NationStates Jolt Archive

some blatantly incorrect information i noticed that neede to be corrected, although i was late to the topic and my chance to point out the facts have long past i will adress them here in this thread

1.the US did not put saddam hussein in power
2.the US did not supply saddam with WMD during the iran/iraq war
3.prewar intelligence from around the world led US officials to believe he still had WMD

now for the first part-
for those of you ignorant of iraqs somewhat recent history and the history of saddam.
the US supported the anti-communist ba'ath party in the 1960's during the cold war. at the time saddam was not somebody of any importance as said aburish put it
Saddam was a minor official of the Ba'ath Party. He was not terribly important. And he was really following in the footsteps of other people who are much more important.
infact saddam himself was not even in iraq when the ba'ath party overthrew general kassem's government.
saddam following in stalins footstep removed bakr as head of the ba'ath party and took ovver control of the country BY HIS OWN MEANS. the united states DID NOT put him in power nor did it give him any position in the ba'ath party. bakr made that foolish decision because he wanted a tough guy as his right hand man.
for further detailed information i suggest you rent/watch the following 9 documentories
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/

also be sure to check the link to said aburish's interview
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aburish.html

the next part is even easier. in the documentories former CIA agents specifi the US primarily gave saddam intelligence breifings during the iran/iraq war not WMD. if you want to know where the weapons really came from check the chart here-
http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html

lastly
the pre-war intelligence
pre-war intelligence from intelligence services in the US, britain, france, russia, egypt etc... all believed saddam still possesed WMD he refused to give up or prove he had destroyed in accordance with the terms of the 1991 cease-fire (which in fact means that the war with iraq has never actually been over since it was simply a cease-fire)

some pertinent information on the subject
US NEWS feb 16 2004 vol 136 #6 page 72-
"president bush and tony blair in london are caught in a political firestorm over the conclusion of the head of the iraqi survey group david kay, that there are no significant inventory of weapons of mass destruction(WMD) in iraq and virtually no programs to create them. why did bush and blair tell us otherwise? the short answer is that this is what they were advised by thier respective intelligence services. independant inquiries into the prewar performance of those services ghave been authorized in both countries. but even before the inquiries began, the suspicion was noised about that the intelligence agencies must have been pressured to say what they did so as to give bush and blair a cause for making war.

utter nonsense. the warnings that saddam hussein was actively persuing WMD pre-dated bush's inauguration and therefore could hardly be attributed to political pressure from him, any more than similar assesments by german, french, british,russian and chinese intelligence agencies could be atributed to thier political masters. both david kay and CIA director george tenet say they know of no such pressure. clearly, the CIA has suffered a blow to it's credibility, but when one looks at the context, the conclusions the agency reached is emenently reasonable. consider these facts:
.only after the first gulf war did we learn that saddam was less than 2 years away from from having usable nuclear weapons
.only after his son-in-law defected in the mid 1990's did we learn about saddams biological weapons programs
.when the united nations-led inspectors were ejected from iraq in 1998 they assumed the huge stockpiles of unaccounted WMD still existed

unanswered questions:
.what other assumption could the intelligence analysts have made?
.if saddam had destroyed his banned weapons or decided to give them up, why didn'tr he report it to the very agency that could have vindicated him?
.why didn't he change his behavior towards the UN inspectors?
.why, instead did he prevent the UN inspectors from going where they wanted to go and seeing what they wanted to see?
.why did his rehtoric continue to underscore his commitment to possesing WMD as part of his vision of iraq as the dominant power in the region and in the arab world?

kay has speculated that saddam continued to believe that he had WMD, as did most senior members of the iraqi military complex, because his own generals and scientists lied to him about the programs. how could the CIA conclude that the iraqis were just deceiving one another, along with everybody else-even deceiving saddam himself in a country where he had such absolute power and where even minor infractions were punishable by death?

finally there is no concrete evidence pointing to the other possibility, that iraq possesed no chemical and biological capabilities, no missles and that saddam had stopped trying to aquire them. everything saddam did gave the impression he had something to hide, including the willingness to sacrifice ovrer $100 billion of oil revenues and live with a regime of punishing sanctions. his push to end the UN inspections suggested he was attempting to free himself from supervision in order to accelerate his efforts to aquire WMD. add this to the fact that he was not only an evil tyrant but also a reckless gambler, instinctively agressive, operating with an intelligence of the outside world drawn almost entirely from sycophants and courtiers afraid of telling him the truth.

