Saddam's WMDs lost due to a problem with paperwork?

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Saddam's WMDs lost due to a problem with paperwork?

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Uh, yeah. No conspiracy tin hat either...

It is the obvious connection that was ignored years ago.

Why else would Turkey have suddenly decided to not the coalition open a second front into northern Iraq? They didn't want Syria to take retribution against them later on... but the story they told was they didn't want the turkish Kurds rising up and trying to gain autonomy. But, if I remember correctly, the plan didn't even call for Turkish troops to be involved on that second front... it was simply to allow US troops to pass through turkish air and land space to do the work.

Roper · Senior Bucketkeeper

Saddam didn't send WMDs to Syria because he didn't have any to send. I have no doubt that he was trying to develop them, and that he had a few components. But he didn't get very far. Certainly not as far as we were led to believe.

For whatever reasons, our administration really wanted us to go back to Iraq, and hopefully help to establish a democracy there. The WMD story was the tool to sell the idea to America.

Intelligence is an art. Not a science. Analysis gets influenced by political pressure. Intel analysts drew conclusions about Iraq's WMD programs by making tenuous connections among a number of sources. Analysts were paranoid from missing the connections that should have warned us of 9/11. They assembled the puzzle to give the administration the picture requested, even though some of the pieces had to be forced to fit.

Colin Powell had reservations. He questioned the sources and the analysis. He wanted a diplomatic solution. When his boss asked him to take the story to the UN, Powell, like like a duty-bound soldier, saluted and stepped off smartly.

The resources being spent in Iraq can be better used in our nation's defense elsewhere. I think a timeline for withdrawal is wrong, because it tells our enemies exactly when they can start deploying their forces. They've already stepped up recruiting as a result of the Democrat's proposal. We need an exit strategy, however: Eliminate the Al Qaeda presence and then withdraw from trying to contain the inevitable Sunni/Shia civil war.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

I think the only safe way out of Iraq is through Iran and Syria.

arbilad · Head Chef

There were at the very least some old stores of wmds, at least some of which were still viable. For instance, a year or two ago the troops encountered an improvised explosive device based off an artillery shell. The shell still had mustard gas in it.
Shortly after the invasion, they also found barrels of precursors which could have been entirely innocent, but for some reason had been heavily guarded.