Scooter Libby found guilty.

Geoff Timm

Why is it that this official looking "Department of Defense" website you linked does not have a .gov address?

Not to mention the term "500 munitions" is sooo misleading. That is counting primarily old shell casings found buried in the dirt. No official report would be so vague and misleading.
 
PlayboyPenguin inquired, "Why is it that this official looking "Department of Defense" website you linked does not have a .gov address?

Not to mention the term "500 munitions" is sooo misleading. That is counting primarily old shell casings found buried in the dirt. No official report would be so vague and misleading."

It's a .mil for US Military address. An official Department of Defense source.

As noted the exact figures are classified. These munitions have been recovered from Iraqi army munitions sites, some of them open storage, some in underground bunkers, some buried near military installations. All lacking recent maintenance.

Bad news, we haven't had the forces to investigate all the weapons sites we know about.

Geoff
Who notes all chemical weapons were to have been destroyed and verified by inspectors. Obviously some were hidden by burial, now worry about how long it will be before the buried shells start leaking.
Who also notes there are several generations of Warsaw Pact chemical weapons decaying in the ground in the former Warsaw Pact countries, think about that if you like nightmares.
 
Goslash's reply re: the munitions found is good for me. Part of invading a country because of WMD's is that the country must have them AND be a credible threat. When they talk about any % greater than 0 with prolonged exposure can be lethal, that is really reaching. They have a toxin, yes, but is that a Weapon (corroded, unusable in current state) of Mass (more than 5 people?) Destruction? Do those shell casings justify $500 billion, thousands of US lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives? hmmm, now that I think about it, they WERE WMDs, just pointed indirectly at themselves....

GoSlash's reply re: armitage. I don't know. I think Waxman will get back around to him at some point, judging from the hearing on Friday. Victoria DID have a valid point as to how the CIA went about protecting Valerie Plame.
 
The fact is, if anything beyond trace amounts of materials were found on old shell casings it would be well documented. These are just old spent shell casing that have either a trace radiological or chemical signature. Tracer rounds would even qualify under this loose definition of WMD. This just a bunch of clever word play trying to defend an undefendable situation. They were wrong, they knew they were going to be wrong, and now they are trying to misdirect attention and opinion.

During the first gulf war such findings were common and disregarded. Now they are trying to trump up these "non-issue" items to mislead people into tthinking somethign was really found.
 
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GoSlash27 commented, "
Quote:
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
I remember this report. We all had a big laugh over it at the expense of the Bush apologists when they triumphantly reported it.
If those things were WMDs, then so is that can of oven cleaner under your sink. Maybe we should invade your house next?

Look...the rationale for invasion changed many times over the course of this war, but the idea that we were invading in order to remove old dented rusty expired chemical munition shells from the desert *wasn't* one of 'em."

VX samples tested remain lethal over 50 years after being produced. The US Army chemical weapons were well and properly maintained. You still had to wear full protective suits to enter the bunkers.

Only one of these weapons has been used against US Troops, fortunately not well, so far.

ALL of these weapons were supposed to have been surrendered to the UN Inspectors and destroyed. ALL OF THEM. Not hidden by burying underground.

In many ways improperly stored weapons are more dangerous than properly stored weapons. The Saddam Iraqi Army had a rather careless proceedure regarding chemical weapons and didn't store their conventional weapons any better. You may not be able to load a 152mm Corroded chemical weapon into a gun, but you might just die touching it.

Geoff
Who was an NBC NCO many years ago.
 
Whether or why Libby lied, is sloppy, has a terrible memory or who knows what tends to pale, it seems to me, before the fact of the Bush Administration having made so terrible a mess of things.
 
PlayboyPenguin commented, "The fact is, if anything beyond trace amounts of materials were found on old shell casings it would be well documented. These are just old spent shell casing that have either a trace radiological or chemical signature. Tracer rounds would even qualify under this loose definition of WMD. This just a bunch of clever word play trying to defend an undefendable situation. They were wrong, they knew they were going to be wrong, and now they are trying to misdirect attention and opinion."

These are not "spent shell casings" if they were, they wouldn't have any trace chemicals on them, unless the shell exploded in the weapon, in which case you would have entirely different evidence.

As for reasons for invading Iraq, that we have from the United Nations.

Now, I am all for pulling out of Iraq, as long as we pull out the rest of our troops, who are scattered around the world under various UN mandates.

Face Facts Folks. The UN is a force only when the US of A is willing to back it's agreements with FORCE. I no longer see the US of A having any interests in common with the United Nations, nor do I see us getting any more of our people killed for the UN or wasting our treasure and going into debt to support the UN.

