WMD's and Democracy

[Blablabla]

Originally posted by Folic_Acid

So, unfortunately, you've missed the mark.

Of course but i wasn't thinking about Iraqis, nazism, racism or something like that.
I take out of context cuz it's...
An ecologist point of view.
On the motivations of the next wars.
For the next 100 years.

[-HaVoC- Profile]

I have always loved this quote. Thank Jimmy.

“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know,” Rumsfeld said."

[Evan Profile Website]

Originally posted by JimmyTango
See, it will continue to more and more personal.

RCglider, do not think your shit, or other peoples shit, doesn't stink.

Don't start antagonizing Jimmy. That's all you've been doing in this thread.

However, I will keep my eyes on this thread so that it does not get out of hand.

[-HaVoC- Profile]

Originally posted by buliwyf
Agreed, however who is really to say what we truly know what is going on behind closed doors? I don't think ANY of us can truly say what was said or done is right or wrong as we do not know the facts %100. Should we as Americans know EVERYTHING that is going on? no, not in my opinion, BUT BUT BUT, I do feel a certain need to be kept in the loop appropriately and accordingly with a solid timeline is what is needed.

True, I think the majority did feel that backing our leaders on this one was the route to go. We palced our trust in them. I remember watching Colon Powell address the UN in a very detailed manner concerning the WMD's and the terrorist ties. I found it compelling enough to warrant an invasion for two reasons.

1. We tried the UN's way for about a decade. Mainly it did nothing but starve the citizens of Iraq.

2. Sep 11th was still fresh in my mind.

My main point in the beginning was that I now see nothing but a discussion of freeing the Iraqi people not a discovery of plans and weapons to terrorize others. All of a sudden it's Democracy in Iraq not the defense of our nation. I find that change in foreign policy with Iraq very interesting considering nothing substantial has been found.

[-HaVoC- Profile]

Originally posted by Evan
Don't start antagonizing Jimmy. That's all you've been doing in this thread.

However, I will keep my eyes on this thread so that it does not get out of hand.

I stand by the firm belief that we can hold a normal discussion

[Colonel Ingus Profile]

Interesting reports Jimmy but I and some others are trying to move this conversation beyond the whole WMD issue.

I can go do a google search right now and find literally 1000's of reports in the major media going to support your point you were attempting to make with those qoutes or to counter it.

I think the bottom line here is a lot of people are trying to figure out wether this was a worthwhile venture. Granted some of have VERY strong feelings concerning this subject.

Politics are politics and anyone playing that game is dirty.

Because of my aforementioned reasons I supported the war and it had nothing to do with WMD, Hans Blix, or European nation contractor status.

I could probably be rightfully accussed of being biased. My generation that was in the military at the time of the first Gulf War is upset. We never got to finish the job. And because we were not allowed to another generation is over there dying right now and I find that unacceptable and a stain upon my honor. Whose fault is that? Politicians both domestic and foreign.

These feelings are probably part of the reason I was so harsh in that other thread and I will try to avoid it in this one. I will make an honest attempt to maintain civility here.

I think it is up to everyone here to make their own decision on wether or not this was a good thing to be done irregardless of what led up it. We can find historical examples throughout history of bad reasons that led to good results eventually.

[RCglider Profile]

These are the words of the President, not parsing by pundents.

Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation
The Cross Hall

8:01 P.M. EST 48 hours before start of war.

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.

The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament. Over the years, U.N. weapon inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged, and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again -- because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat. But we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety. Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me, as Commander-in-Chief, by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.

Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq. America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations. One reason the U.N. was founded after the second world war was to confront aggressive dictators, actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.

In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act, in the early 1990s. Under Resolutions 678 and 687 -- both still in effect -- the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will.

Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations, and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.

Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power. For the last four-and-a-half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that Council's long-standing demands. Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world. The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.

In recent days, some governments in the Middle East have been doing their part. They have delivered public and private messages urging the dictator to leave Iraq, so that disarmament can proceed peacefully. He has thus far refused. All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. For their own safety, all foreign nationals -- including journalists and inspectors -- should leave Iraq immediately.

