30km from Bagdad and still no WoMD

If no WMD are found, the Coalition of the Willing(tm) will apologize to Saddam, kiss and make up. Naturally.

Except for the missles capable of dispersing chemical attacks found by the UN inspectors and the hidden chemical factory "discovered" by the coalition.

Do the math.

um....2+2 = jumping to a conclusion?

I'm somewhat convinced that most if not all of his WOMD are somewhere other than Iraq.

I truly believe that they will be used when they get to Saddam's "comfort zone".

could be. remains to be seen.
My worry is that if you're correct, then we will respond with nukes, which will definitely seal our fate for the next century in regard to terrorism and global diplomacy.
the end of the empire.

Perhaps, but there wouldn't have been much of a need to hide a chemical factory if the chemicals it was making were for peaceful purposes.

I have faith in the Coalition of the Willing(tm) to save us (western civilzation) from secret WMDs Saddam may be hiding. Yup.

I do.

No really.

Mhmm.




You still here?

.... lalalalalalahhhhh

dumdeedum...

You know you should really pay more attention Puppy - the discovery of the chemical factory was retracted days ago. They haven't found a single facility that makes chemical or biological weapons.

Mind you - I saw a report using satellite and aerial spy photos on the TV news showing large trucks possibly being used as a mobile factory. Might be true - might not be. Guess we'll just have to see if they turn up.

Surveillance photograph of Iraqi mobile laboratory.

i am starting to think saddam is dead and most of the wmd are in syria

If there are none, the US will be the world's biggest ass. Seriously. And what with all of these 'evidence' photos that supposedly showed where these evil, awful, weapons that only the US is authorized to have are?

Simply put, if there is nothing there, the jig is up for the US.

excellent Face Ache but not very Hallal of you

Saddam based all his chemical factories north of Baghdad. He wouldn't place them in the south, near where the US troops are stationed (Kuwait).

Expect to only find discoveries once Baghdad is taken and the troops march north.

Right. It's only appropriate to jump to conclusions if there might, possibly, be, maybe a connection perhaps to oil and Bush. ONLY THEN is it appropriate to jump to conclusions. All other cases should be taken with a huge grain of salt no matter HOW much evidence is shown.

Ok, i'm being facetious...

He'd put them close to Kurdish controlled areas? That makes sense.

personally i don't think there will be any chemical weapons found. as for other WMD it is hard to say. but i think the WMD arguement was rendered moot when bush changed the resoning from mainly a disarmament war to a war to displace saddam's regieme from power. the WMD arguement certainly does not seem to hold as much prominance in many of the addresses bush and other s make.

i may be misinterpretting things though but that is the impression i get from watching and reading various war reports.

He never changed it, it has been that all along.
Sure it does, Iraq had WMDs. It has shown no proof they got rid of them. As a matter of fact, they have been pretty belligerent about it.


Who knows.

Bush never changed his reasoning. The WMD argument is definitely not moot. If we do not find WMD, it will be a major black eye for the US -- lying to the world, and then going to war based on those lies, isn't a good long-term strategy. We'll see though: I think it's a lot harder to hide from an army of hundreds of thousands than it is from a few inspectors.



This factory turned out not to be for chemical weapons. I guess it was yet another case of media speculation gone wild. Other countries have called for any WMD discoveries to be verified by international inspectors. The Pentagon was slow in squashing this report, and has lost some credibility.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I though resolution 1441, approved unanimously in the UN, said that Iraq HAD WMD. That was not the question. The resolution's purpose was for Iraq to show their cards, in essence. And they hadn't done so.

So there ARE weapons somewhere...just "where" is the question.

Am I wrong here?

Someone hasn't researched their history. The evidence was not up to the US, but Iraq. Iraq failed to show any. Funny, Africa had no problems doing this. No one ever attacked because they showed they disarmed. They provided proof.


Nonense



No you are not wrong. Had Iraq gotten rid of said weapons, they would have proof they did. Iraq has been nothing but secretive about it. Again, the proof is up to Iraq, not the US.

Sorry, I am for the war but I have to comment on this... they have determined that the "hidden chemical factory" has not been used since the early 90's.

So that automatically means they have no WMDs.

I really hope they don't have them. I really don't want our soldiers having to deal with that. Because when Saddam loses all hope, and if he does have these nasty things, they will be used. I wonder when that happens, who will still try to condemn the actions of the US.

Of course George knew that Saddam has WoMD - he went through the list of what the inspectors found and the list of receipts and they just didn't match up.


Seriously though - I hope for the US that they do find the arsenal because if they don't America is not going to look like the policemen of the world.

No wonder America didn't sign/ratify the UN's International War Crimes bill....

A voice of reason in the wilderness.

I don't know. I don't think that the resloution is the bible (or Quran or whatever). The resolution came about because there were unresolved lists of weapons.

I personally think Saddam does still have some chemical and perhaps bioweapons, but I would think that most of them would be in Baghdad if anywhere, as a final resort sort of thing.

But we'll see. All of this is just speculation and something that will only be known after the war is finished or after those weapons are used.

If there are no WMD found I am sure the Bush and his minions will use it as a pretext for invading Syria and possibly Iran.

