Unease Grows in Washington Over Fruitless Weapons Search

heavens, NIMH - what is a <bm> - I do hope it is not what I am thinking it is!

Well, let us hope that the Iraqi people end up with something out of all this - like a reasonable government and such.

It sounds like a joke but I mean it as an interesting thought ...

This is the TV generation. The mass population thinks and acts upon visual lies, fed to it a million times over, thousands of hours in the course of growing up. So, are visual, short-term-memory lies simply the normal way of doing things now? Our M.O.?

The process that we are most familiar with in life is to watch a script, see if it flies, then oh well, watch another. And another. And another.

I'm not whining, just wondering... it may actually be how things effectively work in our society now. That would change the way the government approaches decisions and strategies, like, oh, say ... war.




"Well, that was no good but ... I can't wait for the next episode!"
Is this a strong habit now?
Trained, conditioned, and well-practiced ... what state of mind do Americans foster?

It really wasn't a "fruitless weapon's search." How were we to know that this administrations been lying to us all this time? c.i.

I haven't decided if they were lying to us, or were just plain incompetent. I'm not sure which one would be worse.

I'm going to make a prediction here. 50 or 100 years from now (or maybe a lot sooner) it will not have made a hill of beans worth of difference that Gulf War II was ever fought. It took the British three years in WWI to capture Baghdad, and 60 years later Saddam was in power. I'm afraid history will repeat itself again.

Jim, As the rumors have it, Saddam is still alive. He might take control after Bush is 'thrown' out of office in 2004. What subsequent president would dare even suggest we go to war in Iraq again? c.i.

I want to know why we can't find this guy Saddam. You want to tell me that there isn't enough bribe money to find one Iraqi willing to rat him out?
Put the pictures of him back up with WANTED ONE MILLION $ for location.

And nobody knows nothing about where all the sarin, anthrax and other Weaps are. What is it? The whole country has turned into the lower east side of NYC when the boys from NYPD-Blue are looking for a suspect? Nobody knows nothing, nobody has seen nothing.

Joe, There was 25 million on his head before the war, and that didn't help produce him. c.i.

Joe Nation
I think Saddam was killed in the last bombing at the restaurant. However, it is in the US's interests to keep the fear of Saddam being alive present to support US policy.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

Interesting, CodeBorg. If you develope the idea, send me a PM. You might include the internet as a source of information, factoid by little factoid.

<bm> is "bookmark" of course.

BBB, That's another idea I hadn't thought of, but makes a whole lot of sense - considering this administration's past record. c.i.

Wolfowitz's Comments Revive Doubts Over Iraq Weapons
Wolfowitz's Comments Revive Doubts Over Iraq Weapons
By ROBERT H. REID - The Associated Press
Friday, May 30, 2003; 12:19 PM

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European critics of the Iraq war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official playing down Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the conflict.

In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited "bureaucratic reasons" for focusing on Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal and said a "huge" reason for the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia.

"For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.

He said one reason for going to war against Iraq that was "almost unnoticed but huge" was the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power.

Those troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the desert kingdom against Saddam, whose forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, but their presence in the country that houses Islam's holiest sites enraged Islamic fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden.

Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, the United States announced it was removing most of its 5,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and would set up its main regional command center in Qatar.

However, those goals were not spelled out publicly as the United States sought to build international support for the war. Instead, the Bush administration focused on Saddam's failure to dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

The failure of U.S. forces to locate extensive weapons stocks has raised doubts in a skeptical Europe whether Iraq represented a global security threat.

Wolfowitz's comments followed a statement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who suggested this week that Saddam might have destroyed his banned weapons before the war began.

On Friday, the commander of U.S. Marines in Iraq said he was surprised that extensive searches have failed to discover any of the chemical weapons that U.S. intelligence had indicated were supplied to front line Iraqi forces at the outset of the war.

"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," Lt. Gen. James Conway told reporters. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

The remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld revived the controversy over the war as President Bush left for a European tour in which he hopes to put aside the bitterness over the war, which threatened the trans-Atlantic partnership.

In Denmark, whose government supported the war, opposition parties demanded to know whether Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen misled the public about the extent of Saddam's weapons threat.

"It was not what the Danish prime minister said when he advocated support for the war," Jeppe Kofod, the Social Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said in response to Wolfowitz's comments. "Those who went to war now have a big problem explaining it."

Former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said he was shocked by Wolfowitz's claim. "It leaves the world with one question: What should we believe?" he told The Associated Press.

In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting newspaper said the comments about Iraqi weapons showed that America is losing the battle for credibility.

"The charge of deception is inescapable," the newspaper said Friday.

In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war, said he doubted Iraq had any such weapons.

"The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a pre-emptive strike, 'Hit Saddam before he hits us,' " Cook told British Broadcasting Corp. "It is now quite clear that Saddam did not have anything with which to hit us in the first place."

During a visit to Poland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday he has "absolutely no doubt" that concrete evidence will be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

"Have a little patience," Blair told reporters.

Wolfowitz was in Singapore, where he is due to speak Saturday at the Asia Security Conference of military chiefs and defense ministers from Asian and key Western powers.

He told reporters at the conference that the United States will reorganize its forces worldwide to confront the threat of terrorism.

"We are in the process of taking a fundamental look at our military posture worldwide, including in the United States," Wolfowitz said. "We're facing a very different threat than any one we've faced historically."

