The Observation Deck
Neighbors Celebrating Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity While Speaking Over The Digital Fence
Moderator: Jim O'Bryan
Recently, former top aide of Saddam Hussein, Izzat al Douri, was said to have renounced his alliance with al Qaeda. What isn't being asked is how can Al Douri, who once told TIME of cooperating with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, be "breaking" from al Qaeda if Baathists would not be willing to work with al Qaeda to begin with?
A reporter for ABC News spotted Yasin in Baghdad in 1994 and reported that he was operating freely. A neighbor told the reporter that Yasin was working for the Iraqi government. Documents recovered from Iraq indicate that Yasin not only received safe haven but also funding from Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Steve wrote:There's a difference between verified links between the the Hussein regime pre-March 2003, and, links forged by deadenders in the months following the US invasion.
From the article: Recently, former top aide of Saddam Hussein, Izzat al Douri, was said to have renounced his alliance with al Qaeda. What isn't being asked is how can Al Douri, who once told TIME of cooperating with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, be "breaking" from al Qaeda if Baathists would not be willing to work with al Qaeda to begin with?
Feb. 11, 2003: Bin Laden tells his followers to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera. U.S. officials say they believe the tape to be authentic
Please give me a specific example of right wing propaganda from the article or from one of the links from the article. It is easy to paint this article with a wide paint brush.. You made the comment about critical reading. Maybe this was just self reflection and a note to yourself?Stephen wrote: Do I read deeper, or do I write it off as more high fallutin' right wing propaganda expressed in pseudo-serious form as it sinks like a lead weight in the sea of conventional 'rationality?' You tell me.
Note the words if and possibleFrom the article:If Allawi truly has these sorts of contacts inside the ranks of the former regime it would be wise not to discount his knowledge (video and story here) regarding the former regime's links to al Qaeda, including possible meetings with al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.
What isn't being asked is how can Al Douri, who once told TIME of cooperating with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, be "breaking" from al Qaeda if Baathists would not be willing to work with al Qaeda to begin with?
WMD's were discoverd in Iraq and the US media blacked the story out.
They simply were either moved or are still hidden.
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden had operational relationships from early 1990 to 2003
UN Resolution 1441 also confirms that WMD's existed in Iraq
lol Why would the UN send weapon inspectors to Iraq (to look for flowers)... They were asking Iraq to provide an accurate full final and complete diclosure. Add to that, Bill Clinton Bombs Iraq to take out there Nuclear, Biological and Chemical weapons capability.. No there is nothing to see here.Stephen Calhoun wrote:Amazing.
You wrote:UN Resolution 1441 also confirms that WMD's existed in Iraq
Nothing in your copying and pasting of sections of the resolution states as much.
In fact, your clipping what you did strikes me as being a strange response.
The inspectors, whose inspections are the central subject matter of UN#1441, had found no WMD to the point they were ordered to leave prior to a little round of US 'shock and awe.'
Now, having pointed out the obvious to you, if you can point me in the direction of credible evidence backing any of your assertions, I will await said deliveries with great interest.
My standards of evidence happen to be high. But that's a consideration different than what I think to myself when non-evidence is presented as if it is evidence.
LOL.. 8th grade! Thanks for the credit man! My grammar skills suck. I do remember taking a couple of English courses at LCCC and CSU. I obviously did not pay attention in those classes. I remember subjunctive from English and indicative from Spanish. No wonder, I cannot write worth a sh!t. But, in all seriousness, thank you Stephen. Your observation is correct. I definitely need to go back to either CSU or LCCC and re-take a couple of English courses. (Thanks for the motivation)Stephen Calhoun wrote:Stephen, my namesake, you amuse me immensely.
I see you've now backed away from your claim. Although I have no reason to know for sure whether you integrated your 8th grade English lesson about the difference between the subjunctive and the indicative.
Of course the UN inspectors did go to search for the weapons, and they did issue copious reports, and, needless to say, those reports unequivocally present the well known--by almost everybody--findings about the results of the search. And if that isn't satisfying to the sundry daft conspiracy theorists, then we have not one but two reports of Pentagon directed searchers, searchers who found...after country-wide stone over-turning in 2003-2005...
squat, diddly poo. And their efforts occurred AFTER Saddam couldn't interfere.
