The whole idea was to stop Hussein before he became too powerful, not when it was too late. If he had already had enough WMD to make himself largely invulnerable, it would have been too late to act, as it is now in North Korea. Were we to attack North Korea now, they would have the option of using one of their nukes to kill a huge number of people in the first hour of the war. Hussein had development programs, which, if allowed to continue, would likely have eventually developed more lethal weapons. In the leadup to the invasion of Iraq, estimates were being made as to when Iraq might go nuclear. We wanted to stop him before Iraq became a nuclear power. My speculation was about what might have happened had he been allowed to continue.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed about 140,000 of whom about 80,000 died immediately, and 60,000 by the end of the year from radiation poisoning. If a handful of somewhat more powerful bombs than that used at Hiroshima were used in major cities, and if the deaths due to radiation and lack of services in the post blast devastation are counted, a million would be quite possible. As far as bioweapons go, really any number of deaths is possible, depending on the lethality of the disease. If Iraqi reaserchers developed a form of smallpox that didn't respond to current vaccines or weaponized a hemorrhagic fever, it seems pretty clear that many millions could die.
You guys are far behind the curve. The DPRK, its threats and military potential have been exhaustively discussed here previously.
Here is one of many posts on the Uh oh, N. Korea thread that may be of some interest.An A2K thread on the DPRK
The following thread also deals with the DPRK threat, especially missile development.
DPRK Missiles
And here is a thread on DPRK military capability DPRK military capabilities
These are all lengthy threads, but well worth reading if the DPRK is of interest to you.
Brandon
Stop blowing wind.and read the reports. Saddams nuclear weapons program was dead in the water. Do you also believe in Boogy men as well.
Repeating the same distorted facts will not make them true.
Brandon9000 wrote:The whole idea was to stop Hussein before he became too powerful, not when it was too late. If he had already had enough WMD to make himself largely invulnerable, it would have been too late to act, as it is now in North Korea. Were we to attack North Korea now, they would have the option of using one of their nukes to kill a huge number of people in the first hour of the war. Hussein had development programs, which, if allowed to continue, would likely have eventually developed more lethal weapons. In the leadup to the invasion of Iraq, estimates were being made as to when Iraq might go nuclear. We wanted to stop him before Iraq became a nuclear power. My speculation was about what might have happened had he been allowed to continue.
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed about 140,000 of whom about 80,000 died immediately, and 60,000 by the end of the year from radiation poisoning. If a handful of somewhat more powerful bombs than that used at Hiroshima were used in major cities, and if the deaths due to radiation and lack of services in the post blast devastation are counted, a million would be quite possible. As far as bioweapons go, really any number of deaths is possible, depending on the lethality of the disease. If Iraqi reaserchers developed a form of smallpox that didn't respond to current vaccines or weaponized a hemorrhagic fever, it seems pretty clear that many millions could die.
Any number of deaths is NOT possible. An outbreak of smallpox would be contained with quarantine just as any biological outbreak is. Any reasonable assessment of it would probably not have more than 1000 deaths. CDC deals with outbreaks all the time. Nothing new here. The same thing with hemorrhagic fever. Both diseases have a period that makes it easy to spot and contain.
You can't easily spread any bio agent to millions of people. No credible study I have seen of bio or chemical attacks include any deaths like what you are claiming. (Look at the death totals in the saren gas attacks in Japan. Those were coordinated using a highly toxic agent.) Even a widespread aerosal attack on a city of 500,000 wouldn't produce the deaths needed to come close to your figures. http://telemedicine.org/biowar/biologic.htm These figures assume no warning. Trust me if a plane was flying over a populated area dispensing a vapor of some kind low enough to be effective it would quickly lose any chance to infect large numbers of people. A simple warning to stay indoors would eliminate most infections.
By the way, no one had any evidence of Iraq having either smallpox or hemmorhagic fever in any program that was attempting to use it. Just more made up stuff from you.
