Bush: Iraq Invasion Worth It Despite No Trace of WMD

because you showed up your daddy? because you got to mess with a whole population, creating more misery and dispair? because it gave you an excuse to flaunt international law and recommend torture? because you don't give a rat's behind for the soldiers you have sent to the hell on earth you have created?

other ideolouges, including religious fanatics.

n/t

And John Kerry was too afraid to come out and say "Yes, I made a mistake on voting to authorize this war." Dean would've won this argument, hands down, as he was right about the war all along.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

it enhanced Israel's security, Iraq being the #1 enemy in Sharon's eyes. Now for enemy #2 and 3; Iran and Syria. Onward christian soldiers.

he cant even beat Iraq, the weakest country in the middle east. Onward antichrist...lol

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All his cronies in the defense and intelligence 'industries' are awash with government revenue. Not to mention their tax cuts for the rich in a time of 'war'.

Government revenue now conveniently 'unavailable' for health care, jobs, social security, and the like. I am sure Bush thinks this adventure in empire was worth it for those reasons, although he can't say it, yet.

Tell that to the l00,000 dead Iraqis
or the 1500 or so dead soldiers
or the 20,000 wounded soldiers

or the 200,000 armed "insurgents" in Iraq who, by the way, want to thank Bush for his efforts in boosting recruitment.

meaning that we are killing them off much faster than Hussein was.

Edit: Oh, and I'm sure we are maiming more of them Saddam could, as well. Okay, so he Saddam was cruel and chopped off fingers, tongues, hands, etc. We do the same thing with bombs, except we don't discriminate between men, women, and children. They're all at risk of our march to freedom.

How many are left grieving for those 10,000 dead Iraqis, those 1500 dead soldiers? Deaths are easier to count but that loss of a loved one involves multiples of that.

And that void of a smile, a hand, a voice we love no longer here...
That will echo on and on. Truly victims of war.

Or survivors with their towns razed, jobs gone, perhaps their homes gone...

Would they feel their world is safer?

weren't his idea in the first place.

"like many around the world" What he doesn't say is "believed after I lied to their faces."

I read it as "we thought they had WMD since we have "many here in the United States" (WMD's) and there are many WMD's "around the world"...at first my thought was, wow, how honest of him.

but no, just bad syntax as usual.

"I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction..."

So, essentially, we went to war against a sovereign nation because you "had a hunch" there would be weapons of mass destruction?

Well, let's see. Before we invaded Iraq US deaths in Iraq were.. uh, how many? Zero? And after we invade Iraq? US deaths skyrocket up to 1,300 (plus thousands more in civilian/international deaths). We're *safer*?

This man is our supposed leader?

HOW IS HE NOT IMPEACHED?!? He is completed incompetent at everything he does..

Arrrgh! I've got to go do something before I get to worked up. :)

WTF???????????????????????

What does he mean he FELT there would be WMDs?! His State of the Union Address didn't say anything about having a "feeling" Iraq possessed WMDs; he presented it as fact! Dick Cheney didn't say he had a "feeling" Iraq could launch a WMD attack in 45 minutes; he presented it as fact! Colin Powell didn't go to the UN and say he had a "feeling" Iraq possessed WMDs; he said he was certain Iraq had them and held up photos of the mobile labs! George Tenet didn't say he had a "feeling" Iraq had WMDs; he said it was a "slam dunk" case that Iraq had them!

I AM SO PISSED RIGHT NOW AND I DIDN'T EVEN LOSE A FAMILY MEMBER (thankfully) IN THIS STUPID WAR!!! How can anyone, Democrat or Republican, support this man in any way after this? What possible excuse could make this situation justifiable? What happened to all the "evidence" they had ... and if that evidence was wrong, why the f*ck did he give George Tenet a medal???

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

question. I think he said that giving out medals made _Bush's war look more legitimate, or something to that effect. Tweety looked as if he believed him completely.

I checked Hardball at MSNBC to get the quote but the transcript for last night isn't up yet.

So Wesley Clark implied you shouldn't take the medals he's handing around too seriously! That's quite an admission from someone of his rank!

Clark said Bush gave out the medals to take the focus off of himself and onto the underlings... so they were like "hot potato" medals. I thought that was kinda funny.

hoopla was to cover that the investigation is officially over and no
wmds were found. When will it end, I suppose when Armageddon strikes for the Christians.

rethinks anything, for instance, that his hunches in the future may also be wrong. NAHHHH!
Thousands dead because of his dumb, idiotic hunches.

