WAR: Iraq Survey Group Conclude, No WMD.

The Iraq Survey Group who have the final say as to whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction have concluded in a report released today that there were none after searching across the country for the last year and a half.

The existence of these WMD's were the primary reason given by both the British and U.S.A to justify invading Iraq without UN authority and against the international concensus. Other leading countries in the UN wanted to allow UN inspections to continue.






The Six Page "Key Findings" of the report is archived on ATS Here: Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction

[edit on 6-10-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

Like they would be able to find them if they were buried in Iraq anyway.
If they can bury whole planes in the desert without us knowing, what's a few canisters, crates or bombs?
To bury planes they need to have some serious equipment in the desert, and we still missed it, even with all our satellites.

www.snopes.com...

I'm not saying they are there, just that not finding any doesn't mean they are not...

This puzzles me, we "knew they had WMDs" complete with proof, and used that logic to go into the country in search of them. Now we can't find a single trace of them. From that we arrive at a crossroads, the road on the right: "They just hid them in the desert, or another country" and the road to the left bears the sign: "There were never any weapons of mass destruction. If the road to the left is the proper path, then we have been outright lied to. On the other hand if we go with the road on the right, then the question arrises "If we knew they existed, then we must have had an idea of where they were, but where are they now" Either we quit looking for them once the war was underway, or never had any idea in the first place and were gambling on a shot in the dark and lost. To me it seems both roads lead to the town of BS...

A lot of all this 'threat to the free world' mumbo-jumbo surrounds the administration's contention that IF Saddam had been able to resume WMD development, he was the most likely to sell those items on the black market (effectively what Pakistan did). They also like to say that they knew Saddam had WMD's because he used them in the Iraq/Iran conflict. It is not mentioned, however, that we advised him to do so.

The administration loves to go on to demonstrate that they were responsible for the shutdown of the A.Q. Khan "mail-order nuclear proliferation kit" network. Does this same administration think that there is NO threat in North Korea or Iran starting the network back up?

I always thought that nukes were more deadly than chemical weapons. All Saddam had was chem/bio stuff and, from what has been reported, not the strongest stuff out there either. North Korea has nukes. No two ways about it. Iran either has nukes and is bluffing that they are about to begin to produce them to conceal the fact that they're already prepared to use them, or is actively and agressively seeking them. I'm not exactly comfortable with either scenario.

I'm not going to disagree that Saddam's aging bio-chem stockpiles could easily be wasting away under a sand dune somewhere. I'm just upset that with all of the evil folk out there, we were conned into believing that, somehow, Saddam was the worst. If we can't get the country stable, we might just find ourselves in a position where more Iraqi's were killed under George's regime than Saddam's. WMD's notwithstanding.

First of all, let me say that none of what I say is politically motivated. Second, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the media is not even reporting on what they should be, which is the testimony about the Oil for Food program yesterday, which seemed to me, like it should have been on the front page of every paper, but was barely even mentioned. Yesterday, when the media mentioned the Oil for Food testimony, they didn't give hardly any of the specifics that were said in the testimony.

I don't really care about the WMD testimony, but why is the media mainly reporting that there were no WMD in Iraq at the time of invasion and minimizing the fact that Saddam had plans to develop WMD. Example:

WashPost Headline: Report Discounts Iraqi Arms Threat

Quote from article: Duelfer's report said Hussein was pursuing an aggressive effort to subvert the international sanctions through illegal financing and procurement efforts, officials said. The official said the report states that Hussein had the intent to resume full-scale weapons of mass destruction efforts after the sanctions were eliminated, and details Hussein's efforts to hinder international inspectors and preserve his weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

Link: www.washingtonpost.com...

But what the press is not covering for some reason, is yesterday's testimony from:
Patrick F. Kennedy US Rerresentative to UN in Iraq
David L. Smith BNP Peribas-French based bank in charge of
Oil For Food(OFF) transactions
Peter W.G. Boks Saybolt International B.V.-Inspected oil quantities
crossing the Iraqi borders in the OOF Program
Andre E. Pruniaux Cotecna Inspection.-Monitered the goods
bought and sold by Iraq in OOF Program

I watched the complete testimony from these people on CSPAN yesterday and although they were reluctant to implicate anyone involved, the congressmen doing the questioning got them to reveal quite a bit of information.

Peter Kennedy:
-said that the US knew about the OOF corruption back in June of 2000.
-said UN officials allowed Saddam to basically write the final rules of the
OOFP and he did so in a way to allow him to funnel billions to himself
and others
-said Saddam spent over $1 Billion on strengthening his military
-agreed that the French sold Saddam a lot of those weapons and that
at least some of them are being used on our soldiers now, but would
not say that in his own words

The gist of what the other three said was basically that normal operating procedures were, with the authorization of the UN, changed to minimize regulations and oversight. For example, instead of visually verifying a quantity of oil, that instead they would only need to see a piece of paper verifying that the UN had approved it.