So, we agree to disagree. I rested my case years ago but in any case you haven't brought to bear on behalf of your assertions even a single iota-sized shred of credible evidence.
Game and match, eh?
Bill Clinton 12-16-98: Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Bill Clinton 12-16-98: They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq’s capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability.
Bill Clinton 12-16-98:The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
Bill Clinton 12-16-98: The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly
Bill Clinton 12-16-98: First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.
Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.
He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.
The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002.
50. The Commission has a lesser degree of confidence in accounting for proscribed items declared by Iraq as having been destroyed unilaterally. These include 15,900 unfilled and 100 filled special munitions, the CW agent VX and 50 tonnes of a precursor for the production of VX. Nevertheless, the Commission has accepted through its verification the destruction of 13,660 special munitions and about 200 tonnes of key precursors. However, residual questions remain with respect to proscribed items destroyed unilaterally. The presentation by foreign suppliers of information on the delivery of munitions and precursors requested by UNSCOM could be helpful in the verification of this area.
1. Iraq did not acknowledge its proscribed Biological Warfare (BW) weapons programme until July 1995. From the first UNSCOM inspections in 1991 until 1995 Iraq denied it had a BW programme and has taken active steps to conceal it from the Special Commission. These steps included fraudulent statements, forged documents, misrepresentation of the roles of people and facilities, and other specific acts of deception.
2. Since its first revelations in July 1995, Iraq has submitted three "Full, Final and Complete Disclosures" (FFCDs) of its proscribed biological programme. The first of these, presented in August 1995, was declared null and void by Iraq itself. The second, submitted in June 1996, was subjected to intensive efforts to verify its accuracy and completeness through eight inspections and other technical discussions. In March 1997 an international panel of experts reviewed that FFCD and recommended its rejection because of the inadequacy of the material presented throughout the document.
3. In September 1997, Iraq submitted its third "final" FFCD since the July 1995 disclosures. This FFCD contained essentially no new significant information from the previous one that the Commission had rejected as incomplete. A panel of international experts reviewed it in September 1997 and considered it as deficient in all areas. Iraq however argued that it had not been given an adequate opportunity to present its case to the UNSCOM assembled experts and at Iraq's request, a Technical Evaluation Meeting (TEM) between Iraq and a Commission assembled panel of international experts convened in Vienna in March 1998. Iraq did not present any new information at that meeting and the experts therefore reviewed the same material for a third time.
15. Iraq has not provided evidence concerning the termination of its offensive BW programme. The evidence collected by the Commission and the absence of information from Iraq, raises serious doubts about Iraq's assertion that the BW programme was truly "obliterated" in 1991 as it claims.
18. In 1995, when Iraq was confronted with evidence collected by the Commission of imports of bacterial growth media in quantities that had no civilian utility within Iraq's limited biotechnology industry, it eventually, on 1 July 1995, acknowledged that it used this growth media to produce two BW agents in bulk, botulinum toxin and Bacillus anthracis spores, between 1988 and 1991. It was not, until August of 1995, however, that Iraq acknowledged that it had weaponized BW agents, and had undertaken weapon tests from 1987 onwards. This admission only occurred after Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan departed. Shortly afterwards, Iraq released a considerable quantity of documents concerned with its weapons of mass destruction programmes. The documents relating to biology represented just 200 documents with some pages out of a total of more than a million pages. Many of the biological documents were scientific reprints from foreign journals. Clearly, they represent only a minor portion of a BW programme that ran from 1973 until at least 1991.
34. Iraq asserts that all 25 BW warheads were unilaterally destroyed at specific locations at Al-Nibai desert in July 1991. To verify the FFCD, the Commission in 1998 took samples from the remnants of agent warhead containers excavated from various locations at Al-Nibai. The results of the analyses do not support the statements made in Iraq's FFCD. Traces of Bacillus anthracis spores have been identified on remnants of containers from at least seven distinct missile warheads as opposed to the five declared. There are discrepancies between the Iraqi account of where groups of warheads containing particular BW agents were destroyed and the results of the analyses. This throws doubt on the accounts of weapons filling, deployment and subsequent destruction.
46. The frequent changes in the Iraqi account of the Al-Hussein missile warheads and the R-400 aerial bombs are more than adjustments of detail. They cast doubt on the entire Iraqi declaration on weaponization.