Iraqi documents: Game Over
Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations
On the one side we have anonymous sources and second and third-hand reports; dubious raw intelligence that some conservative bloggers have claimed as proof of Iraqi WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda. On the other hand, as this report shows, we have Saddam Hussein's own words to his closest associates.
Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations
On the one side we have anonymous sources and second and third-hand reports; dubious raw intelligence that some conservative bloggers have claimed as proof of Iraqi WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda. On the other hand, as this report shows, we have Saddam Hussein's own words to his closest associates.
"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.
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."
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).Honest conservatives will now have to admit that Iraq did not have WMDs. I wonder how many of them there are.
"Don't think for a minute that we still have WMD," he told his deputies. "We have nothing."
posted by gary at 2:55 PM
3 Comments:
The truth of the matter is that the weapons (those that were real weapons) that could not be accounted for had been used years before, either during the Anfal campaign, at Halabja and elsewhere during the '80-'88 war, or during the 1991 Gulf conflict. Saddam was caught in a trap, he could not admit to what he had done for fear of censure under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, to which Iraq had been a signatory. There was nothing left in Iraq.
Resolution 687 called for Iraq to give up it's remaining weapons and programmes. It did not call upon Iraq to admit to all that it had done in the past. Therein lies a tale or two, yet to be properly told...
de7thangel said "Resolution 687 called for Iraq to give up it's remaining weapons and programmes. It did not call upon Iraq to admit to all that it had done in the past. Therein lies a tale or two, yet to be properly told... "
wrong again, res 687
"(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below; "
Iraq had to account for there weapons so the UN could verify he no longer had them. He clearly violated this resolution by not declaring the use of these weapons and accounting for them.
Furthermore, have you no moral sense that defending a brutal Hitler-esque thug on a technicality (that was wrong anyway) makes you a Saddam apologist and even a Saddam supporter. Maybe you can give us some insite into the wonderful ruminations of Hitler and Stalin while you are at it. - RR
Ray, you quote that section from Res. 687 (C.9.a) without reference to what preceeds it, ie:
(C) 8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of:
(a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;
(b) All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;
9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:
(a) Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site inspection as specified below;
The way the Resolution was written did not specifically require Iraq to reveal what it had used in the past, it was only concerned with the destruction of that which remained in Iraq after GWI.
You say "Iraq had to account for there weapons so the UN could verify he no longer had them. He clearly violated this resolution by not declaring the use of these weapons and accounting for them."
I agree that Iraq was under an obligation to account for all that it had had but my point is that it couldn't because it was unwilling to reveal breaches of the Geneva Protocol. That is why certain weapons were never accounted for leading to the belief that they were still there. The resolution was breached because Iraq chose a unilateral method of destruction to attempt to disguise the true disposition of these weapons because they knew an accounting gap would still remain even if they gave up everything they had left.
Your point about me being a 'Saddam apologist or even a supporter' is, frankly, insulting. I am pointing out the fact that he is a war criminal, guilty of the use of illegal weaponry. The subject of Iraq's missing WMD has very little to do with either Hitler or Stalin, but as likely you know, he took notions from both.
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