Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Originally posted by: blackangst1
Originally posted by: LegendKiller
Originally posted by: blackangst1
Well, technically he's right. He *did* have them, we just dont know when and where he sent them.
He didn't send them anywhere. He *did* have them, but they were destroyed or monitored throughout the 90s.
There were very few unaccounted for. Additionally, he had *no* infrastructure to mass produce anything, nor did he really have any research programs in place. You'd think that if he did, then they would have trumpeted it everywhere. I guarantee you that we would have found something.
Sure, he was being an uncooperative ass, but that's because he felt violated and didn't want to cooperate fully. You can't prove you don't have something if you don't have it. The situation was akin to police harassing you, saying you have drugs in your house. You let them rip your house apart, but after a while you get tired of it and refuse to comply with their full searches. They even go through your wife's underwear drawer. Eventually you get tired of them snooping in her lingerie, so you kick them out. However, instead of being constitutionally protected, like we are, you just get accused of more wrong-doings.
Eventually, your house is repossessed, your children killed (no matter how good or evil they were), your house is then razed, and you are hung. You might have been the most evil person on the face of the planet, but that doesn't mean that the unreasonable search and seizure was correct.
A perfect example of chickenhawk alarmism was the yellowcake thing. Saddam had tons of the crap sitting in a warehouse monitored by the UN. He could have easily kicked the UN out and used it. Yet, he didn't and we falsely accused him (knowing it was false) of trying to get more.
This is nothing more than Missile Gap/Red Scare/Domino Theory/Terrorist scare tactics used over and over again by politicians.
Sorry LK youre off path here. I fully understand your explaination of plausable deniability. It's the core of ANY security. However, there is sufficient evidence in the way of testimony and satellite footage to support what you call "Missile Gap/Red Scare/Domino Theory/Terrorist scare tactics".
In your example above, it would be akin to surveillance footage of trasportation of drugs into the home as well as eyewitness testimony. Just because the house toss doesnt produce evidence doesnt mean it didnt happen.
And why would Sadaam trumpet it everywhere? With all the scrutinizing of his regime that would be the last thing he would do.
And you can see where that intelligence got us. However, I am not so naive to think that the intelligence we were fed was complete and utter BS. Our fathers and grandfathers were fed the same crap with the missile gap. OMG OMG OMG, THE REDS HAVE MORE AND BETTER MISSILES ACCORDING TO THE U2 AND OTHER INTELLIGENCE, PISS YOUR PANTS OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please, it's all the same crap. Intelligence is nothing but a mosiac with a liberal amount of glue that you attempt to piece together a full picture. The problem with that picture is that you eventually have more glue than pieces, that glue is politics. It's now obvious that politics played a bigger part of the picture building than actual pieces. We see that everywhere now, from pressures on analysts to fudge analysis, to liberal interpretation of minor military events, to outright belief in knowingly falsified memos.
That surveillence tape would have shown the same chemicals used in making meth going into the house, or a big drum used to stir it being seen in the back yard. On the first search you would have found some prescription drugs that were bought illegally. However, when it comes down to actually finding drugs and arresting somebody, you completely fall flat on your face in proving you had any solid evidence or reason to do what you did.
You can say that it's hindsight, or you can admit that you really had nothing on the guy and you were using circumstantial evidence, massive leaps in faith, and political bullcrap to spur people into action, which, without that scare tactic, would have not resulted in invasion.
Had we found even a shred of evidence that Saddam had any active programs, we would have parroted it. However, as you can see, we don't. Why? Because.
1. We knew it was bullcrap.
2. We know there was nothing at all.
3. We are now too ashamed to admit we used a lot of glue and had no real substantial evidence.