And will any of our idiot TV reporters ask the boyking about these dumb hunches? NAHHHH!

The Media ask important and pertinent questions? Come, Come. The media has been too busy covering such "important" events as the Scott Peterson trial, the Robert Blake trial, the Andrea Yates trial, how could they find time these past 4 years to dig up the Bush lies and deceit with regard to WMD's? I mean, really. I mean, just look what happened to Dan Rather and the others at CBS who actually were in the right church, just wrong pew when reporting about the Shrub's National Guard service. The media, with the exception of few intelligent beings, has been in a Coma since 9/11!

media has been paid under the table, as with Armstrong Williams.

HOW IS HE RE-ELECTED????

:mad:

absolutely!

I keep hammering that point also - he has been a total failure at every point in his life

and now we entrust Social Security, the deficit, medicare, homeland security, education, employment, the trade deficit to his total lack of judgement!

all because "he has a good heart"

it does not make sense

Fredom to protect the profits of big oil, freedom to protect the profits of big construction, freedom to protect the profits of the defense industry, freedom to protect the profits of Carlyle.

How on earth have they protected us? From Saddam? We'd decimated their country! They were in no position to attack us, let alone fund terrorists.

And of course the real terrorists are still at large and getting bigger by the day.

I just wish one of these morans (will I ever be able to spell that word the right way again?) would explain how * has kept us safer?

"Well, we haven't been attacked again since 9/11". Tell that to the families of the soldiers who have died you idiots!!! Then go fight the damn thing yourselves!!!

His business partner Osama told him to get our infidel asses out of Saudi Arabia and he did. It was never about WMD. It was about bases in Iraq and oil for the cartel.

Good to see you back, Don.

He is one of the sleaziest scumbags to ever walk the face of the Earth.

What a pinheaded cocksucker.

:grr: :mad:

Make that 50 million + Hate that M'fer

and his whole evil murdering, crooked family too.

The Smirking Fascist F*cktard should be in prison.

And everyone either doesn't care or acts surprised.

Better yet... I'm sure they'll just blame Clinton for no WMD.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

If I had a running blog, I would post a series of links of Bush assuring us that Iraq had WMDs. Liar, liar, liar, pants on fire.

And he (or those who tell him what to do) knew. If he/they hadn't known, he/they would have made finding WMDs the first priority for troops in Iraq. As we know, he/they did not. Therefore, he knew -- at least by the time the troops went into Iraq.

in power"

Yeah Barbara; keep repeating the same damn lie and the people will believe it. :eyes:

or did ABC omit that number by choice?

they hardly talk about the US dead.

truly they are hateful creatures.

Seriously, before all this BS from Bush, how much time did you sit feeling fearful of Saddam Hussein. Would you say you thought about the guy once a day? Week? Month?

I guess that was the Rethugs idea all along. Besides stealing the Iraqis oil that is.

Don

1300 families who disagree with him. :grr:

What a sorry state the so called liberal media is in.

that abc gave hard-hitting Barbara Walters the interview. :eyes:

At least we know what kind of a tree he is.

She asked him if the war was still worth it despite no WMD, and he smirked, "Oh, absolutely."

WHY aren't people outraged???

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he didn't have to 1) go himself, or 2) have someone in his family go.

Go and / or die.

Redstone

It was never of the slightest importance to these people whether there were weapons or not. The point was to rally the country around the idea that the USA was going to destroy evil and spread freedom through out the world--a myth designed to unite the little people and keep them in line.

chimp. The only thing that the Iraqi invasion had any worth to was for the recuiters of terrorists..and if the chimphouse reporters had any cajones they would bring that up to bushtard.

and they did 'very well, indeed'. Generations of Bushes and Cheneys and rumsfelds and wolfowitzs will live in the lap of luxury made possible by the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and maybe the loss of American democracy itself.

How greedy can people be?

bush got his! All bush's buds got theirs!

And can anyone actually say just WHY, with no army no navy no airforce no WMD, Saddam Hussein was a "THREAT"???

No, didn't think so.

But hey, bush & his pals made out like war-profiteering BANDITS! ABSOLUTELY!

It's how they accumulated their considerable wealth. I guess that's acceptable to the FReepers?

it.

I really can't.

or does anyone else notice that shrub seems to be talking to the press a whole lot more lately?

