Asymmetrical Information

Either someone didn't mean to leave those things lying around, OR someone left them around intentionally but will now pretend that they didn't mean to leave them lying around.

If former: The warheads may have residues that will prove, uh, "embarrassing."

If the latter: The warheads will have no unusual residues at all, but this will be offered as evidence that the inspections are working, no really they are, give 'em a few more months!

Remembering the legendary broadcasts of Baghdad Betty during the Gulf War, I'm wondering what might happen if the inspectors came upon a nice big stockpile of plutonium in Iraq (presumably by tripping over it while looking straight up and whistling):

Iraqi spokesperson: "You've got the wrong idea. We need it for our research into time machines. We've just been waiting for Michael J. Fox to drop off the DeLorean."

If you look closely you can see that the packing slip says in Arabic " ACME Bomb Making Chemicals Co." being shipped to a Mr. W.E. Coyote.

The warheads are fake and smell of a BushII/CIA publicity scheme. I urge every reader to inspect the pictures and video very carefully.

In the pictures I have seen (all AP & Reuters feeds) the inspectors were inspecting the warheads without any protective clothing or breathing equipment.

If the warheads were believed to be genuine chemical or biological weapons-capable, do you honestly think they would proceed with their inspections without any protective gear?

I find it hard to believe, and I will not believe this lie.

Uh, er, uh, I suppose that theousa is doing a little trolling tonight. I'll nibble (as opposed to biting) on the bait. Remember that in all reports, the shells were said to be empty. I presume this is the reason for the lack of protective clothing. (Oh, and I really don't think that the inspection teams are shills for the Bush administration or the CIA. If they are, they're not doing a very good job.)

In terms of the deionized water, it is a little odd. Most scientists, I believe, understand that deionized water is not very good drinking water because of its potential to pull ions out of the body's system (this being a bad thing.) He is a physicist, though, so maybe he's missed this subtlety of biology.

There is also the possibility of physicists using DI water as a cleaning solution. As someone who has some experience in the science field in the US, though, I find it odd that he's got a box of it. We've usually gotten it from a purification system. Who knows?

theosa,

Why of course we are lying! Of course you can believe Saddam when he has no weapons, because he's just a poor put-upon third-worlder who looooves his people and Bush is just a republican oil man and the real evil-doer here. we all know that.

And you are so cleaver to have caught on to the corporate web of lies. why, you are so smart are we are all so dumb.

By the way, the WTC didnt really happen, The pentagon did not get hit either, neither did the U.S.S. Cole, The Embassies, 1993 WTC bombing, The Bali Bombing. and that Ricin they found in London, I'm sure it was just a curry paste. Bush made up all of those things too ( He's so damn mean that man!).

Ever heard the phrase "never again"? Next time spend more time in the history section of the library and stay out of the the Art Bell alternate universe section.

by the way, is the sky the same color on your planet as it is here on earth?

Klug:
I understood that the warheads were noted to be empty in all reports. But what is clear so far is that the inspectors do not know whether the warheads actually contained biological or chemical agents.

You actually fueled my suspicions: how did they know they were empty before they opened the warheads for inspections? Before the inspectors qualified the warheads as 'empty', do you think they would take prudent measures to protect himself or herself of any ‘potential’ agent leaking to the atmosphere and hurting them?

Remember that if these warheads were designed to carry weapons-grade biological or chemical agents, those agents would be used in very potent and toxic concentrations.

And to answer your other point: Blix and his cronies are working for BushII... Blix is even starting to talk like him... I think I heard him say 'nucular' the other day... hehe

-theoUSA

Martin:
There is no need to get uncivilized.

I live on the same planet, I read the same books and articles and THE FACTS DON'T ADD UP.

I never claimed to be smarter than others. You jumped to many conclusions that show how shallow and devoid of critical and analytical thinking you are. I never disputed the WTC or the Embassy Bombings, or the JFK assassination, or the war in Vietnam, or the 1969 Moon Landing. You are a moron and are hypersensitive when someone exposes you to an idea that may challenge your trust in the integrity of our government and media companies.

The sky is blue in my world - you should take your head out of your rear to enjoy it once in a while.

