Bucket Guild | FUBU BH Forums

It's been said that Saddam's WMDs (or components) were moved into Syria before the US invasion.

I imagine people who don't know anything about the relationship between Syria and Iraq would say that.

Dvergar /
Quisling

So you're saying that Syria wouldn't take weapons (or components) for weapons from a country they once feuded with? In 2003, Syria was opposed to action in Iraq and they also harboured a lot of Iraqi refugees.

As for the guys saying the weapons were in Syria... one was a ranking member of Saddam's Air Force and he was close with the people in charge of transporting the weapons. There was also some respected Syrian journalist that got some intel, as well as some some other guy (a jailor) who spoke with dozens of Iraqi's being imprisoned, who said the prisioneers said they saw or helped move the WMDs. I can't vouch for their legitimacy, especially since people like "Curveball" exist, but I would think the people who are saying these things know a bit more about the history between Iraq and Syria... a bit more than you or I.

Maybe a clever ruse to cause the invasion of Syria.

It still amazes me that people can say, "Saddam/Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction," when we know damn well that Saddam/Iraq did because Saddam had previously used them on the Kurds. "Where did they go?" is not an unreasonable question.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

it still amazes me that people can say "we know damn well" when the reason why "we" knew he had them was because "we" still had the fucking receipts, and "we" know how long of a shelf life they had.

'
Begging the question.

Personally, I completely expected to find WMDs in Iraq and am very surprised that they didn't show up. Yet the fact remains...that they are not there...and there is no evidence that any such weapons had been removed.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

It may sound retarded, but if you check around these forums, you'll find people arguing that things we assume in our scientific understanding are OK to assume because there is information that points toward these assumptions being correct. There is an 'absence of evidence' in science, but information other than the exact 'evidence' that is sought suggests that those assumptions are correct. There were many pieces of ancillary information that pointed toward the assumption that Saddam had WMDs, like his previously having used them, and the British Secret Service and Tony Blair standing by the intelligence one of the MI sections gathered that plainly said the shit was there.

To those who don't think the weapons were moved elsewhere and/or hidden, what do you want, shipping invoices?

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Such as...?

EDIT: What do we want? Direct, causal evidence - pictures, documentation, physical remains - anything more substantial than someone saying so.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Would you spend hundreds of billions (probably trillions by now) of dollars, thousands of american lives, and something like 8-10 years all on a hunch without some sort of physical evidence?

If we're going to start playing hopscotch across the middle east trying to find missiles we don't even know are there/still intact/deployable, I honestly can't think of a better way to destroy this country's economy.

RETIRED.
[armory loc="US,Bleeding Hollow"]Mayonaise[/armory]
[armory loc="US,Bleeding Hollow"]Jerkonaise[/armory]

The way most science works is based on probabilities of belief, and one of the key traits of science is that we modify our beliefs based on evidence. For a long time there was no experimental evidence either for or against the existence of the Higgs boson, but it was predicted by theory and difficult to detect experimentally so many physicists thought it probable that it did exist. In this case an absence of evidence didn't say anything about the existence of the particle, because nobody had looked for it. Recent experiments have shown that it is highly unlikely to exist within most of the energy range allowed by theory, and so physicists have rather less confidence that it does exist. Within a few years, if there are no detections, they may decide that it is highly improbable that it exists at all. Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence, but if you look hard enough and in the right places, you can place a high probability on the belief of absence. Similarly, we can't prove that the dodo is extinct, but given the absence of sightings on a small island in over 300 years, it's very unlikely that it's still around.

In the case of the Iraqi WMDs, there is evidence that suggests that Saddam shut down his WMD programs after the 1991 invasion and sanctions (eg. reports from weapons inspectors, other intelligence sources, documents found in Iraq, statements from Iraqi officials) and no physical evidence to contradict that. None of this proves that there weren't any WMDs in Iraq (aside from the small amount of decayed remnants found), but the weight of evidence suggests it is most likely that there weren't. Thus it falls on the people making unsubstantiated allegations against the weight of evidence to support them, and so shipping invoices would be useful indeed.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

If they're not there, they were moved elsewhere. He didn't burn them all on the kurds, and probably sold them off to recover from/help remove the sanctions imposed on iraq because of the weapons.

If it comes out thats what happened, I will not be the least bit surprised. It wouldn't be the first time someone played the border game with us(vietnam/laos)


found this interesting:



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110329/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_libya_analysis

If yemen and syria knew anything about the media, they'd be blasting obama for not helping them too. It doesn't matter if the situtations are even remotely similar because the US media wouldn't give a shit and be all over that story like the sensationalist jackals they are. But I suppose those two nations dont know much about freedom of speech or american media.

That's a fairly eloquent way of saying what I meant. In hindsight, with the benefit of 8-10 years in Iraq and no shipping invoices or other evidence, it's easy to point fingers and say "see?" However, at the time we entered Iraq, our knowledge indicated there was a good possibility we'd find WMDs, which we didn't want Saddam handing over or selling to people like Al Qaeda. That is leaving aside the umpteen other reasons that were given for entering Iraq, like the various violations of the cease-fire agreement, but even if it were the only reason, it's pretty easy to sit back with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and play Monday morning quarterback.



There was also evidence, such as the testimony of an Iraqi defector (who later admitted he lied) that Saddam had such weapons hidden and the British secret service report. You may also remember Saddam's stubborn "cooperation" with weapon's inspectors, and how he'd bar or delay inspectors at many sites. That definitely put the questions in doubt, at least at the time, and action against Iraq based on WMDs may have been in error, but it was erring on the side of caution.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

"There's a reason organizations lie. The truth is worse."
If the best evidence they had was a lie...it's because they had nothing better to bring to the table. Begs the question if the point was even valid.

"Erring on the side of caution" would have to not start a war and costly occupation on flimsy and even fabricated evidence.

Say we did nothing, and hell, say Saddam DID have WMD and was still in power. What could happen? He was in power for a decade after the Gulf War and it wasn't a problem. We've been bearing with the Kim family for over half a century now and the status quo is fine. So what's to say that leaving it as it was would have been a problem?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

on the other hand, what is so important in iraq that we had to lie to the world to go to war for it? and dont' say oil cuz prices keep going up and up and up. i dont know who's getting that oil on the cheap but it sure as shit ain't us.