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Subject: Assad’s fall could solve Iraqi weapons mystery
CJH    1/22/2012 9:47:00 PM

Assad’s fall could solve Iraqi weapons mystery

"Western and Israeli intelligence suspect that Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria also owns weaponized nerve agents. Spy satellites tracked a large number of truck convoys moving from Iraq to Syria in the weeks before the 2003 invasion, raising suspicions that some carried weapons of mass destruction. The invading Americans never found stocks of such weapons in Iraq, despite two years of searching by the Iraq Survey Group. The result spurred the political left to attack President Bush with slogans such as “Bush lied, troops died,” but nonpartisan national security figures said there was evidence that material may have been moved to Syria. There was just no way to get inside the Iranian-supported dictatorship to take a look. Zuhdi Jasser, a Syrian-American physician who co-founded the group Save Syria Now, is working to bring an elected secular government to Damascus. He said the Assad regime, which has used brutal repression to remain in power, can fall within a year if the popular uprising comes to the capital."

 
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smitty237    Plutarch Pt.2   4/22/2012 4:00:14 PM
I remember very well the lead up to war in 2003, and I don’t remember hearing a lot of voices, even in the International community, claiming that our intelligence was faulty regarding WMDs in Iraq. The French, Russians, and Chinese may not have been on board when it came to going to war, but they weren’t presenting a lot evidence that disputed the evidence that supported they did. George Tenet himself declared it a “slam dunk” that Iraq had WMDs, and many Democrats criticized Bush for not doing enough about WMDs in Iraq. I realize that some sources, such as “Curveball” were providing unreliable information, but these sources were not the sole source of intelligence. I also remember the almost daily stories of UN inspectors being denied access to Iraqi facilities, and protests by figures like Scott Ritter and Hans Blix that complained of Iraq’s lack of cooperation. Even the French provided intelligence that Iraq was trying to import equipment for their WMD program, although they refused to allow Colin Powell to use that information when he made his case for war. Are we to really believe that ALL of the intelligence regarding Iraqi WMDs was based upon faulty intelligence and selfish national interests? Do you really believe this? If this is so bloody obvious to everyone, why aren’t there intelligence officials in jail because of it?

During the lead up to war I was one of the Americans that needed to be convinced of the justifications for going to war. As the Bush Administration made its case it became apparent to me that Iraq seemed to be doing everything in its power to impede the UN inspections, which didn’t seem to make a hell of a lot of sense. Any probationer or parolee knows that the best way to get your parole officer off your back is to drop urine or allow them to search your car or property whenever they ask. Any delay or refusal to cooperate is a good way to find yourself back in jail. Iraq found itself in this position, but instead of cooperating the Iraqis continued to refuse to allow UN inspectors access to key facilities and continued to harass UN inspectors. To claim now that the Iraqis were cooperating fully is a misrepresentation of the facts.
 
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smitty237    Plutarch Pt. 4   4/22/2012 4:05:35 PM
Another thing that frustrated me at the time was the delays and missed deadlines that were allowed to pass without repercussions. Like many Americans at the time, I believed that Iraq would use these delays to move the WMDs out of the country or bury them so deep in the desert that no one would ever find them. They could also use this opportunity to destroy any and all records of WMD programs……all it takes is one person, a match (or shredder), and a little bit of time. There is a reason why we don’t give drug dealers three months (or even three minutes) notice before we serve a search warrant on their house to go find their drugs, guns, and money.

 
Once the war began I expected troops to come across vast stockpiles of WMDs. George Tenet had told the President it was a “slam dunk”, so like pretty much everyone else I took him at his word. Like many Americans I was disappointed that American GIs were not uncovering these stockpiles, but after Baghdad fell and the search for WMDs continued I began to notice something…. Occasionally troops or inspectors would come across suspected WMD weapons or labs, but before the evidence had even been examined these discoveries were reported on the news and were almost instantly followed up by so-called “experts” that would claim that the weapons or labs were not related to any Iraqi WMD program. Huh? In fact, it occurred to me that there were a lot of people that seemed to be rooting against the US finding evidence of WMDs in Iraq, so much so that whenever possible evidence was uncovered they seemed to go out of their way to discredit it. I suspect it has a lot to do with Bush Derangement Syndrome, but for these folks an article of faith was born.
 
