (he still had some that didn't get destroyed/turned-in in '91.) 

[Perd Hapley]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/index.html

All your link proves is that the intelligence community is incompetent.

All the link proves is that the Bush administration knew it was using false information in order to justify an illegal war.

Where? Jamis is right. The article basically blames the CIA and the DIA, while portraying Bush's Secretary of State as trying to get at the truth. If we should interpret the article differently, please explain.

On reading through the article again, it doesn't seem anyone is being accused of lying. It speaks of being "mistaken" and "dead wrong," but nowhere does it say anyone in our government was lying.

[Buzzcook]

The article basically blames the CIA and the DIA, while portraying Bush's Secretary of State as trying to get at the truth. If we should interpret the article differently, please explain.

OK

Powell's speech, delivered on February 5, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

emphasis mine.

It was not the CIA that provided intel to Powell it was the Whitehouse.

I might add that even before Powell's speech at the UN many if not all the claims he made were know to be false or questionable.

The aluminum tubes that Powell claimed could only be used to produce nuclear weapons. Laurence Livermore  Labs had already debunked that; pointing out that they were unsuitable for use in nuclear plants.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03tube.html?pagewanted=print&
 

The next day, Energy Department officials ticked off a long list of reasons why the tubes did not appear well suited for centrifuges. Simply put, the analysis concluded that the tubes were the wrong size - too narrow, too heavy, too long - to be of much practical use in a centrifuge.

What was more, the analysis reasoned, if the tubes were part of a secret, high-risk venture to build a nuclear bomb, why were the Iraqis haggling over prices with suppliers all around the world? And why weren't they shopping for all the other sensitive equipment needed for centrifuges?

All fine questions. But if the tubes were not for a centrifuge, what were they for?

Within weeks, the Energy Department experts had an answer.

It turned out, they reported, that Iraq had for years used high-strength aluminum tubes to make combustion chambers for slim rockets fired from launcher pods. Back in 1996, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had even examined some of those tubes, also made of 7075-T6 aluminum, at a military complex, the Nasser metal fabrication plant in Baghdad, where the Iraqis acknowledged making rockets. According to the international agency, the rocket tubes, some 66,000 of them, were 900 millimeters in length, with a diameter of 81 millimeters and walls 3.3 millimeters thick.

Ok here's Powell before the UN

POWELL: t strikes me as quite odd that these [aluminum] tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.

Now we've already seen that as far back as 96 we knew that the Iraqis were using these tubes to make rockets and then in 2001 and again in 2003 Lawrence Livermore say the tubes were not suitable. But what did Powell and the Whitehouse know?
From the same link.

In late 2001, intelligence analysts at the State Department also took issue with Joe's work in reports prepared for Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Joe was "very convinced, but not very convincing," recalled Greg Thielmann, then director of strategic, proliferation and military affairs in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

So Powell knew about this at least one year before his UN address. Unless you believe the Whitehouse doesn't read it's mail they knew at the same time, at the latest.

Then there is this.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_appendix-b.htm
 Page 6, aluminum-tube discussion. The good news is we believe the text is far better than the "Friday version." Our key remaining concern is the claim that the tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that "far exceeds US requirements for comparable rockets." In fact, the most comparable US system is a tactical rocket—the US Mark 66 air-launched 70mm rocket—that uses the same, high-grade (7075-T6) aluminum, and that has specifications with similar tolerances. Note that the Mk 66 specifications are unclassified, and the Department is planning to share them with the IAEA.

We understand CIA now argues that a comparable US system is an Astros multiple-launcher rocket, said to have much looser tolerances. We believe this system is less comparable, for at least two reasons: 1) The Astros does not involve high-strength aluminum; and 2) the Iraqi rocket in question, the Nasser 81 MLR, was reverse-engineered from an Italian air-launched rocket, not an MLR system.

I might add that there were plenty of people pointing out that the aluminum tube story was bogus, well before the invasion.

Moving on.

Remember the "translation" made that showed Iraqi officials "hiding evidence?
Turns out the official State Department translation was a bit different.

    POWELL: "They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes.''

    "Yes."

    "For the possibility there are forbidden ammo."