I see, so we didn't attack him at all for what he had then based on your present statements here. So your analogy of a suitcase with a bomb in it wasn't even close to being relevant then since there was no suitcase, only the fear that he might someday have a suitcase.
You don't have to agree with me, but it would be kind of refreshing if you knew what I was saying.
I can disprove this in one sentence: Natural plagues actually do kill millions of people, despite immense nationwide or worldwide efforts to contain them.
All you'd have to do, if you had some new plague like a smallpox variant that was immune to our vaccines would be to send a few volunteers in who would then infect themselves and run around in crowded malls and movie theaters. What's all this malarky about airplanes?
Like I said, Hussein had had bioweapons, chemical weapons, and development programs for those and for nukes too. Given sufficient time, he certainly would have succeeded to some degree. He had enough money to do it with.
The idea is not to invade someone after he is so powerful that you don't dare. The idea is to invade someone while they are trying to reach that point. Hussein had certainly demonstrated the will to acquire these things, and had already succeeded to some extent.
Also, I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated that nuclear bombs could indeed kill the number of people I claimed.
there is an incubation period of 10 to 12 days, followed by 2 to 3 days of high fever and prostration with severe headache and backache. "It's only after that point, when the rash begins, that the individual can transmit the disease.
Brandon wrote
Quote:You don't have to agree with me, but it would be kind of refreshing if you knew what I was saying.
It would even be more refreshing if you knew what you were saying.
One can look at many of your posts see the same statement about Iraq and our, no your, justification for our invasion. It has become boiler plate. And no matter how many times it has been shown to be a false premise, it shows up verbatim time after time. You need some new material.
Brandon
Stop blowing wind.and read the reports. Saddams nuclear weapons program was dead in the water. Do you also believe in Boogy men as well. Repeating the same distorted facts will not make them true.
Quote:I can disprove this in one sentence: Natural plagues actually do kill millions of people, despite immense nationwide or worldwide efforts to contain them.
All you'd have to do, if you had some new plague like a smallpox variant that was immune to our vaccines would be to send a few volunteers in who would then infect themselves and run around in crowded malls and movie theaters. What's all this malarky about airplanes?
Like I said, Hussein had had bioweapons, chemical weapons, and development programs for those and for nukes too. Given sufficient time, he certainly would have succeeded to some degree. He had enough money to do it with.
The idea is not to invade someone after he is so powerful that you don't dare. The idea is to invade someone while they are trying to reach that point. Hussein had certainly demonstrated the will to acquire these things, and had already succeeded to some extent.
Also, I believe I have sufficiently demonstrated that nuclear bombs could indeed kill the number of people I claimed.
OK.. provide evidence of a natural plague that killed 1,000,000 people in a modern society since 1950. There has been NO outbreak that has killed that number. Modern society has ways of dealing with outbreaks. Your simplistic claim doesn't prove much of anything. Provide a concrete example.
Infected volunteers would be visibly afflicted with a disease. Here is an explanation of the incubation period and tell-tale signs of smallpox. The majority that came into contact with any such "volunteers" would be quarantined before they became infectious. There would be very few if any secondary infections from such a plan.Quote:there is an incubation period of 10 to 12 days, followed by 2 to 3 days of high fever and prostration with severe headache and backache. "It's only after that point, when the rash begins, that the individual can transmit the disease. The disease would be diagnosed in that first 15 days before the first people became infectious. Within 48 hours of the first 3 cases being reported the source would be found
ROFLMBO.. your example proved he could kill 1 million with an atomic bomb? Go look at the numbers. I don't see even close to 1 million dead in your figures from Hiroshima.
Now your arguments that Saddam was close to a nuke are just plain silly. At the time of the invasion there was ZERO credible evidence that he had an ongoing program. I repeat ZERO. All of his nuclear material was under seal by the IAEA. The supposed attempt to purchase yellow cake was shown to be based on forged documents. The aluminum tubes for centrifuges were disputed by scientists as being not of the right type. Saddam didn't have the capability to deliver several nukes and any he could build would have been crude and not transportable by terrorists. Go look at the weight of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was NOT a suitcase size bomb.