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smitty237    Plutarch Pt. 5   4/22/2012 4:10:48 PM
To say that there is absolutely no evidence that WMDs were moved out of Iraq in the months leading up to war is simply not true. If want to say that there is no reliable evidence or confirmed evidence, then fine. I’ve done a lot of research over the last week, and was able to come across a number of reports and accounts of WMDs being moved out of Iraq, including some that listed specific amounts of material that were removed from the country, and specific locations where materials were hidden in places such as Syria and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. Some accounts even allege that the Russians brought in special forces troops to help move the material and destroy documents related to the Iraqi WMD program. All that information is out there. Is every single one of those stories a complete lie? I suppose it’s possible, but isn’t it also possible that the Iraqis (with outside help) were able to move the remnants of their WMD program out of the country and destroy most, if not all, of the documents related to the program?  Otherwise intelligent people like John Bolton and David Kay had reason to believe that some WMD components were moved to Syria shortly before war. Are we to believe that they are ideologues and idiots as well, especially considering they probably had access to information that we do not?
 
You claim that the people that advance the theories that Iraq had WMDs do so based upon conjecture, but when I researched some of the small caches of chemical weapons and suspected WMD labs that were reportedly found by troops I found that the methodology used to minimize the significance of these finds was also based largely on conjecture. In 2004 insurgents tried to use a sarin-filled artillery shell as an IED, but it was detected by US troops. It exploded before it could be rendered inoperable, but exposure was limited. Critics claimed that the insurgents probably didn’t know the shell had chemicals in it, and even if they did it was more than likely a pre-1991 shell and therefore not part of an active WMD program. Several caches of chemical artillery shells were periodically uncovered, but according to the “experts” those were old shells that had probably been stored there and forgotten (Really? And we just somehow “found” them?).
 
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smitty237    Plutarch Pt. 6   4/22/2012 4:14:11 PM
Troops also came across suspected labs and stores of chemicals, some hidden in camouflaged bunkers. In some cases those chemicals tested positive in field tests for nerve agents, and there are even reports that troops and civilians suffered ill effects after being exposed to those chemicals. These incidents were dismissed or explained away. Critics claimed that the field tests were grossly inaccurate (why wasn’t this a scandal?), and any chemicals were either classified as pesticides (which obviously should be kept in camouflaged bunkers) or dismissed as harmless. As far as exposure goes, the victims were treated but the symptoms were explained away or dismissed as psychosomatic.

You claim that you would only accept tangible evidence, stuff you can see and touch, but really, Plutarch, how much of this evidence have you touched and held? Like nearly all of us I’m sure you are getting most of your information from the internet. I would dare say that when you do your research you are predisposed to give greater credence to sites that support your point of view while casting a critical eye towards sites that don’t. This is human nature, but I would encourage you to maybe do a little research on the subject with a more open mind. It may be an informational exercise to try to approach the subject from the point of view of someone that is trying provide evidence that Iraq did indeed still have remnants of an existing WMD program. If this exercise seems completely unreasonable to you, then I have to question your objectivity on the subject.
 
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smitty237    Plutarch Wrap Up   4/22/2012 4:30:06 PM
I will throw you a bone now. There is substantial evidence that there were no large stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq in the Spring of 2003, but I feel that there until there is a vetting of ALL the facts it is premature to conclude once and for all that Iraq had no WMD program after 1991. If Syria falls and after a complete and objective investigation it is determined that absolutely no Iraqi WMDs or WMD project components were moved to Syria then that would go a long way towards putting the “myth” of Iraqi WMDs to rest. If, however, Iraqi weapons are found or Assad regime officials admit that WMDs were moved into Syria will you accept it?
 
Again, I have nothing emotionally invested in this discussion.  It does not appear that the WMD program was nearly as advanced as we were led to believe, but I don't think there is enough information to conclude that WMDs or WMD program components were NOT moved out of the country.  Hard evidence is great, but I know from personal experience that overreliance on hard evidence can severely hurt a case.  In law enforcement it's called "the CSI effect."  People are no longer trustful of circumstantial and witness testimony, and demand material evidence, like DNA and fingerprints, before they are willing to make a decision.  What they don't realize is that most murder convictions are based upon circumstantial evidence.  If that weren't the case the only criminals we would ever convict would be the ones dumb enough to leave evidence behind. 
 
  As a side note, you seem to bristle at accusations of partisanship or “Bush hating,” and even claim that you voted for Bush once as support of your assertion that this isn’t a personal beef with Bush. I guess the only question I have then is this: So in the election you voted for the “other guy” was that guy Al Gore, John Kerry, or Ralph Nader?
 
Lastly, the "digital masturbation" comment was crass and unnecessary.  You may not care much for CJH, but those kinds of statements have no place in an intellectual discussion, regardless of how you feel about the other person's beliefs.  Vulgar statements like that debase you. 
 