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraqi military to act with honor and protect your country by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed. I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services, if war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.

And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it. Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice.

Yet, the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so. If Saddam Hussein attempts to cling to power, he will remain a deadly foe until the end. In desperation, he and terrorists groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible. And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail. The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.

Our government is on heightened watch against these dangers. Just as we are preparing to ensure victory in Iraq, we are taking further actions to protect our homeland. In recent days, American authorities have expelled from the country certain individuals with ties to Iraqi intelligence services. Among other measures, I have directed additional security of our airports, and increased Coast Guard patrols of major seaports. The Department of Homeland Security is working closely with the nation's governors to increase armed security at critical facilities across America.

Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear. In this, they would fail. No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country. We are a peaceful people -- yet we're not a fragile people, and we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers. If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them, will face fearful consequences.

We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.

The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators, whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war. In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth.

Terrorists and terror states do not reveal these threats with fair notice, in formal declarations -- and responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.

As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country. Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty. And when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.

The United States, with other countries, will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land. And the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace.

That is the future we choose. Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent. And tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.

Good night, and may God continue to bless America.

END 8:15 P.M. EST

[Colonel Ingus Profile]

Call me crass or cruel but I don't think there is anyone in Iraq (or anywhere else for that matter) worth one single Americans life.

I never supported the war to free the Iraqi citizens or to destroy an evil tyrant or anything else of that nature.

I supported it because it needed to be done in a context of the global war on terror. Which is in America best interests.

I glad that they are free and I hope they found a democracy in the middle east that leads to change thruout that region of the world but i am sorry I wouldn't trade a single American servicemans life for that.

I thinks it safe to say that not many GI's went into World War II thinking "Boy I hope I can save the Jews!" They went because their country called when it needed them and they stood up and did their duty. Just like some in my generation did 14 years ago and a wonderful younger generation that gives me hope is doing right now.

[RCglider Profile]

By JUDITH MILLER and JAMES RISEN

n Iraqi scientist who defected to the United States has publicly described for the first time the inner workings of Iraq's three-decade effort to build a nuclear bomb.

The scientist, Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza, said that before he fled Iraq in 1994 he helped train a cadre of young scientists who, working with more senior scientists involved in other projects, would be capable of quickly resuming Iraq's atomic weapons program if the United Nations cuts back on its inspections and, ultimately, lifts economic sanctions.

Hamza is the highest-ranking scientist ever to defect from Baghdad, and his comments, in nearly 10 hours of interviews, come as a new confrontation is building over whether Baghdad has dismantled its chemical, nuclear and biological programs. Iraq has in recent days refused to cooperate further with U.N. weapons inspectors.

In the interviews, Hamza, 59, whose defection was an important intelligence coup for the United States that nearly slipped through American fingers because of the CIA's inattention, drew a chilling picture of life as an Iraqi scientist. He said his colleagues were lavishly rewarded for their successes and tortured by the secret police when they failed to deliver.

He said Iraq's nuclear weapons program was personally directed by Saddam Hussein, Iraq's leader, since its inception 27 years ago. It was abetted, he said, by a host of Western companies, which sold Iraq sophisticated equipment as they "winked and laughed" at patently false cover stories.

On the eve of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Hamza said, Iraq had completed all the research and testing needed for an atomic weapon and was feverishly trying to make at least one crude bomb using uranium from civilian reactors. This effort, Hamza said, could have produced a bomb in a few months, but it was disrupted by the allied bombing campaign.

Only after the war did U.S. intelligence officials learn that they had grossly underestimated Iraq's nuclear program, which they had believed to be 10 years from producing a nuclear bomb. But Hamza's defection to the United States and his subsequent debriefing by the CIA brought fresh details to light, including these:

Iraq's peaceful nuclear power program, begun 30 years ago, was quickly turned into a cover for the secret bomb program, which went ahead even as Baghdad opened up its research reactors to Western inspection.