Geoff
Who is not happy with the Republic playing world policeman for a very ungrateful UN. :barf:
 
These are not "spent shell casings" if they were, they wouldn't have any trace chemicals on them, unless the shell exploded in the weapon, in which case you would have entirely different evidence.
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I hate to break it to you but you are incorrect. Many of the items discovered during the first war that had radiological or chemical signatures were spent casing, misfire rounds, and old ammo storage boxes. The act of manufactering or just constant contact with the improperly protected and stored ammo leaves enough of a signature on the casing or storage box to be detectable. I was there and saw it all the time.

Also, contact sights such as sights of past explosions, detonation, attacks, and manufacturing will still have a signature many years later. It is like finding a civil war bullet in a field and assuming people are still using muskets.

Even if they found a bunker of 500 chemically loaded mortars (which is far beyond anything they have actually found) that would be like saying that the USA has been stock piling illegal weapons because some guy in Omaha managed to get his hands on a couple ounces of anthrax. It just does not constitutes a arsenal or a reason for war.
 
I will also add that America still has thousands of chemical shells sitting at the bottom or Bari Harbor in Italy. The shells were on a ship that was sunk by a suprise German airstrike during WII. The side effect of the materials being there have killed and injured many of the residents of Bari to this very day.

America also has massive stores of mustard gas and lucite bombs spread throughout the world. Leftovers of previous wars.

Do these shells constitute a reason for the eastern world to declare war on the USA for having stockpiles of chemical weapons? Especially since AMerca official denied the existance of the munitions at first and then later claimed they had been properly disposed on when they had not.

That is what some people are trying to say is sound reasoning in Iraq.
 
Playboypenquin posted many things, working farther and farther afield.

Saddam had lethal chemical weapons.

Saddam USED lethal chemical weapons.

The UN decided he should not do this and after a war got him to agree, in order to save his throne.

He did not obey the UN orders.

The US and allies invaded under the authority of the UN.

Now, we are still there trying to establish a democratic government. I don't hold out much hope. We are doing this because Democratic Governments generally do not start wars and too many educated people have been educated to believe that a democratic government is the "natural state" of mankind, despite 5000 years of history.

Now, if you choose to believe otherwise, not much I can do about it.

Geoff
Who fears we have some anti-Bush fanatics in the crowd.
 
Saddam had lethal chemical weapons.
Saddam USED lethal chemical weapons.
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The USA had chemical weapons and used chemical weapons.
The USA still has huge stockpiles of them in fact.
He did not obey the UN orders.
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Actually Saddam was complying with UN decrees. he repeatedly agreed to their conditions for inspections and other things. It was the Bush administration that refuesed to accept the terms the UN put in plce and demanded stricter requirements.
The US and allies invaded under the authority of the UN.
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Correct me if I am wrong but the UN actually claimed that the invasion was an illegal act and should have been decided by the Security Council and not the Bush administration. Bush had promised congress and the American public to return to the UN for such a decision but then refused to do so. How do you get that the invasion was done under UN authority?
 
Gentlemen

It comes down to this:

Seventeen resolutions and twelve years

The United Nations passed resolution after resolution to no avail. They showed themselves to be the paper tiger they are; and Saddam thumbed his nose at them with increasing vigor.

They never had any success dealing with Saddam, the largest failure of which was the Oil for Food (OFF) program. Saddam skimmed off billions from the OFF program; and with that money he bought still more weapons with which to threaten his neighbors.

Finally, someone said "If not us -- who? If not now -- when?"; and took the actions that threat after threat and resolution after resolution had failed to do.

The fact is the the U.S. has ALWAYS been the one to leap into the fray and take care of business while other nations would stand by and condone the actions of barbarians. The Nazis marched nearly unopposed across Europe and it took a foreign power to sail across the sea and bring its might and courage to defeat them. Countries local to the war stood silent as the Nazis march of conquest goose-stepped through their back yard.

We have ALWAYS come to the aid of the downtrodden and this is merely one more time that we have done so. It is also one more time that we have done so thanklessly as our allies who begged the U.S. for their salvation have turned their backs on us after we saved them from destruction. We saved their lives, their homeland, and their culture only to be spurned in our time of need.

Twenty-six million -- let me repeat that -- TWENTY-SIX MILLION Iraqis have a chance at freedom and liberty because of one thing and one thing only -- THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. If not for the U.S. the rape rooms would be open; Saddams offspring would still be prowling the streets of Baghdad raping, killing, and maiming their fellow Iraqis at their pleasure; the torture rooms would still be in full swing; and dissidents would still be being thrown from tall buildings or hanged at the local soccer field.

