Hmmm, how interesting...possibly no weapons...

[jon@af]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...i_ea/us_iraq_2

TBLISI, Georgia - Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) held out the possibility Saturday that prewar Iraq (news - web sites) may not have possessed weapons of mass destruction.


Powell was asked about comments last week by David Kay, the outgoing leader of a U.S. weapons search team in Iraq, that he did not believe Iraq had large quantities of chemical or biological weapons.


"The answer to that question is, we don't know yet," Powell told reporters as he traveling to this former Soviet republic to attend the inauguration Sunday of President-elect Mikhail Saakashvili.


Powell acknowledged that the United States thought deposed leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had banned weapons, but added, "We had questions that needed to be answered.


"What was it?" he asked. "One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?"


Almost a year has passed since Powell's speech before the U.N. Security Council in which he accused Iraq of violating a U.N. weapons ban.


Since then, the Bush administration has been less categorical on the issue, contending that Saddam was actively pursuing banned weapons. The administration generally has avoided the issue of actual possession.


President Bush (news - web sites), in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, cited an interm report by Kay in October in which the inspector claimed to have found dozens of weapons-related programs in Iraq. Those programs would be continuing if the United States had not acted to oust Saddam's government, Bush said.


Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), in an interview Wednesday with National Public Radio, said the administration had not given up on the search for weapons. The "jury is still out," he said.


"It's going to take some additional, considerable period of time in order to look in all the cubby holes and the ammo dumps and all the places in Iraq where you might expect to find something like that," Cheney said. "It doesn't take a large storage space to store deadly toxins, or even just the capacity to produce it."


White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Friday that the administration stands by its assertions that Iraq had banned weapons at the time of the U.S.-led war and that it was only a matter of time before inspectors uncover their location.


"We believe the truth will come out," he said.


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Well, most of you know my thoughts on the WMD and where they are/arent. What are your thoughts?

[taranaki]

Colin Powell is so bad at this,it's embarassing.Having bagged the U.N. for failing to find non-existent weapons, he then turns round and bags the chief of his own weapons inspection team when he tells him exactly the same thing.Interestingly,the replacement man for the job is a U.N. weapons inspector.Are the U.S. goevernment hiring a man whom they believe to be incompetent,or are they admitting that the U.N. had the right idea in the first place?

Let's go back to March...
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...&highlight=wmd

This war was never about WMD.Bush lied to America.He deserves jail,not a second term.

[Flatrater]

I really don't care if they ever find any WMD! I wanted to see Sadam the way he should be seen on his knees with a bullet between his eyes!

For more than 10 years he has been laughing at the UN and it was about time he was taken down. All he did was kill his own people. Have you ever read about his sons and what they did, they were no better.

[YogsVR4]

Wow. A WMD thread again.

Cool. We should see all the old arguements all over again.

I should throw out the standard. The useless UN is a waste of money and space. The sooner Kofi and his ilk go away the better.

[taranaki]

Originally Posted by YogsVR4

Wow. A WMD thread again.

Cool. We should see all the old arguements all over again.

Well since even the top U.S. man on the job now admits,the weapons aren't there,it would make that kind of difficult.The principle argument for going to war was to find them.They're not there.Time to give up,and get the fuck out of someone else's country.

[Flatrater]

Originally Posted by taranaki

Well since even the top U.S. man on the job now admits,the weapons aren't there,it would make that kind of difficult.The principle argument for going to war was to find them.They're not there.Time to give up,and get the fuck out of someone else's country.

I don't think he actually came out and said that Iraq had no WMD he was just hinting that they aren't there! Do you really think he would stand up and admit he was wrong. He will just putter along never admiting it in a YES or NO fashion!

[MR2-AW11]

There's no surprises there Few people actually have the guts to fully admit they were wrong (*COUGH* dirty lies)

[2strokebloke]

I really don't care if they ever find any WMD! I wanted to see Sadam the way he should be seen on his knees with a bullet between his eyes!

Well then you certainly you don't care what your president does, or how he does it, just so long as he does something
I hope our next president is just as good as making up stories and wasting money (I doubt I'll have to worry, I'm sure being that there's an abundance of stupid people out there, Bush will just get re-elected, and he'll be able to fit his flaming pants as well as he can.) What country will he attack next? Probably the moon.
I won't be upset, so long as there next story is even more far-fetched and outlandish - we already know they won't be telling the truth, so why try and make it sound real, just entertain us!