I think this is great. He is such a moran. We DUers know this but so many others who aren't news hounds don't know how badly he puts his foot in his mouth every time he talks. We have all had to dig for details since he rarely talks to the press. Well if he has decided to talk to the press more, it just gives us ammunition and folks who don't do the digging like we do will also soon realize that he is a moran.

So be sure to spread the word to your friends and neighbors - the prez will be on Baba Walters Friday night and they should watch it. :)

Instead we have Barabara.

Bush likes it when people die, and with 100,000+ Iraqis and 1300+ American soldiers, he's doing a good job

(and yes I know the above quote is from Will Farrell, not Dumbass)

I don't know if there are any articles about it anywhere though I thought I remembered reading some, but in the debates one of the reasons he stated for the failure to win the peace was the ridiculous "because we won the war too quickly".

If they really thought Saddam had the WMD and would use them (which is dubious since George Tenet testified that the only way he would was if he was attacked) then they were prepared for many, many more U.S. Deaths then we have seen now. I'd venture to guess on the order of 5000-10000 US fatalities was in their estimate somewhere and they still chose to attack.

So only 1300 deaths - to people who view human lives as resources to be used, that's a bargain.

The irony is that if Saddam had the WMD and used them on American troops in the war faze and many, many more soldiers had died then have currently, their deaths to the majority of people would have been much more justified then the way people are viewing the deaths of the soldiers in the current insurgency. Although had that been the course of events it is unknowable what actually would be the state of the entire Middle East right now as it is unknowable how people around the world would have reacted to that event.

That is one of the real tragedies of the Bush Administrations Iraq adventure. When things went better then they expected, they didn't know how to handle it.

to the war planners in casualties so far, but I do not believe they believed there were WMD on any serious level. also, is 200 billion dollars a bargain?

and she was terribly upset she sacrificed a child for a LIE.

I'd imagine there are some military families who are devastated after hearing the news about no WMD. But then again, I'm sure there are plenty of ideologues who are happy their sons and daughters killed those "damn Muslims."

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daughter in this war based on lies and bullshit and tells them that "it" was worth it.

I wish the American taxpayer who has watched billions and billions being spent while 1300 soldiers have died,10,000+ have been injured and 100,000+ Iraqi civilians have been killed all in their name and with their blessings would wake up and demand from their senators that they impeach this train wreck of a wasted human life.

there were WMDs in Iraq. Gee, I guess even God can make a mistake.

but now that reality has set it, I realize that I was wrong.

I want to pull my hair out sometimes!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

and I don't mean Saddam.

JUST F***ING IMAGINE

phrases his lies it seems like he has a pull string on his back. Same exact words the same exact chant.

We just may have a good weapon here to use on him for the next four years. Anytime he's going to try to ram something through--changing environmental laws, inserting a Constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage, etc.-- as "urgent" and "we can't wait," the Dems can respond with "Oh, urgent like those weapons in Iraq were?"

democratic congressman. I am going to send a comment to my paper if that is ok with you.

I sent this gem to the San Jose Mercury News today, commenting on George Will's glowing article about the possibility of SS reform:

"Only in the through-the-looking glass mindset of conservatives like George Will could Social Security 'reform'--a transparent sop to financial and investment firms that have donated to the Republican party--be considered the moral equivalent of Civil Rights legislation and the space program."

Feel free to spread THAT one around as well, folks.

went gun-ho on his own.

What a jerk.

Of course, given how a mere 6 months after 9/11, to the day when he said he'd never stop huntin' the killerz no less, he said OBL just didn't concern him anymore (03/13/02).

When it first became evident that there were no WMD's, 'Merica's MSM took that position that they had to wait for the final-final report.

Now, they have it!!! But, since the 'Merican public has been properly 'prompted', the Media seems to be taking a 'this is old news' stance. Rove could not have orchestated this more skillfully.

This report comes after the election.
The Admin's response is to blame the intelligence and discovery what went wrong.

The CIA report explaining what went wrong was available before the election, but OUR public servants refused to make it available.

And the Media is sleepily compliant at the switch.
Rove must smile.

daughters. How would he feel then? Ultimate sacrifice? Or was the ultimate sacrifice something else that he said recently?

Well, this should be an outrage to all the right-wing, GOP shills that supported the war... right? I mean, they should be outraged, shouldn't they?

Not one mention?

Cripes, no wonder why most of them are so clueless about the absolute evil that exists in *'s soul.

