Not only did we have good reason to believe it, it was also true.
This Was Not Looting: How did Saddam’s best weapons plants get plundered?
By Christopher Hitchens
This is pathetic i’ve seen the claim here at least a thousand times that iraq and wmd was all some pathetic unbelievable lie/deception.
well, international inspectors said they had a potential nuclear labratory, with missile parts, chemical weapons parts, some potential atom bomb parts. Either defend your position that this shit never existed/was never found or admit you were wrong.
You people know who you are.
Just because they want sex doesn’t mean they’re into BDSM, Cyrene.
lol, good point.
maybe some sugar-water would have brought in more flies! 
Hitchens is a neo-con hack and nothing presented here is convincing. Is that what you wanted to hear? The man is blinded by his own ideology to the point where if he said it was sunny out I’d bring an umbrella.
He couldn’t be any further from a neo-con, what you say doesn’t matter because these potential weapons/labratories were inspected by international inspectors. LOOK IT UP.
I didn’t ask you for your opinion on christopher hitchens, or anyone else for that matter, either deny the claims with some kind of rational basis or keep posting shit that isn 't contributing to this thread.
I have, and all the people that assert these things are cranks. No convincing evidence and a lot of hot air.
He secretly shipped them all to Syria too, right? 
Oh no, centrifuges. I’m trembling.
Why is it okay for America to have these weapons, but not Iraq?
Who the fuck made America the “world police”?
It’s a complicated issue. See, it’s okay for America to have them, because…well…because it already has them. It’s not okay for anyone who doesn’t have them to have them because they don’t have them. Understand? See, were they to have them, then it would be okay for them to have them. But were they to not have them, and if they were working towards getting them, then having them would not be okay, and a liberation would be in order. Basically, having wmds makes it okay to have wmds, and not having wmds makes it not okay to have wmds.
So, you see. It turns out that it was not okay for Iraq to have wmds, because they didn’t have them–they only had centrifuges, and centrifuges don’t make it okay to have wmds. But were they to have had them, then it would have been okay for them to have them, and we would have probably not gone to war with them.
All the major groups sent to verify the intelligence and existence of WMD’s showed that they did not exist at any functioning or threatening levels. The Iraq Survey Group, UNMOVIC, the Butler review, and others. The majority of which if contained bias would be in favor of finding or verifying intelligence of WMD’s.
Personally, I am completely convince that the war was simply means for profit inducing cronyism. The three reasons given for invasion were completely vacant.
- Even with WMD’s, the threat spoken of was static. There were no actions nor verbal threats made to illicit an unprevoked invasion. And several countries would be considered greater threats to our national security than Iraq.
- There were little to no ties with terrorism. Iraq was often in direct opposition to most terrorist groups.
- There are far far greater humanitarian concerns in the world than Iraq. For example our great oil producing ally Saudi Arabia.
And when you consider that amount of lies, misdirection, and sensationalism surrounding the administrations reasoning as well as the rediculous amount of privatization, abscent and failed reconstruction, and lost funds I think it becomes rather clear that there were other intentions at work.
I’m not saying they existed or that even weapons existed, I am saying Saddam blew a lot of hot air about weapons of mass destruction, I am saying that they had propag anda about iraqi scientists being able to bring upon nuclear war. My only point is that he was trying to produce weapons and full labs were found to that Effect.
I’m not sure how iraq would ever pose a significant threat to the united states with any kind of weapon they could get their hands on, that wasn’t my point, rather that the media manipulated us to believe that saddam had nothing that these facilities were never found, and etc.
This isn’t true, the 9/11 comission said they couldn’t find any operational links between iraq and exporting terror, but its documented that they had terrorists working out of their government offices…
Thats questionable especially since iraq was falling apart and on the verge of collapse before the coalition arrived. You’re going to see what a real humanitarian disaster is when the sunni/shiites really get a chance to go at each other.
AS to whether they should have been concerned and dealing with saudi arabai/iran over iraq, well thats probably true, but a location in the middle east (another) to deal with these people may be more beneficial then any of us could predict.
I won’t comment on America world police, but the world should have a… obligation to prevent saddam who fucked his society until there was nothing left of it, from getting nuclear weapons, he’s already showed he was willing to use chemical weapons to massacre as many people as he seen fit, if he had nuclear capabilities, if he felt like using them, he probably would have.
Is it just me or are countries bound to step in international situations under certain conditions? Like genocide? I’m pretty sure there was some UN agreement about genocide.
The US is part of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” Saddam engaged in invasion and genocide, that alone is justification to remove his sorry ass, especially when he fractured iraqi civilization.