Israel's intensive campaign in the 1970s and '80s to stop Iraq from acquiring a bomb accomplished little. The 1981 Israeli bombing raid that destroyed Iraq's French-built Osirak nuclear reactor prompted Saddam to drop the pretense of a peaceful atomic effort and to go "full steam" on a covert program to build a bomb.

Iraq took advantage of America's open access to valuable scientific information. Hamza said that as a senior member of Iraq's nuclear program, he spent time at American university libraries studying the latest scientific journals and technical accounts of America's nuclear efforts.

Hamza, who intelligence officials said had been resettled here by the CIA, said he was speaking out now because he was frustrated that Saddam is still obstructing international inspections and deceiving the West. U.S. officials said they did not authorize or encourage Hamza to speak publicly, but they have confirmed many elements of his account.

Until now, Hamza's defection has been a closely guarded secret. A 1995 article in The Sunday Times of London and a 1997 book by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn included detailed accounts of his alleged kidnapping and assassination by secret Iraqi agents.

In fact, his escape from Iraq is a remarkable spy yarn that almost went awry. According to former and current intelligence officials, the CIA initially rebuffed Hamza's appeals to defect to the United States. He spent a year in Libya before the agency realized its mistake and agreed to resettle him and rescue his family from their home in downtown Baghdad.


Nuclear Ambitions:
He Helped Start Secret Arms Program

orn in southern Iraq into a family of Shiite Muslims, Hamza graduated from Baghdad University and then studied physics in the early 1960s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Florida State University. After teaching briefly at Florida State and a small college in Georgia, Hamza returned home in 1970.

He became chairman of the physics department of Iraq's tiny nuclear research center outside Baghdad, and was approached a year later by two envoys from Saddam, who was then Iraq's vice president but already its de facto ruler.

He said they had asked him to help start a secret nuclear weapons program under the cover of an expanded civilian atomic energy program. Hamza said that though he had reservations about building a nuclear bomb, he was enticed by the promise of extra money and stature as well as the possibility that the civilian program might benefit.

A round of recent public hangings in Baghdad, he said, underscored the dangers of refusing such a request.

In 1972, Hamza submitted Iraq's first comprehensive plan for developing nuclear weapons to Saddam -- naming it the "Hussein plan." "We didn't know then that Saddam hated his father and his father's name," Hamza sheepishly recalled.

The plan was quickly adopted, although Saddam rejected Hamza's ambitious proposals for a separate nuclear city and lavish benefits for its scientists. The Iraqi leader, he said, "thought that a separate atomic city would be too tempting a target for Iraq's enemies."

At first, Hamza dealt with the leader through intermediaries. But in 1973, he finally met his boss -- a volcanic encounter. During a visit to the nuclear center, Saddam berated Hamza, his chief planner, in front of his colleagues for failing to use frames to display photographs of famous scientists on the office wall.

"The man was basically illiterate," Hamza said of Saddam. "But here he was complaining about our insufficient respect for great minds. I knew what he was doing: Saddam had to establish his authority by putting the man who had made the plan in his place."

Saddam tightened his grip over the growing nuclear program in 1974, Hamza said, secretly naming himself chairman of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission -- a fact that Iraq has denied to U.N. inspectors. He also began controlling every aspect of the scientists' lives, ordering them to divorce foreign wives and marry Iraqi women, while forcing them to report any contact with foreigners.

Scientists ignored such orders at their peril. In January 1980, Saddam had Iraq's most senior nuclear scientist, Jaafar D. Jaafar, jailed and tortured until he agreed to work on an enrichment program that would separate uranium particles and make bomb-grade fuel. "Jaafar was so badly beaten that he still jumps out of his chair at the slightest scare," Hamza said.


Help From Abroad:
Easy Purchases From Several Nations

amza said he found it surprisingly easy to negotiate nuclear cooperation agreements with the former Soviet Union, India, Brazil, France and others to buy nuclear technology that could be used for bombs under peaceful cover. "If you go with the money and some brains, it's easy to acquire the stuff," he said.

