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Dancre -> RE: War in Iraq (8/3/2005 8:05:40 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Jipsah
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Are you Insane??? Clever retort there, I'll have to remember it.
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What do you think we went to war for Well, it was either to wage a War on Terrorism, or to destroy Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction", or to effect a "regime change", or to Liberate The Iraqi People. Take yer choice, it changes from day to day. What it ends up maning to the American people is that we have an increasingly expensive albatross hanging around our necks, with no expectation of getting rid of it any time soon.
MMM. . . . . rather interesting that folks ignore the truth and want to believe these silly lies. well to help you all along, since you do ignore the truth, i thought i'd bring the truth to you in the form of Mr. Duelfer's report. unfortunately, copy right laws forbid me from posting all of it, so here are some key points. are we ready? here we go:
Regime Strategic Intent:
Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when
sanctions were lifted.
• Saddam totally dominated the Regime’s strategic decision making. He initiated most of the strategic thinking upon which decisions were made, whether in matters of war and peace (such as invading Kuwait),
maintaining WMD as a national strategic goal, or on how Iraq was to position itself in the international community. Loyal dissent was discouraged and constructive variations to the implementation of his wishes on strategic issues were rare. Saddam was the Regime in a strategic sense and his intent became Iraq’s strategic
policy.
• Saddam’s primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining the security of the Regime. He sought to balance the need to cooperate with UN inspections—to gain support for lifting sanctions—with his intention to preserve Iraq’s intellectual capital for WMD with a minimum of foreign intrusiveness and loss of face. Indeed, this remained the goal to the end of the Regime, as the starting of any WMD program, conspicuous or otherwise, risked undoing the progress achieved in eroding sanctions and jeopardizing a political end to the embargo and international monitoring.
• The introduction of the Oil-For-Food program (OFF) in late 1996 was a key turning point for the Regime. OFF rescued Baghdad’s economy from a terminal decline created by sanctions. The Regime quickly came
to see that OFF could be corrupted to acquire foreign exchange both to further undermine sanctions and to provide the means to enhance dual-use infrastructure and potential WMD-related development.
• By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in
terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999.
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that
which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
• Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judges that events in the 1980s and early 1990s shaped Saddam’s belief in the value of WMD. In Saddam’s view, WMD helped to save the Regime multiple times. He believed that during the Iran-Iraq war chemical weapons had halted Iranian ground offensives and that ballistic missile attacks on Tehran had broken its political will. Similarly, during Desert Storm, Saddam believed WMD had deterred Coalition Forces from pressing their attack beyond the goal of freeing Kuwait. WMD had even played a role in crushing the Shi’a revolt in the south following the 1991 cease-fire.
• The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifi able group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieu-tenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them.
Regime Finance and Procurement:
Throughout the 1990s and up to OIF (March 2003), Saddam focused on one set of objectives: the survival of himself, his Regime, and his legacy. To secure those objectives, Saddam needed to exploit Iraqi oil assets, toportray a strong military capability to deter internal and external threats, and to foster his image as an Arab leader. Saddam recognized that the reconstitution of Iraqi WMD enhanced both his security and image. Conse-quently, Saddam needed to end UN-imposed sanctions to fulfill his goals.
One aspect of Saddam’s strategy of unhinging the UN’s sanctions against Iraq, centered on Saddam’s efforts to influence certain UN SC permanent members, such as Russia, France, and China and some nonpermanent (Syria, Ukraine) members to end UN sanctions. Under Saddam’s orders, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) formulated and implemented a strategy aimed at these UNSC members and international public opinion with the purpose of ending UN sanctions and undermining its subsequent OFF program by diplomatic and economic means. At a minimum, Saddam wanted to divide the five permanent members and foment international public support of Iraq at the UN and throughout the world by a savvy public relations campaign and an extensive diplomatic effort.
Another element of this strategy involved circumventing UN sanctions and the OFF program by means of “Protocols” or government-to-government economic trade agreements. Protocols allowed Saddam to generate
a large amount of revenue outside the purview of the UN. The successful implementation of the Protocols, continued oil smuggling efforts, and the manipulation of UN OFF contracts emboldened Saddam to pursue his military reconstitution efforts starting in 1997 and peaking in 2001. These efforts covered conventional arms, dual-use goods acquisition, and some WMD-related programs.
ISG uncovered Iraqi plans or designs for three long-range ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 km and for a 1,000-km-range cruise missile, although none of thses systems progressed to production and only one reportedly passed the design phase. ISG assesses that these plans demonstrate Saddam's continuing desire-up to the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)-for a long-range delivery capability. [a side note: on the show Front Line "looking for suddam's weapons", after the invasion by american forces, a reporter interviewed one of the engineers who was to design one of these missiles. He confirmed these missiles but was executed by the bath party the next day.]
The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions. Iraq implemented a rigorous and formalized system of nationwide research and production of chemicals, but ISG will not be able to resolve whether Iraq intended the system to underpin any CW-related efforts.
• The Regime employed a cadre of trained and experienced researchers, production managers, and weaponization experts from the former CW program.
• Iraq began implementing a range of indigenous chemical production projects in 1995 and 1996. Many of these projects, while not weapons-related, were designed to improve Iraq’s infrastructure, which would have
enhanced Iraq’s ability to produce CW agents if the scaled-up production processes were implemented.
The above is only sections of the reportThe whole report can be found here: http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/dciwmd93004kf.pdf
Now after reading the above, i for one am glad that "dimbulb" took us to war. from the evidence presented by those working with and for Hussain, it would only have been a matter of time before Hussain would have had a working chemical weapons program. And based on other evidence in this report it is clear he would have turned his sights on the US and her allies. I think this ends this discussion, unless there are others who wish to throw out silly, meaningless, hate filled excuses that have no merit or facts behind them. unless of course, this report scares the living blank out of you, then meaningless excuses are understandable.
kim
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