Wmd?

dglancy

Serious question.

Where are the weapons-of-mass-destruction in Iraq?

Politics aside, all the billions spent on the intelligence agencies - how could they have got it so wrong?

The mind boggles.

mr_angry

I believe they convinced themselves of the existence of WMDs, because they wanted to believe it. Getting rid of Saddam was the real goal - WMDs were just a (not so) convenient excuse.

Sand

It seems unlikely WMD existed, the sanctions did a good job it seems of keeping Saddams WMD programs unsuccessful along with killing thousands every month. Its hard to say if they knew WMD did not exist ( impossible to prove a negative afterall ). Blair I think believed they did. Bush and Co may simply have chosen a particular tack to approach the UN on, and simply refused to entertain seriously doubts that Iraq may not have WMD. It was certainly no secret that Saddam wanted WMD, it was no secret that he had developed and used them before, so it was certainly conceivable that he could have possessed them again or would develop them in the future.

In hindsight of course, WMD was a poor choice. They had a pretty unsinkable moral case to depose Saddam on the basis of a humanitarian liberation. But, I guess with it being the UN and all you have to go with calculated self interest to justify actions. The threat of WMD satisfies that criteria I guess.

bonkey

Originally posted by dglancy
Politics aside, all the billions spent on the intelligence agencies - how could they have got it so wrong?

Well, it appears that the intelligence agencies didn't really get it wrong. The more that appears, the more they appear to have been taking the "we don't know one way or the other" stance, which the respective governments then took, mixed with the "we can't trust that Saddam bastid", and came to a conclusion :

We must assume he has WMDs.

Once you start with that assumption, then you no longer analyse anything objectively. Take the famous photos and overheard conversations that Powell used in his various UN speeches. There were alternate, completely reasonable and innocent explanations for all of those. At the time, if you presented such alternatives, you were laughed down on the grounds of "stop being so naiive".

Of course they must be evidence...because Saddam was pre-judged and all that was being sought was corroboration.

When you sacrifice objectivity, expecting to find the truth is a lost cause. This, above all else, is what we should learn about the "failure" of the WMD issue.

jc

Sleipnir

The goal of the Intelligence agencies is to, primarily, gather information, try to verify it's authenticity and then present it to the governing administration.

They did this but when it was presented it, they found that the administration were 'trying' to interpret it differently.
"This is some information we have and we believe it means this"
"Yes but isn't it possible that it means this...."

Do that with many separate pieces of intelligence and then add them all together and you end up with a different outlook on the overall picture.
That is where the intelligence communities and the administration came apart.
Basically the adminstration 'bent' the intelligence so that it would more closely match the pre-concieved idea they had.

Iraq didn't have any active WMD's, Hans Blix team knew it and so did the everyone else. Iraq used to alright but the weapons inspectors made sure they were all destroyed.

Nuttzz

Iraq did have WMD's, the bodies of dead kurds and Iranian soliders prove that, however I believe that the bulk of them got blown up in the first gulf war, and then the weapon inspectors from 1992 onwards got rid of the manufacturing capability, I say they probably have 3 bombs left in a bunker in the a$$ hole of nowhere (i.e. no credible WMD threat)

Sleipnir

Well nobody's saying Iraq never had weapons, come on.

dahamsta

Another bloody poll I can't vote on. I don't think these governments knew the WMDs weren't there, I think they didn't know they were and claimed otherwise. There's a big difference between the two. And I'm not voting Other, that could mean anything.

adam

Havelock

The only way they could have been uncertain if he had WMD's would have been if they forgot when was the last time they sold him any.

They knew how much he had last time because the "Allies" sold them to him. They knew how much needed to be destroyed, and how and where he would put it, because the showed him how and where to aswell.

sovtek

Originally posted by Nuttzz
Iraq did have WMD's, the bodies of dead kurds and Iranian soliders prove that,

"NO! That was the Iranians! " -Donald Rumsfeld

Sleipnir

Nevermind the fact that the U.S. supplied Iraq with weapons for the Iran/Iraq war.

tricky D

Google for 'Operation Rockingham ' which suggests that they began to believe too much of their own propaganda.

Nuttzz

Originally posted by Sleipnir
Well nobody's saying Iraq never had weapons, come on.

Thats what the question is

The weapons never existed and US/UK/Spanish/Polish governments knew it

Sleipnir

Well I think it's fair to assume that the people posting will at least a basic knowledge of world affairs and that the original poster meant
"they did not exist at the time America told the world they did last year"

let's not quibble over semantics.

Lemming

I voted 'other' because WMD did exist at one point. We know this because the US/UK/insert-nation-of-choice sold these weapons to Saddam Hussein.

What they conveniently airbrushed over was that these weapons are either way past their sell-by-date, not working due to poor maintenance (courtesy of lack of knowledge & sanctions), and/or used already during various wars/uprisings/fits-of-insane-rage

Victor

Originally posted by Nuttzz
I believe that the bulk of them got blown up in the first gulf war, and then the weapon inspectors from 1992 onwards got rid of the manufacturing capability,

Relatively few were destroyed in the 1991 war, something like 91% were destroyed under the weapons inspectors.

Were there WMD this time last year? I don't think there was to any material level. There may have been small unknown (to the Iraqis) quantity, there may have been expired weapons, there may have been a low level research program. However between Saddam's bluffing and Bush's wanting to believe, they made a war for themselves.