Britain went to war on 'assumption' of wmd

[alienlovechild 75]

The US and the UK have nuclear weapons. They both send their boats up and down the coast occasionally strafing Iranian ships or otherwise crossing into Iranian waters. Hell, they shot down a Iranian civilian airliner on a commercial flight route. Can you imagine what would have happened if the Iranians mistakenly shot down an American Airlines flight. Hugging international boundaries and accidently straying into sovereign water is something that the Soviets did with us regularly and we did it with them. Can you say Gary Powers? It's a show of force and designed to test the readiness of the host nation. Will the UK or US use their nukes on Iran? I have no idea. The US strongly considered using nukes in Vietnam so why would anyone feel safe, let alone the Iranians. The missile crisis of 1962 is a classic case of US attempts to arrogate powers rather than use a world consensus. Cuba was legally justified as it broke no international law. The US in essence committed an act of war. The Soviets could have launched and they would have been in the right in defending their allies.

Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves, according to the Iraqis. Realistically the Kuwaits helped fund the Iran-Iraq War and wouldn't forgive the debt, nor would they allow Iraq to increase world oil prices by cutting supply. Iraq was destroyed by the war with Iran and it needed to rebuild its ports, etc. Iraq was a pariah in the Arab World because it invaded Iran at the behest of the US. Look at the the US actions against Japan during 1941 led to Pearl Harbor, think about how most Americans felt about a pre-emptive strike on US soil. The US shut off oil to Japan in an effort to limit Japanese expansion and acquisition of raw materials. Japan acted in its strategic interests in an effort to control shipping in the Pacific. Should Iraq have invaded Kuwait, probably not, but it happened. A negotiated settlement for debt forgiveness could have easily been reached but the US didn't step up.

National Security Directive 54 was issued by Bush, Sr. but WMDs were the pretext for Clinton's attack on Iraq in 1998.

"That inspection regime continued until December 16, 1998 - although it involved interruptions, confrontations, and Iraqi attempts at denial and deception - when UNSCOM withdrew from Iraq in the face of Iraqi refusal to cooperate, and harassment.

As a result of the U.S. and British campaign, and after prolonged negotiations between the United States, Britain, France, Russia and other U.N. Security Council members, the United Nations declared that Iraq would have to accept even more intrusive inspections than under the previous inspection regime - to be carried out by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - or face "serious consequences." Iraq agreed to accept the U.N. decision and inspections resumed in late November 2002. On December 7, 2002, Iraq submitted its 12,000 page declaration, which claimed that it had no current WMD programs. Intelligence analysts from the United States and other nations immediately began to scrutinize the document, and senior U.S. officials quickly rejected the claims. (Note 2)

The trigger for military action preferred by the British government, other allies, and at least some segments of the Bush administration, was a second U.N. resolution that would authorize an armed response. Other key U.N. Security Council members - including France, Germany, and Russia - argued that the inspections were working and that the inspectors should be allowed to continue. When it became apparent that the Council would not approve a second resolution, the United States and Britain terminated their attempts to obtain it. Instead, they, along with other allies, launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19, 2003 - a military campaign that quickly brought about the end of Saddam Hussein's regime and ultimately resulted in his capture."

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/

There hadn't been any UN inspectors for 5 years and the UN believed the inspections were necessary- not because they believed there were no remaining WMDs and Iraq never went through a certified WMD decommissing like, for example, Ukraine, South Africa or reductions/monitoring production facilities in Russia and the U.S. Iraq played games for years with the UN inspectors and if they had nothing to hide or hadn't pretended they had WMDs there would have been no invasion. BTW, the U.S. intelligence agencies you believe are flawless didn't know Pakistan had a nuke until it was detonated.

"They both send their boats up and down the coast occasionally strafing Iranian ships or otherwise crossing into Iranian waters. Hell, they shot down a Iranian civilian airliner on a commercial flight route."

That Iranian plane was flying through a warzone at the time and it was nothing but a mistake. There are no attacks on shipping in the Gulf except but Iranians picking up crews in international waters and making threatening moves toward allied ships.

"Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves, according to the Iraqis. Realistically the Kuwaits helped fund the Iran-Iraq War and wouldn't forgive the debt, nor would they allow Iraq to increase world oil prices by cutting supply. Iraq was destroyed by the war with Iran and it needed to rebuild its ports, etc. Iraq was a pariah in the Arab World because it invaded Iran at the behest of the US. Look at the the US actions against Japan during 1941 led to Pearl Harbor, think about how most Americans felt about a pre-emptive strike on US soil. The US shut off oil to Japan in an effort to limit Japanese expansion and acquisition of raw materials. Japan acted in its strategic interests in an effort to control shipping in the Pacific. Should Iraq have invaded Kuwait, probably not, but it happened. A negotiated settlement for debt forgiveness could have easily been reached but the US didn't step up."

Slant drilling isn't illegal and it's not a good excuse for an invasion. Oil doesn't flow along national borders.

Iraq wasn't a pariah in Arab world. Most Arab states backed Arab Iraq over the Persians in Iran. How could an occupied country reach a settlement and why should Iraq make a deal when they already dominated Kuwait after the invasion?

Edited January 19, 2010 by alienlovechild

[alienlovechild 75]

The question is whether or not Bush & company actually believed Iraq still had WMDs or it was used as an excuse to start a war on knowingly trumped up intel. I firmly believe that the Bush administration used WMDs as an excuse to start the war in Iraq, with the goal of establishing a strategic foothold in the middle east. Opinions are strong & emotions run deep about what the truth is & the best thing to do is agree to disagree on what the truth actually is (we may never know for sure).

There were already several strategic U.S. footholds in the the region prior to the Iraq War. U.S. bases in Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Then there's Israel and Diego Garcia also. There were also airbases in Saudi Arabia built by the U.S. decades before Iraq.

Now we have bases all over Iraq and Afghanistan so we're much better off and we aren't stretched at all with our personnel or equipment? This is the master plan?

[mawilson 2,133]

Yes Mark Fortunately they are able to pick and choose which information to share to garner support (however knowingly flimsy it may be), and force the policy through via procedural technicalities rather than a plurality of opinion procured through a transparent democratic process.

Not looking for an argument, but would you trust "the general public" with vital national security matters?

The general public happened to be right this time, but it's not like the CIA and the MI5/MI6 are complete idiots.

[Danno 1,228]

QUOTE (Danno @ Jan 19 2010, 04:07 AM)

Still waiting to see one columnist, one Op=ed piece something that predated the invasion to back up your claim that there were questions about "IF" WMDs would be found.

------------------------------------------

Mr Saigon: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0721-02.htm

Now I'm sure you'll debunk Scott Ritter, right?

--------------------------------------------------------

I will hand it to you, this is the closest thing to a Pre war claim about the over statement of WMDS I have seen to date.

Will I debunk Ritter?

I think if you dig a little deeper he does this with his own words.

Ritter was out of Iraq in the Clinton years 1998.

put that in context of what he said here.

<<<<In January 1998, his inspection team in Iraq was blocked from some weapons sites by Iraqi officials making claims that information obtained from these sites would be used for future planning of attacks. UN Inspectors were then ordered out of Iraq by the United States Government, shortly before Operation Desert Fox attacks began in December 1998, using information which had been gathered for the purpose of disarmament to identify targets which would reduce Iraq's ability to wage both conventional and possibly unconventional warfare. This action undermined the position of the UN Weapons Inspectors, who were thereafter denied access to Iraq. Shortly thereafter, he spoke on the Public Broadcasting Service show, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their developing of nuclear weapons. program.[4]

>>>>>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter

He is free to speculate, but his own warnings made here, discredit any mantel of authority he pretended to speak with.

Many would say he spoke for political purposes... as you see here....... a new President brought a clear change of opinion on the same facts.)

[nowhereman 1]

There were already several strategic U.S. footholds in the the region prior to the Iraq War. U.S. bases in Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Then there's Israel and Diego Garcia also. There were also airbases in Saudi Arabia built by the U.S. decades before Iraq.

