A Different Perspective On WMDs
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, WarInteresting take from Bill Tierney who was in Iraq as a weapons inspector:
UNSCOM could pursue a lead and approach an inspection target from various angles to cut off an escape route, but at some point, the Iraqis would hold up their guns and keep us out.A good example of this was the inspection of the 2nd Armored Battalion of the Special Republican Guards in June 1997. We came in from three directions, because we knew the Iraqis had an operational center that tracked our movement and issued warnings. The vehicle I was in arrived at the gate first. There were two guards when we arrived, and over twenty within a minute, all extremely nervous.
The Iraqis had stopped the third group of our inspection team before it could close off the back of the installation. A few minutes later, a soldier came from inside the installation, and all the other guards gathered around him. He said something, there was a big laugh, and all the guards relaxed. A few moments later there was a radio call from the team that had been stopped short. They could here truck engines through the tall (10�) grass in that area. When we were finally allowed in, our team went to the back gate. The Iraqis claimed the gate hadn’t been opened in months, but there was freshly ground rust at the gate hinges. There was a photo from overhead showing tractor trailers with missiles in the trailers leaving the facility.
When pressed, Tariq Aziz criticized the inspectors for not knowing the difference between a missile and a concrete guard tower. He never produced the guard towers for verification. It was during this period that Tariq Aziz pulled out his “no smoking gunâ€Â? line. Tariq very cleverly changed the meaning of this phrase. The smoking gun refers to an indicator of what you are really looking for – the bullet. Tariq changed the meaning so smoking gun referred to the bullet, in this case the WMD, knowing that as long as there were armed guards between us and the weapons, we would never be able to “find,â€Â? as in “put our hands on,â€Â? the weapons of mass destruction. The western press mindlessly took this up and became the Iraqis’ tool. I will let the reader decide whether this inspection constitutes a smoking gun.
This guy is certainly the opposite of Scott Ritter. My question is, “How could two different people have such different experiences in Iraq?”
Read the whole thing and see what you think.
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April 11th, 2007 at 9:15 am
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April 11th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Note the date: June, 1997.
frontpagemag.com is a highly biased source, and that’s a mild statement.
The bottom line is that no WMD were found. Even if you believe the claim that the WMD were moved to Syria you have to also believe that Bush’s way was ineffectual against the WMD.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
hewhoasks noted that frontpagemag.com is biased. So what facts did their bias cause them to mistakenly characterize? That is the important comment to make. A simplistic accusation of bias gives the impression that the accuser has no better information at hand.
Not only were WMD found in Iraq, nerve gas was used against US troops.
The somewhat ineffectual “way” that was used against the Iraqi WMD was not “Bush’s way” it was the “American republican balance of power way” combined with the “UN way”. The “American republican balance of power way” and the “UN way” were designed to be ineffectual. When those two ways are combined, the combined way is stunningly ineffectual. That is why the designers of the “American republican balance of power way” also included the “Commander-in-chief way” which Bush could not envision using because that way has been slandered almost to death.
In addition, the terrorist thugs (aka “insurgents” or “freedom fighters”) are not troubled with having to use any ineffectual ways or with the intentional killing of civilians, including children. That is why they have begun using more easily obtained WMD.
April 11th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
The ISG did not find the claimed WMD.
Bush so far has gotten everything he has demanded. He’s commander-in-chief, he’s the decider. The evidence screams out that he did not, as commander-in-chief, require any of the US military to secure anything in Iraq (other than the oil fields.) If he was after WMD he didn’t show it by his actions. There are enough reports of the US military ignoring ammunition warehouses to make it obvious that no serious effort was made to secure any armaments, WMD or conventional.
In a war justified by claims of WMDs in Iraq you’d think that the military would be instructed to find and secure WMD ASAP. They were not so instructed, as shown by the complete inattention toward munitions warehouses.
The official word from the US ISG is that the claimed WMD were not found. Again, if the charge is made that the WMD were shipped to Syria (or anywhere else) that amounts to a claim that Bush did not, as commander-in-chief, pursue a policy to secure the WMD that he claimed were the grounds for the invasion. If the WMD were indeed a threat (and even more of a threat if they coulds be passed to terrorists) then allowing them to be shipped to Syria, which is one of the right-wing claims, was total dereliction of duty, as it not?
April 11th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
The claim was that Iraq sent the weapons to Syria pre-inspections/invasion.
Please, do your homework hewhoasks.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
What does it matter when the WMD were transferred? The scare scenario was WMD falling into the hands of terrorists. If the WMD were already in Syria then the invasion of Iraq accomplished nothing to prevent the WMD falling into the hands of terrorists, did it? If we’re safe to have had the WMD sent to Syria then if the WMD were sent there we didn’t need the war at all.
You guys simply don’t put together credible stories. Only because the MSM let you get away with outrageously stupid claims do you get away with them.