I don't give a steaming pile of dog doo whether there were WMD or not -- the intel for which the Brits still stand behind. We freed a people who were just as deserving of that freedom as any French, Australian, Filipino, Chinese, Belgian, African, Polish, Russian, and, yes, German, Japanese, and Italian person in 1945.

WE FREED A PEOPLE FROM TYRANNY AND THE BEST WE CAN DO IS TO DEBATE WHETHER THE REASON FOR THAT FREEDOM WAS JUSTIFIED!!!.

Does anyone here believe that the Iraqis give a damn that there were no WMD? They give a damn that we are there and we are trying to give them what we gave the rest of the world in 1945.

Unfortunately, there are those, some of whom gather on this board, who do not believe that a people deserve freedom unless there is a good reason to give it to them beyond "They are deserving of, and have a God given right to it."

<sigh>
 
JIMPEEL: So, why would "Scooter" Libby obstruct justice in the Plame outing?

You do realize that we are now 5 years in and STILL can't have more than 4 hours of electricity because we destroyed their infrastructure?

Are you seriously putting forth the "greet us as liberators" argument?
 
Twenty-six million -- let me repeat that -- TWENTY-SIX MILLION Iraqis have a chance at freedom and liberty because of one thing and one thing only -- THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
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Fact- More than 90% of all Iraqis polled say they are worse off now than before the invasion. More than 75% said they would help insurgents kill Americans if given the chance.
We have ALWAYS come to the aid of the downtrodden and this is merely one more time that we have done so
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Are you saying that the people of Iraq where the most in need people in the world? That there are no other places where people are worse off than the people or Iraq were?

Because if that is not the case why did we chose Iraq?
I don't give a steaming pile of dog doo whether there were WMD or not -- the intel for which the Brits still stand behind.
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Really? Seems to me that was the reason for this war. So you don't care if we went to war under false pretenses?

Side note, the Brits are not standing behind any itel saying that Saddam definativly had WMDs.
 
Fact- More than 90% of all Iraqis polled say they are worse off now than before the invasion. More than 75% said they would help insurgents kill Americans if given the chance.
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Link/proof?
 
JIMPEEL: So, why would "Scooter" Libby obstruct justice in the Plame outing?
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Don't know. Don't care.

You do realize that we are now 5 years in and STILL can't have more than 4 hours of electricity because we destroyed their infrastructure?
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Their "infrastructure" was a shambles before we got there. There will come a time when you will look back at all of this and wish like hell you had invested in Iraqi Dinars.

You seem to conveniently forget that the insurgency attacking the infrastructure is the main reason that the infrastructure is deficient.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3534169.stm (note the foreign source as I know you wouldn't believe anything from these shores)

Read this and click the footnoted links http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_of_Iraq Your "four hour" figure is bogus as it is only half the truth. In this day and age with all of the information available did you truly think I wouldn't check your stats?

By the way, you are nothing new on the subject of the failure of reconstruction after a war, Please see my next post for details.

Maybe you should pay more attention to http://www.investorsiraq.com/ and http://www.portaliraq.com/news.php?catid=10 and less attention to http://www.meetwithcindy.org/ and http://www.michaelmoore.com

Iraqna http://www.iraqna.com/ is up and coming and has made cell phone communications available to millions of Iraqis.
In January 2004, Orascom Telecom Iraq (OTI) launched its initial phase of the network IraQna after being awarded the first license for the Central Region in Iraq. OTI is now serving over 2 million subscribers on its network and is providing state of the art mobile technology. Pursuing its success OTI expanded its services to the Southern region of Iraq in November 2004 to become the first operator to deploy its services nationally in the whole country. As of September, 2005, the central region contains over 35% of Iraq’s population, or approximately 9.3 million inhabitants.
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See also http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-02-08-iraq-cell-phones_x.htm

Are you seriously putting forth the "greet us as liberators" argument?
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No. I want you to realize that you are a member of the greatest liberating nation on the face of the Earth and have some appreciation of that fact. No other nation in history has done so much for so many for so little appreciation.

Do you believe that the Iraqis were only deserving of liberty and freedom if there were some extenuating circumstance? Do you believe they were only deserving of freedom based upon the existence of a physical, inanimate object that was to your satisfaction? Do you believe that they don't deserve what you enjoy every day because this object was not found -- i.e. "F--- 'em. They got what they deserved."? Are they even human to you at all?
 
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