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JaneyVee

(19,877 posts)
Wed Oct 15, 2014, 11:47 AM Oct 2014

Iraq war supporters think they were just vindicated on Saddam's WMDs. They're wrong.

A blockbuster story in today's New York Times reports that American troops in Iraq "repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein's rule." The American invasion of Iraq was premised on Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and chemical weapons are WMDs. So the story finally vindicates President George W. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq, right?

Wrong. The story, while important, is being widely misrepresented by Iraq war advocates seeking to exonerate Bush, who are also misrepresenting the Bush administration's widely-publicized rationale for invading.

The world has always known that Saddam had a chemical weapons program in the late 1970s and 1980s — American companies helped him build it — but that he shut it down in 1991. In 2002, Bush argued that the US had to invade because Saddam was actively developing new chemical, biological and nuclear WMDs, in a secret and ongoing program, with an explicitly aggressive purpose: "to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons, and diseases, and gases, and atomic weapons."

Bush was explicit in claiming that Saddam had an active weapons program: "Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons, and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon." (Bizarrely, a number of conservatives today insist that Bush never made any such claim.)

The Bush administration hit this argument repeatedly. Then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice claimed that Saddam was running a clandestine nuclear program that was only "six months from a crude nuclear device." She argued that this program was so imminent, and so clearly designed to target the United States, that a US invasion was the only option: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

The rest: http://www.vox.com/2014/10/15/6981493/iraq-wmd-saddam-chemical-weapons-new-york-times

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Iraq war supporters think they were just vindicated on Saddam's WMDs. They're wrong. (Original Post) JaneyVee Oct 2014 OP
Between the old chem weapons and the Depleted Uranium, lots of our troops are fucked. nt Bigmack Oct 2014 #1
We left behind a lot of our own dangerous compounds, didn't we? Frustratedlady Oct 2014 #2
Genocide... Bigmack Oct 2014 #4
Thank you for that information, although it is sickening to read. Frustratedlady Oct 2014 #5
"Bizarrely, a number of conservatives today insist that Bush never made any such claim." deutsey Oct 2014 #3

Frustratedlady

(16,254 posts)
2. We left behind a lot of our own dangerous compounds, didn't we?
Wed Oct 15, 2014, 11:54 AM
Oct 2014

What with all the bombs dropped and weapon stockpiles destroyed after the war, I thought birth defects and cancers were rampant. Perhaps I am wrong.

I'm sure the loyal RWrs will glom onto anything that will clear the Bush name. Good luck with that.

 

Bigmack

(8,020 posts)
4. Genocide...
Wed Oct 15, 2014, 11:59 AM
Oct 2014
http://truth-out.org/news/item/26703-iraqi-doctors-call-depleted-uranium-use-genocide

"There has also been a dramatic jump in miscarriages and premature births among Iraqi women, particularly in areas where heavy US military operations occurred, such as Fallujah during 2004, and Basra during the 1991 US war on Iraq.

It is estimated that the United States used 350 tons of DU munitions in Iraq during the 1991 war, and 1,200 tons during its 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation.

Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the first Gulf War in 1991, the country's rate of cancer cases was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the trend continuing."

Frustratedlady

(16,254 posts)
5. Thank you for that information, although it is sickening to read.
Wed Oct 15, 2014, 12:05 PM
Oct 2014

We seem to have a narrow vision when the finger is pointed at us.

It always amazes me how these people (the common citizen) meekly stands by and lets all of this happen. I think of the writings of Riverbend before the war started, as well as the few I read during and remember how many times they had to endure invasions of their home or neighborhood.

I wonder where she is by now? Anyone heard?

deutsey

(20,166 posts)
3. "Bizarrely, a number of conservatives today insist that Bush never made any such claim."
Wed Oct 15, 2014, 11:57 AM
Oct 2014

By their own admission, they're not a part of the "reality-based community."

They remind me of O'Brien from 1984 when he said:

"We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn--by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation--anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature."

I've actually had ongoing debates with conservatives who will deny saying something they said to me only a few days before. It's very weird. That's why I don't debate them much anymore.

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