For the past two months, ever since the U.N. inspectors re-entered Iraq and began searching for weapons of mass destruction, the NSA has been closely monitoring the conversations of Iraqi officials. The NSA intercepts establish conclusively that the Iraqis have been ?hiding stuff? from the inspectors, the U.S. intelligence official said.
Â* ?They?re saying things like, ?Move that,? ?Don?t be reporting that? and ?Ha! Can you believe they missed that?,? the official said. ?It?s that kind of stuff.?
Hey guys, don't bother posted anything if you don't care about law. If you feel it necessary to ignore law to reach your goals, then you're less civilized.
<strong>Well I think this post pretty much sums up the arguments for going to war.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As usual, you seem to miss the pertinent meanings. Everybody seems to be doing whatever they please anyway, regardless of what is discussed at the UN. That is bad when it is countries like Iraq arming for the "end of the world showdown". It can also be good when a country like the US can come in and actually do something about it before things are completely out of control. ...or perhaps, you'd rather we wait until France does something about'em? Yes, that could make a good fantasy movie! <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
[quote]Only problem is, if we still can't find them, we can still do nothing.<hr></blockquote>
Why so? If the US can produce reasonable evidence that Saddam still has, and is deliberately hiding from the inspectors, banned weapons, that's clear casus belli. IIRC, the latest UN resolution required unconditional cooperation with the inspectors, anyway. The refusal to alow U2 flights is already casus belli, though not quite so dramatic. The intercepts we are supposed to hear Tuesday will make the non-cooperation hole 10x deeper, even if they don't make the case that Saddam is hiding weapons (which they just might - one kinda goes with the other). We can get absolute (retrospective) proof by finding the weapons in person later on and presenting them to the world.
[quote]Uh, what happened to Kaddafi? Anyone?<hr></blockquote>
Kaddafi got bombed (and one of his daughters killed), but more to the point, the intercepts were correct. They helped build a case against two of Kaddafi's intelligence officers, whom you might recall were recently extradited for trial; one of them was convicted and it presently rotting in a Scottish prison. If the proof was good enough for a criminal court in that case, it seems reasonable this proof will be good enough for the UN. TIme will tell.
<strong> If things keep going this way, I think we might see another impeachment.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Just thinking about that makes my day.
Unfortunatly, under all this war propaganda I can't help but feel that Bush's spin doctors are doing the whole thing just to insure that Bush get's Re-elected next term....like in "Canadian bacon" or "wag the dog"
The whole thing just seems so futile, but as much as I think the whole ordeal is just a pain in the ass, in the back of my mind though I'm caught thinking "well is saddam really has WOMDs then he's gonig to be helluva irked after this whole fiasco and is going to sure as hell want to use them"
I wonder if our anti-missile defense system works?
They helped build a case against two of Kaddafi's intelligence officers, whom you might recall were recently extradited for trial; one of them was convicted and it presently rotting in a Scottish prison. If the proof was good enough for a criminal court in that case, it seems reasonable this proof will be good enough for the UN. TIme will tell.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I can't remember the details off-hand but there were large rumblings about the accuracy of these accusations. In particular the prosecution had to decide whether or not to put someone on the stand as a witness who might well have admitted to being responsible. If they did, they would not be liable for prosecution and the defendenants would have been released.
I can't remember how it played out, just wanted to undermine your certainty.
<strong>So... if this case follows history, a family member of Saddam will die, and we'll convict one of his associates for something and send them to jail for life.
In the mean time, we'll have made enemies of the world.
Nice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No! It get's even better! We'll continue our own WoMD research, while all the time we'll give out *smallpox* vaccines to all the people in social services that we can scare the shit out of by grating their arm with a 10-guage needle, and then have them tell us *citizens* how ****ing horrible it was and you'll get it next and very soon and nevermind that smallpox is, like, 105th on the airborn disease most likely to be used list, and anyway we should all be scared of something 'cause I just got this big ass hole drilled in my arm because the govt said so and you should be scared as much and probably more than I am 'cause you're not treated and I am and........ChristAlmighty. I used to like being an American. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
I think this whole discussion is invalid due to asynchronous information. We have no idea what the stakes really are in this dispute. We don't even know what Apple is doing on their Desktops from month-to-month, let alone what entire nations are up to.
