Max, you are in fact castigating me for not chastising a poster with whom I am having no interaction here?
Okay, if it'll make you happy, bad dog Dyslexia. Bad dog.
But I welcome your posts and the information that they display. Thank you.
The UN team that you quoteÂ…..
"Other members of the UN teams that investigated Iraq's weapons of mass destruction from 1991 to 1998 have said that Iraq probably possesses large stockpiles of nerve agents, mustard gas and anthrax. They add that, while the country does not have a nuclear bomb, it has the designs, equipment and the expertise to build one quickly if it is able to get enough weapons-grade uranium or plutonium."
...Does not discuss the point that Ritter is making. In fact, Ritter admits that the Iraqis might still have some estimated 5-10% of items that they cannot document being destroyed.
I posted such when I illustrated what the UN inspectors' thought of the Iraqi submission of these type documents months before the war.
That issue is not an issue in Ritter's point. What is his point is that the materials are no longer the chemicals, the bacteria, and the actual molecules that were weaponry.
This is what you cite: from your link.
"Weaponization" refers to a variety of activities aimed at rendering a biological pathogen more virulent, enhancing its stability and shelf-life, and processing it so that it can be more readily delivered as a fine-particle aerosol capable of infecting the targeted population through the air. Non-weaponized anthrax would be in the vegetative (non-spore) form, which would die off rapidly after dispersal. Weaponized anthrax would be in the spore form and probably dried and milled to a fine powder, with chemicals added to reduce clumping and to enhance aerosolization. It is possible that the perpetrators of the recent anthrax attacks had only a few grams of weaponized anthrax, making delivery through the mail the only practical means of delivery. Alternative explanations are that they do not want to kill indiscriminately but simply to terrorize the U.S. population, or that they plan to escalate gradually to more extensive attacks."
The topic was the presence in Iraq of chemical as well as biological agents. The former, the chemical weaponry was not discussed, in this link, and which was allegedly of major concern to the administration. There is no evidence yet of stabilizing chemical weaponry. So, the tons of Sarin and VX gases seems to be, if they are not already destroyed, incapable of acting as chemical weapons (of mass destruction).
Biological weaponry, another leg of the three legged argument, the three being chemical, biological, and nuclear, is discussed as being capable of being of enhanced virulence, and shelf life by processing operations.
The anthrax cited by the UN inspectors was made over a decade ago. To increase the stability and increased potency, one would have had to do what was described when the anthrax was first made.
No one from the administration has come forward and said that the Iraqis were manufacturing new anthrax, let alone "weaponizing" it, and any old anthrax would have been degraded as to be innocuous if it was "weaponized" later. Your link does not discuss these things.
As to the team members of that UN inspection unit, note that even they did not believe that Iraq had nuclear weapons. However, let us look at the rhetoric of George Bush, pushing the envelope in the effort for the Chicken Little award in scare tactics. He said in his speech, linked below:
http://www.humboldt.edu/~sc10/Bushcloud.htm
"America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Because there was no evidence for saying it about Iraq or its nuclear capabilities, nor had it been for a nearly a decade.
CINCINNATI, OHIO (CNN) -- President Bush outlined his case against the regime of Saddam Hussein and called on the Iraqi leader to disarm in a speech to the American people Monday night. Here is a transcript of his speech:
"The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people."
First, Iraq was not making chemical and biological weapons, at least after 1991 when UN inspectors went in there. No administration statements of this are supported by facts.
Bush's earlier remarks are then explained later in the speech by:
"In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and is capable of killing millions.
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, and VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than forty villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least 20,000 people, more than six times the number of people who died in the attacks of September 11."
Again, these things mentioned are no longer the actual things that they once were.
That defector, Khidhir Abdul Abas Hamza, is now considered to have been an administrator, not a scientist and fled Iraq in 1994, while another fled in 1995 and he was the big fish.
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Apr/04272003/nation_w/51824.asp
"Defector, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, 43, was Saddam's right-hand man. He was married to Saddam's daughter Raghad. By 1995, Kamel felt in danger from Baghdad's bloody family and political intrigues. He decided to leave, along with his younger brother, Saddam Kamel. Jordan's King Hussein granted the defectors political asylum
"The Iraqis wanted to keep their knowledge and expertise intact for making chemical, biological or nuclear arms. But as for the weapons themselves, they were destroyed, he insisted.
"The defector's chief interrogator had doubts about the statement. Still, Rolf Ekeus now says, if U.S. troops find no banned arms in Iraq, "I wouldn't be terribly surprised." They shouldn't focus on "hardware," he said, but on "software" -- the expertise.
"In page after page, the Iraqi general's words were direct and their potential significance clear.
"Not a single missile left but they had blueprints and molds for production in a safe place," Kamel told the U.N. inspectors. The VX agent, he disclosed, had been "weaponized" and put into bombs late in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, but then was destroyed.
"In fact, Kamel said, "all weapons were destroyed" -- meaning the banned chemical and biological arms and longer-range missiles. Iraq never produced a nuclear bomb.
"Kamel told the CIA the same, that all Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been eliminated, according to a now-declassified transcript of that agency's 1995 interview.
"No way," says author Krasno, dismissing such statements.
"On the face of it, she pointed out, it is untrue the entire arsenal was destroyed in the early 1990s, as Kamel said, because the U.N. inspectors still found some chemical weapons even after 1995.
"Ekeus said Kamel may have believed what he said was true. U.N. inspectors found a Kamel communication of 1991 ordering a blanket destruction of weapons.
"The evidence leaves open the possibility that all biological weapons were eliminated then, Ekeus said. As for chemical arms, he said, at most only insignificant numbers could be left over today, because many were destroyed under Kamel and U.N. inspectors neutralized the vast bulk, if not all, of the rest.
"The ex-chief inspector said he found it "odd" that Washington would focus on relatively minor items on the way to war -- gaps, discrepancies, suspicions of small numbers of weapons."
Now, later in Bush's speech comes this:
"The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.
"Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium-enrichment sites.
"That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected, revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue. The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
This set of statements by Bush contradicts what that UN team you erroneously cited as evidence against Ritter's remarks, said about Iraqi nuclear weapons programs. And the only evidence given by Bush was a defector whose words now are shown to be a lie by another defector. There has been no evidence found yet on the ground that the Iraqis were, to use Bush's words "reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." In fact, the only information that had been put forth was the bogus Niger connection, which even the Vice President was told of its bogus nature, over a year ago, but that did not stop Bush from using it as a scare tactic.
More Bush distortions in his speech:
"Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past.
"Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. "
What the satellite pix showed is now revealed to be that what the Iraqis were doing was rebuilding buildings, not weaponry technologies.
Those aluminum tubes were shown to the world not to be used of nuclear purposes.
Taken in full, nothing that Bush used for his major reasons to go to war are valid. His administration selectively pasted together a narrative from half truths, immaterial facts, and outright falsehoods to bring this country to war.