Among other things, Iraq bought a French reactor and an Italian fuel reprocessing facility, an IBM mainframe computer from the United States, and machine tools to make centrifuge components from the Swiss. In 1987 it almost bought for between $110 million and $120 million a complete foundry to forge uranium and other bomb-related components from Leybold and Degussa, two West German companies.

Hamza, who monitored the negotiations in Germany from a room next to the meeting room, said the companies had offered to supply not only the foundry but, for $200 million, a complete installation that they promised could be built within months.

He said Saddam rejected the tempting offer mainly because he feared that such a large deal involving highly sensitive equipment would have tipped off Western intelligence that Iraq was transferring its bomb effort to a new site, known as Al Atheer.

"But we were astonished to see that the companies were actually helping us find cover stories for some of the equipment we needed," Hamza recalled.

Dr. Jorg Streitferdt, in-house counsel for Degussa, AG, based in Frankfurt, Germany, which owned Leybold at the time, said the companies did sell some equipment that ended up in Iraq's nuclear program, and were later subjected to a series of investigations, including a criminal inquiry by Germany.

He noted that Degussa was exonerated on the charges of selling vacuum furnaces to Iraq, largely because West Germany did not require export licenses at that time for such sales. Though Degussa executives suspected that Iraq might use the equipment for military purposes given the ongoing Iran-Iraq war, he added, they did not know that Iraq wanted it for a nuclear program.

"DeGussa and Leybold did not know what the equipment was for," Streitferdt said. "The whole world did not know what Iraq was about to do. We have learned our lesson and now have very tough internal controls on our exports."

Years before Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait turned the country into an international pariah, many of its nuclear-related purchases were made with the blessing of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. atomic energy monitors. The agency assumed that Iraq was amassing the technical know-how for a peaceful power program, and did little to investigate. The inspectors, Hamza said, never asked even basic questions, "like why an oil-rich country like ours wanted nuclear power?"

Hans Meyer, the spokesman for the IAEA, denied that the agency had ignored warning signs that Iraq was trying to build a bomb. "Our inspections were very tough," he said "but under the rules of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, we were only permitted to inspect the facilities that Iraq had declared."

Despite such easy purchases, Hamza said, the program was beset by almost constant setbacks -- the mysterious killings of senior Iraqi nuclear scientists traveling in Europe, corruption, technical blunders and vicious bureaucratic feuds among Iraq's scientists seeking to generate bomb-grade enriched uranium. But Saddam had an uncanny knack for turning such crises into opportunities, he said.

After Israel bombed Iraq's reactor in 1981, the Iraqi leader created the first completely independent, clandestine weapons program, most of which remained hidden from Western inspectors for nearly a decade. Liberated from having to march in lock step with its peaceful cover, the nuclear weapons program staff grew from 400 to 7,000, Hamza said. And its budget soared.

At a time when Iraq's bloody war with Iran was draining the country's resources, nuclear scientists were insulated from the war's economic ravages. The program was allotted as much as $150 million a month, Hamza said.


Incomplete Results:
Nuclear Scientists Beaten and Tortured

he Iraqi scientists were expected to produce results, and in one crucial aspect of the program, they had little to show. Despite years of effort, they had failed to produce the enriched uranium that is an essential component in an atomic weapon.

When Hussein Kamel, Saddam's ambitious son-in-law, took over the nuclear program in 1987, Hamza said he helped him unmask a team of scientists who were falsely claiming success in enriching uranium.

Hamza was immediately named Iraq's director of weapons programs. "I went to the palace" he said, and "emerged with a new car and the title of a director general."

He said Kamel had ordered him to find a nuclear bomb trigger while other scientists pursued at least five different methods of separating uranium to make bomb-grade fuel. Hamza said that he had purchased a trigger in Poland, which did not work well, but that other Iraqi scientists developed a workable trigger in Iraq.

U.S. intelligence officials knew little of the Iraqi effort, in part because the enrichment program relied on a technique abandoned by the United States after the World War II Manhattan Project some 40 years earlier. "They never put two and two together," Hamza said.

