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| Iraq |
| Weapons ’no longer the issue’ |
| 2003-09-09 |
| Weapons ’no longer the issue’ Has it ever been? United States President George W. Bush has changed his public rationale for the increasingly costly American military effort in Iraq. The once-heralded search for weapons of mass destruction is now little more than a footnote as Bush recasts Iraq into Ground Zero in a broader war against terrorism. How comes that it does not surprise me dear George. So downgraded has the hunt for such weapons become that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he didn’t even bring it up when he met in Baghdad on Saturday with David Kay, the CIA adviser heading the search. "I’m assuming he’d tell me if he’d gotten something," Rumsfeld told reporters travelling with him on Monday. Nice reply Rummy Saddam Hussein’s arsenal isn’t the only item dropped from the administration’s rhetoric. Also gone are the early assurances that, unlike barren Afghanistan, Iraq could easily finance its own reconstruction from oil revenues. Damn Baathist keeping blowing up those pipelines More than five months after Bush stood on a carrier deck under a "Mission Accomplished" banner and proclaimed major combat operations over, no weapons of mass destruction have been found and Iraqi oil exports have failed to bring in large revenues. Meanwhile, deadly attacks on American forces are continuing, terror bombings are on the rise and Saddam’s fate remains unknown. The president’s speech to the nation on Sunday was a sombre acknowledgment that winning the peace in Iraq is proving far more complex and costly than winning the war. With the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks approaching, "Iraq is now the central front" in the US-led war on terrorism, Bush asserted. He said it would take $87-billion more for the job in Iraq and Afghanistan and called for a United Nations peacekeeping force in Iraq. "The president clearly has changed course here," said former Republican Lee Hamilton , vice chairman of the national commission on terrorist attacks against the United States. "He speaks now about a transformation of the Middle East and he certainly blends together the war on terrorism with the effort to build a stable Iraq. And he went on record seeking international help, which is a change in tactic that comes about because he simply found out we can’t do it alone," said Hamilton, former chairman of the House International Relations Committee. You @#$#@! pervert democrat, shut the @#*! up! US and British occupation forces have found little to justify pre-war claims by the president and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that Saddam possessed chemical, biological and possibly even nuclear weapons - and was poised to use them. Bush’s claim in his State of the Union address that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa has been discredited. No weapons of mass destruction have been located, even though searchers have found quantities of chemicals and substances that could be used to make both weapons and legitimate civilian items. US forces turned up two truck trailers that some administration officials contended where probably biological weapons labs. But a team of Pentagon investigators also said they could have been used to produce hydrogen for military weather balloons, just as the Iraqis had said. Whether Saddam actually possessed weapons of mass destruction "isn’t really the issue," John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, now suggests. "The issue I think has been the capability that Iraq sought to have," Bolton said in a recent interview. Benjamin Barber, professor of civil society at the University of Maryland and author of the book, Fear’s Empire: war, terrorism and democracy, said that Bush’s recast war rationale makes it easier for administration hawks to justify pre-emptive wars as a means of going after terrorism. "That’s a more serious mistake than to try to claim we were going after weapons of mass destruction," Barber said. "It sends the wrong note to our allies at the United Nations." The president’s congressional allies welcomed his new war rationale. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar called Bush’s address "a comprehensive presentation of the scope of our war against terrorism, its current focus, our determination to succeed and the cost". Yeah sure, guess mr. Lugar masturbates on every speech of Bush |
| Posted by:Murat |
| #16 The anti-war people are on drugs. They're also behaviourly irrational people. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-9-9 10:36:45 PM |
| #15 The real truth on WMD #1: If we haven't found any then the Inspectors were not going to find any. #2: If the U.N. could not find any then the U.N. WOULD HAVE TO LIFT SANCTIONS! #3: With the sanctions lifted then there is a good chance the U.S. would have to get out of Saudi Arabia (as we just have done) #4: Now with no Sanctions and No American presense Saddam is completly free to Re-start making the WMD's since he never LOST THE ABILITY TO MAKE THEM. Look, this was a stupid chess game all along. Saddam knew he had to ACTUALLY GET RID OF all evidence of the weapons to get the U.N. sanctions off. We knew (and anybody with a brain knows) that he would then start making them again (or move them back into the country). Therefore while we still had the enforcement of the U.N. mandate we applied pressure (i.e. troop buildup). Saddam then worried that we may invade was forced pretend he had them (WMD's are a deterent) and therefore added doubt to His claims he did not have any (this type of tactics are common, remember the fake army in England before D-Day, or the fake Marine Invasion during Ds-1, or the Soviets flying Bombers in Circles to make us think they had more than they had?). Therefore we had probable cause to act and we acted using the Authority of the U.N. mandate, following pretty close the same model used for Kosovo (remember the U.N. did not authorize that operation and therefore it was launched under Nato). Therefore the real question to the anti-war people is "Do you believe that Saddam would never return to making WMD's?" If you believe he would have then we were right in acting. And we DID operate well within what has been done before (i.e. Kosovo) Continued carping about this is stupid, dangerous, and serves nobody but the Terrorists. |