Now we have bases all over Iraq and Afghanistan so we're much better off and we aren't stretched at all with our personnel or equipment? This is the master plan?

I didn't say Bush & his administration planned or executed his game plan very well (in fact they royally screwed up both IMO).

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Must I do all your homework for you?

1.National Security Directive 54, January 15, 1991. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book Number 39, Operation Desert Storm: Ten Years After, January 17, 2001, Document 4.

2. Sharon A. Squassoni, Congressional Research Service, Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction, October 7, 2003, pp. 13-14.

There are so many more papers published by not only outside sources but the CIA itself that it becomes a massive undertaking unto itself. Shall I go on? How about the Niger Uranium purchase that never was?

The US and the UK have nuclear weapons. They both send their boats up and down the coast occasionally strafing Iranian ships or otherwise crossing into Iranian waters. Hell, they shot down a Iranian civilian airliner on a commercial flight route. Can you imagine what would have happened if the Iranians mistakenly shot down an American Airlines flight. Hugging international boundaries and accidently straying into sovereign water is something that the Soviets did with us regularly and we did it with them. Can you say Gary Powers? It's a show of force and designed to test the readiness of the host nation. Will the UK or US use their nukes on Iran? I have no idea. The US strongly considered using nukes in Vietnam so why would anyone feel safe, let alone the Iranians. The missile crisis of 1962 is a classic case of US attempts to arrogate powers rather than use a world consensus. Cuba was legally justified as it broke no international law. The US in essence committed an act of war. The Soviets could have launched and they would have been in the right in defending their allies.

It is because of people like me that we haven't blown up the planet. You're an alien and have your own planet to go back to, I only have this one.

Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves, according to the Iraqis. Realistically the Kuwaits helped fund the Iran-Iraq War and wouldn't forgive the debt, nor would they allow Iraq to increase world oil prices by cutting supply. Iraq was destroyed by the war with Iran and it needed to rebuild its ports, etc. Iraq was a pariah in the Arab World because it invaded Iran at the behest of the US. Look at the the US actions against Japan during 1941 led to Pearl Harbor, think about how most Americans felt about a pre-emptive strike on US soil. The US shut off oil to Japan in an effort to limit Japanese expansion and acquisition of raw materials. Japan acted in its strategic interests in an effort to control shipping in the Pacific. Should Iraq have invaded Kuwait, probably not, but it happened. A negotiated settlement for debt forgiveness could have easily been reached but the US didn't step up.

Remember the Maine?

Iran was attacking neutral shipping. The US began escorting shipping in the area and Iranian warships engaged a convoy and were sunk. As to the airliner that was shot down there were errors on both sides. The plane was not responding to the US warship's call to ID itself. The ship mistakenly thought it was an F14 Tomcat and shot it down. In war things happen. The soviets shot an airliner too you know.

Also the US strongly considered using nukes in the Korean War. By Vietnam that was less of an option.

Edited January 19, 2010 by Sousuke

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

National Security Directive 54 was issued by Bush, Sr. but WMDs were the pretext for Clinton's attack on Iraq in 1998.

"That inspection regime continued until December 16, 1998 - although it involved interruptions, confrontations, and Iraqi attempts at denial and deception - when UNSCOM withdrew from Iraq in the face of Iraqi refusal to cooperate, and harassment.

As a result of the U.S. and British campaign, and after prolonged negotiations between the United States, Britain, France, Russia and other U.N. Security Council members, the United Nations declared that Iraq would have to accept even more intrusive inspections than under the previous inspection regime - to be carried out by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - or face "serious consequences." Iraq agreed to accept the U.N. decision and inspections resumed in late November 2002. On December 7, 2002, Iraq submitted its 12,000 page declaration, which claimed that it had no current WMD programs. Intelligence analysts from the United States and other nations immediately began to scrutinize the document, and senior U.S. officials quickly rejected the claims. (Note 2)

The trigger for military action preferred by the British government, other allies, and at least some segments of the Bush administration, was a second U.N. resolution that would authorize an armed response. Other key U.N. Security Council members - including France, Germany, and Russia - argued that the inspections were working and that the inspectors should be allowed to continue. When it became apparent that the Council would not approve a second resolution, the United States and Britain terminated their attempts to obtain it. Instead, they, along with other allies, launched Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19, 2003 - a military campaign that quickly brought about the end of Saddam Hussein's regime and ultimately resulted in his capture."