I mean look at all the oil Halliburton pumped out, and we got Saddam...and you know, Saddam is a bad, 9/11, man...bad, bad (9/11) man.

Bush owes an apology to the world before they put him in handcuffs.
http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

:eyes: :freak:

this week and I wouldn't put it past these crooks to manufacture some dire crisis to get people to look the other way.

My Daddy always said " a fella can't pick your pocket unless he distracts you."

nt

which of course was one of the REAL reasons for the war.

He wasn't the one doing the dying.

He'll get away with causing so much death too.

He lied. He knows he was lying. What does he care? WMD was just an excuse to feed the masses.

Before you go calling me a geek hear me out.

In Episode 1 The Phantom Menace, we discover that Senator turned Chancellor Palpatine is none other than Darth Sidious.... He plays the apparent saviour of the Galactic Senate and also his true identity who rallies the Federation to attack the Republic. Meanwhile he secretly orders a nice little clone army on behalf of the Republic to save them from his own Federation.... why? To pose a threat that he can solve himself and so that he can be proclaimed Chancellor and eventually manipulate everything to create the Empire.

George Lucas is a genius.... I mean this is a pretty simple idea.... but it sure parallels the Bush, AL-Qaeda, coalition, Irag situation doesn't it?

Sure hope Darth Powell sees the errors of his ways and give Emperor Bush the Shaft!

knows how stupid this sounds.

"Iraq Invasion Worth It Despite No Trace of WMD"

Does Colin Powell have no shame? Standing before the UN and talking about mushroom clouds etc.? He's a General. He's supposed to have SOME minimum level of competence. If anyone on this board made such egregious "mistakes" in their place of employment, they would be fired, tout suite.(sp?) :argh:

Trying to make them say the word and apply it to themselves would result in a fit of speaking in tongues. They don't know the difference between right and wrong, except for how they choose to define it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1389434,00.html

junior couldn't think of any.

I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is
right. George W. Bush: 43rd President of the United States

:argh:

you didn't say you FELT like we'd find WMDs, you said YOU KNEW SH HAD THEM!!! YOU *KNEW* IT!!! YOU LISTED THEM IN GREAT DETAIL OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN EVERY CHANCE YOU GOT AND SO DID ALL YOUR CRONIES!!!

Remember 45 minutes to get chemical weapons here?

Remember "mushroom cloud" references?

HUH?

You are sick and a murderer and a sociopath. I hope you rot in hell.

Is chimp an asshole and a fraud? "Oh Absolutely!"

Nice to have Bush and the future DNC Chair reading from the same script when it comes to the war. I wonder what else they agree with...

Sewed it all up for him- we're at war! War! War! War!


Ah the build up to this war- ominous little vials of Anthrax that turned out to be Tide, Mushroom Clouds, scary tubes and trailers.

During the last weeks before the invasion, they were even talking about cremating troops on the fields of battle because they'd be too CONTAMINATED with these WMDs to bring home. Remember?


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon is considering cremating remains of troops who may die in a chemical or biological attack in a possible war with Iraq, officials said Thursday.

Use of field cremation would alter a longtime U.S. military tradition of making every effort to return each person's body home in a flag-draped coffin.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/06/sprj.irq.cremating.soldiers/

Worth it? Worth it? Ask these guys:




http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0412/howe-purplehearts.html


That man (and I use the term advisedly) makes me so sick- I cannot fathom how he is where he is and how so many people are just fine with the carnage and pain he creates.. It is just plain scary and depressing.

the cover article from this month The Atlantic by Richard Clarke.
He better hope to hell none of that comes true.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200501/clarke

Just go out and buy the damn thing.

His only talent is dragging others down to his level.
:puke:

To those making money off the war it is worth it. To those suffering and dying, and those who have lost limbs and family members and homes and livelihoods, oh never mind.

how much OUR elected representatives screw us over.

50% of the population understands that they work FOR US.
But, unfortunately 50%+ of the population hasn't figured it out yet.

despite no tumor found.

Abu Ghraib abuses : not worth it
1300 US soldier dead: not worth it
$150b (and climbing): not worth it
Alienation of allies: not worth it
division of American: not worth it
control of Iraqi oil: not worth it

But what really makes me sick to my stomach is all those average joe cons who buy up everything he says and argue that it was worth it. Even thou they have nothing to gain by it except more terrorists angry at America and a huge future tax burden.

why the fuck is the world safer? Because he created a rallying cry for every extremist with a grudge against the U.S.? I despise him.