[MagicRat]

Of course most people doubted the WMD story from the start. Whenever Saddam has had serious weaponry he has always used it against others, such as Iran, the Kurds, the Shiites in the south.
If Saddam had chemical/biological/ nuclear stuff we would have known right away.
The US would have gotten further by claiming he was a murdering asshole instead, right from the start.

[DGB454]

An exert from an interview with David Kay on NPR.

"I don't think they exist,'' David Kay said Sunday. "The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist - we've got to deal with that difference and understand why.''
Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue.''
"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information,'' Kay said. Asked whether President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people.''
The CIA would not comment Sunday on Kay's remarks, although one intelligence official pointed out that Kay himself had predicted last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.
Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt me in the sense of `Why could we all be so wrong?'''

Kay told The New York Times in a later interview posted for Monday's editions that U.S. intelligence agencies did not realize Iraqi scientists presented Saddam with fanciful plans for weapons programs and then used the money he authorized for other purposes.
"The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process,'' he told the Times. "The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs.''
He said he has had U.S. intelligence analysts come to him, "almost in tears, saying they felt so badly that we weren't finding what they had thought we were going to find - I have had analysts apologizing for reaching the conclusions they did.''
Kay said Iraq did try to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, but that evidence suggests it would have taken years to rebuild after being largely abandoned in the 1990s.
He said it is now clear that the CIA's basic problem was that the agency lacked its own spies in Iraq who could provide credible information, but that he does not believe analysts were pressed by the Bush administration to make their reports conform to a White House agenda.

[vbrpete]

I'm going to try and take the opposite side to what I really think...


Oh sure.They got it wrong.The most "advanced" intelligence network on the planet made a minor,one time fo-pah and got the whole WMD thing a little wrong.And yes,the Grand Vizier himself and his staff of dedicated,patriotic true believers were "duped" into thinking that Saddam was up to no good.True,he DID plan to take over the world,and fly radio controlled airplanes across the ocean to drop tiny nucular bombs on babies and apple pie factories,and destroy baseball.These are facts.Must be-they were reported on Fox and CNN over and over again.And yes,our fearless leader is recorded to have been AWOL from a choice post given to him through favors called in by his pa.True,the best possible place for a trained fighter pilot in time of war is Texas.They are needed there,not some jerkwater hole like Vietnam.Good for pilot morale,knowing they'll never see actual combat.

True,there is records of the Bush family going back thirty years regarding their business deals with the bin Ladens,and the Saudi royal family,and selling poison gas TO the Iraqis so they could wipe out anyone who threatened the oil wells.These things were necessary to maintain the quality of life in the good ol' usa,so it's all good,okay you pinko commie bastages.DON'T QUESTION US.

What it all comes down to is this;even though as of now there are 525 US service people dead,and Iraq is falling apart at the seams,and the US economy is spiralling the drain,and in the south they're banning the word "Evolution" in schools,and the only high paying jobs left (other than CEO) are steadily leaving for India,and there is documented proof of lies,manipulations,schemes and other sorts of malfeasance(a real word,look it up),even through all of this,the REAL cause of all these problems is that Clinton got a BJ.That bastard destroyed the country.

my head hurts...

[DGB454]

There is documented proof of lies,manipulations,schemes and other sorts of malfeasance(don't need to look it up)? I would love to see them. Please post the link if there is one. I'm very interested in reading about Govt. corruption.

[taranaki]

Originally Posted by DGB454

There is documented proof of lies,manipulations,schemes and other sorts of malfeasance(don't need to look it up)? I would love to see them. Please post the link if there is one. I'm very interested in reading about Govt. corruption.

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...d.php?t=172608

there are plenty of referenced claims in his book.Screech all you like about the messenger,but listen to the message first.

[DGB454]

I have no personal problem with Moore except he is just like Rush Limbaugh but he is on the other end of the spectrum. The problem I do have with characters like these is a lot of times they do make claims based on conjecture. They don't always do this but it happens more than they will admit.

Anyway, is there any actual documented proof of what's been going on?

Also I have a question that kind of follows the same lines.

I haven't heard much about the screw up with the BBC on here. Seems they were doing a pretty good cover up/ smear until they got caught. So what's going on with all of that?

[Cbass]

The BBC is probably the most respected news network in the world... They're not much for smearing. In fact, like American news networks they were biased towards encouraging the Iraq war...