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/

There hadn't been any UN inspectors for 5 years and the UN believed the inspections were necessary- not because they believed there were no remaining WMDs and Iraq never went through a certified WMD decommissing like, for example, Ukraine, South Africa or reductions/monitoring production facilities in Russia and the U.S. Iraq played games for years with the UN inspectors and if they had nothing to hide or hadn't pretended they had WMDs there would have been no invasion. BTW, the U.S. intelligence agencies you believe are flawless didn't know Pakistan had a nuke until it was detonated.

"They both send their boats up and down the coast occasionally strafing Iranian ships or otherwise crossing into Iranian waters. Hell, they shot down a Iranian civilian airliner on a commercial flight route."

That Iranian plane was flying through a warzone at the time and it was nothing but a mistake. There are no attacks on shipping in the Gulf except but Iranians picking up crews in international waters and making threatening moves toward allied ships.

"Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves, according to the Iraqis. Realistically the Kuwaits helped fund the Iran-Iraq War and wouldn't forgive the debt, nor would they allow Iraq to increase world oil prices by cutting supply. Iraq was destroyed by the war with Iran and it needed to rebuild its ports, etc. Iraq was a pariah in the Arab World because it invaded Iran at the behest of the US. Look at the the US actions against Japan during 1941 led to Pearl Harbor, think about how most Americans felt about a pre-emptive strike on US soil. The US shut off oil to Japan in an effort to limit Japanese expansion and acquisition of raw materials. Japan acted in its strategic interests in an effort to control shipping in the Pacific. Should Iraq have invaded Kuwait, probably not, but it happened. A negotiated settlement for debt forgiveness could have easily been reached but the US didn't step up."

Slant drilling isn't illegal and it's not a good excuse for an invasion. Oil doesn't flow along national borders.

Iraq wasn't a pariah in Arab world. Most Arab states backed Arab Iraq over the Persians in Iran. How could an occupied country reach a settlement and why should Iraq make a deal when they already dominated Kuwait after the invasion?

You've misconstrued a few facts but nowhere did I suggest that the Clinton Administration was blameless. Both the Democrats and Republicans do the same things, even if they package it differently. We both agree that the US and UK acted unilaterally. The problem with inspections is that the record-keeping was a mess. Nuclear programs don't work willy-nilly, neither do chemical or biological weapons programs. The US sent Saddam the materials so they knew exactly what he had or didn't have.

The "mistake" in shooting down the plane is an apologist reaction. It was a commercial flight route and a commercial jetliner looks nothing like a fighter on radar, in the sky or anywhere else. An Airbus is not a Tomcat. If you're going to argue that someone screwed up because the were pissing their pants, that's cold comfort for the 290 people who lost their lives. The USS Vincennes was inside Iranian waters at the time. The flight was on its way to Dubai.

