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| Tweet Topic Started: Sep 24 2003, 04:40 PM (1,012 Views) | |
| Fesarius | Sep 26 2003, 11:21 AM Post #16 |
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Admiral
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Admiral, Thanks. I'll see if I can get that URL--they are worth looking at.
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Oct 1 2003, 11:35 PM Post #17 |
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UberAdmiral
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I know NZ is going to claim this is made up, or "consider the source", but read the story: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_399454,00050004.htm (You might want to read the story below, because this site is getting a lot of hits and doesn't have much bandwidth.) Kuwait foils smuggling of chemicals, bio warheads from Iraq Associated Press Kuwait City, October 2 Kuwaiti security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Wednesday. The pro-Government Al-Siyassah, quoting an unnamed security source, said the suspects had been watched by security since they arrived in Kuwait and were arrested "in due time." It did not say when or how the smugglers entered Kuwait or when they were arrested. The paper said the smugglers might have had accomplices inside Kuwait. It said Interior Minister Sheik Nawwaf Al Ahmed Al Sabah would hand over the smuggled weapons to an FBI agent at a news conference, but did not say when. Government officials could not be immediately reached for comment. Iraqi Interior Minister Nouri Al-Badran met on Tuesday with Sheik Nawwaf and discussed cooperation between the two countries in security matters. His visit is the first by an Iraqi interior minister to Kuwait since 1990. (Bill's side comment: I wonder if that unnamed European country is France?? They do have the highest Moslem population, after all.) |
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| somerled | Oct 2 2003, 03:56 AM Post #18 |
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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Surely if there is anything credible about this story it would have been front page news and the lead story on every TV networks news-broadcast in the civilised world. Bush, Blair and Howard would all be crowing and saying "there is the evidence all you doubting Thomas' demanded" and "I told you so". Maybe you are grasping at straws. Me .... I don't know and I am prepared to wait a while longer despite what various expert weapons inspectors say about CIA sabotaging inspections and what looks like a total lack of credible evidence that WMD existed in Iraq (or Iraqi control) anytime in the last few years or immediately before the invasion and occupation of Iraq. |
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| somerled | Oct 2 2003, 03:58 AM Post #19 |
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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I always thought that Turkey was part of Europe , as was Russia, both these have substantial Islamic communities (and these are bigger than the French Islamic population). |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Oct 2 2003, 08:44 AM Post #20 |
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UberAdmiral
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Not necessarily. The US and Britain have been researching and writing a report on WMDs. Since this article appeared last night, who is to say that it has not MADE THE LOCAL NEWS CYCLE?
Or maybe you are... Let's see, he has used them, stockpiles have been proven in the past, he claimed to have them and never claimed to destroy them. Did you know that some bio agents, such as mustard gas... actually a liquid, could be produced in very low tech facilities? (Mustard gas is derived when ethylene reacts with chorine.) Additionally, why would WMDs be smuggled to France instead of Turkey or Russia? Simple, France is a more Westernized country and the Islamofascists have made quite a name for themselves there. In addition, a lot of cargo ships from French ports for the US and UK. Russia has its own stockpiles of WMDs (and we wargamed that scenario for years), and Turkey is in the opposite direction (if Turkey is just north of Iraq, why not smuggle something through loosely-controlled Kurdish areas? You wouldn't go through Kuwait. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Oct 2 2003, 09:49 AM Post #21 |
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UberAdmiral
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In addition, the WMD find is being discussed on Fox News right now (oh wait, you can't think THEY'D be fair, could you?) and it was an item on CBS News (radio) an hour ago. |
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| qubed | Oct 3 2003, 01:32 AM Post #22 |
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Ensign
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Ah the WMD arguement. Haven't been invovled in this one yet, today. To say its more then a little evident that the Bush administrations statements of knowing that Iraq had weapons is pure bunk would be the under statement of the year. After months of searching they come up with skeletonized programs, possible dual use facilities and that they surely intended to/wanted to make weapons. So far none of Bush and Co's actual allegations of weapons or programs has come to bare any signifigant evidnece. I thought by now they'd at least get one right by sure dumb luck. The arguements the die-hards are stickin to are pretty shabby: 1. They shipped the weapons abroad. - A wonderful allegation but unless there is a shred of proof of this its pure speculation. Why not say aleins took them . Or ninjas :ph43r: . Or angry guys with red faces .2. He had weapons and used them in the past. - Duh. So that means he has weapons now? Since he used chemical weapons in 1991 he has them now? Or rather 6 months ago. Argueing based on mostly unsubstantiated evidnece thats 5 to 12 years old is not gonna convince the thinking. 