I'm afraid you might be right.

Does anyone know whatever happened to that enigmatic iraqi ship that was drifting around the world without radio contact? I remember the speculation was that they were hiding waepons on it, but were afraid to board for fear of the iraqi crew scuttling the ship....

Then it mysteriously vanished from the press....

well based on this war they need no pretext. rumsfeld already stirred the syria and iran pot last week. like you i am afraid find no WMD will just lead the US to blaming iraq of hiding them in one of those two countries (more likely syria since there is no love lost between iraq and iran).

Africa, my learned friend, is actually a continent, not a country. If Dubya thinks Iraq is a tough cookie, taking on the whole of Africa would be a lot worse...

I predict that not long after Baghdad is taken, we will find WMD in Iraq...

Even if the CIA has to plant them.

I think he actually meant South Africa, to my knowledge, there are the only country that has completely gone through a UN-verified disarmament process.

It's easy if the USA don't find any chemical or biological weapons the just find some...
(don't ask how - the USA WILL FIND SOME)

This post illustrates the nature of the problem. With or without actual WMD stockpiles, there is a substantial part of the Left that will never "turn around" and agree to what has happened in Iraq. No evidence will ever be enough.

I think that either (1) the WMD have been moved to other countries (at least in part) or (2) the French and Russians have managed to persuade what's left of the Iraqi command structure to keep them without using them. I wouldn't be surprised if those screening "oil fires" were actually being used to dispose of WMD as well. It's logical to assume that Iraq is doing all it can to cover up and destroy WMD at this point, and they might have plenty of time to do that if the coalition has to go house to house.

From today's Wall Street Journal opinions page:



Dakel says:



I'm sure Saddam got rid of all his toxic agents between 1991 and now. I see no reason to believe otherwise. Why would he lie?

Wouldn't that be meeting on of the "Collation of the Willing's" goals then?

Africa? The whole continent? There's a slight difference between South Africa (where I come from), and Africa, the continent. And no, no one even threatened to attack South Africa, no one even asked South africa. They did it on their own without any prodding. But your wonderful country did threaten South Africa a number of times on the subject of Helmet mounted sights for jet fighters. Your country demanded South Africa hand the technology over to the USA because it can be fitted into existing planes that don't have them with ease. South Africa refused. Your country then went ahead and developed it's own Helmet Mounted Sights of Mass Destruction, which will equip your country's next generation of helicopters and fighters.

The way Rumsfeld has been shooting his mouth off (they should get him a muzzle) I would not be surprised if Iran is in fact next on the list of Countries to be Invaded (tm).

Yeah. What happened to that mystery ship? :/

I would not be the least surprised.

No, I wouldn't be surprised if the US finds WMD and the liberals claim the US planted them. Would Not surprised at all.

If you read your own post, you'll note it is referring to a time period during the first Gulf War, when no one doubted that Iraq had Chemical and Biological weapons.

However, your post has just made you eligable for a job as dossier writer for Tony Blair.

Glad to know that we've cleared that one up then. The war was just in the nick of time then?

A liberal friend of mine was discussing the whole war issue. He said that the US would find WMD even if we had to put it there ourselves. I was like, what are you smokin!!!???

Then I come here and realize that this is more common than I thought.

Does anyone else find that way of thinking cynical?

Yes, it is. Though I would think it's partly humerous (admit it - conspiracy theories are funny) and partly understandable given the level of rhetoric (founded or not) being thrown around and politicians' (in general) distaste of losing face in the public view.

And though I wouldn't be suprised to find out that happened myself - I'm not expecting it to happen either.

You might or might not have noticed that your government made a huge deal out of documents which they found claiming to prove the Iraq was aquiring Uranium from Niger (the first is a radioactive metal, the second is a country in Africa). The documents were then proven to be faked.

You might alos remember (or prefer not to) the dossier that Tony Blair was frantically handing around the UK parliment, supposedly proving Saddams evilnes (claimed that the profession of "Rapist" was a genuine Iraqi job, amongst other things). The UK's own MI6 was the one who then, tired of that crap, actually blew the lid on dear old Tony. The dossier had in fact been taken almost verbatim from a thesis of a student almost 10 years earlier.

NO, I don't think it at all cynical. Tony and George were so horny to get this war started that they were prepared to lie to the public, or at the very least, not bother to check their evidence. Can you perhaps tell me why they wouldn't do it again?

It has to do with a few things. If we found WMDs they would have to admit Bush was right. That can't happen. They would also have to admit they was wrong. That can't happen. If this is true, Bush would also gain more popularity, and that def can't happen.

So they draw in the conspiracy theories.

The 2001 election all over again.

Are we all forgetting about the UN-banned SCUD missiles that Saddam claimed he didn't have, then fired towards Kuwait in the first few days of this conflict?

actually, AFAIK, that wasn't a scud, though it was reported as such initially. That report was later corrected.

totally as a tangent, Iraq indeed has a uranium mine in western Iraq, so if they only needed low grade uranium for "dirty" bombs, they'd have no need to get it elsewhere. I just learned that this week by looking at old maps from the original desert storm.