[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
There were plenty of questions asked, in the form of UN sanctions, and requests for disclosures and inspections. Sadaam was less then forthcoming, and at times was even threatening.[/quote]
Part of the reason people are so worried about this administration is that those statements were NOT TRUE in the lead up to Iraq.
The evidence and reason for invading Iraq was outdated, false and OUTRIGHT manufactured. We were played - and they’re doing it all over again with Iran. Just like Paul Craig Roberts said in this original post, if our goal is to attack Iran, the evidence will be presented to look like it was our only option.
I happen to not be totally anti-war and if you listen to Rainjack you would think I’m a liberal, crazy, ABB. The truth is I’m just anti-bullshit.
Most of the articles below deal with info and facts people were stating BEFORE the war - the situation we are in right now had nothing to do with lack of intelligence but everything to do with a greedy, corrupt administration hell-bent on self destruction.
Inspectors Call U.S. Tips ‘Garbage’
Feb. 20, 2003
In fact, the U.S. claim that Iraq is developing missiles that could hit its neighbors - or U.S. troops in the region, or even Israel - is just one of the claims coming from Washington that inspectors here are finding increasingly unbelievable. The inspectors have become so frustrated trying to chase down unspecific or ambiguous U.S. leads that they’ve begun to express that anger privately in no uncertain terms.
U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/18/iraq/main537096.shtml
Hackworth: Bad Call on Iraq
Aug 6, 2003
"Before sounding off, I’d always ring former Marine and weapons inspector Scott Ritter and bounce the hot skinny off him. And this brave and so far most prescient analyst would always shoot it down: “Hack, Saddam doesn’t have WMD. Full stop.”
Ritter Right About Iraq
January 14, 2005
Remember Ritter? In a column in 2002, I wrote about the square-jawed former U.S. Marine and United Nations weapons inspector, who was in Wichita several months before the invasion of Iraq, giving a talk - no, a plea - about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
He was adamant: Saddam Hussein had no WMDs – at least none of any consequence or that posed an imminent danger to the United States. Certainly nothing that would warrant a rushed invasion. “We can’t go to war based on rhetoric and speculation,” he told the crowd. “We’d better make sure there is a threat out there worth fighting.”
He argued that 90 percent to 95 percent of Saddam’s WMDs had been dismantled by the U.N. inspection team in which he served from 1991 to 1998. And that Saddam was otherwise well-contained by U.S. forces.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0114-40.htm
U.S. went to war on a lie, Senate report says
By DOUGLAS JEHL
New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON - In a scathing, unanimous report, the Senate Intelligence Committee said Friday (Saturday in Manila) that the most pivotal assessments used to justify the war against Iraq had been unfounded, unreasonable and reflected major missteps on the part of American intelligence agencies.
The detailed, 511-page report, the result of a yearlong review, found in particular that the stark prewar judgment by American intelligence agencies that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons had not been substantiated by the agencies? own reporting at the time.
‘Most of the major key judgments’ in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s illicit weapons were ‘either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting,’ the committee report said.
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=WORLD&oid=54899
Doubts raised on Saddam theory in 2001
October 4, 2004
The Guardian
And the only country who used WMD’s in this war?..
U.S. ADMITS NAPALM USE
“American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad,” according to the Independent. “The attacks caused massive fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions.”
The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions…
A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war.
The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000522.html