But the enrichment program was still slow to pay off, and Kamel grew restless. The inevitable result was the onset of beatings and torture for the scientists.

"Hussein Kamel used to send scientists who displeased him to the torture center in Al Taji," Hamza recounted. "You couldn't survive more than two weeks there." A director general of one Iraqi nuclear program was beaten so badly that "he couldn't come to work for a week."

Shortly before the 1991 Gulf War, Kamel started a crash program to develop a bomb. "Kamel was crazy, but he managed to produce in a month things that would normally take a year," Hamza said. "Fear works well."

In December 1990 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Hamza said, he asked to retire from the program. But he was told that he could do so only if he agreed to stay on as a senior adviser and help train Iraq's new generation of bombmakers.

He left an important legacy. According to Hamza, the program had perfected two methods for enriching uranium, and each could have produced enough material to make a bomb in a year or two.

Hamza witnessed the intensive American and allied bombing campaign in the Persian Gulf War and was stunned at how little the Americans and their allies knew about Iraq's program. More than half of Iraq's major nuclear installations, most notably the sprawling Al Atheer complex, the program's busy new weapons center, were left largely untouched by the bombing raids.

Ultimately, Hamza's long-running bureaucratic feud with another leading bomb scientist, the terror of working inside the Iraqi police state and finally the killing of colleagues in the secret program persuaded him to flee.

The final straw came when the body of Adil Fayadh, one of Iraq's chief nuclear procurement officers, was found near Hamza's farm. "He had a farm next to mine," he said. "They killed him and put him in the ditch on his farm. It got me very worried. It had to be Iraqi intelligence. That night, about two dozen people came to my house, pale-faced and worried. They didn't know what was going to happen."

Hamza defected soon after, and he continues to anxiously follow the Iraqi nuclear program from afar. He insisted that Saddam remains determined to reconstitute the chemical, biological and nuclear programs in which he invested so much. "Without these props, he would lose power," he said.

[Buliwyf Profile]

Originally posted by Colonel Ingus
I thinks it safe to say that not many GI's went into World War II thinking "Boy I hope I can save the Jews!" They went because their country called when it needed them and they stood up and did their duty. Just like some in my generation did 14 years ago and a wonderful younger generation that gives me hope is doing right now.

Of course they didn't as we truly didn't know what was going on at first, but once the clear cut answer came out of what was going on, that definitly took a major part in war efforts till the end.

[JimmyTango Profile]

Originally posted by Evan
Don't start antagonizing Jimmy. That's all you've been doing in this thread.

However, I will keep my eyes on this thread so that it does not get out of hand.

That's pathetic Evan, and you know it. To single me out, when i did nto even start any of it(all replies to antagonizing posts directed towards me) is total BS. I would think someone involved with ECGN could seperate himself from any friendships on this forum. Apparently I am wrong.

[JimmyTango Profile]

Originally posted by Colonel Ingus
Interesting reports Jimmy but I and some others are trying to move this conversation beyond the whole WMD issue.

In case you missed it, that is what this thread was started for, the WMD. It is the first word in the title. Those articles go father than just 'WMD not found yet.' Specificaly the reason for us rushing in there(they are trying for nukes).

Also, my first post in this thread was how this is a touchy subject, which apparently is antaganizing posters.

[Colonel Ingus Profile]

I did notice that Jimmy thats why I made the comment I did.
I just was pointing out we were evolving the conversation from what it orginal began as. That is how conversations progress and how we learn new things.

I also think you are doing Evan a disservice re-read what he said and he is asking people NOT to antagonize YOU. he was defending you.

These aren't attacks upon you Jimmy Lets try and keep it civil.

[Doug the Unforgiven]

[Xenius]

Interesting reading this thread is. I'm not sure where I stand on everything, though I wish we weren't constantly pissing our strongest allies off. Keep the discussion going.

And let us not forget the glorious ignore option. It would keep some of us from killing each other.