-theoUSA

"The facts" almost never add up. One must make of the incomplete facts available as cogent a world picture as possible. We engineers refer to it as "close enough."

Deionized water is just distilled water with a pH of 7.0000. Drinking it wouldn't pull ions out of the tissue. The only thing one would notice while drinking it is a taste due to the abscence of minerals usually found in drinking water.

You don't have any real clue as to whether the actions of the inspectors in the photos would be dangerous or not -- you're making an assumption. Like, for example, that the warheads weren't already tested by people in protective gear before they took those published photos, maybe?

The Iraqis have said they are real warheads. Is Hussein himself working for Bush in your world, TheoUSA? Or is there a united, internationally controlled media conspiracy that somehow controls all the world media, including the Arab News, the China People's Daily, and the New York Times, that is lying about what the Iraqis said?

TO: All
RE: Head Games

UN Inspecor: Hmmmm...

...empty chemical weapons rocket warheads.

Let's see...

...chemical weapons and equipment pertaining thereto.

Ahhh....

....here it is. Yep. Definitely on the forbidden list. From as far back as '91.

So, tell me....what are these doing here?

Iraqi Officer: Your people missed them when they were here in the previous century. It's not MY fault your people can't see things that are plain in front of their faces.

UN Inspector: Okay. No problem there....

What about this suit-case that keeps setting off our geiger counters?

Iraqi Officer: The suit-case is full of glow in the dark watches. They use tritium.

UN Inspector: Oh! That explains that.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: All
RE: The Point About Those "Heads"

Saddam isn't supposed to have those sorts of toys in the first place. Or am I mistaken about those UN resolutions from the early 90s?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Good luck.

gene..
I am an engineer as well.. I don't know about you, but when I engineer something, I KNOW why and how it works...

likewise, if a story doesn't make sense, to me it doesn't WORK and needs to be "fixed"...

'good enough' is a cop-out...

Oh dear, things seem to have degenerated.

Just to beat the thing to death, I was under the impression that drinking DI water would pull ions out of a person's system because of osmosis. Imagine a person drinking DI water (a relatively large quantity) and having it in their stomach. Presumably, the surrounding tissue would have to work to prevent ions from going into the water in the stomach. Correct me if I'm wrong -- but this is my understanding.

Irregardless, all of this doesn't answer the question, what was the man doing with a box (!) of DI water. It most likely was not drinking water -- apart from the ion issue, it's relatively costly.

This thread, as well as most of the media is ignoring how and why chemical rocket rounds are used or put into long term storage. If you are going to use the rounds in the next year, you fill them and store them filled. If you are going to put them into long term storage you store the rockets and the chemical payload separately. Rockets have this unfortunate tendancy of leaking their solid propellants, and then they have to be disposed of and having them filled with chemical warheads makes that process very costly. So you just keep them empty until there is some war going on that you are going to use them in.

Finding the empties merely confirms that these missiles were not bought to carry HE payloads. 122mm's don't carry nuclear missiles either, so all that is left as an alternate is bio or chem payloads. So where is the fill for these things?

Most of the media, as well as the posters above ignore why these rounds were stored empty, which is far more important than the fact that they were found at all.

TheoUSA - If everything you engineer works, you are just a cook who uses someone else's recipes. Real engineers need to make that intuitive leap into the unknown.
However, your first here was a leap into the unknown, a hypothesis that required that the inspectors be either really dumb or really corrupt. Don't bet on it.

I would assume that a photo-op was set up after the real inspection. The first person to touch the rockets probably was suited up.

Bolie IV

I use D.I. water (as we physicists call it) in my espresso machine because (a) it tastes better and (b) http://www.finishing.com/138/06.html .

Oh, wait, five black SUVs just pulled up ... I've got to go answer the door. What's that splintering sound?

BRB...

TO: Klug
RE: DI Water...Drink It for Life!

"I was under the impression that drinking DI water would pull ions out of a person's system because of osmosis. Imagine a person drinking DI water (a relatively large quantity) and having it in their stomach. Presumably, the surrounding tissue would have to work to prevent ions from going into the water in the stomach." -- Klug

Maybe the good doktor is a closet Scientologist and this is a new 'cleansing' therapy?

