Ya just gotta wait of it!!

[scoutingagain 20]

For those looking for quotes, I've posted this before from the Iraq Survey Group,(appointed by the President) report that can be found on the CIA website. I'm sure it's the unclassified version.

 

" The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) has uncovered no evidence Iraq retained Scud-variant missiles, and debriefingsof Iraqi offi cials in addition to some documentation suggest that Iraq did not retain such missiles

after 1991.

 

Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.

 

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdads desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

 

In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specifi c work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential(Saddam) level."

 

THERE WERE NO WMD in Iraq at the time we chose to go to war that represented a threat to the US, it's allies, or Iraq's neighbors. Period. That is a fact as verifiable as can be had. Confirmed by both UN and US Weapons inspectors, as well as 3 years of occupation by hundreds of thousand of US troops. The main reason we went to war, or at least the one that most folks agreed upon, was simply not true. We screwed up big time.

 

How did we screw up such an intelligence blunder? I don't know. OGE is correct that many people believed Saddam had WMD, George Bush was not the only one, but they were all reading the same intelligence reports. The fact that many people got it wrong doesn't change the fact the they weren't there. Those that still believe there are WMD in Iraq apparently don't believe those that work for the President anymore than the members of Congress or the Democratic Party or the rest of us that have lost faith in yet another Presidency.

 

SA