Wolfowitz: Iraq Weapons Not a Priority

OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN - Finding the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that President Bush cited as his main justification for going to war is now a secondary issue, says Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. ..

In an interview Monday night aboard an Air Force jet en route to Washington following a five-day tour of Iraq (news - web sites), Wolfowitz said the task of settling the weapons question is in the hands of U.S. intelligence agencies.

"I'm not concerned about weapons of mass destruction," Wolfowitz told a group of reporters traveling with him. "I'm concerned about getting Iraq on its feet. I didn't come (to Iraq) on a search for weapons of mass destruction." ..

"I'm not saying that getting to the bottom of this WMD issue isn't important. It is important. But it is not of immediate consequence."

More here

Of course it's not a priority...if they did put in a bit of effort and get to the bottom of it, they'd find that there were no WMDs and then their whole reason for going to war is shot to pieces.

It's very odd.....they seem to believe that the whole world can't remember anything earlier than last week....Bush says that Saddam wouldn't allow inspectors in and THAT'S why we went to war (wrong), now Wolfman reckons that finding WMDs isn't that important.

It's like they're saying "Forget what we said about WHY we were coming here, we're here now so let's just make the best of it..."

"But we shot that man because you said he was armed and dangerous, and he clearly isn't!"...."Yes, but forget about that, he's dead now...let's just go through his pockets and then sell his organs, we've got to make the best of it"

Find WMD? Not a priority.
Find Osama bin Laden? Not a priority.
Find Saddam Hussein? Not a priority.
Secure nuclear facilities? Not a priority.

Oil? That's a priority. :shrug:

There is some truth in it as well. One way or another, the US government must find a way to gracefully turn over power to a faction that could govern Iraq.

NOT IMPORTANT??? NOT IMPORTANT???

How is not finding huge amounts of chemical and biological weapons that could be in the hands of dangerous individuals, maybe even more dangerous then Saddam himself, not important?

I would love to see a poll asking the soldiers still in Iraq wheather the feel safe not knowing where the so called WMD are? Asking if these soldiers like waking up each day wondering wheather these very WMD are going to be used against them today?

I mean really the threat is much higher, I think for them then it is for anyone here in states. I'm not ruling the possiblity that they smuggled some WMD here but most likely, If thes WMD did exist,then they most likely are still in Iraq or some where near Iraq. They most likely would be used against the soldiers.

But it sure as hell is important to all the folks like us who are wondering how in the hell we got there in the first place! It sure as hell is to the mother in Jackson, Mississippi whose military son "spends the day dodging bullets every day."

Oh hell yes it is important.

Bake

Pretty bold rioting statements by someone who during his trip into the war zone had his SORRY ASS protected by numerous armed guards etc.

he seems downright pathological

not concerned about WMD
iraqi's not concerned about WMD
didn't come to iraq to look for WMD

so that is that

no longer an immediate consequence of his
probably never was.

...that these WMD that they SWORE were there get into the hands of terrorists, or "Saddam sympathizers". Our troops aren't daily in their gear anymore. A biochem attack on a base could fell hundreds of soldiers. These guys are so incredibly stupid and short sighted. They daily disprove themselves with their utterly ridiculous real-time revisionism.

which ones? the ones that can't convince the administration of anything? the ones that the administration has convinced us are buffoons?

actually, what wolfowitz was saying is that nothing bush utters is important. only what he utters. only what he instructs bush to utter, any given moment.

If we found a zillion WMDs, it would not change the fact that he lied and twisted information before the nation and the congress.

He lied in the SOTU about the state of the economy and all the figures surrounding it to promote the tax cuts. Lies, lies, and more lies.

The WMDs don't matter.

before the war he was ranting and raving about Saddam and his WMDs, and now, well, you know, they really are secondary after all. The important thing is that we've secured the oil and made Israel happy! We can keep driving our SUVs.

Finding that WMDs is NOT the most important thing. Really important is that the people of Iraq could finally start to rebuild their country, that they could have water and energy and food. AS soon as possible!


AND THAT THEY COULD GET RID OF THAT INVADERS! (this was the part, that Wolfowitz didn´t say, of course):evilgrin:

isn't important then no, nevermind the weapons. Who cares if no one ever believes anything we say? Who cares that we set precedent with America's first pre-emptive strike because Saddam was such a threat to us with those weapons? Now every country in the world can point to us, declare their neighbor/enemy of choice a threat to their security and VOILA!! Anarchy!!

Not important my eye.......

Julie

Otherwise we had joined the coalition and had followed them. But we didn´t because we already knew it were lies. There have always been lying politicians in every country at every time. But we can make a difference between politicians and people. And be sure: we believe in Americans, it´s politicians we can´t stand!

Be sure to tell the rest of Old Europe that we are working hard to overthrow this illegitimate regime!!

It does bother me greatly though that the US has practically no credibility left abroad. I look forward to helping make the US what it should be.

Julie

You've got decent press and you're more well-informed anyway.

Welcome to DU! Where are you in "OldEurope"?

