Text 15913, 135 rader
Skriven 2005-11-12 11:07:04 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 15805 av Roy Witt (1:1/22)
Ärende: Saddam Hussein's Murders
================================
 PS>>>> They were not noble deaths, it is a war based on lies, lies
 PS>>>> about WMD, lies about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake.

 >>> There were no lies involved.  Saddam *was* trying to buy
 >>> yellow cake.

 MvdV>> A lie by GWB.

 > Wrong.

Let me correct myself: A /blatant/ lie by GWB.

 >>> Five different national intelligence services claimed WMDs
 >>> existed in Iraq,

 MvdV>> A lie by GWB.

 > Wrong.

Let me correct myself: A /blatant/ lie by GWB.

 MvdV>> The claim was: he has WMD's AND he is the madman that will
 MvdV>> use them".

 MvdV>> So tell me: if he had them, why did he not use then when he still
 MvdV>> could?

 > "Gotcha, Mr. President." This was the consensus of the
 > headlines from nearly every daily newspaper responding
 > to the CIA's Iraq Survey Group report on Iraq's prewar
 > weapons programs.

[ lots of irrelevant stuff deleted. ]

What it boils down to is that he could not use them because he did not have
them.

The invasion of Iraq was justified by a lie. A /blatant/ lie.

Cheers, Michiel







 > Yes, the report found no stockpiles of weapons of mass
 > destruction in Iraq
 > since the war began in March 2003. It also concluded that
 > whatever illicit
 > weapons Saddam Hussein did possess were most likely destroyed
 > just after
 > the 1991 Gulf War in accordance with U.N. sanctions. But were
 > these the
 > findings that the report highlighted in the first line of its
 > Key Findings
 > summary? No.

 > "Saddam [Hussein] so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its
 > strategic intent
 > was his alone," the summary begins. "He wanted to end
 > sanctions while
 > preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass
 > destruction
 > (WMD) when sanctions were lifted."

 > This hardly sounds as if the Iraq Survey Group, headed by
 > Charles A.
 > Duelfer, thought Saddam was cooperating with the international
 > community.

 > The fact is that U.N. sanctions did have a debilitating effect
 > on Iraq and
 > Saddam's weapons programs. But as the report notes, "Saddam's
 > primary goal
 > from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while
 > maintaining the
 > security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to
 > cooperate with
 > the UN inspections - to gain support for lifting the sanctions
 > - with his
 > intention to preserve Iraq's intellectual capital for WMD with
 > a minimum
 > of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face.

 > " International pressure to lift the sanctions led to the
 > establishment of
 > the Oil for Food program, which Saddam immediately saw "could
 > be corrupted
 > to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine
 > sanctions and to
 > provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and
 > potential
 > WMD-related development."

 > Saddam focused his attention on three members of the Security
 > Council -
 > France, China and Russia - by bribing government officials and
 > business
 > executives with billions of dollars skimmed from Oil for Food.

 > "At a minimum," the report says, "Saddam wanted to divide the
 > five
 > permanent members [of the Security Council] and foment
 > international
 > public support of Iraq at the UN and throughout the world by a
 > savvy
 > public relations campaign and an extensive diplomatic effort.

 > "Indeed, Saddam's ploy almost worked: "By 2000-2001, Saddam
 > had managed to
 > mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their
 > international support," the report said.

 > While the United Nations turned a blind eye, Saddam cheated
 > and committed
 > mass murder in an effort to achieve his goals. To suggest that
 > "containment" could have been sustained without dire results
 > verges on the
 > delusional.

 > There is a very pertinent lesson in the Duelfer report; too
 > bad no one
 > told the headline writers.



 > Roy
 > --- Twit(t) Filter v2.1 (C) 2000
 >  * Origin: Hacienda de Rio de Guadalupe * South * Texas, USA *
 > (1:1/22)

---
 * Origin: http://www.vlist.nodelist.org (2:280/5555)