"Rid yourself of poisoning ions. Drink official Scientology DeIonized water. $50.00(US) a bottle.

Return 50 caps and receive a credit on your next course to "Clear"."

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: theousa
RE: Empty Headedness

"I understood that the warheads were noted to be empty in all reports." -- theousa

Generally speaking, chemical and biological weapons warheads are stored empty. They are filled with the active agent just prior to employment.

Only the suicidal would store active agents in multiple warheads and store the warheads just waiting for a leak to occur or some cross-eyed, all-thumbs, fumbley fingered duffis to drop one or run over it with a forklift.

You say you're an 'engineer'? Of what?

Hopefully I don't own or get near anything YOU had anything to do with, if you don't understand the above.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[I like you, but I wouldn't want to see you working with sub-atomic particles.]

Chuck, TheUSA is an engineer of disorder and obfuscation. In the breadth of two posts he waxes lunacy, and implores someone to remain civilized in debate and then turns round to call them a "moron" in the same paragraph.

We're either dealing with the epitome of a turbid, black-is-white appeaser, who will literally see a bloodthirsty dictator as more trustworthy than the elected leader of the free world - or, if I may play Ockham, a college student or similar aimless lout looking to raise hell.

Between this fellow and the poster "Kate," from the NARAL thread - who proudly believed (witout explanation, of course) that human life was no more desirable than any other, and therefore quite dispensible through any and all pregnancy terminations - the trolls are out these days.

I can't believe that such as transparant suggestion as...
"But Deionized water is a staple in chemistry labs where it is used to dilute or dissolve other chemicals. Faleh Hassan is a Physicist."
...gets everyone into conspiracy theory discussion mode and elicits 23 responses so far (most of them spwning their OWN topics, unelated to the original post).

Good job, Mindless!

Not only are the press and people like theousa missing the point of why those shells are empty, but the fact that they exist at all. I heard a report that said that there was evidence are of recent manufacture, also. Or at least they were found in a building constructed in the past decade. In any case, you don't buy such items unless you have the materials to put into them, and you think you might have a use for them.

What will be really interesting is to see if these were of domestic Iraki manufacture, or if they can be traced back to Russia, Germany, France of some other country that would rather not let their role in arming Saddam be known.

Ubaldi:
I stand by reason. There is right or wrong, good or bad. You have been conditioned to believe that the world is gray. No one can say that my observations were incorrect - would an inspector handle a warhead that could possibly contain (or contained) biological weapons without protective gear?

In my judgment, you can't expect to deal with an evil man and not anticipate 'evil' things to occur. Our US government regarded Saddam as a genuine ally, supplying him with arms, CIA training and intelligence on Iran during the Iran-Iraq conflict. Reports have surfaced during GulfWarI that the US was fully aware of his military actions against his own people, but this did not alter their foreign policy towards Iraq.
It seems their logic was flawed, not mine.

You were correct to assume that I don't trust Bush. My question to you is how do you regard him as 'trustworthy' after the Enron and Halliburton Scandals? How do you regard him as trustworthy after his government failed on 9/11/01 (and don't try and argue that wasn't an intelligence-agency failure)?

If you regard W and his government trustworthy, I have a bridge I want to sell you in NY...

But you asked if I trust Hussein.. Hmm.. That is a tough one.. If I follow the logic of the US military complex - who trusted the same Saddam with over $100 million in military aid over the Iran/Iraq conflict, the same Saddam who was considered a stratigic ally in the region - more so than Saudi Arabia - then I guess we should all blindly trust Mr. Hussein...

Hussein killed thousands of his own people you say? Who cares! As a matter of fact, we can trust him under the pretense of 'great American patriotism' because our military trusted him.. and we know our military to be so great and so awesome and the best in the world (minus WWII, Vietnam & Korean conflict) and is never wrong - for us not to trust Hussein would be treason!!

Don't forget that our politicians (who are supposed to control the military) are always right because they are the fruit of a 'democratic' society that has consistently participative in voting by the 'large' margins of 35-40%.. wow.. What was I thinking?...