The Pentagon's view of Wolfowitz's remarks different
By ROBERT H. REID
The Associated Press
Friday, May 30, 2003; 2:26 PM

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European critics of the Iraq war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official seen as playing down the importance of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as a reason for going to war.

In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited bureaucratic reasons for focusing on Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal and said a "huge" result of the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia.

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of the interview.

Vanity Fair provided a slightly different version in the article: "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

In the interview, Wolfowitz cited one outcome of the war that was "almost unnoticed - but it's huge": it removed the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power. Vanity Fair interpreted Wolfowitz to say that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia was a reason for the war.

The troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the desert kingdom against Saddam, whose forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, but their presence in the country that houses Islam's holiest sites enraged Islamic fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden.

Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, the United States announced it was removing most of its 5,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and would set up its main regional command center in Qatar.

"Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government," Wolfowitz said. "It's been a huge recruiting device for al-Qaida. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things."

As the United States sought to build international support for the war, it did not publicly spell out as a goal the withdrawal of its troops from Saudi Arabia. Instead, the Bush administration focused on Saddam's failure to dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

Wolfowitz insisted Saddam's alleged banned weapons were a legitimate concern.

"There have always been three fundamental concerns," he said. "One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people." A fourth, he added, was the removal of a "cause of instability" in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, the focus of the debate over the need for war centered on Saddam's weapons and the failure of U.S. forces to locate extensive stocks has raised doubts in a skeptical Europe whether Iraq represented a global security threat.

Wolfowitz's comments followed a statement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who suggested this week that Saddam might have destroyed his banned weapons before the war began.

On Friday, the commander of U.S. Marines in Iraq said he was surprised that extensive searches have failed to discover any of the chemical weapons that U.S. intelligence had indicated were supplied to front-line Iraqi forces at the outset of the war.

"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," Lt. Gen. James Conway told reporters. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

The remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld revived the controversy over the war as President Bush left for a European tour in which he hopes to put aside the bitterness over the war, which threatened the trans-Atlantic partnership.

In Denmark, whose government supported the war, opposition parties demanded to know whether Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen misled the public about the extent of Saddam's weapons threat.

"It was not what the Danish prime minister said when he advocated support for the war," Jeppe Kofod, the Social Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said in response to Wolfowitz's comments. "Those who went to war now have a big problem explaining it."

Former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said he was shocked by Wolfowitz's claim. "It leaves the world with one question: What should we believe?" he told The Associated Press.

In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting newspaper said the comments about Iraqi weapons showed that America is losing the battle for credibility.

"The charge of deception is inescapable," the newspaper said Friday.

In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war, said he doubted Iraq had any such weapons.

"The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a pre-emptive strike, 'Hit Saddam before he hits us,' " Cook told British Broadcasting Corp. "It is now quite clear that Saddam did not have anything with which to hit us in the first place."

Wolfowitz was asked about the Vanity Fair interview during a news conference in Singapore on Friday and referred reporters to a Pentagon transcript.

He said the United States had three concerns about Iraq before the war: weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and the abuse of Iraqi citizens by Saddam's regime.

"All three of those have been there, they've always been part of the rationale, and I think it s been very clear," he said.

During a visit to Poland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday he has "absolutely no doubt" that concrete evidence will be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

"Have a little patience," Blair told reporters.

This an important test....will we stand up, reclaim ourselves and attempt to show the world that GWB and Co. are not the USA, or will we let this slide and show the world that we are exactly that?

This is a watershed moment in American history, and a test that , if we fail it, will be the the beginning of the death of what America is...or has always claimed to be anyway.

This is very frightening. I have to say that my faith in the people and our elected officials to do something other than go along....is waning daily.

BiPolarBear
BiPolarBear, this is just one more issue to add to the long list of answers due the American people by the Bush Administration. There are so many it's hard to know where to start.

One place to start would be to prevent the further consolidation of the Media soon to be voted. If this happens, getting the true answers to any of those questions will be more difficult to get.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

Bi-Polar Bear,
...You sound very ominous, and rightly so. I'm afraid this is a quite barbaric country we live in. We still have legalized murder, (capital punishment) police can kill innocent citizens of color, and say "Oops, my bad." So, we can hope,but not expect the "silent majority", to protest the slaughter of brown people while the gas prices are dropping, and the NASDAQ is risng.

The missing WMD mystery finally solved
The missing WMD mystery finally solved

Someone at the CIA made a typo in the intelligence information by hitting the "Q" key when he should have hit the "N" key.

So all this time, it was IraN, not IraQ, that was harboring terrorists. And it was IraN that was building weapons of mass destruction.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

BooMan, I fear much worse. I don't for a moment believe this administration is "innocently" dumb and fooled. Bush, yes - he doesn't know the proverbial "ass from a hole in the ground". Everything is planned and when you see where it is pointed what I have been saying is the only logical conclusion. America over the past couple of years has made a light years political move to the right and we have now entered Fascist country.

Yes, it is very ominous and must be stopped while there is still a chance - next year maybe the last free election if it isn't stopped now <sigh>

BillW, Nothing related to elections is free. c.i.

Ah, but they are still elections and we have them! If Bush goes back in - then in 5 years there may not be any, anymore!

I see where you're coming from - I'm afriad. c.i.