AIDS. However, I don't have to provide a particular example just because you say I do. 25 million people died in the influenza pandemic of 1918. Your childlike faith that someone infected with a disease designed to kill as many people as possible could be harmlessly quaranteened with reliability is absurd. It's "famous last words."
Every poster has the responsibility to back up claims he makes here or else not make them.
It is one of the most fundamental rules of debate, that when a debater makes claims of fact, not opinion, he must be prepared to provide some citation to show that he did not simply make them up or exaggerate.
How often is this laudible efficiency present in real disease outbreaks? Certainly not for Legionnaire's Disease. They almost never found the source at all. Not for the Anthrax letters of a few years ago.
Hiroshima was the first atomic bomb in history. As such, one today would probably be more powerful. The Hiroshima bomb was 12 - 15 kt and killed 140,000 people by year's end. The nuclear bombs carried in American Trident missiles have yields of about 100 kt. The US Castle Bravo bomb was 15,000 kt. India reported in the late 90s that its Shakti bomb has a yield of 43 kt. India has claimed a capability of 200 kt, although the international community is skeptical. If two or three bombs of the strength of India's Shakti bomb were detonated in cities, and eventual deaths over the first year due to the blast, radiation poisoning, and disruption of services were taken into account, I do not see why a million deaths is implausible at all.
He might easily have had a program a couple of years from fruition, and the estimates of how far some country is from success when it is trying to keep the information secret are probably not reliable. Remember that Iraq had a functioning nuclear reactor as long ago as 1981 which Isreal, thankfully, bombed.
Brandon9000 wrote:1 million people have NOT died of Aids in modern western countries. The influenza of 1918 was NOT post WW2 which is really the advent of modern medicine. You have to provide evidence because YOU SAY you do. Let me quote YOU on why you have to provide evidence.AIDS. However, I don't have to provide a particular example just because you say I do. 25 million people died in the influenza pandemic of 1918. Your childlike faith that someone infected with a disease designed to kill as many people as possible could be harmlessly quaranteened with reliability is absurd. It's "famous last words."
Quote:Every poster has the responsibility to back up claims he makes here or else not make them.
Quote:It is one of the most fundamental rules of debate, that when a debater makes claims of fact, not opinion, he must be prepared to provide some citation to show that he did not simply make them up or exaggerate.
Quote:Legionnaire's and Anthrax didn't kill 1 million people.How often is this laudible efficiency present in real disease outbreaks? Certainly not for Legionnaire's Disease. They almost never found the source at all. Not for the Anthrax letters of a few years ago.
Most instance of Legionnaire's are traced to the site where it originated. Why do you think it was called Legionnaire's in the first place? The site where it was contracted was known. The germ that causes it is known. How the germ usually infects people is known. Failure to clean air conditioning systems is the usual cause. http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/health-public-affairs/mhcs/publications/5155.html We don't know WHO sent the anthrax letters but we have tracked down their route pretty well. Your scenario wasn't anonymous letters, it was people in a mall. The mall would be KNOWN because the first people sick would have all been at that mall.
Brandon9000 wrote:It is implausable to expect that Saddam would have a nuke of such power. His nukes would be crude, similar to Hiroshima rather than a US Trident missile. US nukes are based on decades of testing. Saddam didn't have access to those test results or the ability to put together such devices.Hiroshima was the first atomic bomb in history. As such, one today would probably be more powerful. The Hiroshima bomb was 12 - 15 kt and killed 140,000 people by year's end. The nuclear bombs carried in American Trident missiles have yields of about 100 kt. The US Castle Bravo bomb was 15,000 kt. India reported in the late 90s that its Shakti bomb has a yield of 43 kt. India has claimed a capability of 200 kt, although the international community is skeptical. If two or three bombs of the strength of India's Shakti bomb were detonated in cities, and eventual deaths over the first year due to the blast, radiation poisoning, and disruption of services were taken into account, I do not see why a million deaths is implausible at all.