C'mon boys and girls, theoUSA just made an argument (not saying how substantiated or otherwise) and all you have to do is rebut the argument. Indulgence of ad hominem on either side of an argument is inexcusable. His abilities as an engineer are irrelevant.

For the record, I don't think he has a case, here. And I question that he thinks his case is built on sound engineering judgement. But once you've addressed his statements, any statements to the effect that he's a substandard are gratuitous and don't accomplish anything. Except, perhaps, to throw doubt on any future statements he makes. All of us should know this is not proper.

Also for the record, I'm an engineer. I'm wrong several times a day. One way I try to understand physical phenomena is to gather data, advance a few hypotheses, and try to invalidate all of them with the data. By necessity, I'm wrong a LOT. Being wrong occasionally does not make for bad engineering, IMO. Being assured of your infallibility, however, does.

Thank you, engineer Perron. I couldn't have put it better myself. Our "friend" may be one of those engineers who carried a 26 inch slide rule with a magnifying curser.

Theousa, I said "black is white," in reference to your sensationalist rhetorical manner that equates the motives of dictators with those of presidents of democratic republics; not "black and white." That oversight alone betrays a certain interest to simply be contrarian.

The burden of proof, unfortunately, is on your side of the argument; none of your questions of us can be answered until you provide substantive reasoning for believing that America planted the chemical warheads in the backyard of a dictator whose weapons declaration was unacceptable to the United Nations, of all lenient institutions; or that there was any reasonable implication of the Bush administration's involvement or guilt in any corporate scandals; or that September 11th could have been prevented - either by the Bush administration or the Clinton administration, the latter having been in power and active control of intelligence agencies for eight of the nine years of presidential control leading up the attack.

If not, you shouldn't be surprised if no one takes your arguments seriously.

Another missing link in that argument is a reasonable citation for the $100 million of aid to Iraq in the 80's. The US gave intelligence to Iraq, not aid. If we had given aid there would have be US weapons in the Iraqi arsenal, and there simply aren't any. In fact, the point of the Iran-Contra scandal is to sell US weapons to Iranians for use against Iraq so that the proceeds could underwrite the Contras without Congressional funds.

TO: theousa
RE: Schizie We Are

"Reports have surfaced during GulfWarI that the US was fully aware of his military actions against his own people, but this did not alter their foreign policy towards Iraq.
It seems their logic was flawed, not mine.

You were correct to assume that I don't trust Bush. My question to you is how do you regard him as 'trustworthy' after the Enron and Halliburton Scandals?" -- theousa

Looks like quite a leap there. Iraq and Enron are 'related issues'. Please draw the correlation, plain before our apparently ignorant faces.

RE: Rip van Theousa

"How do you regard him [President Bush] as trustworthy after his government failed on 9/11/01 (and don't try and argue that wasn't an intelligence-agency failure)?" -- theousa

Did you happen to sleep through the 90s?

Whose administration was it that emasculated the intelligence agencies? Eight years of political correctness and bimboization doesn't get corrected in the short span of 11 months. Especially in government service, where all the bureaucrats are dug in deeper than that consultick in last week's Dilberts.

Not that I'm particularly pleased with the efforts to correct the situation to date, but that'll change.

However, unlike changing the make-up of the CIA and FBI, changing the mind-sets of idiotarians takes MUCH longer. After all, the FBI and CIA infrastructure has established rules on removal of deadwood. That's not the case with some peoples' stupidity.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

DI water is no worse for you than tap water. The difference is osmotically trivial, and I *know* that my stomach doesn't explode when I drink tap water. Or even distilled water, which is even closer in osmolarity to DI water.

While it's true that DI water is most often used in chemistry, there are uses for it in other fields, like biology and physics - the YAG laser posted earlier is an example of a physics thing that requires (or at least recommends) the use of DI water. I'm sure there are plenty more.

Why a box? What if you don't have the machinery to do it yourself? If you're poor or if you don't use too much of the stuff, it may be cheaper or easier to buy quantities of it. Maybe the budget won't cover a new deionizer. Maybe they had a deionizer, but it was down for a few weeks for repairs. Maybe they just don't use enough of the stuff to justify buying one.