lets not forget our history. we underestimated the soviet nuclear program in 1949, china's in 1964, indias in 1974, and iraqs in 1991,. the list goes on: nrth korea in 1994, iraq again in 1995, india in 1998, pakistan in 1998, north korea in 2002, and iran and lybia last year.

the point is without solid evidence to the contrary, it was virtually impossible for the intelligence services to come to conclusions any different than the ones that they did"
-editor in chief mortimer b. zuckerman


US news may3 2004 page 13:

on bob woodwards book-plan of attack--

-take the issue of weather buch massaged intelligence reports that saddam hussein still had weapons of mass destruction. at one point deputy CIA director john mclaughlin comes up with a report on iraqi WMDs, and bush says he thinks the evidence is too thin: "nice try," he says, but joe q. public isn't going to believe that.

woodward has bush telling CIA chief george tenet clearly and repeatedly not to massage the evidence that saddam has WMDs. the direct quote is: "make sure no one stretches to make our case." readers will have no doubt that bush believed the WMD were there. he was hearing it from allegedly sound sources. prince bandar , the saudi ambassador to washington, passes on to bush this word from egyptian president hosnei mubarak: "our intelligence has confirmed there are mobile labs for biological weapons" the national intelligence estimate of october 2002, filled with ambiguous material, begins with the unambiguous declaration that saddam has chemical and biological weapons.

tenet was loudly sure about it, too. in december 2002, tenet rises excitedly from a couch in the oval office, throws his arms in the air, and exclaims, "it's a slam dunk case!" bush presses tenet: "george how confidant are you?" tenent throws up his arms once more: don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"


and lastly a link(it's to big to add here) to the declassified sections of the presidents threat assement report on iraq no less than a few months before the final phase of the war(the invasion of iraq) began.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html

2.the US did not supply saddam with WMD during the iran/iraq warWTF?

Wait... what's your point?

Wait... what's your point?
if it isn't sarcasm it should be pretty obvious, several posters in the mentioned thread made repeated claims that the US
A.put saddam in power,
B.sold him WMDs during the iran/iraq war, and
C.that the US continued the war by invading iraq without any intelligence telling them there were WMD there.
all of which are provably untrue
:cool:

the next part is even easier. in the documentories former CIA agents specifi the US primarily gave saddam intelligence breifings during the iran/iraq war not WMD. if you want to know where the weapons really came from check the chart here-
http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html
Nice chart. Proves your point nicely. Especially this part
Given the amount of email I’ve received on this post, I’ve updated the picture to more clearly show that the data only goes to 1990.
When would you say the Iran-Iraq war took place?

Nice chart. Proves your point nicely. Especially this part

When would you say the Iran-Iraq war took place?

Ended in late 80s, whats your point?

if it isn't sarcasm it should be pretty obvious, several posters in the mentioned thread made repeated claims that the US
A.put saddam in power,
B.sold him WMDs during the iran/iraq war, and
C.that the US continued the war by invading iraq without any intelligence telling them there were WMD there.
all of which are provably untrue
:cool:
Don't bother confusing them with the facts. Their minds have been made up and closed for quite some time now. I know ... I've tried many times since I've been on here.

Nice try though.

lol. My main point is tryint to look like an idiot. I've done an excellent job this far. I managed to confuse myself to think it was "sales after 1990".
I better just leave my post there. As an example.

In short: oops

lol. My main point is tryint to look like an idiot. I've done an excellent job this far. I managed to confuse myself to think it was "sales after 1990".
I better just leave my post there. As an example.

In short: oops

oh.

lol. My main point is tryint to look like an idiot. I've done an excellent job this far. I managed to confuse myself to think it was "sales after 1990".
I better just leave my post there. As an example.

In short: oops

Good work, it takes a real adult to admit to mistakes.
On the subject, my father is ex-army and he has said repeatedly that Bush and the US are perfectly reasonable in suspecting chemical weapons were still possessed by Iraq.
Remember, not only did he not fully co-operate with UN inspectors, one of his deputies is called Chemical Ali, after he used chemical weapons on the Kurds.

WTF?ditto...