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Plutarch    Smitty   4/23/2012 2:25:29 AM

Before, I respond, or even read your long-winded post I want to take this debate back to what you said in the beginning of this thread and the impetus for my initial response:

There are a number of eyewitness accounts of weapons being moved to Syria prior to the US invasion in 2003, and several caches of chemical weapons have been uncovered in Iraq, but those stories have been dismissed out of hand by the Libs. There is nothing you can present, and nothing that can be uncovered, that will convince the Bush haters that he was right about Iraq.

 

Two points to consider from what I italicized: 
 
1.) It was never a condition that Iraq be completely 100% free of WMDs or WMD components.

UNSCR 687 states:

 

Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision

 

Both the IAEA and UNSCOM followed the dictates of this resolution (the one which guided weapons inspections thereafter). The IAEA left hundreds of tons of uranium, accounted for, but still in Iraq. To your credit you state this is irrelevant. However, UNSCOM also left chemical munitions undestroyed. In a process known as entombment, weapons that could not be destroyed were sealed away.

 

Just prior to the invasion UNMOVIC verified these weapons were there, however after the invasion breaches ocurred in the walls. The regime did not use these weapons since there is no evidence of their use. Thus, it is likely that the US military found and destroyed them, and they account for at least some of the NGIC/WikiLeaks count. At any rate you cannot state weapons were discovered without first knowing if they were already accounted for. You would know this if you had actually read the UNMOVIC report I have repeatedly sent you to.

 

http://www.un.org/depts/unmovi...

 

2.) In thinking about your post it occurred to me you might be conflating two different arguments (though you will probably never admit it): The “Bush lied about WMDs” argument, which admittedly some partisan Democrats still hold, and the “WMDs were never found” argument, which is upheld by such Bush haters as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush himself.

 

Instead of stating he was proved right, Bush, even in his post-POTUS years, stated he was wrong on Iraq’s WMDs. Indeed, in his autobiography Bush stated that the biggest regret of his Presidency was the intelligence failure in Iraq (i.e. weapons were not found). Bush, arguably has the most to gain by the discovery of said weapons (certainly he has more at stake than you or I), so why does he continue to deny WMDs were found?

 

 

 Questions: I would appreciate a straight answer to these and then we can hopefully move forward in the debate.

 

1.   Since you accept UN numbers, and thus the UN weapons inspection process, and even by inference the fact the IAEA knowingly left uranium in Iraq, why do you not make the same allowances for chemical munitions uncovered post-war but left there knowingly by UNSCOM?

 

 

2.   If Bush was right on Iraqi WMDs why has he not stated so at any point in the last eight years or so? Why would he go out of his way to say emphatically they were not there?  
 
 
 
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Plutarch    Smitty   4/23/2012 3:28:38 AM
I read the last part of your post. I have two responses, one to a question on voting, and one on my comments on CJH:
 
1.) Voting: Since you asked who I voted for in the 2004 election, my answer is I have not voted since 2000, in any election. I did vote for Bush as well as his father. However, my thinking changed after the Iraq war. I did not think the decision to invade Iraq was necessarily a conservative position. I do not want to get too far afield, so suffice it say we should leave personal politics aside. My only point being it is more than just "Bush haters" who agree on the WMD issue (See previous post). 

2.) CJH: CJH is the only other poster on the US board now, you and I are engaged in a debate, whilst CJH posts on political issues. Nobody responds to CJH (unless he responds to me in which case I respond in turn) yet he continues on posting and replying to his own posts. He knows full well he will get either no response, or agreement, when he posts on SP. What he is doing may satisfy himself personally, but has no other apparent value. No one will challenge him. 

Normally this is called mental masturbation, but CJH writes online so it is digital masturbation. I confess I am not the one who came up with the term, another (former) SP poster did so on another forum describing (accurately) what SP has become.  It is a wry observation, but an observation nonetheless, into CJH's behavior. I do not think it is insulting.  

 
I will await your answers to the questions I posed in my previous post before I respond to the rest of your post. Once you have answered them, depending on your answers, we can move forward in the discussison.
 
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Plutarch    Smitty Part 1   4/24/2012 9:59:44 AM
After reading through your post(s) I changed my mind, I am going to post my responses to your post. I would still appreciate answers to those questions I posted previously though.
 

I will address some of what you list as inconsistencies first and try to clarify those to the best of my ability. Admittedly I was using a loose, more recent interpretation of “suspension of disbelief.” I explained that in the next sentence, but apparently you felt it worthy enough to comment on (shades of Darth America there).

 

Suspension of disbelief is a common concept in literature. Your interpretation defined it exactly the opposite of its intended usage. You are not Joyce or Tolkien so do not pretend you can invent new uses for literary concepts or new languages. You did not know what the concept meant, and I called you on it.

