Iraqi People Fear Democrat Victory(Chig.Trib.)

[LG]

Firstly, WMC, you have consistently failed to reply to my points but always end up spouting stuff about WMDs. Look at my set of questions and see if you can actually give a full and proper answer to any, let alone all, of them. Your liberal bashing isn't helping you.

And, WMC, we all have access to computers so Pfft~ right back at you. I checked your quotes and again you've taken material out of context just so you can prove your point. You seem to have a knack to do this. For example, here is a more complete quote by Ted Kennedy:

We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction. Our intelligence community is also deeply concerned about the acquisition of such weapons by Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and other nations. But information from the intelligence community over the past six months does not point to Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States or a major proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.

And here's your Hillary quote in full:

I n the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

Now this much is undisputed. The open questions are: what should we do about it? How, when, and with whom?

Some people favor attacking Saddam Hussein now, with any allies we can muster, in the belief that one more round of weapons inspections would not produce the required disarmament, and that deposing Saddam would be a positive good for the Iraqi people and would create the possibility of a secular democratic state in the Middle East, one which could perhaps move the entire region toward democratic reform.

This view has appeal to some, because it would assure disarmament; because it would right old wrongs after our abandonment of the Shiites and Kurds in 1991, and our support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980's when he was using chemical weapons and terrorizing his people; and because it would give the Iraqi people a chance to build a future in freedom.

However, this course is fraught with danger. We and our NATO allies did not depose Mr. Milosevic, who was responsible for more than a quarter of a million people being killed in the 1990s. Instead, by stopping his aggression in Bosnia and Kosovo, and keeping on the tough sanctions, we created the conditions in which his own people threw him out and led to his being in the dock being tried for war crimes as we speak.

If we were to attack Iraq now, alone or with few allies, it would set a precedent that could come back to haunt us. In recent days, Russia has talked of an invasion of Georgia to attack Chechen rebels. India has mentioned the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on Pakistan. And what if China were to perceive a threat from Taiwan?

So Mr. President, for all its appeal, a unilateral attack, while it cannot be ruled out, on the present facts is not a good option.

There's more where that came from, but I can't be bothered right now for two reasons. One is that I'm not willing to engage in your immature fighting until you read my posts properly and fully and answer them in full. The other reason is that I'm not a Democrat, so what they said matters very little to me. I'm a European and we get a more rounded view of the news here. And I tell you, most Europeans were against the war and still are and more and more Europeans don't like the American government very much anymore.

And we're not alone. A few billion people can't all be wrong.

Oh, and you also said:

Well then,crack open a binary sarin container,breathe deeply,then if not dead come back and tell us that.

Actually, I believe binary sarin has to be mixed to become active first. And, more importantly, seeing as I am a gentleman, I'll let you try it out first.

[chefmike]

Saddam and WMD's?

How amusing...

almost as amusing as this item...


In Video, Hussein Uses Slingshots and Bows to Rally Iraqis for War

Published: November 24, 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 — As the world worried about Saddam Hussein’s quest for nuclear and biological weapons, he took time out to discuss with his top advisers the merits of a decidedly more primitive arsenal: slingshots, Molotov cocktails and crossbows.

In a previously undisclosed video, apparently shot in the months before the American-led invasion in 2003, Mr. Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, beams as military officers display and demonstrate low-tech weapons spread on a table in a ceremonial room. Whether the episode shows genuine preparation for an insurgency or was merely a bizarre propaganda exercise is unclear.

In the video, Mr. Hussein, wearing a double-breasted gray suit, aims a slingshot, shoots an arrow at a door using a crossbow (as aides scamper out of the way) and swings a mock gasoline bomb over his head with a rope. He urges his aides to get such weapons into the hands of Iraqis.

“Let’s use all the methods we can,” he tells his generals. “These methods can be made at home.”

Later he says, “Let’s talk to the minister of industry to see if we can mass produce this.” Tariq Aziz, Mr. Hussein’s close adviser and deputy prime minister, pipes in, “This can be shown to our group of people, who can introduce it to the others.”

Phebe Marr, a historian of Iraq, says that what is most striking about the video is the archaic and impotent nature of the weapons Mr. Hussein appears to be taking seriously. “This stuff is medieval,” she said. “The interesting question is whether this was preparation for the resistance we’ve seen since.”

The 20-minute video, part of a vast collection of videotapes seized by American forces in Iraq, was obtained from a military source by Peter W. Klein, a television producer who has included an excerpt in a documentary, “Beyond Top Secret,” to be shown Friday night and Saturday morning on The History Channel.

[guyone]

Yeah. Saddam used his slingshot to take out all these people...

