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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 4:33 pm Post subject: Who Was Lying about WMD...? |
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(CNN) -- Saddam Hussein let the world think he had weapons of mass destruction to intimidate Iran and prevent the country from attacking Iraq, according to an FBI agent who interviewed the dictator after his 2003 capture.
According to a CBS report, Hussein claimed he didn't anticipate that the United States would invade Iraq over WMD, agent George Piro said on "60 Minutes," slated for Sunday broadcast.
"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," said Piro.
During the nearly seven months Piro talked to Hussein, the agent hinted to the Iraqi that he answered directly to President Bush, CBS said in a posting on its Web site.
"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 ... a four-day aerial attack," Piro said. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack..." |
Old news, really. All the debriefings Cobra II refs confirm this, by the way. The conclusion is obvious: the American govt's perceptions on the Iraqi threat -- ultimately true or false, it does not matter -- were not invented out of whole cloth by any means.
There is sufficient evidence to argue that the W. Bush Administration could pass "the reasonable person" test with respect to its decision to resort to war on the WMD charge.
CNN Reports |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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After all the reports, research, and independent studies that have come out since 2003 demonstrating that Iraq had no WMDs, and that no reasonable interpretation of raw data could lead to the conclusion that they had them, your supposition is utter nonsense.
Only a dedicated employee of Orwell's Ministry of Truth would make such an assertion with a straight face. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Manner of Speaking wrote: |
| ...Iraq had no WMDs. |
The issue you are arguing does not address the question I pose in my title. Neither is it on point with the OP.
The antiwar position is consumed with self-righteousness and has missed much nuance here. Let me disabuse your probable assumptions about my position and stipulate that I fully accept that the W. Bush Administration exaggerated the threat for complex motives and that the Iraqi War is an unjust war. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Doesn't this then become a proliferation issue? He had wmd's, but when the invasion started he didn't have them anymore. Where did they go? Did he sell them or destroy them? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Who was lying about Iraq's WMD? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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Saddam.
Last edited by thepeel on Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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Saddam was bluffing. W. Bush seized on this and exaggerated (for whatever motives; and let us set these aside for another thread). This interaction represents one of the decisive dynamics that led to war between the United States and Iraq 2003.
The "W.-Bush-is-a-liar!" discourse fails to account for such nuances and information as this article presents. |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Saddam was bluffing. W. Bush seized on this and exaggerated (for whatever motives; and let us set these aside for another thread). This interaction represents one of the decisive dynamics that led to war between the United States and Iraq 2003.
The "W.-Bush-is-a-liar!" discourse fails to account for such nuances and information as this article presents. |
Why should it? It's been proved time and time again that George W. Bush is either incapable of or unwilling to deal in nuances. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| George W. Bush is either incapable of or unwilling to deal in nuances. |
Agreed and stipulated. I agree with this without any modification. But what about my question and the information presented in the OP? |
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dogbert
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
| George W. Bush is either incapable of or unwilling to deal in nuances. |
Agreed and stipulated. I agree with this without any modification. But what about my question and the information presented in the OP? |
I agree with what you wrote:
"Saddam was bluffing. W. Bush seized on this and exaggerated (for whatever motives; and let us set these aside for another thread). This interaction represents one of the decisive dynamics that led to war between the United States and Iraq 2003. "
HOWEVER, Bush certainly acted to manufacture a belief in nonexistent evidence (i.e., the yellowcake), instead of just taking Saddam's bluff at face value which should have been sufficient. Why was that? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:25 pm Post subject: |
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| dogbert wrote: |
| Why was that? |
(a) the Administration interpreted the data, which included Saddam's bluffing game, and rewrote the intel community's assessments, as was its prerogative, in order to reflect the worst-case scenario and act on it in the interests of national-security post-9/11;
(b) the Administration wholly lied in order to pursue its special-interests agenda (namely, economic advances into Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East);
(c) some other motive or motives that do not occur to me at this moment; or
(d) some combination of the above.
The fact is, we do not know the answer. We will not know until the govt starts declassifying contemporaneous dox. Some NSC dox will never be declassified.
What we are left with are our suspicions, inclinations, and, ultimately, our worldview on how the govt operates.
However you answer your question, I merely point out that any interpretation that relies on (b) and (b) alone fails to account for such information as this article presents. And anyone who does, makes the same error W. Bush did -- that is, they would be consciously ignoring politically-inconvenient data in order to continue believing what they wanted to believe... |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject: Re: Who Was Lying about WMD...? |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Quote: |
(CNN) -- Saddam Hussein let the world think he had weapons of mass destruction to intimidate Iran and prevent the country from attacking Iraq, according to an FBI agent who interviewed the dictator after his 2003 capture.
According to a CBS report, Hussein claimed he didn't anticipate that the United States would invade Iraq over WMD, agent George Piro said on "60 Minutes," slated for Sunday broadcast.
"For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that (faking having the weapons) would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," said Piro.
During the nearly seven months Piro talked to Hussein, the agent hinted to the Iraqi that he answered directly to President Bush, CBS said in a posting on its Web site.
"He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush's intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998 ... a four-day aerial attack," Piro said. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack..." |
Old news, really. All the debriefings Cobra II refs confirm this, by the way. The conclusion is obvious: the American govt's perceptions on the Iraqi threat -- ultimately true or false, it does not matter -- were not invented out of whole cloth by any means.
There is sufficient evidence to argue that the W. Bush Administration could pass "the reasonable person" test with respect to its decision to resort to war on the WMD charge.
CNN Reports |
Yes, but all this was pointed out at the time. In the debate leading up to the war people discussed this very point. That Saddam felt he could not let his enemies know how defenseless he actually was. This is OLD news.
Edit: I guess it was discussed in Britain then, and not in the US. |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Saddam the Insane told everyone he had WMDs. he has no one but himslef to blame that he was beleived, defeated and hung. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Saddam felt he could not let his enemies know how defenseless he actually was. This is OLD news. |
Saddam was threatening the United States with chemical and biological weapons through third-party govts for months before the invasion. He was not permitted to hold such weapons in his arsenal.
This partly represented a kind of poker game. All Saddam had to do was show his cards. He could have shown them at any time. But he chose not to do so. We now know that he did not even hold a weak pair. We did not, however, know this in 2002-2003. This ensured that reasonable doubt about his capabilities and intentions remained unresolveable. And this contributed to the war.
For this part of it, Saddam had no one to blame but himself. |
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happeningthang
Joined: 26 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:34 am Post subject: |
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| So the point of rehashing this revisitation of old news is it was Saddam's fault? |
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