posted by Spock
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4996218
I dont want to hear about the "link".....NPR is a left wing rag and this timeline is pretty accurate. So yea Iraq had and had used WMD multiple times. Everything Iraq did led EVERYONE to believe they had them and were hiding them.
Eh, NPR is about as unbiased as it gets. It's actually a pretty good source, generally (though as someone who regularly shares Breitbart on here, I'm not surprised you don't like it).
As for the article, you better ready it again:
"In the end, though, the government's opaque and obstinate nature made it difficult for outsiders to tell exactly what Iraq was doing, if anything, in the realm of WMD."
"No 'Smoking Guns' ::: Jan. 9, 2003
UNMOVIC's Hans Blix and the IAEA's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei report their findings to the U.N. Security Council. Blix says inspectors have not found any 'smoking guns' in Iraq. ElBaradei reports that aluminum tubes suspected by the U.S. to be components for uranium enrichment are more likely to be parts for rockets, as the Iraqis claim. John Negroponte, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., says:
'There is still no evidence that Iraq has fundamentally changed its approach from one of deceit to a genuine attempt to be forthcoming in meeting the council's demand that it disarm.'"
So, a dickbag and oppressive dictator of a sovereign state was obstinate about letting someone come right in, peek wherever they wanted, and treat him like a child having his drawers searched. Subsequently, Blix says there were no smoking guns found.
And again:
"'Intelligence authorities have claimed that weapons of mass destruction are moved around Iraq by trucks, in particular that there are mobile production units for biological weapons … [But] no evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found.'"
Just before his resignation from the ISG, Kay's statement:
"We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist, or that they existed before the war.'"
And the conclusion of the ISG's investigation:
"No Weapons Found ::: Sept. 30 - Oct. 6, 2004
The ISG releases its final report and chief inspector Charles Duelfer testifies before congress about his team's findings. After 16 months of investigation, Duelfer concludes that Saddam Hussein had no chemical weapons, no biological weapons and no capacity to make nuclear weapons. This effectively ends the hunt for WMD. Bush responds to the report:
'The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the UN oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions. He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away.'"
Here's a conclusive gem:
"The Hunt is Over ::: Jan. 12, 2005
White House spokesman Scott McClellan tells reporters that the "physical search" for WMD, having found no weapons, is over."
So, they conclusively stated that the investigation was over, and they found no such weapons.
Finally, this indictment on the US intelligence:
"Robb-Silberman Report ::: March 31, 2005
The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction delivers its report to the president. Commonly known as the Robb-Silberman report -- in reference to the commission's co-chairmen -- the document describes the failure to find WMD in Iraq as one of the 'most public -- and most damaging -- intelligence failures in recent American history.' The report, which was commissioned by President Bush, asks what went wrong and conlcudes that wide-ranging reform of the intelligence bureaucracy is needed to guard against global WMD threats."
So yes. I think you're right that the timeline is pretty accurate. And it outlines nicely that any and all efforts to find evidence of WMDs returned exactly dick.
posted by majorspark
The conspiracy theory I was specifically referring to is his claim presidents fire missiles into foreign nations to distract from domestic troubles. That would require a cabal of operatives fiercely loyal to the POTUS.
My comment was in the context of what I read as ironic comments made in the Uranium one/Clinton Foundation thread. You are smart enough to figure it out.
Well, in the event that it was discussed with others that personal reasons fueled such actions, then sure. It wouldn't exactly require a ton of people to know the motivation for why the president would give the go-ahead for such action.
I'm not saying I buy it. Just that it doesn't really take a full blown conspiracy to think a president, with his ability to unilaterally approve a military attack, might do so with something other than self-serving motives.
And if he would do so for self-serving motives, why would it be a stretch for it to be as a distraction?