The most enduring images of atrocities against the Kurds took place in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein planned a genocidal campaign against them. Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's first cousin, headed the campaign. He became known as "Chemical Ali" after the Kurdish town of Halabja was attacked with nerve gas and other chemical weapons in March 1988, killing 5,000 civilians. But Halabja was just one of 60 civilian targets that were attacked with poison gas during the 18-month campaign known as anfal, or "spoils." Any survivors of this deadly campaign were evicted under a policy of "Arabization," which resettled Iraqi Arabs in northern Iraq, often in homes once owned by Kurds.

[guyone]

Here's a picture of Saddam with his SUPER ATOMIC SLINGSHOT and its aftermath...

[LG]

Oh, you mean the chemical weapons that were sold to Iraq by the Republican government back in the '80s, guyone?

"Yes, I suppose we were all wondering why he needed those. We never thought he'd use them to kill innocent people. He seemed like such a nice dictator..."

[Coroner]

Oh, you mean the chemical weapons that were sold to Iraq by the Republican government back in the '80s, guyone?

"Yes, I suppose we were all wondering why he needed those. We never thought he'd use them to kill innocent people. He seemed like such a nice dictator..."

he needed them to celebrate 4th of july

[guyone]

Oh, you mean the chemical weapons that were sold to Iraq by the Republican government back in the '80s, guyone?

The US never sold Iraq chemical weapons. Where's your proof? Where's the sales receipt? Also being that at that time it would have to have been approved by the Democratically controlled congress I find it very hard to believe.

You see we do have sales receipts of Clinton selling plutonium to North Korea and we do have sales receipts of Clinton selling long range missile technology to Red China. No sales receipts of chemical weapons to Iraq though. Sorry.



No tikee...no chemical weapon!

[LG]

guyone, have a look at the report below, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

At the same time the Reagan administration was facilitating the supply of weapons and military components to Baghdad, it was attempting to cut off supplies to Iran under "Operation Staunch." Those efforts were largely successful, despite the glaring anomaly of the 1986 Iran-contra scandal when the White House publicly admitted trading arms for hostages, in violation of the policy that the United States was trying to impose on the rest of the world.

Although U.S. arms manufacturers were not as deeply involved as German or British companies in selling weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of "dual use" items such as chemical precursors and steel tubes that can have military and civilian applications. According to several former officials, the State and Commerce departments promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S. exports and acquire political leverage over Hussein.

When United Nations weapons inspectors were allowed into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, they compiled long lists of chemicals, missile components, and computers from American suppliers, including such household names as Union Carbide and Honeywell, which were being used for military purposes.

A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq during the mid-'80s under license from the Commerce Department, including various strains of anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program. The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.

The fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons was hardly a secret. In February 1984, an Iraqi military spokesman effectively acknowledged their use by issuing a chilling warning to Iran. "The invaders should know that for every harmful insect, there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it . . . and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide."

Chemicals Kill Kurds

In late 1987, the Iraqi air force began using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq that had formed a loose alliance with Iran, according to State Department reports. The attacks, which were part of a "scorched earth" strategy to eliminate rebel-controlled villages, provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and renewed demands for sanctions against Iraq. The State Department and White House were also outraged -- but not to the point of doing anything that might seriously damage relations with Baghdad.

"The U.S.-Iraqi relationship is . . . important to our long-term political and economic objectives," Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy wrote in a September 1988 memorandum that addressed the chemical weapons question. "We believe that economic sanctions will be useless or counterproductive to influence the Iraqis."

Bush administration spokesmen have cited Hussein's use of chemical weapons "against his own people" -- and particularly the March 1988 attack on the Kurdish village of Halabjah -- to bolster their argument that his regime presents a "grave and gathering danger" to the United States.

The Iraqis continued to use chemical weapons against the Iranians until the end of the Iran-Iraq war. A U.S. air force intelligence officer, Rick Francona, reported finding widespread use of Iraqi nerve gas when he toured the Al Faw peninsula in southern Iraq in the summer of 1988, after its recapture by the Iraqi army. The battlefield was littered with atropine injectors used by panicky Iranian troops as an antidote against Iraqi nerve gas attacks.

Far from declining, the supply of U.S. military intelligence to Iraq actually expanded in 1988, according to a 1999 book by Francona, "Ally to Adversary: an Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace." Informed sources said much of the battlefield intelligence was channeled to the Iraqis by the CIA office in Baghdad.

Although U.S. export controls to Iraq were tightened up in the late 1980s, there were still many loopholes. In December 1988, Dow Chemical sold $1.5 million of pesticides to Iraq, despite U.S. government concerns that they could be used as chemical warfare agents. An Export-Import Bank official reported in a memorandum that he could find "no reason" to stop the sale, despite evidence that the pesticides were "highly toxic" to humans and would cause death "from asphyxiation."