Eloriel

and they're telling us they are not a priority, they are saying that other things are more important than preventing the use of these WMDs on our soldiers, aren't they? To me, that's as least as important as everything else.

he's saying it doesn't matter if the weapons get into the hands of terrorists, who could theoretically use them anywhere including the US.

What he is really saying though is that there aren't any weapons, nor were there any before the war. We knew it, he knew, Bush knew it, Blair knew it. They simply didn't care and needed an excuse for a war to conquer Iraqi oil.

Would there have been sufficient support for this war if liberation of Iraqi people had been presented as the reason?

Some places the news is over flowing, but in main stream America they want to keep it hidden from the people. It’s going to come by word of mouth if nothing else. Their time is running short; you can see it reading between the words of the headlines

http://www.antiwar.com/



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=10&u=/nm/20030721/ts_nm/iraq_wolfowitz_dc_4

Wolfowitz Warns Iraq's Neighbors Not to Interfere
(snip)
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz warned foreigners Monday not to interfere in Iraq (news - web sites), in remarks aimed at Iraq's neighbors and suspected foreign fighters who may have arrived in the country.


Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), told a news conference in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that Washington would, however, welcome outside help.
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq," said Wolfowitz , who is touring the country to meet U.S. troops and Iraqi officials. (snip)

If they could only live by their own words, watching and waiting, patiently.

This is a load. Saddam was going to hand the weapons off to terrorists. We've captured neither Saddam or the terrorists. The weapons that they knew existed are apparently missing. What could be more important than that? We're having a war on terror, not an exercise in nation building.

They're both important. Wolfowitz is spinning.

Oil.

Black Gold.

Texas Tea.

Gee, they were the main reason we invading Iraq.

Revisionism at its best.

This guy never ceases to amaze me! WMD not important? Then why in the hell did we invade that country, eh Wolfie???

Geez, the brazeness of these people is just outrageous. It's exactly the same as Osama not being important anymore, either.

Where the hell is the OUTRAGE??????????????????????/

Back in the good ol' days of peace and prosperity (Clinton) Wolfie had a different take on war with Iraq entirely:

In stark contrast to the Bush administration’s distain of methodical multilateral means to achieve a more democratic regime in Iraq, Wolfowitz essentially argued the points raised by Germany, France and others in his statement to the House five years ago.

In his statement of September 16, 1998, Wolfowitz ridiculed Clinton’s policies toward Iraq and said, “Administration officials continue to claim, as Assistant Secretary Martin Indyk did in testimony to the Senate last week, that the only alternative to maintaining the unity of the UN Security Council is to send U.S. forces to Baghdad. This is wrong.”

Wolfowitz then articulated how, with patience and diplomacy, a critical mass could be reached by supporting dissidents in their eventual overthrow of the Ba’athist regime. “he key lies not in marching U.S. soldiers to Baghdad, but in helping the Iraqi people to liberate themselves from Saddam,” he said.

He detailed the patient commitment that such a policy would require however, such an action would deliver much stronger international support than American militarism. He said, “Our friends in the Gulf, who fear Saddam but who also fear ineffective American action against him, would see that this is a very different American policy, one that can rid them of the danger that Saddam poses. And Saddam's supporters in the Security Council–in particular France and Russia–would suddenly see a different prospect before them. Instead of lucrative oil production contracts with the Saddam Hussein regime, they would now have to calculate the economic and commercial opportunities that would come from ingratiating themselves with the future government of Iraq.”

So, Wolfowitz is making the very argument raised by the anti-war movement, that US military aggression is not the only method that will lead to regime change; in fact it is the least effective method geopolitically.

http://www.republicons.org/view_article.asp?RP_ARTICLE_ID=717

What a slippery bastard he is.

Julie

"If you could get in a relaxed conversation with Iraqis on that subject they'd say why on earth are you Americans fussing so much about this historical issue when we have real problems here, when Baathists are killing us and Baathists are threatening us and we don't have electricity and we don't have jobs. Those are the real issues."

Yeah, I'll bet that's exactly what they are saying. Sure seems like it. "Oh, you brave American soldiers, please save us from the evil Baathists!" That's the mood I detect from the Iraqi populace right now. Mmm hmm.

If this guy really believes this garbage, god help him.

jb

Three guesses where Wolfie picked up that line:

That just happens to be the "official" administration line on why soldiers are getting killed every day. The sinister part of it is that he has now been "on site" and will carry that info back as a fact but it's really just the local commanders parroting the administration line. This whole mess is a circle of lies: Works like this:

Tell a lie.
Get friends to repeat it.
Use friends as source for your original lie.

:grr:

Now they don't matter?

Fuck you, you scumbag....

Remember when he said "I don't think about Osama bin Laden too much anymore" after he couldn't find him?

Don

Don't you see, getting Iraq "back on its feet" is a tremendous priority for the Bush cabal. If things suddenly settled down over there and they could get some progress going, what do you think would be the overall reaction of the plebiscite here in the good old U.S. of A.?