The coalition didn’t shatter iraq, it had already been shattered, and the visual effects of the shattering were just coming into focus. Saddam was fucked and he is responsible for a civil war that may turn iraq into a failed state forever, if the coalition arrives, the civil war may turn into a regional war between sunni/shiites…
They are sure doing a hell of a lot more in Iraq then they did in Rwanda, in which they estimate 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered via club and machete.
“The U.N. Security Council responded to the worsening crisis by voting unanimously to abandon Rwanda. The remainders of U.N. peacekeeping troops were pulled out, leaving behind an only tiny force of about 200 soldiers for the entire country.”
Well, sorry folks, no money to made in Rwanda, time to go.
The facts are these:
What happened in Rwanda was a horrible horrible mistake, it however doesn;t justify abandoning other populations of people. That being stated, iraq wasn’t in as bad a condition as MANY many other countries are right now the point is:
That a civil war left unchecked in Iraq would have been a humanitarian disaster (as we’re seeing right now it is, and thats not because of the coalition) if they coalition leaves we’re going to see a MASSIVE humanitarian disaster, and if the sunni/shiite civil war spreads out into a regional civil war between sunni/shiites, yes we might see a humanitarian disaster on that kind of scale.
Also, the region is super important to america compared to rwanda, oil+national secruity, etc.
There were justifications for the coalition invading ON TOP of all that America had to gain by invading, just because they had personal reasons to do so doesn’t mean its not justified. If they had decided to help rwanda because it HELPED/made them richer, we can’t say anything about the goals behind the actions, they don’t matter as much as the results.
As much as I hate the media, I don’t think this was one of their lapses. Though Iraq may have had intentions and very weak and limited facilities, stories on them could be found, and for all intents and purposes Iraq didn’t really have anything. I would consider it more manipulative for the media to suggest that what was found was significant or any where near the threat the administration was speaking of. I mean, the average american ended up believing Iraq was involved in 9/11 and Al Queda, any suggestion that Iraq “really” had wmd’s would most rightly be seen as more propaganda.
I consider this the same as the WMD’s. Yes, connections existed but for all intents and purposes Iraq has no significant ties. No operational links, no ties to Al Queda. I think it would again be more manipulative if it were to be suggested that these limited ties were of importance. Clearly most middle eastern countries including our allies have far far greater ties to terrorists.
I don’t accept this as true. At the very least I believe it to be highly debatable. It certainly wasn’t one of the reasons the administration claimed for going to war.
This may be true, however it is also clear that our presence in it self is causing a significant amount of the violence and creating more terrorism. I think its very much a lose lose situation. What do you think would signal the correct time to withdraw troops?
Well I’m not sure it’s really a “location to deal with” anything. We have our hands full there, and our presence only increases the difficulty in dealing with other middle eastern nations, diplomatically and if nessecary militarily.
I get the sense that you know what’s going on there, but you still have this desire to defend some things that may not deserve being defended. I agree that America, or preferably the UN should step-in in all serious cases of human rights violations. But that had nothing to do with the reasons for going into Iraq(which I believe you recognize), we are probably subjecting the Iraqi people to generally worse conditions than under Sadam, and clearly there were much worse violations going on else where that deserved attention first and foremost. Even if we end up making things better, it would almost be a complete accident and in the time and efforts we could have alleviated much worse human rights situations. Even if you think it could be justified we must make sure to strongly admonish the true reasons for the administrations actions. It would be horrible if people continued allowing such actions under such deceitful and self serving intentions. Let me know what you think.
It was probably more manipulative to claim that they had weapons of mass destruction, but after it was found they didn’t, I really didn’t see any news stations running the fact that these labs were found, we seen the new york times and many other sources consistantly say nothing was found, and after it was, there wasn’t any kind of massive outcry it was mainly below public attention, with the media still claiming none were ever found. I mean shit, we were never given a realistic rundown on the capabilities, it was either extremist one way (he had nothing) or he had it all.
To call them our ‘allies’ is certainly fucked up. To say theres pacts envolved with saudi arabai and so forth is true, but the fact is their not our ally and thats going to be a rude awakening one day.
This is essentially impossible to deny the evidence for it is so strong. The years that saddam were in power he did a great job of fucking everything up and creating religious strife, I can go on with the shit I posted here a thousand times about the shit that Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi has gone on about in books. That guy is in a priveledged position to be making a call on what fucked iraqi society as well. That claim here is the claim with the most supportable evidence.
I don’t know because I don’t even know if its possible to stop this civil war. What I do know is that every sensical analyst said this shit wasn’t going to happen very soon, that its a long dug in process and thats correct. If its possible to fix America should stay for years, and years until it is done. It won’t cost America as much as a regional civil war in the region would. Not in the long run, anyway. If its not possible, which I don’t think is obvious yet, they should leave.