"So hasty was XXXXXXX to get the story they wanted out to the public they took obviously flawed intelligence from questionable sources and rushed to present it to the American people as reality. Then, even in the face of overwhelming countervailing evidence, XXXXXXX refused to back down, and unilaterally invaded XXXXXXX based on false pretenses. Perhaps this is why, tonight, XXXXXXX finds itself isolated, without allies, its reputation in tatters. I cannot think of another example of this having happened."

- Stephen Colbert of the Daily Show, about CBS News...or is it about the Bush Administration?

Hysterical!

And how can anyone let * get away with saying Saddam so dangerous if he didn't have WMD or ability or manufacture them or biological weapons?

France, Germany, Russia, and others said our information was wrong. Obviously, they were right. What did they get for speaking the truth:
"Freedom Fries".

Like he'll apologize.

I hope they try him for war crimes.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

You felt like it? Why didn't you KNOW we'd find them, you fuckhead? Did your gut tell you Iraq had WMD? Stop consulting your GI tract for national security information!!

Well, I talked to my asshole last night for guidance on some matters. And you know what my asshole said? "The president is a fucking retard". Then I said "Hey dick, what do you think?" And my dick said "The preznit is a bigger dick than I am". And I said "No shit?". And my dick said "Yessir! No shit." Then I talked to my own gut. "Gut, what do you think?" And my gut said "how the fuck should I know, I'm fucking tissue for christ's sake!"

I hate those murderers!!!!!

:mad: :mad: :grr: :cry:

He "felt" there would be WMDs? That's not how he presented it to the US and the world. He and his spokespeople constantly stated as fact that Saddam's regime had WMDs, they were going to use them against the US on a timetable that was somewhere between already had done so and immediately in the extremely near future. So basically what * is admitting is that he lied. It would appear that * has a problem with what "has" means. Guess he slept through that lesson in kindergarten.

Some french person said it plainly on the BBC "Have your say"

Three little words: France was right.

Michael, Nieul-sur-mer, France

Maybe they'll ask for the Statue of Liberty back? God knows the neocons don't want to have anything to do with LIBERTY.
http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

Thats right, we can eat french fries again... he he.

ON Dan Rather:
So is Bush saying that his administration is exempt from authenticating information whereas CBS News is not??? We all know what it is... as long as you are with Bush you can fabricate information or isolate information to suit your own purposes... but if you are going to reveal the truth about Bush... you might as well get prepared for a flogging.... its hypocrisy at its BEST. But TRUE.

WE need you Dan!! YOu faced Nixon, you can oust Bush!

The neocons want him to speak out so they can distroy him. Give it a while.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

I have a good friend who interfaces with pentagon types all the time and he says they all knew the WMD threat from Iraq was horseshit. They were and are way more worried about No. Korea.

The American public has never been informed that the real reason for Iraq was the ambitious plan for a "New American Century" which would protect Israel and secure ME oil - a nice twofer. Rummy, Wolfowitz, et. al, apparently never picked up a history book, however, and were criminally clueless about the determination of the Iraqi people over the centuries to rid themselves of invaders and conquerers. Why the hell would this time have been any different?

Never listen to anyone who hasn't given them piles of cash, never apologize, never allow the slightest deviation from the party line. They're freaking Nazis.

LBJ and Nixon still had enough 'deniability' to pretend that the Gulf of Tonkin attack was phoney, but there was not anyone other than the North Vietnamese to dispute it. It was easy to use it as the pretext to initiate the war in SE Asia. Bush knows he's in a corner, he's trying the 'deniability' of the WMD card anyway, blaming it on the bad intelligence which he blindly trusted at the time.

The problem with that story is that every credible expert, from Hans Blix at the UN, the CIA and lots of military experts were telling the truth, it was plausiable, a believable truth, and Bush choose not to consider this opposing scenario, that WMDs probably didn't exist in Iraq. There wasn't even a remote chance that they existed. He chose to believe in the least likely scenario.