 

 Anyway, I have no particular attachment to the whole WMD debate and do not identify myself one way or the other in its outcome. I am a skeptic by nature, so anytime someone declares a debate over before all the facts are in red flags fly all over the place for me.

 

You are the one who said the WMDs had been found and Bush was right. Do you care to retract, or walk back those statements? And I doubt very much you do not have an attachment to the WMD debate.

 

Again, the original point of the thread was that once Syria falls clues as to the whereabouts of Iraqi WMDs could come to light. I am doubtful of this for all the reasons I’ve listed, but it is certainly possible. Because of how acrimonious the debate has become on the issues of WMDs in Iraq I have come to believe that even if WMDs marked “Made in Iraq” were found in Damascus there would be a lot of people that would refuse to believe they were real. Any evidence that disputes their firmly held views will be dismissed, explained away, or simply ignored.

 

Weapons transfers between states are a two-way street. If weapons were sent to Syria from Iraq there would be evidence on it from the Iraqi side. I am not just talking about nebulous and still unverified satellite pictures of trucks at the border, but also first-hand accounts of said weapons transfers.

 

In my opinion the post didn’t really provide much of an opening for another WMD in Iraq debate because Syria hasn’t fallen, and even if it fell tomorrow there is no guarantee that UN WMD specialists would have an opportunity to tour the country.

 

Assad is not likely to fall without major foreign intervention, and that will not happen for awhile. Let us forget about Syria for the moment, and focus on Iraq.

 

 Pure conjecture, yet you seized upon the opportunity to attack what you describe as the “myth” of WMDs in Iraq, as if the matter had been completely settled once and for all,

It has been.  And I only responded because of your first post in which you stated emphatically that WMDs had been found and Bush was right.

  and anyone that disagrees with this assessment was somehow out of touch with reality and counter-intellectual.

Judging by your posts I think that is an accurate assessment.

 I will concede that no huge stockpiles of WMDs were found in Iraq after the invasion, but if they were moved in the months leading up to war they wouldn’t be there now, would they?

How were they moved when UNMOVIC inspections were going on and spy planes were circling Iraq? Huge stockpiles would have been noticed by aerial surveillance, and why have no Iraqis come forward to state they were moved?

No matter how hard you look you can’t find what is no longer there.

True, which is why when Iraq unilaterally destroyed some of its stockpiles in 1991 it was put in the difficult position of trying to prove a negative.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say regarding the purpose of any WMDs Iraq might have had.

I knew what you were trying to say. I was pointing out the convoluted way in which you said it. Debate Tip: Never give your opponent the opportunity to score easy points against you.

 
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Plutarch    Smitty Part 2   4/24/2012 9:59:57 AM

Iraq acquired WMDs in order to provide a modicum of deterrence against its regional military rivals (heck, you said something similar about this yourself in 2006).

 

You remember what I said in 2006 but not the source from which it was derived? What I said conforms to the ISG report, which determined that Iraq may have wanted chemical weapons as a deterrent against Iran after sanctions were lifted. But the priority for the regime was lifting sanctions and then maybe WMDs after that.

 

 After 1991, however, Iraq found itself in a quandary. All of its traditional enemies in the region (Israel, Iran, and yes, Syria) still had large standing armies with their own arsenals of WMDs, but Iraq was bound by UN resolutions to destroy their WMDs. Failure to do so could invite another war with the West, so it served their strategic interests to continue to possess, develop, and maintain WMDs while at the same time concealing them from the UN.

 

That is not what happened. Saddam ordered unilateral destruction of some chem./bio programs in contravention of the UN Security Council. It was that decision which ultimately doomed Saddam. He could not build trust with the West or the UN because once destroyed he could never accurately account for those weapons.

 

As far as the relationship between Syria and Iraq goes, they may not like each other very much, but you have to remember that they are still Arabs and they are still Muslims. Arabs may not get along very well, but they usually find a way to unify in the face of a common foe.

 

Assad, like his father, is an Alawite and Shiite, while Saddam was a Sunni. That is a big difference, as evidenced now with the sectarian warfare in both Syria and Iraq. Also, it is not the case they would align together in face of a common foe. Syria joined the US in 1990-1991 against Iraq, and has been allied with Iran, a non-Arab country, since the 1980s. Saddam was pretty much on his own in the region.

 

 To the Hussein regime the Coalition presented an existential threat,


Was that the 1991 Coalition that included Syria? The 2003 "coalition" was just the US, and to a much lesser extent the UK.

