Fistfull
We didn't bust Saddam merely for being the Butcher of Baghdad.
Right, and this underscores my main point.
...so, because it wasn't the
SOLE reason, we get no credit for it???
We didn't invade merely because he had WMD, or even because he wouldn't let the UN investigate whether he did or no.
This is a bone of contention as far as I am concerned. There were no proven WMD,
Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, that he knows the three sites where Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept.
Doctor Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted that during the 2003 invasion, there was "chatter" among Iraqi forces that was interpreted to mean that a chemical weapons attack was ordered.
On 3 February 2004, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced an independent inquiry, to be chaired by Lord Butler of Brockwell, to examine the reliability of British intelligence relating to alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.[72]
The Butler Review was published 14 July 2004.
One notable excerpt:
"We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government's dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."
On May 2, 2004 a shell containing mustard gas, was found in the middle of street west of Baghdad.
On May 16, 2004 a 152mm artillery shell was used as an improvised bomb.(Iraq's Chemical Warfare Program Annex F. Retrieved on 2005-06-29.) The shell exploded and two U.S. soldiers were treated for minor exposure to a nerve agent (nausea and dilated pupils). On May 18 it was reported by U.S. Department of Defense intelligence officials that tests showed the two-chambered shell contained the chemical agent sarin, the shell being "likely" to have contained three to four liters of the substance.
After he was captured by U.S. forces in Baghdad in 2003, Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, who ran Saddam's nuclear centrifuge program until 1997, handed over blueprints for a nuclear centrifuge along with some actual centrifuge components, stored at his home buried in the front yard awaiting orders from Baghdad to proceed.
October 3, 2003 - David Kay's Iraq Survey Group report that finds no stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, although it states the government intended to develop more weapons with additional capabilities. Weapons inspectors in Iraq do find some "biological laboratories" and a collection of "reference strains", including a strain of botulinum bacteria, "ought to have been declared to the UN." Kay testifies that Iraq had not fully complied with UN inspections. In some cases, equipment and materials subject to UN monitoring had been kept hidden from UN inspectors. "So there was a WMD program. It was going ahead. It was rudimentary in many areas," Kay would say in a later interview. In other cases, Iraq had simply lied to the UN in its weapons programs.
According to Kay, Iraq worked on WMDs right under the noses of UNMOVIC. Kay said that Iraq had tried to weaponize ricin "right up until" Operation Iraqi Freedom.
FROM David Kay's statement on the interim report of the ISG[97]:
"We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone. We are actively engaged in searching for such weapons based on information being supplied to us by Iraqis."
"With regard to delivery systems, the ISG team has discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements that would have, if OIF had not occurred, dramatically breached UN restrictions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War."
"ISG has gathered testimony from missile designers at Al Kindi State Company that Iraq has reinitiated work on converting SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missiles into ballistic missiles with a range goal of about 250km. Engineering work was reportedly underway in early 2003, despite the presence of UNMOVIC. This program was not declared to the UN."
"ISG has developed multiple sources of testimony, which is corroborated in part by a captured document, that Iraq undertook a program aimed at increasing the HY-2's range and permitting its use as a land-attack missile. These efforts extended the HY-2's range from its original 100km to 150-180km. Ten modified missiles were delivered to the military prior to OIF and two of these were fired from Umm Qasr during OIF -- one was shot down and one hit Kuwait."
Another notable statement is the following:
"We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002."
HOW MUCH PROOF DO YOU NEED??? and had I been Hussein - I would have told the "U.N." to get stuffed as well.
Actions have consequences.
We didn't invade merely because he had supported Islamic and Palestinian terrorism and was eager to do more along those lines.
I don't buy this for a second.
In a January 26, 2004 interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC news, Mr. Kay described Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs as being in a "rudimentary" stage. He also stated that "What we did find, and as others are investigating it, we found a lot of terrorist groups and individuals that passed through Iraq."[98] In responding to a question by Mr. Brokaw as to whether Iraq was a "gathering threat" as President Bush had asserted before the invasion, Mr. Kay answered:
Tom, an imminent threat is a political judgment. Its not a technical judgment. I think Baghdad was actually becoming more dangerous in the last two years than even we realized. Saddam was not controlling the society any longer. In the marketplace of terrorism and of WMD, Iraq well could have been that supplier if the war had not intervened.
Hussein was fairly educated, starting in the late 70s began to start a major industrial program.
...which included the Osirik nuclear reactor. Why does a country with that much oil need a nuclear reactor? For bonus points, describe the god Osiris for whom the reactor complex was named, and list key events in the race for the Islamic Bomb.
Even if Hussein had been involved in some questionable activities, getting involved with Islamic loonies (the very ones that were a threat to civilized Iraq and his government to begin with) and "terrorists" would be literal suicide - national and personal. He and all around him would have known this without a shadow of a doubt.
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided bases, training camps, and other support to terrorist groups fighting the governments of neighboring Turkey and Iran, as well as to Palestinian terror groups. Iraq has helped the Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a separatist organization fighting the Turkish government, and several far-left Palestinian splinter groups that oppose peace with Israel. Iraq also hosted the mercenary Abu Nidal Organization, whose leader was found dead in Baghdad in August 2002. Saddam was a secular dictator, and his regime generally tended to support secular terrorist groups rather than Islamists such as al-Qaeda, experts say. But Iraq also supported some Islamist Palestinian groups opposed to Israel. In violation of international law, Iraq has also sheltered specific terrorists wanted by other countries, reportedly including:
- Abu Nidal, who, until he was found dead in Baghdad in August 2002, led an organization responsible for attacks that killed some 300 people.
- Palestine Liberation Front leader Abu Abbas, who was responsible for the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Laurocruise ship in the Mediterranean. Abbas was captured by U.S. forces April 15.
- Two Saudis who hijacked a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight to Baghdad in 2000.
Abdul Rahman Yasin, who is on the FBI's "most wanted terrorists" list for his alleged role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Iraq has also provided financial support for Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Palestine Liberation Front, and the Arab Liberation Front, and it channeled money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. In April 2002, Iraq increased the amount of such payments from $10,000 to $25,000. Experts say that by promoting Israeli-Palestinian violence, Saddam may have hoped to make it harder for the United States to win Arab support for a campaign against Iraq.
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