OT - CNN: Iraq War Wasn't Justified, U.N. Weapons Experts Say

[NoMyths]

Link: Iraq War Wasn't Justified, U.N. Weapons Experts Say

Full Text:
Iraq war wasn't justified, U.N. weapons experts say
Blix, ElBaradei: U.S. ignored evidence against WMDs

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand at the time.

"I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who oversaw the agency's investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

Blix described the evidence Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003 as "shaky," and said he related his opinion to U.S. officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

"I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke to CNN from IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

ElBaradei said he had been "pretty convinced" that Iraq had not resumed its nuclear weapons program, which the IAEA dismantled in 1997.

Days before the fighting began, Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in with an opposing view.

"We believe [Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong," Cheney said. "And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency in this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what Saddam Hussein was doing."

Now, more than a year later, ElBaradei said, "I haven't seen anything on the ground at that time that supported Mr. Cheney's conclusion or statement, so -- and I thought to myself, well, history is going to be the judge."

No evidence of a nuclear weapons program has been found so far.

Blix, who recounts his search for weapons of mass destruction in his book "Disarming Iraq," said the Bush administration tended "to say that anything that was unaccounted for existed, whether it was sarin or mustard gas or anthrax."

Blix specifically faulted Powell, who told the U.N. Security Council about what he said was a site that held chemical weapons and decontamination trucks.

"Our inspectors had been there, and they had taken a lot of samples, and there was no trace of any chemicals or biological things," Blix said. "And the trucks that we had seen were water trucks."

The most spectacular intelligence failure concerned a report by ElBaradei, who revealed that an alleged contract by Iraq with Niger to import uranium oxide was a forgery, Blix said.

"The document had been sitting with the CIA and their U.K. counterparts for a long while, and they had not discovered it," Blix said. "And I think it took the IAEA a day to discover that it was a forgery."

Blix said that during a meeting before the war with the U.S. president, Bush told him that "the U.S. genuinely wanted peace," and that "he was no wild, gung-ho Texan, bent on dragging the U.S. into war."

Blix said Bush gave the inspectors support and information at first, but he said the help didn't last long enough.

"I think they lost their patience much too early," Blix said.

"I can see that they wanted to have a picture that was either black or white, and we presented a picture that had, you know, gray in it, as well," he said.

Iraq had been shown to have biological and chemical weapons before, "and there was no record of either destruction or production; there was this nagging question: Do they still have them?" ElBaradei said.

Blix said he had not been able to say definitively that Iraq had no such weapons, but added that he felt history has shown he was not wrong.

"At least we didn't fall into the trap that the U.S. and the U.K. did in asserting that they existed," he said.

ElBaradei faulted Iraq for "the opaque nature of that Saddam Hussein regime."

"We should not forget that," he said. "For a couple of months, their cooperation was not by any way transparent, for whatever reason."

ElBaradei said he hoped the past year's events have taught world leaders a valuable lesson.

"We learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work."

*Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to troll, begin a flame war, or resolve any problems with nuclear fusion. Any resemblence to personages living or dead is coincidental and beyond the scope of any point that might intentionally or unintentionally be made. Visualize whirled peas. Jebus shaves.

[duckman]

Yeah, I believe everything that Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei says.

The fact is that the left wing has been trying to put cracks into the war in Iraq for months and are doing a very poor job of doing it. I got news for those people: 2/3rds of Americans believes the war was in the interest of US. WMD or not, the US threw out a vicious dictator from power and gave it back to the Iraqi people.

[Dutch]

Along with Hans Blix, here's another guy pimping a new book and looking (smartly) for the press to give free advertising.

Ex-Adviser Blasts Bush's Terror Response
46 minutes ago Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!


By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), "looked skeptical" when she was warned early in 2001 about the threat from al-Qaida and appeared to never have heard of the terrorist organization, according to Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator.

"Her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before," wrote Richard A. Clarke in a new book — "Against All Enemies" — that is scathingly critical of Bush's response to the 2001 terror attacks against New York and Washington. The Associated Press obtained a copy of Clarke's book before its Monday publication.