[That's why I provided evidence when you asked, because it is a fundamental rule of debate. The fact that you don't like my evidence is not the same as me refusing to offer any.
the consequences if the danger is real - if even one WMD had ever been used in a populated area, the consequence could be as high as perhaps a million dead.
Anyone can claim any expertise; anyone can lie; anyone can exxagerate. That is why, as everyone knows, each debater who claims facts is required to support them on demand or withdraw them.
It is one of the most fundamental rules of debate, that when a debater makes claims of fact, not opinion, he must be prepared to provide some citation to show that he did not simply make them up or exaggerate
The only valid way of assessing the correctness or incorrectness of the invasion of Iraq is to ask what the conditions were at the time the invasion occurred.
As though it weren't blindingly obvious, my point was about the speed of tracking down a disease source. I never alleged any other connection with Legionnaire's disease. One of the most annoyingly stupid things about you liberals is that if I make an analogy between two things relating to one, specific feature they share, you can be counted on to try and negate the analogy by listing a difference between them that has nothing to do with what was being compared.
parados wrote:Most instance of Legionnaire's are traced to the site where it originated. Why do you think it was called Legionnaire's in the first place? The site where it was contracted was known. The germ that causes it is known. How the germ usually infects people is known. Failure to clean air conditioning systems is the usual cause. http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/health-public-affairs/mhcs/publications/5155.html We don't know WHO sent the anthrax letters but we have tracked down their route pretty well. Your scenario wasn't anonymous letters, it was people in a mall. The mall would be KNOWN because the first people sick would have all been at that mall.
The point is not whether the causes were eventually known, the point is that in both of these cases, learning much more than was immediately apparent was extraordinarily slow, and they had theories ultimately proven wrong before they finally got it right. Yes, because the outbreak of Legionnaire's disease occured at a hotel, they knew it was in the hotel, but they were very slow in learning what caused it and, in fact, came within a hair's breadth of failing. My point is that your idea that the thing will be tracked down 48 hours from the 3rd diagnosed case is not borne out by history.
parados wrote:I don't think that there is much assurance that Hussein's nukes would have been no better than the first nuke ever created 60 years ago. India has certainly produced bombs with a greater yield, so why not Iraq?Brandon9000 wrote:It is implausable to expect that Saddam would have a nuke of such power. His nukes would be crude, similar to Hiroshima rather than a US Trident missile. US nukes are based on decades of testing. Saddam didn't have access to those test results or the ability to put together such devices.Hiroshima was the first atomic bomb in history. As such, one today would probably be more powerful. The Hiroshima bomb was 12 - 15 kt and killed 140,000 people by year's end. The nuclear bombs carried in American Trident missiles have yields of about 100 kt. The US Castle Bravo bomb was 15,000 kt. India reported in the late 90s that its Shakti bomb has a yield of 43 kt. India has claimed a capability of 200 kt, although the international community is skeptical. If two or three bombs of the strength of India's Shakti bomb were detonated in cities, and eventual deaths over the first year due to the blast, radiation poisoning, and disruption of services were taken into account, I do not see why a million deaths is implausible at all.
Good grief.
One of your links, parados, is to a greeny site of environmentalists who likely hate every bomb ever developed.
They criticise Bush for the goofiest things. If Reagan has listened to bunk like this, the Soviet Union would probably be still limping along.
I really think you have a weak source with that global security site---see the logo.
CBS...yah. There's an unbiased source. I'll look, though.
Good grief.
One of your links, parados, is to a greeny site of environmentalists who likely hate every bomb ever developed.
They criticise Bush for the goofiest things. If Reagan has listened to bunk like this, the Soviet Union would probably be still limping along.
I really think you have a weak source with that global security site---see the logo.
CBS...yah. There's an unbiased source. I'll look, though.