How can you have an informed conversation when you know that key facts are being concealed?
so are we assuming the papers that ran this story are lying?
[quote] Saddam's bodyguard warns of secret arsenal
02feb03
SADDAM Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq's secret arsenal.
His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war.
Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.
They include:
AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;
A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North Korea;
TWO underground bunkers in Iraq's Western Desert. These contain biological weapons.
William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam's arsenal, said Mahmoud's information is "the smoking gun".
"Once the inspectors go to where Mahmoud has pointed them, then it's all over for Saddam," Tierney said.
Tierney, who has high-level contacts in Washington that go to the White House, said the information we publish today on Mahmoud's revelations "checks out, absolutely checks out".
Mahmoud was a mem ber of the elite unit that protects Saddam. <hr></blockquote>
The whole Iraq issue is ongoing only because Bush is president. Bush is just using rhetoric to demonize Iraq in order to invade it for his own purposes which include distracting from his unpopular domestic policy. It has nothing to do with WOMD (if they even exist they don't threaten us), or the story that Saddam gassed his own people (this story was debunked recently by Stephen C. Pelletiere who was the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq at the time) or the alleged links to al Qaeda (denied by Tony Blair, denied by the CIA and according to a radio report tonight denied by Britain's intelligence agency in a new report). We are all getting a front row education in what Henry Kissinger calls statecraft.
How can you have an informed conversation when you know that key facts are being concealed?</strong><hr></blockquote>
As a democracy, whenever the key facts are being concealed, we have a right and a duty to demand that information or to keep it from being used in any fashion. The information that's key and being concealed is my own information. I own it. If I want to know it, or to prevent actions from occuring that are using that information for motive, then I have that right and duty. To try anyway.
Comments
<a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/867105.asp?0cv=CB10"; target="_blank">Damning Quotes At This Link</a>
Quotes:
For the past two months, ever since the U.N. inspectors re-entered Iraq and began searching for weapons of mass destruction, the NSA has been closely monitoring the conversations of Iraqi officials. The NSA intercepts establish conclusively that the Iraqis have been ?hiding stuff? from the inspectors, the U.S. intelligence official said.
Â* ?They?re saying things like, ?Move that,? ?Don?t be reporting that? and ?Ha! Can you believe they missed that?,? the official said. ?It?s that kind of stuff.?
[ 02-02-2003: Message edited by: SDW2001 ]</p>
if it requires reading, it won't be taken into account.
find some pictures of babies dying from Saddam's hands. then you'll get the rest of the support here.
Not my fault, I'm sorry.
<strong>Well I think this post pretty much sums up the arguments for going to war.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As usual, you seem to miss the pertinent meanings. Everybody seems to be doing whatever they please anyway, regardless of what is discussed at the UN. That is bad when it is countries like Iraq arming for the "end of the world showdown". It can also be good when a country like the US can come in and actually do something about it before things are completely out of control. ...or perhaps, you'd rather we wait until France does something about'em?
[ 02-02-2003: Message edited by: Randycat99 ]</p>
Someone pull it out, or I'll take it out back and shoot it.
Why so? If the US can produce reasonable evidence that Saddam still has, and is deliberately hiding from the inspectors, banned weapons, that's clear casus belli. IIRC, the latest UN resolution required unconditional cooperation with the inspectors, anyway. The refusal to alow U2 flights is already casus belli, though not quite so dramatic. The intercepts we are supposed to hear Tuesday will make the non-cooperation hole 10x deeper, even if they don't make the case that Saddam is hiding weapons (which they just might - one kinda goes with the other). We can get absolute (retrospective) proof by finding the weapons in person later on and presenting them to the world.