 

 and I’m sure Assad in Syria recognized that a Western oriented, US led foothold right next door would represent an existential threat to them as well.

 

Do you know what existential threat means? If you are going to use terms at least try to understand them and use them in the proper context. Iraq was/is not Western-oriented under Maliki and in fact is friendlier toward Assad then it was under Saddam.

 

The US had already taken down Afghanistan, so they couldn’t have had a doubt as to Bush’s resolve.

 

Have you actually read any of the post-war interviews with regime figures? Saddam seriously doubted that the US would invade.

 

 Had Iraq truly destroyed all its WMDs they could have avoided or delayed war with the Coalition by allowing unlimited access to wherever they wanted to search for weapons, but they continued to delay, dodge, and deny access to UN inspectors.

 

This is not true. Please read the UNMOVIC reports. At no time was UNMOVIC denied access to inspection sites by Iraqi personnel.

 

As a desperate, last ditch effort to avoid Coalition action it makes logical sense that Iraq might seek the help of the Syrians, and it makes sense that the Assad regime might be willing to help. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so in face of war with the United States, Syria and Iraq had good reason to bury the hatchet and work together.

I did not realize that Syria was at war with the US in 2003. Also you should not use swhitebull’s empty cliché: Syria was in fact the friend of Iraq’s enemy (Iran).  If Syria was so concerned about the US why did Assad not send fighters, equipment, etc. to help Saddam?

 
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Plutarch    Smitty Part 3   4/24/2012 10:00:04 AM

I remember very well the lead up to war in 2003, and I don’t remember hearing a lot of voices, even in the International community, claiming that our intelligence was faulty regarding WMDs in Iraq.

 

You must not have been paying that much attention. The State Department’s INR (Intelligence and Research) Bureau dissented from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMDs. German Intelligence told the CIA that it was highly likely that Curveball was lying. The French had a mole in Saddam’s cabinet who stated Iraq was WMD free.

 

http://www.globalsecurity.org/...

 

 

 

The French, Russians, and Chinese may not have been on board when it came to going to war, but they weren’t presenting a lot evidence that disputed the evidence that supported they did. George Tenet himself declared it a “slam dunk” that Iraq had WMDs, and many Democrats criticized Bush for not doing enough about WMDs in Iraq.

 

George Tenent has since been disgraced, and has stated he was wrong about Iraq’s WMDs. Also as I stated before this is not a partisan issue, war mongering Democrats and war mongering Republicans wanted the same thing: war.

 

I realize that some sources, such as “Curveball” were providing unreliable information, but these sources were not the sole source of intelligence.

 

Name one other source. Curveball provided 98% of the intelligence on biological weapons:

 

“Curveball really provided 98 percent of the assessment as to whether or not the Iraqis had a biological weapon," Roberts said. (Pat Roberts being the Republican Senator from Kansas)

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/senate.pentagon/

" target="_blank">link

 

 

I also remember the almost daily stories of UN inspectors being denied access to Iraqi facilities, and protests by figures like Scott Ritter and Hans Blix that complained of Iraq’s lack of cooperation.

 

What Hans Blix actually said: In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties and certainly much less than those that were faced by UNSCOM in the period 1991 to 1998.

http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/unmovic/unmovic-blix-030703.htm" target="_blank">link

http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/Index_UNMOVIC.html" target="_blank">link

 

Scott Ritter did not say Iraq was obstructing UNMOVIC, he stated that Iraq was pretty much WMD free in 2002 and 2003 and that UNSCOM had eliminated nearly all of Iraq’s WMDs.

 

 

 

Even the French provided intelligence that Iraq was trying to import equipment for their WMD program, although they refused to allow Colin Powell to use that information when he made his case for war.

 

I don't think that is accurate.

http://isis-online.org/isis-re...

 

 

Are we to really believe that ALL of the intelligence regarding Iraqi WMDs was based upon faulty intelligence and selfish national interests? Do you really believe this?

 

Everything that the IC gathered on Iraq’s bio program came from four sources. All the sources were reliant on Curveball’s testimony and all four have since either recanted or were determined to have lied about the bio program.

There was no real intelligence on Iraq’s chemical program. It was mostly an analytical judgment that turned out to be wrong.

 

 http://intelligence.senate.gov...

 

If this is so bloody obvious to everyone, why aren’t there intelligence officials in jail because of it?

 

That is a good question. Unfortunately incompetence is not usually a jailable offense. Still, there has been a lot of introspection within the IC, and many books and articles have been published in the past 8 years highlighting the intelligence failure.

 

 

During the lead up to war I was one of the Americans that needed to be convinced of the justifications for going to war.

 

Sure you were.

 
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