Persians? The Persian Empire in its final form went out with the Sassanids in 651. The Shah tried to bring it back by decalring himself the "Light of The Aryans," but that was just a twisted fantasy. I don't call Italians "Romans." The Arab states wanted to limit the spread of Iranian power for several reasons. The Shia Iranians were seen to be friendly to Sunni Sufi movements and the like. This posed a threat to states that practiced or promoted other schools of Islamic law. For example, the Saudis are strict constructionists, primarily, but other states aren't. The Arab-centric mentality is something that is outside of this discussion but it stems, in part from the times of the Umayyads and the group that overthrew them, the Abbasids, where Arabesque (Meccans and Medinans primarily) sensibility was seen as being the only valid form of Ismlamic culture. The Abbasids were not predominently Arab and neither are Iraq or Iran. Saddam was seen as the buffer, no one wanted his brand of Ba'ath party pan-Arab Marxism. Remember, many of the surrounding states had leaders whose ancestors allied themselves with the French and British during WW I and received their rewards when the Ottoman Empire was dismantled. The Ba'ath movement was part of a greater Arab Nationalist movement that removed many of the leaders that the Allies made kings. Egypt, Syria, Libya and Iraq are the major countries where this happened. The Anglo-Iraqi war of 1941 saw the British return their man to the thrown after the Germans and dissident groups sought to remove British influence. In 1958 King Faisal II of Iraq was overthrown by Qasim who immediately sought closer ties with the Soviet which lead the US to try to cause a popular uprising to remove him, much as it had done in Iran in 1953 with the ouster of Mossadeq and would later do in the Congo with the ouster of Patrice Lamumba. Saddam Hussein was an intergral part of the uprising and this led to his famous swim to freedom across the Tigris. In 1963 the Qasim was overthrown by the Ba'ath party under al-Bakr, in 1964 there was a countercoup and in 1968 the modern Ba'ath took over. Saddam took over in 1979. The Arab states were hoping for Iran and Iraq to destroy each other, specifically all those nice F-14 Tomcats that we sold to the Shah. It was a pipe dream of various US agencies to have Iraq overthrow the Iranian regime and then have the Shias throw out Saddam. Both countries took heavy losses but Iraq was much worse off. When Saddam went looking for some sympathy, the other countries, treated him like a pariah. Even the US wouldn't help him out. He was a brutal thug and a goon but we overlooked that while he did our bidding. Had we negotiated, at that point, we could have solved much of the problem. Once Iraq invaded, sanctions and embargoes with debt forgiveness would have likely done the trick. The same idea is used in hostage negotiation. Saddam's behavior is not unusual, remember Pancho Villa?

If you want to argue about who knew what and whether the CIA is blameless, much of the material is classified (nobody wants to look stupid or careless) but operatives (not analysts or others necessarily) did a pretty good job of gathering info. They're not perfect but overall they generally get things right, when they know what they're doing. What the higher up do with said info is quite another story. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution based on highly questionable reports of the North Vietnamese firing on US patrol boats comes to mind. Have you ever read The Ugly American.

Oil doesn't flow along national borders? Why has the US nationalized its oilfields? If PEMEX decided to slant drill from Juarez to those famous teapot domes of Natrona county up in Wyoming because they wanted a bit more oil, do you believe that the US government would say nothing? We're pumping millions of gallons of water out of the Rio Grande before it crosses into Mexico right now and that's water, not oil. The oil fields between Kuwait and Iraq were shared but the Iraqis believed that the Kuwaitis were drilling into the Iraqi side and removing oil. Should wars be fought over oil, of course not. Should we use an untenable and diaphanous pretext to invade so that we can acquire the oil, what do you think? If you want oil, invade, but don't try to sell us a bill of goods.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Iran was attacking neutral shipping. The US began escorting shipping in the area and Iranian warships engaged a convoy and were sunk. As to the airliner that was shot down there were errors on both sides. The plane was not responding to the US warship's call to ID itself. The ship mistakenly thought it was an F14 Tomcat and shot it down. In war things happen. The soviets shot an airliner too you know.

Also the US strongly considered using nukes in the Korean War. By Vietnam that was less of an option.

Just like the US placed an embargo around CUba in 1962? It's all the same. Iran was placing an embargo around the allies of Iraq. The French did the same to the British during the Revolutionary War, forcing Cornwallis to surrender. The shooting down of flight 007 was murder as was the shooting down of the Iranian airliner. The Soviets and the US used the same argument in both cases, they thought they were spy planes or loaded with weapons or were fighters. I don't buy the collateral damage argument one bit.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Not looking for an argument, but would you trust "the general public" with vital national security matters?

The general public happened to be right this time, but it's not like the CIA and the MI5/MI6 are complete idiots.