Also, the NY Fed is being subeanaed to turn over all information relating to the account opened for the US for transactions of the profits from Iraqi oil sales after the invasion. The was a response to the GAC report that stated that $8.8Billion of that money is unaccounted for.

Doesn't this stuff seem like it was pretty important and incriminating??
Or is it just me? I though it would at least get talked about more. The wide range of corruption involved in this seems more important than the WMD report. That didn't really seem to reveal anything we didn't already know.

I've been trying to get a copy of the full text from the testimony. Does anyone know if they make that available? Here is a link to all of the info about the testimony and if anyone knows how to get the full text, could you please let me know?
reform.house.gov...

That is a very scary concept. The Bush administration has killed are respect from world powers as these reports and coming in. Even if the weapons are out there and still undiscovered, this is an embarressment to our country.

[edit on 6-10-2004 by Skillet]

Does this report bother me no not one bit I stil belive what Bush and blair did was right. I still belive that WMD are out there, Iraq is a big place and you could bury a 20ft container in the sand and it would never be found.

Only one person or a few would have the coordinates to find this container full of WMD. And even then those now might be lost due to the US/UK bombings of buildings think about it I say it's only a matter of time.

The text of the Key Findings of the 1,000 page report is archived on ATS Here: Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction

Originally posted by Skillet
That is a very scary concept. The Bush administration has killed are respect from world powers as these reports and coming in. Even if the weapons are out there and still undiscovered, this is an embarressment to our country.

[edit on 6-10-2004 by Skillet]

I'll take the embarressment everyday, so long as my country is not attacked again by animals from that region. Be strong dont be a coward


[edit on 6-10-2004 by snagltooth]

Perhaps now some will open their eyes to the reason why,

Afghanistan was unfinished,

bin-lande is forgotten,

9/11 reason off got confused.

Our administration went into Iraq for one reason and one reason only, to get what his heart desired the most. OIL

Just a question...to all those people that keep saying the "wmd is bs" and "this administration just made everything up....".....are any of you watching C-Span on the "Iraqi's Weapons of Mass Destruction Senate Armed forces Committee"? I am surprised by what some of the democrats are saying..and some of the things that are being said in this hearing but probably won't make it to the press. It is a shame i just caught the hearing when it had already started thou..of course if i post in here what is being said liberals and democrats won't believe it....so can some of you go to your tvs and put on C-span?.....Actually down here in Florida is C-Span2 They are talking about how the French, Germans and other countries intelligence were corroborating ours.....

That can't be true....it must be another constipation..I mean conspiracy made by the Bush administration.....

---edited to correct some things---

[edit on 6-10-2004 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by Muaddib
Just a question...

Where Are They? Get over it, They Do Not Have Them.

Originally posted by TrickmastertricK
Where Are They? Get over it, They Do Not Have Them.

Well, if you ask some of them are probably somewhere in iraq, the rest were either sent or sold to other countries...remember that it was the UN and not the US who stated in their 1999 UNSCOM report that there were thousands of tons of wmd unnacounted for that Iraq had... but of course, that doesn't matter to you.

As to your "advice" to get over it...there is nothing to get over.

[edit on 6-10-2004 by Muaddib]

You just Illustrated My Point..Where Are They? Proof, not specualtion.

It isn�t that the reason US and bush administration went and invaded Iraq, on speculations alone.

Funny how people will never agree with the truth, I blame it to the human condition we all have it, we try to find excuses even if they don't make sense anymore.

I will let it rest here in peace.

They were hidden by Saddam in the desert and some were transported to Syria, who will eventually hide them.

Originally posted by IBM
They were hidden by Saddam in the desert and some were transported to Syria, who will eventually hide them.

Do you have evidence to back this up? Pictures, Satellite imaging, documents, links?? Where is the "PROOF"? You would think that the Intelligence means the US has and has access to, we would see something. I have not, Have you?

Originally posted by TrickmastertricK

Originally posted by IBM
They were hidden by Saddam in the desert and some were transported to Syria, who will eventually hide them.

Do you have evidence to back this up? Pictures, Satellite imaging, documents, links?? Where is the "PROOF"? You would think that the Intelligence means the US has and has access to, we would see something. I have not, Have you?

I distinctly remember seeing on the News the chemical weapons of saddam back in 91. And he made more and hid them. But it was on the news.

Those Chemical weapons weren't the ones found in the North, were they? That is beyond Saddam, and has to do with the Kurds. Recolection is not proof. Give me some 'tangible' proof.

Funny Trickmastertrick, that the bush supporters still argue about the WMDs and the "intention" of using them against US but while Saddam had "intention" North Korea have them, Pakistan has them, India has them Israel had them but for some reason Saddam "intention of having them" was more dangerous that any other countries that have them.

The hypocrisy of it makes me sick.