Kaddafi got bombed (and one of his daughters killed), but more to the point, the intercepts were correct. They helped build a case against two of Kaddafi's intelligence officers, whom you might recall were recently extradited for trial; one of them was convicted and it presently rotting in a Scottish prison. If the proof was good enough for a criminal court in that case, it seems reasonable this proof will be good enough for the UN. TIme will tell.
<strong>If </strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>
Kaddafi got bombed (and one of his daughters killed) </strong><hr></blockquote>
Boy, THAT'S a rousing endorsement for an attack on Iraq....
<strong> If things keep going this way, I think we might see another impeachment.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Just thinking about that makes my day.
Unfortunatly, under all this war propaganda I can't help but feel that Bush's spin doctors are doing the whole thing just to insure that Bush get's Re-elected next term....like in "Canadian bacon" or "wag the dog"
The whole thing just seems so futile, but as much as I think the whole ordeal is just a pain in the ass, in the back of my mind though I'm caught thinking "well is saddam really has WOMDs then he's gonig to be helluva irked after this whole fiasco and is going to sure as hell want to use them"
I wonder if our anti-missile defense system works?
<strong>
They helped build a case against two of Kaddafi's intelligence officers, whom you might recall were recently extradited for trial; one of them was convicted and it presently rotting in a Scottish prison. If the proof was good enough for a criminal court in that case, it seems reasonable this proof will be good enough for the UN. TIme will tell.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I can't remember the details off-hand but there were large rumblings about the accuracy of these accusations. In particular the prosecution had to decide whether or not to put someone on the stand as a witness who might well have admitted to being responsible. If they did, they would not be liable for prosecution and the defendenants would have been released.
I can't remember how it played out, just wanted to undermine your certainty.
<strong>So... if this case follows history, a family member of Saddam will die, and we'll convict one of his associates for something and send them to jail for life.
In the mean time, we'll have made enemies of the world.
Nice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No! It get's even better! We'll continue our own WoMD research, while all the time we'll give out *smallpox* vaccines to all the people in social services that we can scare the shit out of by grating their arm with a 10-guage needle, and then have them tell us *citizens* how ****ing horrible it was and you'll get it next and very soon and nevermind that smallpox is, like, 105th on the airborn disease most likely to be used list, and anyway we should all be scared of something 'cause I just got this big ass hole drilled in my arm because the govt said so and you should be scared as much and probably more than I am 'cause you're not treated and I am and........ChristAlmighty. I used to like being an American. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
How can you have an informed conversation when you know that key facts are being concealed?
[quote] Saddam's bodyguard warns of secret arsenal
02feb03
SADDAM Hussein's senior bodyguard has fled with details of Iraq's secret arsenal.
His revelations have supported US President George W. Bush's claim there is enough evidence from UN inspectors to justify going to war.
Abu Hamdi Mahmoud has provided Israeli intelligence with a list of sites that the inspectors have not visited.
They include:
AN underground chemical weapons facility at the southern end of the Jadray Peninsula in Baghdad;
A SCUD assembly area near Ramadi. The missiles come from North Korea;
TWO underground bunkers in Iraq's Western Desert. These contain biological weapons.
William Tierney, a former UN weapons inspector who has continued to gather information on Saddam's arsenal, said Mahmoud's information is "the smoking gun".
"Once the inspectors go to where Mahmoud has pointed them, then it's all over for Saddam," Tierney said.
Tierney, who has high-level contacts in Washington that go to the White House, said the information we publish today on Mahmoud's revelations "checks out, absolutely checks out".
Mahmoud was a mem ber of the elite unit that protects Saddam. <hr></blockquote>
the entire article is <a href="http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,5921220^663,00.html" target="_blank">here</a>
Also I still think big info like this would have been all over the news by now. That was Sunday's paper. So I'm slightly dubious.
[ 02-05-2003: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
<strong>
How can you have an informed conversation when you know that key facts are being concealed?</strong><hr></blockquote>
As a democracy, whenever the key facts are being concealed, we have a right and a duty to demand that information or to keep it from being used in any fashion. The information that's key and being concealed is my own information. I own it. If I want to know it, or to prevent actions from occuring that are using that information for motive, then I have that right and duty. To try anyway.