[clintl]

I find Hans Blix and Mohammed El-Baradei immensely more credible and honest than the Bush team, and their findings were thoroughly vindicated by Bush's own hand-picked weapons inspector, David Kay.

[yabanci]

but they aren't american.

[McSweeny]

go wash your hans

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Originally Posted by duckman

Yeah, I believe everything that Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei says.

The fact is that the left wing has been trying to put cracks into the war in Iraq for months and are doing a very poor job of doing it. I got news for those people: 2/3rds of Americans believes the war was in the interest of US. WMD or not, the US threw out a vicious dictator from power and gave it back to the Iraqi people.

You don't have to believe what Blix and Elbaradei say. Bush told the American people the same thing, and by all accounts, there are no WMDs in Iraq. That stands on its own.

You also miss the point. It's not going to war in Iraq that is what is wrong, it was being lied to about why soldiers were going over there. Why didn't they just say we are going to war to throw out a vicious dictator and give the country back to its people. Well, it is quite obvious why they didn't. They felt such a reason would never have been accepted by the American people, so they made some crap up.

Of course, now they have been found out, Bush can only fall back on that reasoning.

The biggest loss in all of this is that the U.S. will never be able garner international support for something like this again. Unfortunately, terrorism can hide worldwide, and the U.S. needs the help of other nations to win this war against terror. It was foolhardy to think otherwise.

[Fritz]

*yawn*

[wig]

Can we just have a single "I hate Bush" topic for you children to play in?

[duckman]

Originally Posted by Vinatieri for Prez

You don't have to believe what Blix and Elbaradei say. Bush told the American people the same thing, and by all accounts, there are no WMDs in Iraq. That stands on its own.

You also miss the point. It's not going to war in Iraq that is what is wrong, it was being lied to about why soldiers were going over there. Why didn't they just say we are going to war to throw out a vicious dictator and give the country back to its people. Well, it is quite obvious why they didn't. They felt such a reason would never have been accepted by the American people, so they made some crap up.

Of course, now they have been found out, Bush can only fall back on that reasoning.

The biggest loss in all of this is that the U.S. will never be able garner international support for something like this again. Unfortunately, terrorism can hide worldwide, and the U.S. needs the help of other nations to win this war against terror. It was foolhardy to think otherwise.

You do have some valid points, but Saddam had WMD's. He used them on his own people and the Iranians in the Iran/Iraq War. He may have temporarily stopped or hid WMD's in his weapons in another country (syria?) so that he could get the UN sanctions against him dropped. As soon as that happened, Iraq would again been creating biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
Saddam would have a threat to the Middle East and United State all over again.

I think you are wrong with international support. The EU is split about the war on terror. Poland, Italy, Portugal, UK, Turkey have been strong supporters in the war on terror. Many of the former Soviet satellite states are also giving unwavering support to us. Australia, Phillipines, and Japan are supporters of the war on terror. Yemen, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt are Middle East countries that have helped in the war on terror. Columbia, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and Central America have shown support. Where is this weak international support that you are talking about?

[Havok]

God this is getting old..... i agree with Wig. We get the point already Nomyths and the rest of the crew.... you hate Bush, you hate God, you hate republicans, you love the French, 80% tax on the rich, 5% for the poor, Capitalist's are evil, Kerry is great etc etc etc......

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by Havok

God this is getting old..... i agree with Wig. We get the point already Nomyths and the rest of the crew.... you hate Bush, you hate God, you hate republicans, you love the French, 80% tax on the rich, 5% for the poor, Capitalist's are evil, Kerry is great etc etc etc......

Hmm...actually, I don't hate Bush, nor God, nor Republicans; I don't love the French, have little opinion on specific percentages for taxes, and capitalists (refer to the apostrophe thread, please, for help with these things) can be good. Kerry might end up being great, but it's hard to tell at this point.

Not really sure why posting a legitimate news article qualifies me for this kind of venom, but it's pretty fascinating that I keep being the recipient of it. Personally, I'd just read the articles and not worry too much about how I feel about them unless I tell you.

If you don't like these posts, don't read them. I'm just trying to do my part to provide information that some folks might not come across on their own.

