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Was W Right About WMDs?


Proud Tiger

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Not exactly. The article they are referencing is from October of last year and says this

The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program. Instead, American troops gradually found and ultimately suffered from the remnants of long-abandoned programs, built in close collaboration with the West.

The rest is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

I had my suspicions the American News article might be exaggerating when it didn't bother to link the NYT article.

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I bet you wouldn't be so calvalier it if you had been one of the guys who got hurt by one of the WMDs.

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I bet you wouldn't be so calvalier it if you had been one of the guys who got hurt by one of the WMDs.

actually the guys that got sick were the only people that were at any risk by those old buried non-usable weapons. remind me again why they were there.
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Guest NC1406

Remind me why we are still there? I thought this was a campaign promise. Why do we have troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan and why is Guantanamo still open? I have heard these were all bad ideas by W. What the heck?

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Remind me why we are still there? I thought this was a campaign promise. Why do we have troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan and why is Guantanamo still open? I have heard these were all bad ideas by W. What the heck?

Most of our troops in Iraq are now out. Mere ' advisers ' , right ? Barry's got Gitmo on a slow roll to shut down. I'm sure this stuff w/ Cuba is part of the grand plan.

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Guest NC1406

I don't follow this board enough to know if you are being sarcastic. But Iraq is still a conflicted zone for U.S. troops mostly special forces. Afghanistan is a freaking political football. We have troops leading incompetent NATO wannabes. Most of the troops long for the day they worked with afghan nationals. Oh and the BIG Q is open and operational

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Yes, W was right. We've had this discussion before.

Deeply delusional.

Knock off with the insults, and just face the facts. This is a done issue ,get over it.

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I don't follow this board enough to know if you are being sarcastic. But Iraq is still a conflicted zone for U.S. troops mostly special forces. Afghanistan is a freaking political football. We have troops leading incompetent NATO wannabes. Most of the troops long for the day they worked with afghan nationals. Oh and the BIG Q is open and operational

Big Q ?

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Before going any further, let me first say that for any soldier or civilian to be harmed by these weapons is abhorrent, just as their use against Kurds and Iranians was abhorrent. These soldiers absolute deserve the medals rewarded for these actions and injuries, and the gratitude and respect of all Americans!

Secondly, I know my liberal response is eagerly awaited by many who will actually either not read it seriously or have already made up their minds about it before reading. I expect to be mocked for “just following the liberal line”, although that neither offends me nor concerns me.

But my genuine opinion (read and/or respected or not) is that the only new information in the original NYT source* is the suffering of the soldiers involved, the unprepared or slipshod actions of the military in its disarmament policies and medical response, and the apparent cover up attempts by higher ranking military or civilian leadership to keep these reports out of public knowledge. (*I’m not even going to address the opening AN link.)

What is not new: Saddam had a chemical weapons program at one time--that even received assistance from us in the ‘80’s--and in fact used chemical weapons against both Kurd and Iranian targets. Also already known: Our invading forces in 2003+ did uncover some caches of old, not-weapons-functional chemical stocks and shells. (Do any of the live shells shown in the NYT report looking fireable/‘deliverable’ to you?) It might even be argued that had we not dismantle the Ba’ath regime, most of these would have stayed buried, forgotten, and eventually naturally degraded rather than being scavenged by post-Saddam resistance forces.

What I do not see in the NYT article is any evidence that Saddam had on-going, active WMD capabilities that posed a significant threat to the U.S. or his neighbors in 2003, which was the argument made to justify invasion. In fact, the seeming attempts to silence these reports (somewhere in the chain of command between the actual weapons site and the White House) suggests they were certainly not the “smoking gun” the Bush administration would have loved to parade before the press as proof that this reason for war was validated. If they proved the “Saddam has active WMD’s” claim, why not produce them at once? On the other hand, if you merely want to cover up the slipshod way in which the dismantling of the Iraq military and its materials was handled post-conquest, I can see a reason for secrecy.

…Now I’ve only read the NYT report once and may have overlooked something in it. If so, I welcome correction. But basically I see nothing there that justifies the war, supports the claim that Saddam was a WMD threat in 2003, or warrants fresh outrage or discussion (beyond, of course, the suffering of the servicemen and any cover ups.)

(I also see no connection between this report of events during a previous Administration and the current status of Gitmo or Cuba... :gofig: )

Have at me.

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The WMD stockpiles under saddam were not limited to new & active but also included old stock piles as well.

Iraq was supposed to give up everything. Everything means everything. They didn't.

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The WMD stockpiles under saddam were not limited to new & active but also included old stock piles as well.

No one is questioning the existence of old unusable stockpiles; that was reported back in the 2000's and his use of chemical agents against Kurds and Iranians was known in the 1980's. Where is the evidence of the "new and active" stockpiles that justified the 2003 invasion?
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The WMD stockpiles under saddam were not limited to new & active but also included old stock piles as well.

No one is questioning the existence of old unusable stockpiles; that was reported back in the 2000's and his use of chemical agents against Kurds and Iranians was known in the 1980's. Where is the evidence of the "new and active" stockpiles that justified the 2003 invasion?

Dunno. But in fact, many of these undiscovered stockpiles had NOT been reported by the Iraqi govt, as they were suppose to have done.

Contain them and or destroy them. These were in addition to what Iraq had told us / the U.N. about.

Good bet that any new items found their way to Syria.

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The WMD stockpiles under saddam were not limited to new & active but also included old stock piles as well.

No one is questioning the existence of old unusable stockpiles; that was reported back in the 2000's and his use of chemical agents against Kurds and Iranians was known in the 1980's. Where is the evidence of the "new and active" stockpiles that justified the 2003 invasion?

Dunno. But in fact, many of these undiscovered stockpiles had NOT been reported by the Iraqi govt, as they were suppose to have done.

Contain them and or destroy them. These were in addition to what Iraq had told us / the U.N. about.

Good bet that any new items found their way to Syria.

yea a 6 trillion $ bet.
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Yes, W was right. We've had this discussion before.

Deeply delusional.

Knock off with the insults, and just face the facts. This is a done issue ,get over it.

:laugh: Is that how you do it? Just keep repeating something until it becomes true?

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No, I just repeat the facts It's the left who keep repeating that Bush stole the 2000 election. And that will never become true.

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Whether Saddam Hussein shipped chemical weapons to Syria, sunk them in the deepest hole in the Euphrates, or had Reptilians fly them to Saturn, lack of evidence cannot be interpreted as proof they existed. Even autigeremt's three links, while interesting, offer only speculation or unverifiable anecdote. I can claim Saddam had the the Lost Ark of the Covenant, an army of Sasquatches, and the bones of Amelia Earhart and secretly flew them all to Timbuktu...that's not evidence. Even if there were truck conveys to the Syrian border, the content of those trucks is unknown.

We can all speculate or fantasize as much as we want, the fact remains that no conclusive evidence has ever been produced that Saddam Hussein had an active, functional WMD program in 2002-2003 that posed an international threat justifying an invasion costing thousands of lives and billions or trillions of dollars. And none of links or comments in this thread change that or prove that he did. One should not go to war over speculation, "maybes", and "good bets".

Was Saddam a liar?..Of course! Was Saddam a killer?..Unquestionably! Was Saddam a psychopathic monster?..Absolutely!

Did Saddam possess a WMD threat in 2003?...never conclusively demonstrated, before or after the war largely based on that claim. So to the question in the thread title: "Was W right about WMD's [as an Iraqi threat]?" Possibly, but it's never been proven!

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