| Posted by: Patrick 2003-9-9 9:24:03 PM |
| #14 Hi, Murat. Out of meds today? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-9-9 8:35:32 PM |
| #13 There was and old fart named Chirac who looked down his nose on Iraq Without blinking an eye He sniffed "Turkey bye-bye" Cried all Rantburg "Where's Murat?" |
| Posted by: john 2003-9-9 4:34:27 PM |
| #12 Murat - What do you expect in response to your half-wit posts? You merely sift though the lefty-pandering BS and look for trouble. Any dope could do it. Sigh. Ye Olde Reservoir O' Patience is getting low and the flow is tasting a bit muddy... |
| Posted by: .com (a.k.a. Abu This!) 2003-9-9 3:45:26 PM |
| #11 Weapons ’no longer the issue’ Has it ever bin? Yes, when Saddam was in power. Now that that he's gone, weapons are 'no longer the issue'. Easy enough to understand. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-9-9 2:26:31 PM |
| #10 I like the weather balloon angle that folks are going for. Never knew the Iraqi army had meteorologists. Must be important to know the upper-level wind direction if you are going to air-burst a .... Forget it. Must be dreaming. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-9-9 2:19:07 PM |
| #9 How long has it been since a American soldiers actually died? On top of that, A Sadaam Fedayeen was caught trying too take out another Ayatollah ( However the hell you spell the damn names! ). Plus we've nabbed some high-profile people who were paying the militia to attack us. " We'll commit ourselves to Jihad just as soon as we get paid. " We've made progress and have practically rooted out the Sadaam Fedayeen. You're just loath to admit it, Murat. |
| Posted by: Charles 2003-9-9 2:15:48 PM |
| #8 Damn Baathist keeping blowing up those pipelines No, actually they blow themselves up. Secretly, they hate George Bush too! Bush’s claim in his State of the Union address that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa has been discredited It must really steam you Murat, that for once an American (or any other EU/UN politiian) would actually admit they received bad intel. No beating around the Bush (no pun intended) or changing the subject like the US liberal or Euro trash politicos. It's cool though Murat, since the same frustration you feel is the same most Rantburgers feel when they read that BBC, Al-Bizarro, and CNN trash they always put out. Can't stand the spin can you. Muahahahaha. You see, when the troopies return to Germany from the Gulf, I get the lowdown. They consistantly tell me that the mass media is full of sh!t. It seems that the entire country of Iraq fits into the Baghdad city limits. Anything good that happens outside the city limits doesn't count. But, wait I can feel the popular Iraqi civilian uprising coming.... .... .... .... Wait another soldier wounded in Baghdad! Woo Hoo! It's on now for sure! (ROTFL) |
| Posted by: Paul 2003-9-9 1:49:58 PM |
| #7 "I'll admit that there's a fair bit of smart-assery and "trash talk" here in Rantburg" What?? A fair bit??? Am I not posting enough Mike? ;-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-9-9 11:47:53 AM |
| #6 Yes, Murat, whatever meds you were taking yesterday, you need to take them again. |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-9-9 11:20:37 AM |
| #5 Murat: A little friendly advice. Yesterday, you had a good, substantive, respectful discussion going with some of the regulars. Today, well, . . . hate to say it, but we're not quite there. If you want to disagree with the conventional wisdom, that's cool. But insult is not persuasive. I'll admit that there's a fair bit of smart-assery and "trash talk" here in Rantburg, but today is one of those days when you've pushed it a little too far. Settle down, take a deep breath, relax. |
| Posted by: Mike 2003-9-9 10:50:13 AM |
| #4 i really like Murats attack on Lee Hamilton though - bet some of the righties here feel the same way :) |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-9-9 10:47:56 AM |
| #3 Any news source that quotes this pretentious moron has forfeited its credibility. This was an AP "news" article. Surprise, surprise. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-9-9 10:44:11 AM |
| #2 Benjamin Barber, professor of civil society at the University of Maryland and author of the book, Fear’s Empire: war, terrorism and democracy, said that Bush’s recast war rationale makes it easier for administration hawks to justify pre-emptive wars as a means of going after terrorism. This windbag was a left-wing professor at Rutgers. Any news source that quotes this pretentious moron has forfeited its credibility. Yeah sure, guess mr. Lugar masturbates on every speech of Bush Murat, once again, has raised Turkish standards for serious commentary - I, for one, am impressed that he has stayed away from scatology. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-9-9 10:38:50 AM |
| #1 murat, you give Rantburg a schizophrenic feel. It's very odd to read through the items and then hit one of yours. Not necessarily bad, just odd. |
| Posted by: BH 2003-9-9 10:36:40 AM |