Bush is a lot like Hitler. Hitler was willing to believe his German military intelligence as long as it coincided with his own preconceptions and if something contradicted his preconceptions, he never was going to listen to it. Hitler choose to invade the Soviet Union, and I'm sure there was better advice out there, from some more experienced Nazi generals but he made a catastrophic error. But Bush had a lot more military intelligence at this disposal. Why did he ignore it? Did he realize the consequences of his actions if he made a mistake on those proportions? If he didn't consider the alternatives, he has no business being a Commmand-in-Chief. The Republicans won't impeach him. A useless idiot, and they won't impeach him!

to slaughter tens of thousands of people and destroy the lives fo the survivors? Maybe George misunderstood the conversation. Or, maybe George hears voices and it isn't the voice of God?

Go fight your own damn war on your own dime

or better yet, his idiot daughters. Funny in F911 how not one congressperson who authorized the war would sign up their daughter or son for the armed forces.

There should be a litmus test (or a damn good new slogan): "Would you be willing to send your son or daughter to fight this war?"

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16472020

that I despise more than this asshole. I have used every swearword I know on my posts on DU when talking about this evil bastard and I am not the swearing kind. To think that he fluffs this off like it was a little "mistake" when people's loved ones have died for a lie is reprehensible. I've said it before and I'll say it again; if I were close enough to him I'd spit in his face and, even though I didn't liek Reagan I would've never thought of doing that to him.

That's how much I despise this evil creature and his cohorts.

Continuing their typical attacks on the use of any kind serious logic, the President and his spokescronies keep repeating: Knowing what he knows now, would he still invade Iraq? Yes.
Yeah, well, if you hadn't obscured the truth and kept the public and Congress from hearing that truth, and been disingenuous, you MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE to do it. Congress wouldn't have given you permission, and the American public might not have supported it. But, gee, that kind of important point in the discussion apparently isn't really an important point at all, I guess. Or at least, we can just ignore it.
:grr:

Hey, look... I just posted for the first time. Hey, here I am posting for the second time!

He gets away with starting a war with lies, American just doesn't get it.

He gets away with stealing two elections, American just doesn't get it.

Let's throw him a $40 million party to celebrate!!

I think that he and the ones behind him think if they keep saying that it was worth it that that will make it true. I DON"T THINK SO. :kick:

We all knew it was a fib and went along with it. Bush told us what it was about to start with, a crusade. We just feel a bit uncomfortable with that word because it sounds like some mass insanity out of the dark ages led by a mad monk with voices in his head. But that’s what it is about. Of course it is going fine - bring on more killing.

I hate the way he always snickers when he knows he is lying in answering a question. He does it all the time.

I just dont see how so many people don't see his body language as a red flag for his dishonesty.

cruise on the Titanic well worth the trip.

Only in bush's world was the invasion of Iraq worth it. When will the lies end??? Can he be impeached for crimes against humanity???

....here's a reminder of what the reality-based inspectors said less than 2 weeks before the invasion was launched on March 19, 2003....

"No proscribed activities, or the result of such activities from the period of 1998-2002 have, so far, been detected through inspections."
-Dr. Hans Blix, testimony to the United Nations Security Council, March 6, 2003


"After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq.”
-Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), testiomy to the United Nations Security Council, March 7, 2003

Of critical note is the fact that, had the UN weapons inspectors been able to complete their prewar inspection, Dr. Blix would have declared Iraq as disarmed and free of Weapons of Mass Destruction. According to Blix, “had we had a few months more (of inspections before the war), we would have been able to tell both the CIA and others that there were no weapons of mass destruction (at) all the sites that they had given us.” Such an event would have ended the 1991 sanctions against Iraq, and allowed Saddam’s contractual agreements with TotalELF, Lukoil, Sin-oil (French, Russian, and Chinese) oil firms to begin oil exploration in Iraq – with an alternative euro-driven oil transaction currency.


Notes:

Glen Rangwala, `Claims and evaluations of Iraq’s proscribed weapons,’ Middle East Reference, February 25, 2003 http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqweapons.html#start

UNMOVIC Working Document, Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq’s Proscribed Weapons Programmes. March 6, 2003: “In general, there is little evidence of change in the chemical and biological disciplines beyond that noted above. No proscribed activities, or the result of such activities from the period of 1998-2002 have, so far, been detected through inspections.” p. 15 http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/6mar.pdf

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, statement to the Security Council, 7 March 2003: “After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq.” http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Press/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml

Peter Beaumont and Faisal Islam, ‘Carve-up of oil riches begins,’ The (UK ) Observer, November 3, 2002 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,825105,00.html

Tom Raum, ‘Cheney: Weapons Report Justifies Iraq War,’ Associated Press, October 7, 2004 Online: http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/1004/178314.html