Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper
Since Gulf War, Nonconventional Weapons Never Got Past the Planning Stage
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- Of all Iraq's rocket scientists, none drew warier scrutiny abroad than Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi.
An engineering PhD known for outsized energy and gifts, Tamimi, 47, designed and built a new short-range missile during Iraq's four-year hiatus from United Nations arms inspections. Inspectors who returned in late 2002, enforcing Security Council limits, ruled that the Al Samoud missile's range was not quite short enough. The U.N. team crushed the missiles, bulldozed them into a pit and entombed the wreckage in concrete. In one of three interviews last month, Tamimi said "it was as if they were killing my sons."
more at...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jan6.html
It's a very detailed and interesting article on Iraq's weapons programs... what stage it's various peices were in... and how in the end the BARK was much worse than the potential bite. The dog was toofless... the sanctions and initial UN inspections had done the job...
Essentially various scientists were doing fairly basic research... but none of it any more complex than research at any university. It was how the scientists put food on the table and tried to stay in favor and ahead of rival scientists. They essentially claimed to Saddam potential success and timelines to pacify him. They never told him when things weren't possible. Meanwhile it was virtually impossible for them to obtain any equipment to do any advanced research.
So to intelligence on the outside it Iraq had a big... BEWARE OF DOG sign posted.
Meanwhile quivering in the corner was a little chihuahua... hiding in the dark.
And Saddam thought he was holding the leash of a Rottweiler.
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD -- Of all Iraq's rocket scientists, none drew warier scrutiny abroad than Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi.
An engineering PhD known for outsized energy and gifts, Tamimi, 47, designed and built a new short-range missile during Iraq's four-year hiatus from United Nations arms inspections. Inspectors who returned in late 2002, enforcing Security Council limits, ruled that the Al Samoud missile's range was not quite short enough. The U.N. team crushed the missiles, bulldozed them into a pit and entombed the wreckage in concrete. In one of three interviews last month, Tamimi said "it was as if they were killing my sons."
more at...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jan6.html
It's a very detailed and interesting article on Iraq's weapons programs... what stage it's various peices were in... and how in the end the BARK was much worse than the potential bite. The dog was toofless... the sanctions and initial UN inspections had done the job...
Essentially various scientists were doing fairly basic research... but none of it any more complex than research at any university. It was how the scientists put food on the table and tried to stay in favor and ahead of rival scientists. They essentially claimed to Saddam potential success and timelines to pacify him. They never told him when things weren't possible. Meanwhile it was virtually impossible for them to obtain any equipment to do any advanced research.
So to intelligence on the outside it Iraq had a big... BEWARE OF DOG sign posted.
Meanwhile quivering in the corner was a little chihuahua... hiding in the dark.
And Saddam thought he was holding the leash of a Rottweiler.
Comments
We did it with the Soviet Union-- post cold war analysis of Russian intel painted a picture of a hollowed out giant, running on fumes, crippled by inefficiency, and which was never the steely engine of menace that for so long distorted american spending priorities and foreign policy.
We've done it with "drugs", taking a personal choice or medical matter and turning it into the font of all evil, damaging the justice sytem and filling our prisons with people who have no business being there.
We have obviously done it with Iraq, and we are doing it with "terror". Just look at all the references to "Nazi Germany" and the folly of "appeasment", the idea that 9/11 "changed everything" (apparently meaning that due process, civil liberties and international cooperation are now luxuries we can ill afford).
It seems to be the perennial of american politics: fear works when logic fails. We've created a culture of fear and anxiety wildly disproportionate to any actual threat, and find ourselves ruthlessly exploited by cynical men who know very well what buttons to push. Commies! Immigrants! Willie Horton! Drugs! Terrorists! No time for building a better society, the barbarians are at the gate! More security! More prisons! Harsher measures! Get them before they get us!
This bullshit has been going on my entire life and I think that it is at heart why I have come to despise what passes for "conservatism" in the US. At the end of the day, they can always be counted on to use fear to accrue power.
Another log on the fire.
OUT THE DOOR IN 2004!
Originally posted by addabox
What's interesting here is the ongoing pattern of grossly over selling the threat capability of the enemy du jour.
