Saddam did dismantle

[freethefly 6]

It really does appear that the US government wanted war. Dispite what Saddam may have done in the past, he was following the rules laid out.

Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations
03/21/2006
Associated Press/AP Online
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Exasperated, besieged by global pressure, Saddam Hussein and top aides searched for ways in the 1990s to prove to the world they'd given up banned weapons.

"We don't have anything hidden!" the frustrated Iraqi president interjected at one meeting, transcripts show.

At another, in 1996, Saddam wondered whether U.N. inspectors would "roam Iraq for 50 years" in a pointless hunt for weapons of mass destruction. "When is this going to end?" he asked.

It ended in 2004, when U.S. experts, after an exhaustive investigation, confirmed what the men in those meetings were saying: that Iraq had eliminated its weapons of mass destruction long ago, a finding that discredited the Bush administration's stated rationale for invading Iraq in 2003 - to locate WMD.

The newly released documents are among U.S. government translations of audiotapes or Arabic-language transcripts from top-level Iraqi meetings - dating from about 1996-97 back to the period soon after the 1991 Gulf War, when the U.N. Security Council sent inspectors to disarm Iraq.

Even as the documents make clear Saddam's regime had given up banned weapons, they also attest to its continued secretiveness: A 1997 document from Iraqi intelligence instructed agencies to keep confidential files away from U.N. teams, and to remove "any forbidden equipment."

Since it's now acknowledged the Iraqis had ended the arms programs by then, the directive may have been aimed at securing stray pieces of equipment, and preserving some secrets from Iraq's 1980s work on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Saddam's inner circle entertained notions of reviving the programs someday, the newly released documents show. "The factories will remain in our brains," one unidentified participant told Saddam at a meeting, apparently in the early 1990s.

At the same meeting, however, Saddam, who was deposed by the U.S. invasion in 2003 and is now on trial for crimes against humanity, led a discussion about converting chemical weapons factories to beneficial uses.

When a subordinate complained that U.N. inspectors had seized equipment at the plants useful for pharmaceutical and insecticide production, Saddam jumped in, saying they had "no right" to deny the Iraqis the equipment, since "they have ascertained that we have no intention to produce in this field (chemical weapons)."

Saddam's regime extensively videotaped and audiotaped meetings and other events, both public and confidential. The dozen transcribed discussions about weapons inspections largely dealt with Iraq's diplomatic strategies for getting the Security Council to confirm it had disarmed.

Scores of Iraqi documents, seized after the 2003 invasion, are being released at the request of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who has suggested that evidence might turn up that the Iraqis hid their weapons or sent them to neighboring Syria. No such evidence has emerged.

Repeatedly in the transcripts, Saddam and his lieutenants remind each other that Iraq destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s, and shut down those programs and the nuclear-bomb program, which had never produced a weapon.

"We played by the rules of the game," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said at a session in the mid-1990s. "In 1991, our weapons were destroyed."

Amer Mohammed Rashid, a top weapons program official, told a 1996 presidential meeting he laid out the facts to the U.N. chief inspector.

"We don't have anything to hide, so we're giving you all the details," he said he told Rolf Ekeus.

In his final report in October 2004, Charles Duelfer, head of a post-invasion U.S. team of weapons hunters, concluded Iraq and the U.N. inspectors had, indeed, dismantled the nuclear program and destroyed the chemical and biological weapons stockpiles by 1992, and the Iraqis never resumed production.

Saddam's goal in the 1990s was to have the Security Council lift the economic sanctions strangling the Iraqi economy, by convincing council members Iraq had eliminated its WMD. But he was thwarted at every turn by what he and aides viewed as U.S. hard-liners blocking council action.

The inspectors "destroyed everything and said, `Iraq completed 95 percent of their commitment,'" Saddam said at one meeting. "We cooperated with the resolutions 100 percent and you all know that, and the 5 percent they claim we have not executed could take them 10 years to (verify).

"Don't think for a minute that we still have WMD," he told his deputies. "We have nothing."

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[kelpdiver 2]

"Even as the documents make clear Saddam's regime had given up banned weapons, they also attest to its continued secretiveness: A 1997 document from Iraqi intelligence instructed agencies to keep confidential files away from U.N. teams, and to remove "any forbidden equipment."