Now, everything could still be faked, but the DI water by itself isn't a very convincing argument.

Surely no explosions, Beth, but an interesting anomaly nonetheless. (Perhaps to those of us who haven't seen science done in underdeveloped countries.)

All,
I think discussions like this are not uncommon, nor are the misconceptions about history ot US-Iraq-Iran relationship i the light of current developments. Also, UN vs. Bush Administration relationship is misunderstood:
My two cents, for what it's worth:

1. US did not "support" Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. It was aligning itself with Iraq against a potentially greater threat of Islamic mullahs in Iran dominating the region. So, we supplied Iraq with...you guessed it.
Key difference would be strategic military goals pursued in this case. So, let's put the moral issues on a back burner for now.

2. As a consequence to #1, US Administration posseses intimate knowledge of Iraq's weapons potential, but is caught in the dilemma of not being able to identify them. Thus, we have this constant UN Inspectors vs. Rumsfeld "circle jerk" (sorry, but it fits so true).

3. War is inevitable, whether we like it or not! Of course, Saddam does not present "clear and present" danger as defined by more liberally positioned utopians. However, the 'doctrine of preemtion' vs. 'doctrine of prevention' are just semantics and the debate is purely sophist and demagogical...
If Iraq has WMD, it's only a matter of time before Al-Qaida (or "like") obtain them. So, in essence- Iraq presents an unequivocal proxy threat.

4. If we don't deal with Iraq, we WILL get another 9/11. It'll be either here or in amuch less protected and more blind to the security issues Europe. What will we say then?

5. And as to Bush's ability to handle the situation or his mental capacities overall-look: I did not vote for him and one of the reasons was his cabinet: it seemed better equiped to deal with war, than with economic issues...(hint)

6. And as to intelligence failures: Clinton has not dealt with Al-Qaeda either. So, the blame game can go both ways.

I treat the past as a "sunk" cost. It does not enter in calculation of of NPV of the project. What should be a much greater concern is post-war Iraq...

If anybody still cares about DI water...

I take it home from the lab (pharmacology) to use in my iron; it's ion-free, so you don't get the calcium crud all in the steam system.

And the taste is actually pretty good, once you get used to it.

With the general damage to the Iraqi water system, doing any science with the tap stuff would introduce errors. I use deionized water in Albuquerque for calibrating thermocouples and other temperature transducers, as the local tap stuff is really hard. We use about a liter a year for that reason. The guy is probably just using a convenient box. It could have alternately been a whiskey box, and then we'd be trying to debate whether he was a lush.

Deionized water was Scully's cancer cure on the X-files. Seriously, though, we were helping the Iraqis under Operation Staunch ;which was designed to block the mostly European and
South American pipeline to Iran (found in Fanning
the Flames; by Kenneth Timmerman, in the Iran Brief.) Back then, the strategy was to find secular allies against an Islamist threat (Iran
then, Al Queda now) however we ignored that Abu
Nidal, Carlos, and a whole other host of terrorists were sheltered there. Iran Contra was
due in part to the pressure that Iran & Syria's allies, were exerting in Lebanon; kidnapping everyone in Beirut, to free member of the Islamic
Call(Al-Daawa)which had attacked our Embassy in Kuwait. Al-Daawa, was based out of Iran & Syria;
(yes, secular Baathist, Sunni Syria; who does this
remind you of)Syria, didn't like it when the Brotherhood, took it upon itself to follow Al-Daawa's example; that cost 20,000 lives at al Hama. By the way, the country that 'dissapeared
the founder of Islamic Amal; the predecessor to
Hezbollah, was Libya; so who did the Shia, attack
Israel & the US. We were also beginning to realize
that Saddam could not be trusted, that was why we
shipped a miniscule amount of weapons to Iran (compared to the European contribution)The Democrats and Al Haig, were upset not so much more
the moral issue; after all they were tending feelers to Iran, themselves (Tower Report) yes the
same country that had murdered 300 Americans and
kept 44 hostages for 435 days)So, as you can see,
the concerns of the international community; don't
carry much weight with me. Of course, in the end,
it's going to have to be us, the sensible Brits,
Aussies, New Zealanders, who will have to the job;
that a similar coalition, failed to accomplish 85
years ago, when they took Baghdad, after the defeat at the battle of Kut a marah

Again, I'd love to see any sort of solid citation for the US shipping weapons to Iraq. I'd even settle for a cash and carry sales agreement.