And according to the State Department's website:

In late 2002 and early 2003, North Korea terminated the freeze on its existing plutonium-based nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, expelled IAEA inspectors, removed seals and monitoring equipment at Yongbyon, quit the NPT, and resumed reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for weapons purposes. North Korea announced that it was taking these steps to provide itself with a deterrent force in the face of U.S. threats and the U.S.'s "hostile policy." Beginning in mid-2003, the North repeatedly claimed to have completed reprocessing of the spent fuel rods previously frozen at Yongbyon and publicly said that the resulting fissile material would be used to bolster its "nuclear deterrent force." There is no independent confirmation of North Korea's claims. The KEDO Executive Board suspended work on the Light Water Reactor Project beginning December 1, 2003.

This happened after Bush administration reports emphasized that the US should be prepared for a war with North Korea. America's stalemate with North Korea and the latter's recent show of its nuclear strength is down to the Bush administration's failure, not Clinton's.

You may want to read this too:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/art...s_list/?page=1

As for the US selling weapons to China, I'd be interesting in seeing some proof but I kind of doubt. Still, it is not really relevant to what we are discussing here. I don't give a shit what the Democrats did. But I do know that they didn't plunge the nation and the world into a pile of shit like the current administration have done.

And, importantly, I'm still waiting for you to answer my questions from a previous post. They were:

- Was the US justified in attacking and under what pretext?
- Did the US leadership actually believe, at the time, that Saddam possessed WMDs that could be used against America or was it a mere excuse to wage war? And has the evidence CONCLUSIVELY proven that such belief was correct?
- Was there ever a REAL, PROVABLE link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden?
- Is "regime change" a justified reason for waging war and, if so, why has the US not invaded other oppressive regimes?
- Is it ever correct to ignore the UN and wage a war?
- Did those who chose to go to war gain financially or in other ways from the war?
- Why did the US not instill regime change in Iraq back when Saddam began gassing the Kurds?
And finally:
- Was the attack and the occupation properly planned? If so, why is the insurgence still going stong and the death toll still rising?

Now go do your homework.

[guyone]

First off the article you quoted shows no pictures of sales receipts from the DOD for nerve gas going to Iraq. Articles of conjecture by the Washington Post are not proof. You see here in America we are innocent until proven guilty. A unique concept that your country may or may not provide.

I don't know what kind of gobbildy-gook you're spouting as far as North Korea. Clinton sold them plutonium. Your article just states that in 2002 the NK went nuts and wanted to go to war with the US. Oh yeah, if NKs pulls any funny business it won't be the US that will do any pounding, SK, Japan, & yes...Red China will pounce on them with extreme prejudice. China has got a lot to lose if Kim Jong 'mentally' Ill starts anything.

Being that it is yourself that needs to do homework here is your first assignment:

LG's Homework

[LG]

Actually, North Korea possesses more plotunium now than during Clinton's tenure. And no, I haven't got any receipts for the weapons sold to Iraq (though it's a commonly known fact) but you haven't shown me any receipts either. I don't expect you'll find many receipts for any arms sales, actually, not in the conventional sense of the word.

During his time though, Clinton did help the North Koreans replace their old reactors with newer, safer ones and did support them financially. In exchange, North Korea agreed to halt their nuclear weapons programme, remain as signatories to the Non-prolifertion Treaty and allow inpectors to monitor their facilities. The reactors were built by a company who had a man very familiar to you on their payroll. Republicans have some nerve blaming Clinton seeing as one of their own, Donald Rumsfeld, was a Director of the firm that built North Korea's nuclear reactors:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/arti...952289,00.html

A review of the US policy on North Korea showing that Clinton's diplomacy had reduced the risk of conflict and improved US- North Korean relations whereas the Bush administration's actions have turned the North Koreans into heavily armed mortal enemies can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/arti...952289,00.html

And here is more. North Korea decides to allow weapons inspectors to continue monitoring, under Clinton:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/arti...855243,00.html
and then kicks them out in 2002 after Bush's hardline tactics fail:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/arti...867053,00.html

And have a look here to read about GW Bush's great foreign policy success in making a new enemy:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/HJ19Dg01.html

Or an article from Japan Focus written by an expert from New Zealand arguing that John McCain is wrong and that North Korea's nuclear test has been due to a failure by the Bush administration.
http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2262

And finally... a British poll shows that Britons believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1938434,00.html

You see here in America we are innocent until proven guilty.

Really? So why do you blame the Democrats for everything? So why did you preemptively attack Iraq before proving they were guilty of having WMD? So why do you personally keep spewing cowslop before you even consider the evidence?

In addition, you have consistently failed to answer any of my questions or put any proper points forward. Your replies are devoid of any facts but are mere piffle. You type things like "Not true!" without bothering to prove why what are arguing against is not true. The reason I told you to do your homework is not just becuase you desperately need to read up before you start saying any old crap but because, judging from the way you answer these posts, I'd say you have the maturity of a little kid.

Anyway, lesson over. You can go play with your friends now.