US intelligence officials have officially given up the hope of finding WMD’s in Iraq as the Chief US weapons inspector Charles Duelfer has stated that he will not be returning to the country.
Officials are still searching through mountains of documents and say that they will follow any leads which may arise although they also state that they are not expecting the hunt to be revived.
Mr Duelfer will publish a report of his findings in Iraq in the fore coming weeks although it will differ only slightly in content from his findings published in his interim report in October.
was the fear of WMDs in Iraq in the hands of Saddam that started it all, officially atleast. Hopefully some more individuals are a little less blue-eyed and a bit more cynical about the goverment(s).
They've spent millions of your tax dollars and found nothing with it... The WMDs aren't anywhere to be found, you were grossly mis-led, period. You're living in denial... I thought it was liberals who came up with kooky conspiracy theories!!
WMDs, Lebanon", then you'll see this conspiracy 'theory' is widely held. It's one of the few times a 'democratic' or 'populist' idea has merit. Just because the mainstream media [MSM] doesn't acknowledge it doesn't indicate much, as shown by the Rather/C-BS extravaganza.
They could have moved weapons anywhere. IT is easy to move biological weapons from contry to contry on a regular commercial flight, just replace the hairspary in the hairspray cans and add chemicals to keep it chilled. Thats what they did in the TOm Clancy novel. THe weapons could be anywhere but most likly in Syria and Lesbon. And as for the tax payers money, well Australia didn't spend a whoping amount so we're fine
Yes, and it was also india who started the tsunami with nuclear weapon explosions underwater, and there is a secret organization running all world events.
never pick up such mass movements of weaponry, and witnesses always keep such sights to themselves, and governments always trust a foreign army to approach their borders armed to the teeth, and, uh ... uh ... George W. Bush is a good, Christian man.
Some people just won't accept that he never had them after 1992, the inspections worked like a dream and he didn't even have enough conventional weapons to defend the country.... they're not in Syria for Christ sake, do you really believe another country is going to hide nukes for someone who is just about to have their country invaded by the worlds biggest superpower and this sort of conspiracy shows a lack of understanding for tightly run totalitarian states, I mean do you think Saddam would have handed over nukes (if he had had them) to anyone else.... That’s handing over your power, not a wise thing to do if you're currently in power. Where are all those people who spent the last two years telling us all here "wait and see..... they'll find them , or look they found then in Fallujah , or the polish found 30 missiles in the desert" ....and all that crap they were spouting
"because satellite photos never pick up such mass movements of weaponry,"
You act like it had to be all done at once. If you can't track terrorists with sattelites what makes you think it can spot a truck thats carying NBC warheads?
"and witnesses always keep such sights to themselves,"
I don't think it would be too hard to smuggle somthing out of the desert in the middle of the night without people seeing it...
"and governments always trust a foreign army to approach their borders armed to the teeth,"
"Some people just won't accept that he never had them after 1992, the inspections worked like a dream"
IIRC weapons inspectors only searched declared nuclear sites. Would be kind of stupid to make and keep them there right?
"they're not in Syria for Christ sake, do you really believe another country is going to hide nukes for someone who is just about to have their country invaded by the worlds biggest superpower and this sort of conspiracy shows a lack of understanding for tightly run totalitarian states,"
Hrm... Given Irans and North Koreas stance do you think they wouldn't have liked to be given some NBC weapons? Syria already has the largest chemical weapons program in the middle east, do you honestly think they would turn away more?
"I mean do you think Saddam would have handed over nukes (if he had had them) to anyone else...."
Yes.
"That’s handing over your power, not a wise thing to do if you're currently in power."
But a brilliant thing to do if you know that your country is about to be overrun and you are going to lose that power anyway. By moving them to another country he not only undermines the reason for the war. He keeps the weapons in the hands of people who can and will use them.
"Where are all those people who spent the last two years telling us all here "wait and see..... they'll find them , or look they found then in Fallujah , or the polish found 30 missiles in the desert" ....and all that crap they were spouting"
Well they did find old missles out there. Not to mention the ballistic missles that had a range that was against UN sanctions. If weapons inspectors can miss those then why is it so hard to believe that they didn't have a WMD facility?
Bush Admin admitted that there are no weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq...but quickly added that knowing what he knows now (that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam was NOT stock pilling weapons of mass destruction with which to attack other countries) he would still attack Iraq.
What ?!!?
The sole justification given by the Bush administration for invading Iraq in 2002 was that Iraq was a threat and was planning to attack other countries with its stock pile of WMD. Remember that the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq stated again and again that there are no such WMD stockpiles. Now the Bush Administration admits there are no WMD. So if the justification for invading is now null and void, and he still would have invaded, one can only assume that this was not at all the real reason for the invasion. The world was given a lie to justify the invasion of Iraq, an act that has killed over 100 000 innocent men, women and children. He has in effect admitted this by his statement that although he now knows there were no stockpiles of WMD.....America would still invade Iraq.