Act suspiciously (and invade countries and kill lots of people), don't expect the benefit of the doubt. The US doesn't get it, why should Iraq?

[billvon 3,119]

>don't expect the benefit of the doubt. The US doesn't get it, why should Iraq?

We were invaded to eliminate our WMD program? I must have missed that! (Unless you were actually comparing verbal criticism to an invasion that killed tens of thousands - but I find it hard to believe you'd seriously compare those two.)

[kelpdiver 2]

I know you're playing dense today for fun, but...

Iraq invaded Kuwait, and killed many dissidents and minoritiies within their own borders. Then lost and violated most of the terms of its surrender. Only Jesus and fools would put much faith in it.

America too has a history of invading other countries and many people die as a result. As a result, many don't trust its intentions or its explanations when it starts waving its big stick around. Yet many of them imagine Iraq is a straight shooter for some reason.

We're seeing all sorts of interesting meeting notes coming out this last couple weeks. Last week it was one that suggested quite the opposite about Iraq and it's intentions. I put more stock in them because if I were Hussein, I'd be trying my best to attain the sort of counterforce credibility now enjoyed by North Korea. It's in Iraq's best interests to lie and cheat to get sanctions removed, political power restored.

And it was in the US interests to err on the side of invading Iraq rather then to rely on Iraq's word. That's why Clinton bombed it several times, and Shrub finished off SH once and for all. This nation building crap now...different story.

[ViperPilot 0]

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Dispite what Saddam may have done in the past, he was following the rules laid out.

Same logic was used to condemn Israel's attack on the Osirak reactor in 81. Israel claimed the facility was going to be used to create nuclear weapons to use against Israel. Everyone said bullshit, there's no proof of that, Iraq wouldn't do that, you're acting unilaterally and irrationally, blah blah blah. What happened 10 yrs later? Oh yeah, the IAEA conceded that there was in fact direct evidence that that particular facility WAS being used to manufacture weapons and would have likely been used against Israel.

We'll probably see the same thing happen in 10 yrs down the road regarding Iraq, when info is declassified. Don't jump on the bandwagon too quick people.

[rushmc 23]

I say that report late today. This is the first one that hints SH did not have any WMD's.

The makes it about 3 that indicate it did, and one he didn't.

More to come and we should be watching with interest.

I have no idea where this is going.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Amazon 7]

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I have no idea where this is going.

You could always volunteer to go over and dig up all the WMD he buried out in the desert..... just get back to us when you find them...

[jenfly00 0]

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I have no idea where this is going.

I believe you.

-----------------------
"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[cloudseeker2001 0]

Everyone in the entire world knew SH had no weapons, except 99% of America.....I really like Scott Ritter, his word is/was like gold. Too bad most people do not even know who he is/was.

"Some call it heavenly in it's brilliance,
others mean and rueful of the western dream"

[kallend 2,150]

Quote

I say that report late today. This is the first one that hints SH did not have any WMD's.

The makes it about 3 that indicate it did, and one he didn't.

More to come and we should be watching with interest.

I have no idea where this is going.

El Baradei's report, Hans Blix's report, Duelfer's report, US Iraq Survey Group report, Kay's report, now this report. I make it AT LEAST 6 that say he didn't. You are having trouble counting again.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Everyone in the entire world knew SH had no weapons,

Very few of them KNEW any such thing. Believed or suspected, sure.

And EVERYONE seems to include England, no? Or the many other nations with smaller numbers of troops in the war.

[rushmc 23]

I am talking of the tapes and documents that I have refered too before.

And besides, al least half of those reports you list have been shown to have major flaws if not lies......

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Gravitymaster 0]

Quote

Quote

Everyone in the entire world knew SH had no weapons,

Very few of them KNEW any such thing. Believed or suspected, sure.

And EVERYONE seems to include England, no? Or the many other nations with smaller numbers of troops in the war.

My 20/20 hindsight glasses say you are wrong.

[kallend 2,150]

Quote

I am talking of the tapes and documents that I have refered too before.

And besides, al least half of those reports you list have been shown to have major flaws if not lies......

I'm sure the "documents" you refer to are far more reliable than reports from Kay, Duelfer and the US Iraq Survey Group report.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.