The 'Murikan sheeple would immediately endorse every action this evil regime took to accomplish that goal. They would quickly forget about WMD. As long as things are not going well in Iraq the WMD will the the albatross around the Bushies' collective necks. If they can get things rather peaceful over there, then they will not have only won the "hearts and minds" of the Iraquis, but of the American electorate as well... and believe me, that is all they are really interested in. Concerns about WMD and why we went to war with Iraq will be old, stale, and irrelevant history.

Of course, what do you think the chances are that things are going to suddenly become "peaceful and orderly" in Iraq? Fat chance Wolfie... I'm afraid your sinister plot is coming undone.

Remeber that you lying scum?

He is right that setting up the infrastructure has to be the top priority of course anyone who had half planned this out would already have that set up.

I can just hear them trying to assert this in the future
"We never said anything about WMD, it was always a humanitarian mission"

I agree 100% with Nambe's post above (#6)
Actually the weapons aren't important. It's the LIES....

Sonia

Of course looking for WMDs is not important to von Wolfowitz, he knows that they do not exist, so why bother looking for them? IF he thought they really did exist it would be job #1 to find them, if not vindicate themselves at least to prevent the "Saddam Sympathizers" from using them or taking them down to the local Al Qaeda office (Al Qaeda is all over Iraq, right?).

So the fact that von WOlfowitz is publicaly stating that it is not a priority to look for teh WMDs indiates that he doesn't think they exist.

I certainly am skeptical as to their "existence," but if these assholes are so convinced that "Iraq has WMDs," then their relegating this to "secondary" importance is nothing short of endangering every American! What loons!

This is their explanation for why Iraqi prisoners aren't telling about WMD. Funny or pathetic, you be the judge.

:wtf: is this??? Where are the WMD's damnit??? Oh ya, that's right, they don't exists. Sorry Paul but your lies
will get you no where.

http://www.usembassy.it/file2003_01/alia/A3013107.htm

think I'll post this in GD

As terrible as the attacks of September 11th were, however, we now know that the terrorists are plotting still more and greater catastrophes. We know they are seeking more terrible weapons-chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons. In the hands of terrorists, what we often call weapons of mass destruction would more accurately be called weapons of mass terror. The threat posed by the connection between terrorist networks and states that possess these weapons of mass terror presents us with the danger of a catastrophe that could be orders of magnitude worse than September 11th. Iraq's weapons of mass terror and the terror networks to which the Iraqi regime are linked are not two separate themes - not two separate threats. They are part of the same threat. Disarming Iraq and the War on Terror are not merely related. Disarming Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons and dismantling its nuclear weapons program is a crucial part of winning the War on Terror.

http://www.dod.mil/news/Jan2003/t01232003_t0123cfr.html

via Billmon

The arrogance of Wolfowitz and the rest of the Bush administration is unbelievable. Do they think no one is paying attention?

Saddam Hussein was going to kill us all within 45 minutes with his WMD -- both Bush & Blair.

Now, we don't need to find them. They are not a problem. Other business to attend.

How does that work out? It doesn't.

This came out yesterday in a Aussi pub…..great article.

<http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/22/1058639773422.html>


We are supposed not to care about this - we've "moved on", Howard claims, using Bush's line, as he has done so often. We're told it doesn't really matter now.

It doesn't matter, apparently, that we were told that the coalition of the willing invaded Iraq to destroy nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to prevent them being used against other states or passed on to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. The motion which the Howard Government put before the House of Representatives stated unequivocally that:

"Iraq's continued possession and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, in defiance of its mandatory obligations under numerous resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, represents a real and unacceptable threat to international peace and security."

Truth not a priority! for this ass ministration

Baghdad in a "convoy" with his name painted on the side of the hummer.

It's obvious when reading the (finally) released reports from Cheney that it's all about OIL. Oil has been the whole she-bang always. The terms "evil" "WMD", etc. have lost their meaning!

Or for Israel?

Unconcerned about Osama.

Unconcerned about Saddam.

Unconcerned about fidning the laughably nonexistant WMDs.

These are the words of a thug, a Nazi (or follower of Sraussian Philosophy, which is very nearly the same thing minus the racial aspect), a Monster who knows they don't have to worry about a thing.

They own the Empire. They own all two branches of Imperial Governance, Legislative and Judicio-Imperial. They own the Right-Wing Sub-Media which, to an incredible degree, controls the wretched, parasitized remnants of the Formerly Free Press.

They own all the voting machines that have converted to Stalinist Lie Machines thanks to Diebold, ES&S, as well as others.

They don't have to fear "losing".

This is an Empire. Emperors only lose to other Emperors.

You see any rivals to the current Imperial Family? NO ONE lives to old age who challenegs the Busheviks for posession of the Empire. Just ask the Kennedys.

Oh, right.

Lucky for Ted he had Chappaquiddick. That probably saved his life, being disgraced so that he could never be Emperor.

When * was going from Bin Laden to his Iraqi invasion he made that statement.

These people will say and do anything to advance their agenda.

n/t