How come the US haven't found any nukes in Iraq? (some more scrutiny)

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An interesting article in the Washinton Times on the US administrations Iraq war planning. A secret report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff pointed out that the poor pre-war planning primarily is to blame for the chaos and trouble after crushing the Iraqi army - and this planning lay in the hands of the Pentagon's new neocon enclave Office of Special Plans, controlled by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and led by Douglas Feith.

In the meanwhile Bush asks the congress for more money for rebuilding Iraq, about twice as much as anticipated.

 

Well, now the numbers are out, it's about some $ 87 billion. And as if I knew it already Bush stated in his speech that the countries that ... err ... shunned taking responibility in Iraq now have to contribute financially

That now is amazing. Bush sent the US to war, against opposition of the rest of the world. They did so illegally and they are in Iraq illegally still - which explains the reluctance of pakistan, turkey and india to send in troops - there still is no UN mandate; I say that because it sometimes gets lost in the US.
And of course, for the neocons there still is no role for the UN in Iraq. So, according to them foreign troops would be under full US control, so they would be practically replacement targets for GIs and their task would be cleaning up the mess caused by neocon ignorance and mis-planning. And foreign aid would be distributed by the US authorities ... that is: european taxpayers money ... for Haliburton? I have the feeling that this approach will be unacceptable and is doomed to fail. The US will have to offer something substantial, like control. But in exchange they will get an exit strategy and now that is something that must really upset the neocons, as it is key to their plans to stay there.

Better, Bush's neocon crew talked him into "driving the car against a wall" unilaterally, against all advice and without notable support, and now calls for a community effort to repair the damage done, because the world owes the US a favour because they ... toppled Saddam ... for what again was the reason? Ah yes, Saddam's WMD, constant-beeing-evil and terror contacts, right?

It happens that we in germany have a word for this sort of attitude, it is "dummdreist", or insolence.

The brilliance of stating that Iraq now is the focus of the war on terror is unmatched. Resistance? In Iraq? What a surprise that the iraqis, recognising the moral superiority of the US didn't surrender *in advance* ! I daresay that invading Iran or Lebanon would certainly shift the focuses of the war on terror there. Sure, arab terror volunteers may indeed be streaming into Iraq as there they have a chance to get americans in front of their guns. But on the other hand, they came to New York too, on 9/11, and before to Mombasa and Nairobi and Aden as they later went to Djerba and Bali.
Where there is a will there is a way. I cannot see a progress in fighting this will by attacking Iraq, but maybe I just don't smoke the same stuff the neocons do.

Unfortunately a UN involvement would bring the UN into focus of terror groups and the UN would rely on US support as the US will continue to provide the bulk of troops in Iraq. The UN will continue to blur with the US and the results of that could be seen in the recent bombing of the UN HQ.
And the neocons will oppose the UN involvement as a replacement of general US authority over Iraq, as their control of Iraq is the key to sustained pressure on Syria and Iran and some of their other big middle east plans. They will not easily admit their plans have failed and fight on and continue to obstruct wherever they can.

Worst of all, how satisfying it would be to see Bush and his neocon megalomaniacs suffocate on this well deserved fishbone in their throat, a failure in Iraq is unacceptable. They will get support, but for a price, and not because their case is noble and just but because the situation, with all the damage done by them is too bad to allow it to escalate.

That is the really hard lesson for the Bush administration. Militarily they can crush everyone, but they can't win the peace alone. Despite their superior military power, they have to learn that acting unilaterally on such a scale simply overburdens even them. But on the other hand, I smell that the neocons will find a solution in demanding an increased defence spending ... simply because the fault must be somewhere else.

 

The biggest problem of the USA administration is their failure to understand that in this world there are more than one (their own) opinions on every subject. And because they presume and plan according to their standard way of thinking they will always fail to bring a task like this to an end, because simply the rest of the world does not work like they do.
And i fear this is shown by Rumsfelds statement to the press yesterday or someday in this week that because Al Jazeira exists and spreads false news the peace in Iraq is not yet accomplished. I think that they wanted Al Jazeira to play their game but it does not and that is something they have never faced before (not having control of the media in the area of interest). I fear that we will see more problems. kills popping up and furthermore the whole area is now ready to explode. Hell they already started exploding if you see the recent news from Israel and Turkey.

 

After a long while, once back to the topic this thread originally was about.

Report on Iraq WMD shelved as no evidence found by US-UK team

Not that it really is a surprise.

Also interesting is this link about the Saddam - Al Quaida connection.

 

News overview from todays CS Monitor:

Britain, US postpone WMD report for lack of evidence

Liberal critics had hinted that US President George Bush would try to use it as his " September surprise"; a report by the Iraq Survey Group which would prove that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction. But now the Sunday Times of London, and other publications, say that the report has been delayed "indefinitely" because the group was unable to get any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

David Kay, the leader of the Iraq Survey Group, had hinted in July that he had seen enough to convince him that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein did have a program to produce weapons of mass destruction. But last week British officials said they believed Kay had been "kite-flying" and that no hard evidence had been uncovered.

The Sunday Times report comes two days after NBC reported that the search for WMD in Iraq had " been a bust."

"He [David Kay] has not found the kinds of things the administration expected to find - large quantities of biological and chemical weapons or evidence that were destroyed prior to the war," David Albright, a former UN weapons' inspector, told NBC News.

The National Post (of Canada) reports that senior UN weapons inspectors now think that Mr. Hussein may have been telling the truth when he said he had no weapons of mass destruction. "With this long period, I'm inclined to think that the Iraqi statement that they destroyed all the biological and chemical weapons, which they had in the summer of 1991, may well be the truth," said recently retired UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.

"[The US and Britain] would have hoped and they would have been happy to see if we had said, 'Here Iraq has violated, here they have, here is the smoking gun. We have found it," Mr. Blix said. "And when we didn't do that, well, then they were disappointed and then they overinterpreted their own intelligence."
News 24 of South Africa reports that other ex-inspectors now believe that the notorious "unaccountables" (weapons Iraq said they could not account for) may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons after the first Gulf War.

Bush administration officials continued to defend their WMD claims. During the weekend Vice President Dick Cheney said WMD would be found in Iraw. In a speech last Friday to soldiers returning from Iraq, President Bush repeated his charge that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The interpretation of intelligence about WMD has once again become a hot topic in Britain. The Guardian reports that British PM Tony Blair was definitely warned by his intelligence services not to exaggerate claims about WMD in Iraq, or else he would misrepresent the situation. Also, a new government report said that the same intelligence services warned Blair that it was more likely terrorists would get their hands on WMD if the US and Britain invaded Iraq (because of the confusion resulting from an invasion), than if they did not.

 

I couldn't imagine a better endline for this thread to be closed:

Sadly, it's not that this outcome was really a surprise

[ September 16, 2003, 10:36: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

You could say, with a grain of salt, that the only reality in this war is the cost.

 

After all, this is maybe the best ender of all: Iraq: The Case Against Preemptive War.

The devastating consequences of Bush's folly in compressed form. Highly recommended.

 

No, it isn't. Here's another famous quote:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief, in an interview with Gustave Gilbert, April 18, 1946