3. The Clinton strikes in 98. - First I rememeber the right criticizing Clinton that this was to distract from where his willy had been innapropriatley but lots of us didn't buy the strikes then for lack of evidnece. He didn't offer up any good evidnece, much like Bush and Co, and plenty of us weird lefties criticized him about it. 4. No proof is proof. - The idea that since we can't show that there are no weapons that this somehow legitamizes their claims. Pretty dumb. As if its the burden of the anti-war position is to prove its point rather then those actually pursueing hostilities. If Bush wanted a well supported war he needed to make a decent case rather then the craptacular one the Congress and citizens bought.I'm sure there are plenty of others but at this point I doubt anyone will change their mind so really whats the point. We bought this ugly, ugly horse. We'll I didn't buy it but unfortuantley I'm strapped to it like everybody else in the US. |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Oct 3 2003, 08:40 AM Post #23 |
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UberAdmiral
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Read this: http://cnn.allpolitics.printthis.clickabil...&partnerID=2001 (Here's the text, for those who are click-impaired) Kay: No weapons yet, but evidence of intent WASHINGTON (CNN) --As expected, the CIA's lead weapons inspector told congressional intelligence committees Thursday that his team has not yet found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, David Kay said inspectors have found evidence of a biological weapons program. He also noted more substantial activity in missile production than Iraq disclosed to the United Nations. Kay said his inspectors need more time before conclusions can be reached, and he urged patience. "Believe me, we're working as hard as we can. I know the importance attached to this work. There's a lot more work to do before we can declare we're at the end of this road rather than at the beginning," Kay said. "We have found a great deal, much of which was not declared to the United Nations." Kay said inspectors have found no weapons, but said he is not ready to say that there are no weapons to be found. He said the inspectors' task is made difficult by Iraqis still loyal to Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, but also because even the bulkiest materials they are looking for can be hidden in space not much larger than a two-car garage. "It's a huge country and there's a lot to do," he said. Kay said evidence of a nuclear weapons program was the least solid. "That's the program we know the least about and have the least confidence in saying what it meant," he said. "Clearly it does not look like an active, resurgent program based on what we have found so far." Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, said he was distressed by Kay's request for more time. "Ladies and gentleman, that's the reason we went to war and that's the reason that some of us voted on that authorization bill," Rockefeller said. "We are ... talking about intent, and talking about facilities, but we have nothing we can point to. "Did we misread it? Did they mislead us? Or did we simply get it wrong?," he said. "Either way you look at this, it's not a good answer." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday it is too early to reach conclusions about whether there were unconventional weapons in Iraq before the U.S. invaded in March. "They have a lot of work left to do, they have a lot of people left to interrogate, they had a lot of leads still to worry through, they have a number of suspect sites that they have not yet visited," he said. "It's quite low at this stage, but there are still a few, and I don't think the administration is having trouble coming to conclusions." Before Kay spoke Thursday, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia, said he did not expect any smoking gun-style evidence. It is "simply going to take a long time" to determine what happened to the weapons programs the Bush administration said required a U.S.-led invasion that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in April. In a letter sent to committee leaders Wednesday, CIA Director George Tenet disagreed with congressional complaints that the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was inadequate. House Intelligence Committee chairman, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Florida, and committee member Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, had criticized the CIA's pre-war intelligence on Iraq in a letter to Tenet last week. Sources said the letter described the information pointing to Iraq's weapons programs as "circumstantial" and "fragmentary." The CIA disputed that judgment, calling it "premature and wrong." "The suggestion by the committee that we did not challenge long-standing judgments and assessments is simply wrong," Tenet wrote in a letter to Harman and Goss. "I emphatically disagree with the committee's view that intelligence reports on Iraq's ties to al Qaeda should have been 'screened out by a more rigorous vetting process' because they were provided to analysts," Tenet wrote. "Providing analysts less information on Iraq's connections to terrorists makes no sense to me." In the letter, Tenet also complains about the timing of the complaints from the Hill, saying it is premature, since Kay has much more work to do. Tenet called the intelligence prior to the war in Iraq "honest and professional," and complained that the lawmakers publicized their complaints before giving the intelligence community a chance to respond. In a July report to Congress, Kay said investigators were making solid progress. He told reporters that investigators had uncovered useful documents about Iraq's WMD programs and was getting increased cooperation from Iraqis. "I think the American people should be prepared for surprises," Kay said in July. "I think it's very likely that we will discover remarkable surprises in this enterprise." But he cautioned that Saddam had engaged in an "amazing" active deception program that would be difficult to unravel. "It's going to take time. The Iraqis had over two decades to develop these weapons, and hiding them was an essential part of their program," Kay said. |