How does having iraq in a decent state (if thats possible) compromise US military actions? Not to mention the second largest oil reserves in the world. Basically, and i guess you’ll see where i’m coming from, I really do believe in this ‘clash of civilizations’ I really do believe that secular beliefs are incompatable with what islam seems to turn itno a lot (islam can be peaceful like anything else, but its turned towards violence pretty damn often/consistantly). I think that our values, like equal-rights, secular values and etc cannot peacefully co-exist with muslim values.
Realistically they don’t right now. People are dying, a lot of people, by muslim hands, as long as a lot of children are beijng indoctrinated into radical islam (even though the most radicalized people reach that in old age/after super education. even more highly educated are suicide bombers. which is sort of fucked up). Why are people dying? who knows? Naming bears? looking up ‘women’s rights’ online? Because you were seen without a man to take you along?
Muslim nations have openly called for the death of citizens of a forign nation/publically oferred to pay for the deed. Somthing like 61% of british muslims want sharia law, somthing close to 50% of them support violence for islam. When first world muslims report these statistics we have to realize we have a real problem with fundamentalism, its cer tainly not an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ but its not a great deal off either.
I get that america is fucked and has done a lot of shit to stomp democracy/massacre people, latin america and so forth and so on. We do have an issue that we’re facing a lot of insane religious fundamentalism, which is inherently more violent then our already dangerous neo-cons and etc.
It’ll simply be a matter of who strikes first, thats the way it is now, actually. except we don’t play ball, we sit back while muslims hand us a trojan horse through multiculturalism.
50-70% of french prisons, filled with muslims.
I can’t imagine a more horrifying/systematic attack on freedom of speech compared to what muslims did over those cartoons as well, riots, beatings, embassy burnings. This is free fucking speech we’re talking about.
No, i’d say that by large, many muslims won’t accept or values and won’t lay down theirs. Unless this changes real soon, I support many actions that a ‘secular’ super-power may take to ensure that it gains influence in the area, or once more then that, ensures for itself somthing which can make it say, cut off ‘needed’ ties right now. If America secured those oil reserves, we might be able to say goodbye to bullshit saudai arabai friendship.
About the coalition though, I really do think the evidence that the society woudl collapse/was already is there, the evidence that this kind of humanitarian disaster directly because of saddam’s reign, that seems pretty convincing to me when its really gone over consistantly. Thats why I support that, if it ever becomes apparent that the effort is completely pointless, i’d be willing to admit it was a mistake (american lives lost for no reasons) not that the coalition fuckedd things up.
Though I held the exact opposite belief for the first few years of the invasion.
For your second to last response…I think you’re falsley grouping the entire culture under the violent extremists, though I think you are trying hard not to do so. The extremists get the most attention and hold a majority of the power over the more peaceful and rational because of their violent nature, as I’m sure you know. I don’t mind addressing the issues you brought up at all, they completely deserve attention and action. But you can’t hold all accountable to the actions of some. And the way you speak of control, sounds more self serving than objective justification. As well, if change is ever going to be made, I’m not sure its going to be through military means. I’m more sure of that if that military means comes about through false pretenses and indiscriminate actions. If we have true objectively humane justifications and we acted as we spoke I’m sure we would have more support from the rest of the world, particularly the arab nations we may find our selves involved with.
61% of first world muslims want sharia law/support violence. I am not categorizing a few bad apples here, yeah theres a lot of normal islamics likely, not so many as we’d all like to think. 50% of americans believe in fundamentally crazy, things, when 50% of british muslims support violence in the name of islam, its v ery very likely that considerably more of them do so in their own nations.
As to categorizing everyone together, one of the reasons i think iraq may be justified is securing a place for the secular to live not in the middle of a brutal civil war. The worst thing about a theocracy is the citizenry that it suppresses, theres lots of great muslims i’m sure, but muslim societies* are not good. They are infact very bad, consistantly. I also have a problem with muslims not producing any real noteworthy scientific advancements in the last seven hundred years, when theres a billion of them and some nations pretty wealthy.
When I talk about islam/muslim fundamentalism, I talk about it as if its all islam/all muslims, only because it does make up by far the largest chunk of them. I think it goes without saying what you claim though, so I usually don’t.
The moderates are a silent and sad voice, we almost never hear from them.
For example, Iranian youth have a hard-on to escape the type of primitive society that they have in comparison to what they could have. Since most people become fundamental in older age, i’m not sure how noteworthy that is though.