posted on April 19, 2003 05:40:33 PM new
Helen - I was speaking about the FIRST UN security council meeting where Blix made the statements of Saddam NOT cooperating.
And you've been asking this question time and again, if Saddam had no WoMD then what reasons would you give for why he just wouldn't PROVE he didn't. Show the documentation, allow the NW scientists leave the country, with their families? Do you think all those, even his family members who said he did have these weapons were lying? I've never understood your disbelief about him having these, and why you've never answered the simple question above. All he would have had to do since 1991 was show proof they had been destroyed. HE DIDN'T HELEN.
The question is not what a man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate. J. Ruskin
posted on April 19, 2003 06:08:57 PM newHelen - I was speaking about the FIRST UN security council meeting where Blix made the statements of Saddam NOT cooperating.
"And you've been asking this question time and again, if Saddam had no WoMD then what reasons would you give for why he just wouldn't PROVE he didn't. Show the documentation, allow the NW scientists leave the country, with their families? Do you think all those, even his family members who said he did have these weapons were lying? I've never understood your disbelief about him having these, and why you've never answered the simple question above. All he would have had to do since 1991 was show proof they had been destroyed. HE DIDN'T HELEN."
Linda
You are having problems expressing yourself again. Although I have read that comment above three times, it's still not clear to me what you are trying to ask or state.
posted on April 19, 2003 06:13:33 PM new
Oh yes, Helen....just one more escape job. Just not ever going to answer that question are you? Nope....because you can't and still hold your position.
Very easy question. Many have asked it of you. You didn't understand the way they worded it either?
The question is not what a man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate. J. Ruskin
posted on April 19, 2003 06:24:08 PM new
Linda, I've read that because Iraq wasn't supposed to have any WOMD, they destroyed what they did have in the early 90's. If they documented what they destroyed, then it would have proven they had WOMD to begin with.
Maybe you are asking if I ever believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The answer to that is yes. I know that he had chemical and biological weapons because it's common knowledge that we supplied him with those weapons. In fact, Reagan supplied the helicopters that he used to gas the Kurds.
It was the job of the inspectors to determine if these weapons were destroyed. When this war began, I was in favor of continuing the UN weapons inspection rather than rush to invade not knowing what he had.
You say that all that he would have to show is proof that the chemical and biological weapons were destroyed.
What kind of proof would you accept...other than a report from the U.N. inspectors?
posted on April 19, 2003 08:44:15 PM new
Ooops, sorry. I don't know all these things.
Not according to Blix, who said,"Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming."
kraftdinner, I was wrong, and I can admit that too. Hans Blix has been the head of the UN weapons inspectors for 12 years.
I didn't know that. See you learn new things here all the time
Art Bell Retired! George Noory is on late night coasttocoastam.com
posted on April 19, 2003 09:15:47 PM new
You were probably thinking of Scott Ritter. He was UN inspector for 12 years from 1986 until he resigned in 1998.
I knew that. I guess I was trying to point out..... what happened in the years Hans Blix was not the head UN Weapons inspector? Did all go well? Did they have an 'open arms' type reception without restrictions during the previous inspections?
Art Bell Retired! George Noory is on late night coasttocoastam.com
posted on April 20, 2003 07:15:24 AM new
NearTheSea,
I'm sorry that you misunderstood my comment about Hans Blix and interpreted it to mean that he had been successfully dealing with Iraq for 12 years. I just assumed that everyone knew that he was appointed to that job just a few years ago in 2000.
I wonder why you would indicate that you thought he had held that job for 12 years and then when I corrected that information say that you knew he had not.
So, then you say, I knew that. I guess I was trying to point out..... what happened in the years Hans Blix was not the head UN Weapons inspector? Did all go well? Did they have an 'open arms' type reception without restrictions during the previous inspections?
Why didn't you just ask that question directly? You probably know the answer to that question also, if you have been conscious for the last twelve years. I wonder what kind of point you are really trying to make?
Of course it didn't go well during all of those years. If you need a review of our relations with Iraq, before and after the Gulf War, you can easily find it on the net.