So one must ask: What was the real reason for invading if it was not the reason that was givien to us?
Why was it nessasary to tell us a lie rather than the truth?
"IIRC weapons inspectors only searched declared nuclear sites. Would be kind of stupid to make and keep them there right?"
Ummm, NYDRC (No you don't remember correctly). The weapons inspectors could go anywhere they wanted to. They went where the US said they definately were being kept, but found nothing.
They looked high, they looked low, they looked here, they looked there, but they could not find them anywhere! (Maybe have to write like Dr. Zeus to get through to the idiots out there!)
<snipped some opinions dressed up as facts>
"Well they did find old missles out there. Not to mention the ballistic missles that had a range that was against UN sanctions. If weapons inspectors can miss those then why is it so hard to believe that they didn't have a WMD facility?"
More crap. The weapons inspectors DID find these over-range missiles. I repeat, they DID find them. It is a bit questionable if they were actually over capacity. They were never tested, just a theoretical range without any warhead which slightly exceeded the mandated range.
I don't know what that Polish missile find thing was all about, but it definately wasn't held up as proof. And I'm pretty confident that if it was proof, it would have been presented in colour slides for the UN by George Bush himself. (Send Colin out with the bad intel stuff and make him look the fool...)
tiggyfiggy, although we may not have spent as much resources on the invasion of Iraq, the very fact that our government supported the Bush government in their invasion and misleading of the public (in supposedly freely democratic countries) and also contributed makes me wonder how Johnny (Howard) can live with himself. Or are we (Australians) becoming the shadows of the greedy fat cat and other insecure Americans. The re-election of both leaders has reinforced this idea to me, even though I'd like to hope not.
Let's all get together and applaud this brilliant administration for their triumphant delivery of democracy to Iraq.
(Yeah, they couldn't even manage a clean democratic election in Ohio!!!)
What a miserable, pathetic joke and a what a tragic waste of thousands of lives.
End result... worst US PR in decades, >1,300 US troops dead, tens of thousands seriously injured, taxpayers $200bn short, more global instability, alienation from the UN, somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 innocent civilians needlessly murdered. Lots of money to Aegis, Halliburton and the others in the 'elite'.
that no one remember Iraq launching several missile into Kuwait as soon as the invasion started... yet apparently, we haven't found any missiles (according to rory182: "or the polish found 30 missiles in the desert" ....and all that crap they were spouting")
Hm... he must've used them all since it's completely impossible to hide something in 268,000 square miles of sand.
http://www.armscontrol.org/ "Iraq had stated in September that it would allow the inspectors access to any sites they wished to inspect, and Iraq agreed during the Vienna meeting to allow UNMOVIC access to previously restricted “sensitive sites.” Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz stated in an interview aired October 12 on Beirut television that inspectors would be allowed into presidential sites but that the inspectors should not be allowed repeat visits to them."
http://www.heritage.org/ "Indeed, the Iraqis already are backpedaling away from unconditional inspections. In the formal notification that Iraq sent to the United Nations later that week, it stipulated that inspectors must respect Iraq's dignity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and that the U.N. must apply the rules governing the elimination of Iraq's WMD programs to Israel as well.3 Iraq also proclaimed on September 21 that it would not abide by any new U.N. Security Council resolution that altered its prior agreements with the U.N.4 Acceding to this demand would result in a stillborn inspection system. It would allow Baghdad to retain the increasingly tight restrictions it had placed on U.N. inspectors through renegotiations, which watered down the effectiveness of the original inspection regime. "
http://www.drumbeat.mlaterz.net/ "- Iraq agreed to allow UN inspectors “immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access” to to all sites in Iraq
- The only exceptions are eight presidential sites, where restricted access will apply according to an existing agreement with the UN"
http://www.intelmessages.org/ "Under a "memorandum of understanding" in early 1998, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan agreed to severely restrict visits to these palaces, where inspectors had hoped to find a paper trail with evidence of Saddam‘s chemical, nuclear and biological weapons. Inspectors were obliged to give lengthy notice, to restrict their numbers and to be accompanied by foreign diplomats.
Iraq also restricted inspectors‘ access to dozens of other "sensitive" or "sovereign" sites — including smaller palaces — which were declared as such only when inspectors arrived."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk, "Under current rules of engagement, they have restricted access to the sprawling complexes. "
Weapons inspectors DID have restricted access to sites in Iraq. His 8 presidential palaces and also other minor palaces around Iraq, some of which were only declared when weapons inspectors showed up.
Also at some sites the weapons inspectors had to give notice before showing up or they would not be allowed in.