They aren't, but it was painfully obvious that those agencies had been hijacked for political expediency to push through a predetermined case for war.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Just like the US placed an embargo around CUba in 1962? It's all the same. Iran was placing an embargo around the allies of Iraq. The French did the same to the British during the Revolutionary War, forcing Cornwallis to surrender. The shooting down of flight 007 was murder as was the shooting down of the Iranian airliner. The Soviets and the US used the same argument in both cases, they thought they were spy planes or loaded with weapons or were fighters. I don't buy the collateral damage argument one bit.

Did the US attack any soviet ships in 1962? I know they trailed them but did they attack?

Also Iran was attacking ALL shipping not just those bound for Iraq.

The evidence regarding the airliner is pretty clear...it was a mistake on both sides. The US ship was acting independently, its not like it had a command to kill passengers from white house.

Edited January 19, 2010 by Sousuke

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

I will say that regarding the airline incident, I will admit that I believe that the cmdr of the ship was primarily at fault. There may have been a cover up regarding the communications. Though I've never seen any hard evidence of this.

Also if you are going to use an analogy for Iran's maritime actions I'd use Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare as a much closer example.

Edited January 19, 2010 by Sousuke

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Did the US attack any soviet ships in 1962? I know they trailed them but did they attack?

Also Iran was attacking ALL shipping not just those bound for Iraq.

The evidence regarding the airliner is pretty clear...it was a mistake on both sides. The US ship was acting independently, its not like it had a command to kill passengers from white house.

Iran wasn't really attacking neutral shipping since no one was neutral. There was shadowing and using your argument about the Vincennes, I'd agree to a certain extent but most of the material is classified. Taking pot shots at your enemy is what happens from time to time. The airliner was operating on civilian frequencies in civilian airspace and was a regularly scheduled flight so I must respectfully disagree on that one. You might argue poor intelligence and I'd agree with you.

[NickD 203]

Since we are discussing history, more interested in why the British invaded us in 1812, wasn't one good asskicking enough for you? Well anyway, you can take us back along with our national debt and give us your free healthcare.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

I will say that regarding the airline incident, I will admit that I believe that the cmdr of the ship was primarily at fault. There may have been a cover up regarding the communications. Though I've never seen any hard evidence of this.

Also if you are going to use an analogy for Iran's maritime actions I'd use Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare as a much closer example.

I think that I'd tend to think of the US Pacific actions on the Japanese as being more apt but there were primarily two belligerents in the Pacific shipping in those areas at the time. The German wolf-pack analogy is a certainly somewhat valid but Iran didn't just blow up everything, they went after the Kuwaitis primarily since Kuwait was the largest backer of Iraq. There was some interdiction as well but mostly brutal warfare a la WWI including the use of mines. The US was hardly innocent. There was an attempt to engage Iranian gunboats by the US Navy and the USS Stark was hit by an Iraqi Exocet killing 37. Of course Iran had no submarines and the US wanted Iran to exhaust all the weapons it had acquired under the Shah, also Iran was winning and had almost taken Kirkuk. Iraq invaded but came out much worse for wear. The US and the Soviet supported both sides during the conflict.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Iran wasn't really attacking neutral shipping since no one was neutral. There was shadowing and using your argument about the Vincennes, I'd agree to a certain extent but most of the material is classified. Taking pot shots at your enemy is what happens from time to time. The airliner was operating on civilian frequencies in civilian airspace and was a regularly scheduled flight so I must respectfully disagree on that one. You might argue poor intelligence and I'd agree with you.

Goes back to the Germany Analogy.

If you really want to get into the gritty detail, the US didn't really care about either Iran or Iraq that much. It was about oil security, specifically Kuwait's oil. The US couldn't see Kuwait oil tankers bound for the US being lost and so we protected them. In fact we reflagged them as American in the hopes that Iran wouldn't attack a US vessel...but they did and I believe they lost two major vessels along with some worthless gunboats in the process.

Since we are discussing history, more interested in why the British invaded us in 1812, wasn't one good asskicking enough for you? Well anyway, you can take us back along with our national debt and give us your free healthcare.

They didn't. We declared war on them because of trade restrictions.