You can start here.
posted on April 20, 2003 07:41:46 AM new
And the beat goes on...
Q: Sorry. So he hasn't thought about what would constitute victory?
MR. FLEISCHER: The President is not yet ready to publicly speculate about what it is he would say or when he would say it.
Q: That's not the question. You're turning the question around. The question is, what has to happen for victory to be achieved?
MR. FLEISCHER: Just what I told you this morning. The President has always said the mission is the disarmament of Iraq and liberation for the Iraqi people.
Q: And, therefore, it is securing those weapons of mass destruction, and until that's done--
MR. FLEISCHER: The President has always said that is the mission. I am not going to be able to shed any more light on when the President will say the mission is accomplished.
Q: But you just laid it out there that disarmament of Iraq, "disarmament" meaning weapons of mass destruction, correct?
MR. FLEISCHER: The President has always said that is the mission, but I'm not going to define for you what the President will later define as victory."
posted on April 20, 2003 08:10:33 AM new
helen -
Please be kind enough to share the sources for the last two articles you posted.
Anonymous material like that is pretty weak.
posted on April 20, 2003 09:02:18 AM new
Ari Fleisher's press conferences are not annonymous. They can be found by using the following link at the White House site.
Glen Rangwala, Lecturer in Politics at Cambridge University
I'm sorry that I didn't include the link for the first article, written by Glen Rangwala, Lecturer in Politics at Cambridge University ...but I'll try to find it now.
BTW, google has a tool bar that can by attached to the top of your screen....It's very useful and convenient. The link to install that bar is ,
http://toolbar.google.com/
Helen
As you have probably noticed, I always add a link to my quotes...this one was just an oversight.
posted on April 20, 2003 09:27:26 AM new
Thanks helen -
Quotes ARE anonymous if no source is given.
Otherwise, for all the reader knows, Glen Rangwala could be a pseudonym for Baghdad Bob, which is itself a pseudonym.
As to Fleischer's response to the clearly confrontational tone of the interviewer, I find it to be appropriate. When the U.S. finds WoMD, the victory will not necessarily be complete. We will need to make sure we've found all off them, and if some have been spirited off to other countries or terrorist groups, the completion of the objective becomes much more difficult.
After 911, America was forced to acknowledge a new type of enemy, one which doesn't need a standing army to attack our interests. It's a lot cheaper (and anonymous, if you will) to provide safe haven for terrorist groups or funnel money to them than to support a traditional military.
posted on April 20, 2003 08:10:45 PM new
Twelve - I would wait untl there is a new government in place before you judge its friendliness. There are a number of clerics calling for a theologic government that with no TV, no rights for women and all that fun far end of the specrum stuff.
We must tread lightly and find a careful balance. I don't remember if I read it here or elsewhere but one of our generals stated that we had get the current troups out as quickly as possible and bring in replacements. He stated that it was virtually impossible to ramp the guys that are there down from armed combat one week to peacekeeper the next and that it is a recipe for trouble. Personally I think it sounds like and excellent idea, certainly can't hurt : ).
posted on April 21, 2003 12:12:38 AM new
No, NOW the outrage . . .
Monday 4/21/03 New York Times
Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert
By JUDITH MILLER
ITH THE 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION, south of Baghdad, Iraq, April 20 — A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said.
They said the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs.
The scientist also told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's, and that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda, the military officials said.
The Americans said the scientist told them that President Saddam Hussein's government had destroyed some stockpiles of deadly agents as early as the mid-1990's, transferred others to Syria, and had recently focused its efforts instead on research and development projects that are virtually impervious to detection by international inspectors, and even American forces on the ground combing through Iraq's giant weapons plants.
An American military team hunting for unconventional weapons in Iraq, the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, or MET Alpha, which found the scientist, declined to identify him, saying they feared he might be subject to reprisals. But they said that they considered him credible and that the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them had proved to be precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties.
The officials' account of the scientist's assertions and the discovery of the buried material, which they described as the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons, supports the Bush administration's charges that Iraq continued to develop those weapons and lied to the United Nations about it. Finding and destroying illegal weapons was a major justification for the war.