[Havok]

ya sure got me with that apostrophe thing... good job! Next time we'll go after someone when they misspell something!! that will win us the arguement for sure!! [/sarcasm]

I've seen your "legitimate news article" posts before, like the one you were trying to bait Bubba into an arguement. It just seems that you tend to post them in hopes of starting FOFC's 8736978638468234th political arguement of the week. Gets old real real fast.

Also, my orginal post was 'somewhat' lighthearted. I'm sure you don't like the french anymore then the rest of us

*looks over his shoulder to see if Darkkiller is coming*

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by Havok

I've seen your "legitimate news article" posts before, like the one you were trying to bait Bubba into an arguement. It just seems that you tend to post them in hopes of starting FOFC's 8736978638468234th political arguement of the week. Gets old real real fast.

As I said, if you don't like them, don't read them. I'm uninterested in starting arguments. I'm more interested in getting useful information out to folks.

If I were you I'd go ahead and put me on your ignore list, since you're obviously uninterested in learning about anything that isn't copacetic with your current worldview.

[Havok]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

If I were you I'd go ahead and put me on your ignore list, since you're obviously uninterested in learning about anything that isn't copacetic with your current worldview.

that was funny.... i can''''''t compete with that.

[wig]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

...copacetic ...

Can I get a definition?

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by wig

Can I get a definition?

No.

[NoMyths]

dola...

www.dictionary.com

[wig]

dick

[NoMyths]

hey now, don't make me report you

[wig]

hehehe

I was complimenting a part of your anatomy.

[NoMyths]

why thank you. it's a hard thing to wignore.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by wig

Can we just have a single "I hate Bush" topic for you children to play in?

I hate Bush

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by clintl

I find Hans Blix and Mohammed El-Baradei immensely more credible and honest than the Bush team, and their findings were thoroughly vindicated by Bush's own hand-picked weapons inspector, David Kay.

Not exactly. Kay said the intelligence was wrong. Kay said that no one knew that going in.

Heck, weeks before the war Blix said that the Iraqis "haven't even grasped the fundamental conclusion that they must disarm". <--paraphrase

[Fritz]

"We learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work."

I don't think anything that happened showed that. If anything, the message was "play ball or get hit with the bat."

[MIJB#19]

What a surprise...

The Bush administration should have been honest from the start: "Our goal is to toss over Saddamn's throne, capture him and create the opportunity for the Iraqi to live in a democracy."
The loyal countries, so-called friends, would have bought that too with ease...

Now it just defends Bush's image as world dictator (whether it is correct is no issue.) of course, he would have had that even without going to war to free Afghanistan and Iraq, simply because he's the son of and because he's a US president.
I know, the world is a bad place with hypoctits all over.

Watch those people screaming against Israel about the assasination of Hamas terrorist Yassin, the same people who ordered Europe to be 3 minutes silent over the Madrid terrorist attack. Some political leaders show they have no clue what they stand for...
Yes, I'm not a Bush fan, but his point on Israel's attack of that Hamas leader makes a lot more sense then the immediate fingerpointing to Sharon (who I am no fan of either.)

[clintl]

What the world needs is a Palestinian Ghandi. That would solve a lot of problems.

[Bubba Wheels]

Israel executed a child-killer, and the U.N. along with CNN (who apparently described said former earth-dweller as 'elderly cleric) cry rivers of tears for him. Too Bad, So Sad, aren't those all the same Palestinians complaining about us helping Israel the same ones who were dancing in the streets after 9-11?

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by Bubba Wheels

Israel executed a child-killer, and the U.N. along with CNN (who apparently described said former earth-dweller as 'elderly cleric) cry rivers of tears for him. Too Bad, So Sad, aren't those all the same Palestinians complaining about us helping Israel the same ones who were dancing in the streets after 9-11?

My thinking on this is that if Palestine wants to be a sovereign nation, they need to actually become sovereign. That means they can't allow gangs of thugs to operate with immunity within their borders. Once the Palestinian "government" actually controls Palestine, their case for autonomy can be made.

[rkmsuf]

Originally Posted by clintl

What the world needs is a Palestinian Ghandi. That would solve a lot of problems.

I think they need a little classic SNL and a beer...get these people something to occupy themselves with. How about Everquest, maybe they'd like that...