As a chemist, let me comment of the 'empty warhead' fallacies.

Chemical agents - mustard gas, sarin, slowly release strong acids while in storage. Left in an arsenal of loaded warheads, some one of them is sure to leak due to corrosion. The effect is you gas your own people, sort of.

Chemical munitions are generally loaded into vehicles just before usage, probably when the decision is made to use them. If corrosion occurs, you're probably safe for a matter of a few days to a couple of weeks.

Tom, I don't have a reference for a shipment of US weapons to Iraq -- but I have the following link (via that Belligerant Bunny, Anna) from SIPRI, showing that the US provided them with... traffic helicopters. No other US contribution is listed.

I seriously doubt anyone is going to provide a solid citation for you; the truth lies elsewhere.

Troy: Considering that there are fairly reliable lists of what is in the Iraqi arms inventory, i.e.:
http://www.csis.org/burke/mb/fightiraq_mb.pdf
[see p16], and anybody who carefully reads the papers notes that the Iraqis are always driving and waving about Soviet standard stuff, the traffic chopper news comes as little surprise.

I stand by reason. There is right or wrong, good or bad. You have been conditioned to believe that the world is gray.

Actually, recognition that the world is most definitely NOT universally defined by pure black-and-white scenario is one of the signs of higher-order mental development, usually achieved at young adulthood (i.e. late teens to early twenties). Some situations can still be defined by right-vs.-wrong, but usually there are more variables at work. A real-world example is appropriate:

The US has given China "Most Favored Nation Trading Status" more than once. This obviously benefits the communist regime, which is also responsible for such attrocities as Tiananmen Square. On the other hand, the manufaturing industries supported in China by US trade are slowly improving the standard of living for many, many people. Additionally the US first began making such overtures to cut off Chinese support for N. Korea's regime. Then again, export of industry to other nations takes away those jobs from US workers, but at the same time gives US consumers lower-cost products that some of them otherwise could not afford, and...on and on it goes.

Now, where is the right-vs.-wrong in this situation? It doesn't exist. It's gray, and rightfully so: The Big Picture (tm) puts in too many variables. A decision that is positive one way has negatives in another, so pick your poison.

No one can say that my observations were incorrect - would an inspector handle a warhead that could possibly contain (or contained) biological weapons without protective gear?

Would press-level photo-op sessions occur at the moment of discovery? Or would the bunny-suit inspectors test and verify safety, take the classified pictures, and then install the velvet rope so the lower-level inspector drones could fawn over the discovery in front of BBC and CNN et al? This is garden-variety reasoning, not rocket science. If you can forgive the pun.

In my judgment, you can't expect to deal with an evil man and not anticipate 'evil' things to occur. Our US government regarded Saddam as a genuine ally, supplying him with arms, CIA training and intelligence on Iran during the Iran-Iraq conflict.

This one has been adequately addressed by other posters IMHO, so I'll leave it be.

Reports have surfaced during GulfWarI that the US was fully aware of his military actions against his own people, but this did not alter their foreign policy towards Iraq.
It seems their logic was flawed, not mine.

I'm not going to universally defend US foreign policy decisions; there is too much duplicity in them. Then again, every country does that, so where is your hero? I prefer the lesser of two evils, myself, which was the same choice the US faced in the Iran/Iraq issue fifteen and twenty years ago. Iran has chanced a lot since then; Iraq has not. Suddenly, our primary hostilities are towards Iraq instead. Go figure...

You were correct to assume that I don't trust Bush.

Neither do I, if by "trust" you mean unwavering approval and confidence. He is an elected leader, and US political tradition is to be suspicious of such; and for almost 227 years it's been working. On the other hand there is a world leaders list, longer than both of my arms (pardon the pun again, if you can) whom I trust FAR LESS.

