Weapons of mass . . . something

Quote:

At the time of the invasion, Bush made the decision that the odds that Hussein still had his weapons or his weapons programs, or would start development again once the spotlight left him, were substantial enough that action had to be taken to protect us from a crippling attack somewhere down the road. Or Hussein could even have refrained from using them and dominated the Middle East by the threat of their use.

Oh, really? Then why didn't they say JUST THAT when making the case for the war? Why did they exaggerate what you just said so much?

He didn't say 'odds are Sadaam still has weapons.' He said 'Sadaam DOES still have weapons.' He didn't say 'Sadaam might use them on us,' he said 'Sadaam WILL use them to attack us.'

If his position were truly defensible, he wouldn't have had to lie (or at least exaggerate the truth) to get the support of the American people.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

He didn't say 'odds are Sadaam still has weapons.' He said 'Sadaam DOES still have weapons.'

Which has been proven to be true with both mustard gas and nerve gas found in iraq.

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He didn't lie. The evidence shown that to be fact at the time. New evidence has since shown those facts to be wrong.

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No, they haven't, not in quantities significant enough to pose a real threat to people, Troll. Though I do applaud you addressing a point directly for once.

Cycloptichorn

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Craven de Kere wrote:

To really err on the side of caution we might as well just kill everyone.

The two acts are not comparable:

Act 1: To invade the country of a brutal dictator, who has developed some forms of WMD and tried to develop other forms of them, has used them, and has lied about them, and whom we have been trying to get to verify disarmament for some time.

Act 2: To kill everyone to prevent people from being killed.

Your comment does nothing to detract from my argument that invasion was justified by the facts known at the time.

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... unless there is evidence that those in charge KNEW the facts didn't support the case they were making, Brandon. That's the real question these days.

Cycloptichorn

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McGentrix wrote:

He didn't lie. The evidence shown that to be fact at the time. New evidence has since shown those facts to be wrong.

The purported 'evidence' was widely criticized as being woefully weak at the time already. Hell, it was criticized as such even by the CIA's own analysts. The US administration pushed on regardless, and now, hey, those "facts" do turn out to be "wrong". Big surprise.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
At the time of the invasion, Bush made the decision that the odds that Hussein still had his weapons or his weapons programs, or would start development again once the spotlight left him, were substantial enough that action had to be taken to protect us from a crippling attack somewhere down the road. Or Hussein could even have refrained from using them and dominated the Middle East by the threat of their use.

Oh, really? Then why didn't they say JUST THAT when making the case for the war? Why did they exaggerate what you just said so much?

He didn't say 'odds are Sadaam still has weapons.' He said 'Sadaam DOES still have weapons.' He didn't say 'Sadaam might use them on us,' he said 'Sadaam WILL use them to attack us.'

If his position were truly defensible, he wouldn't have had to lie (or at least exaggerate the truth) to get the support of the American people.

Cycloptichorn

I don't think he did exaggerate so much. He understood, correctly, that the danger to American and allied lives from Iraq was very real based on what was known at the time. He made the strongest case he could to justify removing what apeared to be, and may have been, a terrible danger.

On a separate topic, there is a lot we don't know:

1. We don't know how recently Iraq had WMD or WMD programs.
2. We don't know that it wasn't America's constant admonitions to disarm that caused Iraq to destroy or abandon its WMD programs, if, indeed, it did so.
3. We don't know that Hussein wouldn't have resumed his development efforts as soon as the spotlight was off him.

We do know, however, that various dictators and terrorists are and will be out there trying to develop WMD, and that the odds that Iraq still had something, based on what was known then, posed a significant danger of a terrible consequence.

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If they aren't facts now, they weren't facts then.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

No, they haven't, not in quantities significant enough to pose a real threat to people

I'm sorry, but you are wrong, the amounts found could kill dozens.

And they haven't found all the shells in iraq by any means, there are probably more with nerve agents in them.

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Karzak wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
No, they haven't, not in quantities significant enough to pose a real threat to people

I'm sorry, but you are wrong, the amounts found could kill dozens.

Whooooooooooooo, dozens!

Well, those sure were Weapons of Mass Destruction that were well worth going to war over, then. I mean, whats a coupla thousand war dead if you've just saved the world from the danger of WMD that could have wiped out DOZENS of people?

That's it. I'm convinced.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

... unless there is evidence that those in charge KNEW the facts didn't support the case they were making, Brandon. That's the real question these days.

Cycloptichorn

I should think a reasonable person would be more concerned about the proliferation of weapons one of which could kill up to a million people, and less concerned that the president was too enthusiastic about removing a threat that seemed to pose such a danger. The danger from these weapons is very great.

The possibility that Iraq was still pursuing its programs and/or still had the weapons was very real, whether the CIA inflated data or not.

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Habibi, i can't think why you would waster your time answering the unsubstantiated allegations of someone so little given to rational discourse, and so obviously partisan. It plays into the hands of fantatics to argue their specious claims with them, because it implies that your consider their statements to be reliable.

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Brandon,

I think the concept of preemptive war is as dangerous to global security as terrorism is. If countries start launching massive wars on the mere suspicion that the other country might one day attack them, all hell breaks loose.

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One might argue it to be more dangerous. If one terrorist bombs something, he/she might have imitators--which is to say individuals imitating their behavior. If other nations decide they can justify preemptive war, the danger is raised by orders of magnitude.

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<nods>

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Setanta wrote:

If they aren't facts now, they weren't facts then.

This is very, very incorrect.

At time t1, we have a certain level of knowledge about Iraq's weapons programs. We calculate the probabilities as best we can based on what we know at the time, and decide to invade based on the result of those calculations. After invasion, we find no weapons. That doesn't mean that the probabilities didn't justify invasion based on what was known at the time of invasion.

It may be a fact that a particular coin has a 70% chance of coming up heads. Knowing this, we may place a bet that it will come up heads. Yet we may toss it and obtain tails. It doesn't mean that we weren't going with the odds when we placed our bet.

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What a nonsensical reply. Reality and probability are two very divergent concepst. I sympathize with your desire, your desparate desire, to justify that which i personally consider ludicrously unjustified and unjustifiable. That, however, does not authorize your individual authority to change the consentual meaning of language

If they aren't facts now, they weren't facts then.

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These WMD's have moved from alligations that can be confirmed or refuted into mythology. The administration and its supporters needed those weapons to justify it's actions. That needs justifys their existence real or not to defend those actions. If they were not there they should have been.

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Karzak wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

He didn't say 'odds are Sadaam still has weapons.' He said 'Sadaam DOES still have weapons.'

Which has been proven to be true with both mustard gas and nerve gas found in iraq.

Found in Iraq = Saddam has?

Perhaps pedantic but if those finds are being touted we are already in the land of pedantry.

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Weapons of mass . . . something

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