    "For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?''

    "Yes."

    "And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there.''[/quote] emphasis mine

Here's the official translation that was available to Powell and the Whitehouse.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030404073844/http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/events/secretary/2003/17399.htm

"And we sent you a message to inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas."

Iraqi officials sending those notices was in ine with demands made by weapon inspectors.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/chap1.html

The NMD director met with Republican Guard military leaders on 25 January 2003 and advised them they were to sign documents saying that there was no WMD in their units, according to a former Iraqi senior officer. Husam Amin told them that the government would hold them responsible if UNMOVIC found any WMD in their units or areas, or if there was anything that cast doubt on Iraq’s cooperation with UNMOVIC. Commanders established committees to ensure their units retained no evidence of old WMD.

moving on

   

POWELL: Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons.

    The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law.

Ok this'll be the last bit I take from Powell's speech. If anyone wants to go on google is there for them.

Hussein Kamal had defected from Iraq in 1995. He had been debriefed by several agencies including the UN. Kamal later returned to Iraq and was murdered by Saddam.

Powell and the Bush administration both used the information derived from Kamal to make their case for invasion. I am closing with a couple quotes from Kamal.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/un/unscom-iaea_kamal-brief.htm

General Hussein Kamal - Samarra started to produce medicine with workers from Muthanna. Muthanna itself started production of pesticides and insecticides, but some of them turned out to be more difficult to produce than CW. We gave instructions not to produce chemical weapons. I don't remember resumption of chemical weapon production before the Gulf War. Maybe it was only minimal production and filing. But there was no decision to use chemical weapons for fear of retaliation. They realised that if chemical weapons were used, retaliation would be nuclear. they must have a revision of decision to start production. All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missiles, nuclear were destroyed.

Smidovich asked if there was a report to the President with an inventory of all available proscribed weapons in mid-May 1991.

General Hussein Kamal - I am not aware but someone else cold have done such reporting. I resigned from the Party in July as I did not want to be associated with their policies. It was Tariq Aziz's mistake.

Smidovich asked why missiles and chemical weapons were kept in part while biological weapons were all destroyed.

General Hussein Kamal - in the nuclear area, there were no weapons. Missile and chemical weapons were real weapons. Our main worry was Iran and they were against them. So enough for today.

emphasis mine.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/kamel_transcript/index.html

SADLER: Can you state here and now -- does Iraq still to this day hold weapons of mass destruction?

KAMEL: No. Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. I am being completely honest about this.

There can be no doubt that the Bush administration knew it was lying us into a war.

[GigaBuist]

Only by people with any knowledge WRT ITAR and similar laws & regulations pertaining to commerce with foreign nations.

Uh, RevDisk, care to weigh in on this one?  I originally said I didn't think it was disputed that we sold, or helped Iraq obtain, some nasty stuff like mustard gas, botulin, etc. in the 1982-1988 time frame.

You're 'the only guy I know of here with ITAR experience.  Can you enlighten me?

[roo_ster]

Uh, RevDisk, care to weigh in on this one?  I originally said I didn't think it was disputed that we sold, or helped Iraq obtain, some nasty stuff like mustard gas, botulin, etc. in the 1982-1988 time frame.

You're 'the only guy I know of here with ITAR experience.  Can you enlighten me?

GB:

The upshot is that no, the materials needed to make many chemical weapons are not controlled outside of complete embargoes. 

My chemistry-fu is pretty weak, but I do know that those same materials are the building blocks of lots of commercial industries and processes: nitric & hydrochloric acids, stainless steel, glassware, precision instrumentation, this list goes on & on.  Once you get those, you can make packing peanuts, pharmaceuticals, mustard gas, fertilizer, whatever.

Heck, the oldest formula for mustard gas uses ethelyne & sulfur dichloride.  Texas produces ethelyne by the metric buttload--several chemical plants produce it to be sold all over the world.  Lots of other places produce it, too.  A lot of it ends up in radiators as ethelyne glycol (antifreeze).  I had to look up sulfur dichloride, but it turns out that if you shoot black powder, you need it.  Same with artificial rubber products and clothes & dish detergent.