My question to you is how do you regard him as 'trustworthy' after the Enron and Halliburton Scandals?

You have possibly been reading Krugman's (IMO highly misleading) takes on these if you believe there is any substantiated connection sufficient to sink the president's general credibility. And FWIW, which presidential administrations in living memory were notably more trustworthy? Clinton -- HA! Bush I -- HA! Reagan -- HA! Carter -- HA! You can finish for me, just keep going until around the time you get to a guy called Washington.

How do you regard him as trustworthy after his government failed on 9/11/01 (and don't try and argue that wasn't an intelligence-agency failure)?

It was an intelligence agency failure, obviously. But (as another poster pointed out) the fact that you would attribute cumulative failures to Bush, who had less than eleven months to sort out his administration before 9/11, is ludicrous and suggests to me that you haven't been thinking very hard about the subject. Need we resurrect the possible Iraqi link the New York FBI office had after WTC I, and which Clinton reportedly supressed to avoid having to finish what Bush I left undone?

If you regard W and his government trustworthy, I have a bridge I want to sell you in NY...

Hey, if I regard you as trustworthy, I'll buy that bridge.

But you asked if I trust Hussein.. Hmm.. That is a tough one.. If I follow the logic of the US military complex - who trusted the same Saddam with over $100 million in military aid over the Iran/Iraq conflict, the same Saddam who was considered a stratigic ally in the region - more so than Saudi Arabia - then I guess we should all blindly trust Mr. Hussein...

No, it was at least somewhat a lesser-of-two-evils situaiton. Back to the history books for you, and this time balance out the Chomsky with something a little more centrist.

Hussein killed thousands of his own people you say? Who cares! As a matter of fact, we can trust him under the pretense of 'great American patriotism' because our military trusted him.. and we know our military to be so great and so awesome and the best in the world (minus WWII, Vietnam & Korean conflict) and is never wrong - for us not to trust Hussein would be treason!!

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as the saying goes. I would like to coin another: Those who wallow in politically-expedient versions of history are doomed to come out looking rather silly.

Don't forget that our politicians (who are supposed to control the military) are always right because they are the fruit of a 'democratic' society that has consistently participative in voting by the 'large' margins of 35-40%.. wow.. What was I thinking?...

Yeah, what WERE you thinking, making that kind of fallacious statement? There is a difference between blindly believing a politician, and believing that this system has benefits over the obvious alternatives.

fruit of a 'democratic' society that has consistently participative in voting by the 'large' margins of 35-40%

Oh yeah, forgot about this one -- would you rather have a system where those who vote are those who at least somewhat care to be informed on the issues and respond accordingly, or one where voting is required and vasly increase the percentage of apathetic and single-issue voters?

If the other 60% prefer to be at the mercy of the 40%, what do you care? It dillutes your own vote less.

Hmm, documents indicating an ongoing nuclear program are serious stuff. The empty warheads I can buy as possibly honestly overlooked by the Iraqis. This is much more serious.

I don't know if this constitutes a material breach though. Certainly an ongoing nuclear program does, but is this sufficient evidence of one existing? Are the documents real? Exactly what is in them?

Even if these documents do not constitute a material breach within themselves, they could give enough leads to uncover an Iraqi weapons program, and lead to a clear and undeniable declaration of material breach.

One question DepSecState Armitage (Jane's future boss?) poised today,
"The 16 missiles are unimportant by themselves. What is important is where the other 29,000 are, for these are what the inspectors couldn't account for in 1998 and still cannot find today."

Armitage is no dummy.

Stewart, both the warheads and the program described by the documents are among the prior material breaches enumerated in the latest resolution. The fact that Iraq failed to include them in its report is in itself a further material breach in each case; read the resolution, it is very clear.

Bargarz has a very detailed discussion of the situation. I highly recommend it.

Is the Iraqi deionized water different that the stuff with that label at my grocery store?

My grocery store sells deionized water in the same section as other varieties of purified water. My mother used to use it for ironing. It is/was a lot cheaper than the other variety.
(Distilled?)

Comments are Closed.