Article

2012-09-06 Iraq

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Steve White 2012-09-06 08:28|| || Front Page|| [11126 views ] Top

#1 Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction

BS
WMD = nuclear, biological, chemical.
cite here
and just recently here.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-09-06 08:58|| 2012-09-06 08:58|| Front Page Top

#2 Mea culpa, or ass covering exercise?

Posted by Iblis 2012-09-06 09:00|| 2012-09-06 09:00|| Front Page Top

#3 Er, huh, all of which had nothing, nothing at all to do with the left leaning, anti-Bush narrative of the Agency.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-09-06 09:01|| 2012-09-06 09:01|| Front Page Top

#4 Are they still watching Pencilneck slaughter his population and wringing their hands that there's nothing they can do?

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2012-09-06 10:08|| 2012-09-06 10:08|| Front Page Top

#5 Remember NIE 2006. Goal was to hobble Bush against Iran.
IMO This is designed to hobble Obama/Rommey by saying, in effect, don't trust us on Iran either.

Posted by Richard Aubrey 2012-09-06 10:09|| 2012-09-06 10:09|| Front Page Top

#6 I was saying the same thing (Saddam wanted everyone to think he had WMD because he was more afraid of Iran than of Bush) here some 10 years ago - they could have saved themselves a lot of time and effort if they just read Rantburg.

Posted by Glenmore 2012-09-06 11:34|| 2012-09-06 11:34|| Front Page Top

#7 A) it's been proven that he had WMD.
B) it's open to debate how much he had left and where they went. (Russian convoy to Syria?)
C) it seems very likely that his generals lied to HIM about what they had and how ready it was.
D) he probably lied to hold off Iran.
E) Does anyone think that the CIA should know more about Iraq than SH?

This looks like nothing more than CYA for its content and timing.

Posted by AlanC 2012-09-06 11:47|| 2012-09-06 11:47|| Front Page Top

#8 ISTR that as our troops got closer to Baghdad, Saddam's generals made more and more frequent requests for "special weapons" to be used. EVERYONE thought he had WMD.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2012-09-06 11:51|| 2012-09-06 11:51|| Front Page Top

#9 Does everone rememeber Colin Powell's televised presentation of the evidence for WMD in Iraq? That is an event that will stand out in the minds of Americans for a long time. Of course, come to find out that a lot of that info in that presentation was skewed, or based on sources who were highly unreliable.

That one incident has caused the US public to distrust any and all intel reports on WMD. Too bad, because this is a time when the public in the USA and Israel need some reliable data. But if there's ZERO confidence - how do you establish a policy???

Posted by Raider 2012-09-06 12:56|| 2012-09-06 12:56|| Front Page Top

#10 The CIA is just FUBAR.

They handed Bush43 a screwed up intel assessment on Iraq and then sent press releases out leaking their "objections" to the screwed up intel assessment they wrote.

I still believe the entire CIA gig on Iraq was designed from beginning to end to harpoon and sink Bush43. It was intended to get him impeached.

Posted by Bill Clinton 2012-09-06 15:40|| 2012-09-06 15:40|| Front Page Top

#11 Simple as this - 3 estimate approach: one is the "best case", one is "worst case" and one is "most probable". Final report is based off most probable with annotation and sometimes content from the best and worse case studies, as warranted by the report writers and senior analysts.

In the aftermath of 9/11, far more weight was given to "worst case" because our risk tolerance had just been greatly heightened. We had just been handed a living example of an intel failure and a nearly "worst case" scenario of a highly improbable successful attack. Things we didn't believe were realistically possible all of a sudden became much more "possible" and in some cases, probable.

No need for a conspiracy. And the subsequent leaks are just political crap by the careerists and a few partisan fools.

Not defending the CIA - it still needs to be dismembered, parts of it farmed out to other agencies as appropriate, and put back together as a much more focused organization. But I've been preaching that for years.

Posted by OldSpook 2012-09-06 16:24|| 2012-09-06 16:24|| Front Page Top

#12 Yah, whatever.

All the world take note. When America gets angry, we will kill you, and we don't need a good reason. That is all you need to remember.

Posted by rammer 2012-09-06 19:33|| 2012-09-06 19:33|| Front Page Top

#13 So, who was claiming Saddam didn't have WMD? The UN, MSM and Democrats. Nuff said.

Posted by Iblis 2012-09-06 21:15|| 2012-09-06 21:15|| Front Page Top

00:27 JosephMendiola
23:54 JosephMendiola
23:25 gromky
23:03 USN, Ret.
22:08 JosephMendiola
21:34 Thing From Snowy Mountain
21:15 Iblis
21:07 lord garth
20:39 Procopius2k
20:21 Zhang Fei
20:08 Raider
19:57 rjschwarz
19:33 rammer
19:10 Zhang Fei
18:30 Dale
18:19 Dale
17:36 Charles
16:50 Shinter Javirong9154
16:41 Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division
16:32 Rambler in Virginia
16:24 OldSpook
16:12 Cheaderhead
16:11 Silentbrick - Schlumberger Squishy Mud Division
16:09 OldSpook