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| somerled | Oct 3 2003, 09:20 AM Post #24 |
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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Qubed .... good post , enjoyed it (belly-laugth) .... valid point "dur .... we can't find the ding stuff so .... dur .... it must be there". Q : to the die-hards ..... how do you prove a negative or null ? |
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| Admiralbill_gomec | Oct 3 2003, 09:26 AM Post #25 |
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UberAdmiral
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We're die hards? Will you apologize when we FIND the WMDs? Doubtful. Let's see... we've FOUND evidence of a bioweapons program. I have demonstrated how small an area ALL of the weapons need for storage. As for having weapons and using them in the past, that comment was in tandem with the fact that Saddam claimed to have them just before the war! Do you remember the report Iraq gave to the UN? Are you going to call it a bluff? Even if it was, why would anyone claim to have WMDs when we were shipping hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf BECAUSE he had them? Give up while you're behind... |
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| qubed | Oct 3 2003, 01:18 PM Post #26 |
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Ensign
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Oh goody, token responses. Ok. "Will you apologize when we FIND the WMDs? Doubtful" -Couldn't I just as easily ask you how long you'll hold out before you admit your wrong. How helpful is your statemnet? Does it equal an arguement? Am I now discredited? How about: How many more months of dry searching will it take before you admit your wrong. How helpful is that? "we've FOUND evidence of a bioweapons program" - First of all without them releasing the report we don't what they did and did not find. Secondly we have no evidence that these programs made a single liter of any banned substances especially because THEY HAVEN"T FOUND ANY!! Nor have they even found the munitions needed to deliver such weapons. You cant just dip bullets in mustard gas or fill a gernade with sarin. " I have demonstrated how small an area ALL of the weapons need for storage" - First of all most of the weapons require signifigant faciliteis to be made and specialized storage. The few weapons, like mustard gas, that are very easily made in a small space and stored in an even smaller space don't equal Saddam had weapons. And as wonderfulyy specualtive as this arguement is it still does NOT EQUAL FINDING WEAPONS. - Your arguement that Saddam claimed to have weapons so thusly he DID have weapons is laughable. First of all isn't this the decietful, lying tyrant who's word is as good as gold? Secondly, world powers, especially ones surrounded by enemies, don't go around stating that they have no weapons or no ability to defend themseleves. Even Bush and Co hasn't gone down this line of defense. "Give up while you're behind" - Got Evidnece? Or are we going to get more specualtion? |
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| Fesarius | Oct 3 2003, 01:22 PM Post #27 |
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Admiral
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Somerled, I thought that negatives could not be proven, or can they? Someone above said one can only disprove a positive. I'm not a philosophy expert--but there are those among us who are.
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| Hoss | Oct 3 2003, 02:04 PM Post #28 |
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
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You cannot prove a negative. You can disprove a positive by finding a single counter-example. So, all you can do is provide strong evidence and make a persuasive arguement to state that a negative is probably true. Prove that there are not any naturally occuring pink and yellow polka-dot baboons anywhere. |
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| Swidden | Oct 3 2003, 05:12 PM Post #29 |
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
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I posted last night, October 2, 2003, a link to an interview with chief weapons inspector David Kay. Below is a link to that post elsewhere on the Poltics forum. The interview was on the PBS program Newshour with Jim Lehrer. A program noted for its traditionally left oriented editorial bias. I would suggest that those interested read (or listen, since there is an audio link available) the interview. There is, again, a link to the interview in the initial post. http://invisionfree.com/forums/SisterTrek/...p?showtopic=613 |
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| somerled | Oct 4 2003, 11:55 AM Post #30 |
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Admiral MacDonald RN
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I catch that program sometimes on SBS (our national ethnic network here) if I'm home to see it 5pm. Missed that discussion but read your link. |
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. Or ninjas :ph43r: . Or angry guys with red faces
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Pretty dumb. As if its the burden of the anti-war position is to prove its point rather then those actually pursueing hostilities. If Bush wanted a well supported war he needed to make a decent case rather then the craptacular one the Congress and citizens bought.

2:30 PM Jul 11