>Graeme wrote:
Graham.
> > >The British claim is not based on the forged documents but on two
> > >separate pieces of intelligence, neither of which was based on the
> > >forged documents. The ISC looked into this issue when the fuss
> > >broke out and concluded that the intelligence assessment that Iraq
> > >had tried to negotiate the purchase of uranium was reasonable.
>
> >What the fuck? The claim was made that the answer to the question at the
> >top of this post was "no". The answer is plainly "yes". End of story.
>
>Yet the Bush claim itself was truthful.
No it wasn't. The White House has admitted that using the claim was a "mistake". The CIA has stated that the claim was "not credible".
>In part it rests upon an Iraqi trade delegation visiting Niger. Niger has
>only two exports of note: agricultural produce and uranium.
Which of course is a strange place for a trade delegation from a desert country that relies on food imports to feed its population...
> >The IAEA have stated that Britain has not made any additional
> >evidence available to it.
>
>Simply because the documentary evidence is the property of
>a third party intelligence agency which cannot be made available
>to anybody else without their consent.
A claim that does not stand up. Intelligence available to the British has never before been restricted in this manner, nor is it credible that a third party would allow the British access to information, but not the Americans.
>The British did share what intelligence they could share and
>a significant result was the discovery of undeclared literature
>about copper vapor laser refining at the home of a nuclear
>scientist whose identity was also not declared to the UN
>weapons inspectors as was required by resolution 1441.
Strange - the IAEA made no mention of British involvement, although they did acknowledge the American involvment. Also, what does this have to do with attempts to purchase uranium from Niger?
> >The CIA has stated that having examined the
> >evidence Britain holds it does not find the claim credible.
>
>The CIA has not examined the evidence that the British hold
>because the British have not given it to them for the reason
>stated above.
Simply not credible. Apart from anything else, it contradicts CIA statements on the matter.
>But he isn't using it as a justification for taking immediate action.
>He's pointing out why action is being taken even though the
>threat is plainly not immediate.
I don't read it that way, and research shows that neither did a majority of Americans - the intended audience.
> That is why Iraq was a preventative
>war rather than a pre-emptive war.
You mean one unjustified and illegal? Yeah, that's kind of at the heart of the opposition.
> > >Wrong. The link with Al-Qaida is unproven, the link with other terrorist
> > >groups is not.
>
> >Which ones?
>
>Palestinian groups.
>
> >What evidence?
>
>Iraq openly paid large sums of money to families of suicide bombers
>and has been a refuge for some terrorists, notably Abu Nidal.
Ah, yes. The palestinian connection. I wondered if that was what you were getting at. There's a whole raft of arguments to be made here, but I really can't be bothered getting into it. Suffice to say that where you have a war between an oppressed people and a financially and militarily superior occupying force, labelling the underdogs as "terrorists" helps no one.
> >Yet, here we have him stating that we
> >can't know exactly how big a threat he is, that he is a big threat, that
> >that threat is growing, and we need to go to war for the safety of our
> >people. In short, barring minor semantic twiddling, that there is an
> >imminent threat.
>
>The only person doing any semantic twiddling so far is you. Bush is
>quite clearly explaining why action should be taken in response to
>those who say that action should not be taken unless the threat
>is imminent.
Please find me a definition of "imminent threat" that someone wouldn't be expected to arrive at from "a threat that is big, getting big, threatens us, we can't know how big or when it threatens us, and we must deal with it now." He is describing an imminent threat - the exact words are missing, but the description is clear.
> >The fact that subsequent investigation has discovered that Iraq had no
> >meaningful weapons programs,
>
>Wrong. The Al-Samoud Missiles had a range clearly in defiance of the
>UN resolutions (and it wasn't a mistake because the Iraqis had been
>informed by UN inspectors that a missile with the diameter of 760mm
>was prohibited - yet they went ahead and developed one).
Al-Samoud missiles, while breaking the terms of the 1991 cease fire, are not weapons of mass destruction, not even close.
>And the Iraqis would have obtained a No Dong missile hadn't the North
>Koreans shafted them.
But they didn't. And, again, the No Dong missiles are not WMD in and of themselves.
> >no chemical, biological, or nuclear programs at all,
My mistake - that should have been "weapons" not "programs".
>The Kay report shows clear evidence that Iraq had an ongoing
>program into the development of chemical and biological agents
>that were prohibited by UN resolutions and could be used to
>makes weapons if ordered. Furthermore Iraq had clearly
>concealed stuff in defiance of UN resolutions that could be
>recovered if the orders were given (the gas centrifuge for example).
The Kay report shows that Iraq had the desire to obtain weapons, and that it had programs prior to 1998. It contains significantly less evidence of ongoing programs than even the meagre pickings of the Blix reports. Nearly all evidence uncovered was of programs from the early nineties or before, and a generalised desire to restart these programs when the existing containment regime was removed. The Kay report is the clearest evidence yet that the containment strategy was working.
>The discovery of violations of UN resolutions before and after
>the war only confirms that Saddam never had any intention
>of complying fully with them.
Hussein's a bad man? Given. Hussein wanted WMD? Given. Hussein had any possibility of obtaining WMD under the containment regime? The Kay report contains no evidence of that.
> > and no means of using them against America even if it did is a
> >seperate argument entirely.
>
>I remember the days when everybody believed that Afghanistan
>had no means of reaching the US.
Afghanistan did not and has not any method of reaching the US with weapons of mass destruction. If this is a reference to September 11th, that act was carried out by a terrorist cell that was based within the US itself, and had been for quite some time before hand. The people involved were legally resident in the US, obtained their training and materials within the US. Al Qaeda does not operate as a centralist hierarchical structure, but as a loose collection of cells who obtain some initial training and funds from other cells, but act and plan entirely in isolation. It is a very, very dangerous mistake to believe that you can stop Al Qaeda by attacking the countries in which they happen to have a known presence.
Cheers,
Graham
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