We did it with the Soviet Union
Funny you bring that up, since it was the neoconservatives in both cases.
In fact, the conception of a threat in terms of the worst-case scenario is central to their foriegn policy philosophy. Their great claim is that this thinking is what brought down the Soviet Union. I don't totally disagree with that, but transferring it onto Iraq was a major mistake.
Originally posted by giant
Funny you bring that up, since it was the neoconservatives in both cases.
In fact, the conception of a threat in terms of the worst-case scenario is central to their foriegn policy philosophy. Their great claim is that this thinking is what brought down the Soviet Union. I don't totally disagree with that, but transferring it onto Iraq was a major mistake.
Remember the book " 1984 "? That's how they justified their secrecy and kept the masses in check.
Fear of a nonexistent war.
Sooner or later Bush and his administration are going to get eaten alive on this stuff during the debates. One can only hope their feet will be held to the fire / not allowed to get off with their standard generalizations / party line. "Common guys, this is complicated business... just trust us. OK?"
Originally posted by Moogs
There was a shifty bastard named Cohen from the CIA on Nightline last night, trying to explain to Ted Kopel all the intricacies / complications of the existing search for WOMD in Iraq. He wasn't very convincing and very obviously lied through his crooked little mouth on at least two occasions that I saw. I thought the CIA was good at teaching people to lie (regardless of which administration is in power); this guy needs to go back to CIA basic.
Sooner or later Bush and his administration are going to get eaten alive on this stuff during the debates. One can only hope their feet will be held to the fire / not allowed to get off with their standard generalizations / party line. "Common guys, this is complicated business... just trust us. OK?"
I'm with you on this. If they get away with it this time things can only get worse.
Originally posted by Moogs
Sooner or later Bush and his administration are going to get eaten alive on this stuff during the debates. One can only hope their feet will be held to the fire / not allowed to get off with their standard generalizations / party line. "Common guys, this is complicated business... just trust us. OK?"
Hopefully!
Our favorite redneck country singer, Toby Keith, pretty much said the same line in a Rolling Stone interview:
"I'm 150 percent pro-troop. I said the math doesn't add up for me, but the people in charge are smarter than me, and they're not gonna call me up and tell me certain things."
But as a devil's advocate might ask, isn't the problem that the people in charge did say the reason we were invading was weapons of mass destruction, and they haven't found any? Keith shrugs.
"I'm 150 percent pro-troop. I said the math doesn't add up for me, but the people in charge are smarter than me, and they're not gonna call me up and tell me certain things."
But as a devil's advocate might ask, isn't the problem that the people in charge did say the reason we were invading was weapons of mass destruction, and they haven't found any? Keith shrugs.
Obey your masters.
Originally posted by giant
Obey your masters.
Exactly. It's characteristically anti-intellectual.
Originally posted by ShawnJ
Exactly. It's characteristically anti-intellectual.
Or it's just a matter of looking at the facts at hand. How could Saddam possibly have possibly had anything to threaten us here?
I keep asking that of our more pro Bush members here at AI and they always answer with a dodge. It's either " You just wait we'll find them eventually. Or the answer is " Well, he was oppressing his own people ". Neither of these have anything to do with the " Threat to us here " or how he would deploy it. It's always about something else.
American media regarding Bush's unilateral, pre-emptive foreign policy = PASS
But, look at the mouth on Dean! LET'S GET HIM!
The turth is that the Iraqis tried to claim back in '91. Then they found some stuff.
In the neolib double truth you must now beleive the people that are known liars. They are the only ones to be trusted.
Originally posted by Scott
Of course the neolibs are selling this as "truth".
The turth is that the Iraqis tried to claim back in '91. Then they found some stuff.
In the neolib double truth you must now beleive the people that are known liars. They are the only ones to be trusted.
Dude. Take a breath. And your little "neolib" thing is just pointless.
Read the article and stop being lazy.
It seems if somebody writes something... actually investigates an issue...
and it doesn't line up with what the administration has been saying...
it's a lie?
So the truth is only spoken by Cheney, Rumsefeld and Bush?
Those are the most trustworthy people on the planet?
You won't even accept that fact they MAY have royally screwed the pooch on this one. Ends justify the means with you I guess.