PBS Discussions

santalone · Moderator Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 50

What was your reaction to the information revealed in WIDE ANGLE's premier episode about Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons stockpile and Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda? What action, if any, should the U.S. take in response?

admin2 · Last edited by admin2 on Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:39 am; edited 1 time in total

steve1957 · Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 1437 Location: Orange County

santalone,

The solution of choice is PRE-EMPTIVE, Kill them before they have
the chance to kill us.

This PRE-EMPTIVE policy is also used in many other areas of law
enforvement. They arrested many individuals, even though they
had no evidence of any crimes, or any evidence that they would
do any terrorist actions.

But they justified it arguing that they might, possibly do a terrorist
act in the future.

Many people have been arrested in the U.S. with NO EVIDENCE, and
NO CRIME, but because the government argued THEY MIGHT do a
crime in the future they were indeed justified.

Now how can anyone argue with that?

Just arrest anyone you want because you think they might do something
in the future, and to be patriotic, lets take this policy further. Lets
divorce our spouses because they might possibly cheat on us in the
future, and why wait to punish our kids, they should get spanked and
sent to their rooms, because they might be nuaghty in the future.

One of the problems with these theories is that for one thing it is
LAWLESS, and there's good reason for it. Imagine people running
around taking actions against others because they might do something
in the future.

In fact what kind of message is this teaching our children? That it's OK
to take action against someone because they might do something in
the future.

And what if some of the other nations (with nukes) follow in the pattern
of the United States and adopt this policy for themselves and pre-empt
strike other nations around then because they MIGHT do something
in the future.

What if China or Russia or some other country decides to nuke us,
because we MIGHT do something in the future? What if North Korea
decides to launch ALL OF THEIR NUKES at and around the U.S.
because we might do something to them in the future?
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mltr79 · Joined: 30 Sep 2005 Posts: 3

hello
i was really shocked that saddam had gatheed so much arsenal
well the usa should take stcok of the arsena land either dispose it off in a safe way or use the nuclear power for the well bieng of man kind

headyrock · Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 12 Location: Boulder, CO

common ground.
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ser · Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 91

Someone wants us to think it's a hostile world and I suppose it is. In all the what if's- have you considered the fact that the U.S. Atomic Energy scientists set off at least 3 bombs in the U.S. just to test 'em?

rtpricetag · Joined: 23 Jul 2006 Posts: 93 Location: None

Trivia:

In 1979 Iraq was on Americas "Terrorist Supporting Nation" list, effectively an embargo against the sale of WMD materials to Iraq.

In 1980-2, someone removed Iraq from our "Terrorist Supportin Nation" embargo, (legalizing) the sale of WMD to Saddam Hussein.

Qusetion:

Who but a damned fool would have done such a stupid thing?

We know where they are, they are around Bagdad, South, East, and West somewhat.
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yeoman

santalone, a retraction is clearly long overdue in consideration of historical accuracy.

washingtonpost.com: Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47812-2004Jun16?language=printer

9/11 panel sees no Iraq-al-Qaida link - U.S. Security - MSNBC.comIn a report based on research and interviews by the commission staff, the panel said that bin Laden made overtures to toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ...
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5223932/

ikez78 · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Chicago

Check out www.regimeofterror.com. The conventional wisdom may not be right. There are hundreds of detainees from al Qaeda and Saddam's Baath party that have been caught working together and have admitted prewar links.

I wouldn't believe everything the MSM/Senate Intel Committee says.
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Saddam Hussein and terrorism

debbie77 · Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Posts: 56 Location: California

There is a ton of evidence that Saddam had chemical weapons, after all the US sold and delivered them as far back as the 80's, maybe even earlier.

It's in the public records that Reagan/Bush senior and many other top government officials, along with their masters (big business) brought chemical, biological weapons to Iraq and even assisted with the training needed to deliver them.

So naturally the US government has proof that those weapons existed.

September 1980. Iraq invades Iran. The beginning of the Iraq-Iran war.

February 1982. Despite objections from Congress, President Reagan removes
Iraq from its list of known terrorist countries.

December 1982. Hughes Aircraft ships 60 Defender helicopters to Iraq.

1982-1988. Defense Intelligence Agency provides detailed information for Iraq on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb damage assessments.

November 1983. A National Security Directive states that the U.S would do
"whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran.

November 1983. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro of Italy and its Branch in Atlanta begin to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the U.S. government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

October 1983. The Reagan Administration begins secretly allowing Jordan,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer United States weapons, including Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs to Iraq. These shipments violated the Arms Export Control Act.

November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical weapons against the Iranians.

December 20 1983. Donald Rumsfeld, then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support.

July 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops.

January 14 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application.

March 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security

Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

May 1986. The U.S. Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax.

May 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade
botulin poison to Iraq.

March 1987. President Reagan bows to the findings of the Tower Commission admitting the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. Oliver North uses the profits from the sale to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua.

Late 1987. The Iraqi Air Force begins using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq.

February 1988. Saddam Hussein begins the "Anfal" campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq. The Iraq regime used chemical weapons against the Kurds killing over 100,000 civilians and destroying over 1,200 Kurdish villages.

April 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of chemicals used in manufacture of mustard gas.

August 1988. Four major battles were fought from April to August 1988, in which the Iraqis massively and effectively used chemical weapons to defeat the Iranians.

Nerve gas and blister agents such as mustard gas are used.

By this time the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency is heavily involved with Saddam Hussein in battle plan assistance, intelligence gathering and post battle debriefing. In the last major battle with of the war, 65,000 Iranians are killed, many with poison gas. Use of chemical weapons in war is in violation of the Geneva accords of 1925.

August 1988. Iraq and Iran declare a cease fire. ( Cool

August 1988. Five days after the cease fire Saddam Hussein sends his planes and helicopters to northern Iraq to begin massive chemical attacks against
the Kurds. ( Cool

September 1988. U.S. Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade anthrax and botulinum to Iraq.

September 1988. Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State: "The US-Iraqi relationship is... important to our long-term political and economic objectives."

December 1988. Dow chemical sells $1.5 million in pesticides to Iraq despite knowledge that these would be used in chemical weapons.

July 25, 1990. U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad meets with Hussein to assure him that President Bush "wanted better and deeper relations." Many believe this visit was a trap set for Hussein. A month later Hussein invaded Kuwait thinking the U.S. would not respond.

August 1990. Iraq invades Kuwait. The precursor to the Gulf War.

July 1991. The Financial Times of London reveals that a Florida chemical company had produced and shipped cyanide to Iraq during the 80's using a special CIA courier. Cyanide was used extensively against the Iranians.

August 1991. Christopher Droguol of Atlanta's branch of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro is arrested for his role in supplying loans to Iraq for the purchase of military supplies. He is charged with 347 counts of felony. Droguol is found guilty, but U.S. officials plead innocent of any knowledge of his crime.

June 1992. Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline reports: "It is becoming increasingly clear that George Bush, Sr., operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into [an aggressive power]."

July 1992. "The Bush administration deliberately, not inadvertently, helped to arm Iraq by allowing U.S. technology to be shipped to Iraqi military and to Iraqi defense factories...

Throughout the course of the Bush administration, U.S. and foreign firms were granted export licenses to ship U.S. technology directly to Iraqi weapons facilities despite ample evidence showing that these factories were producing weapons." Representative Henry Gonzalez, Texas, testimony before the House.

February 1994. Senator Riegle from Michigan, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, testifies before the senate revealing large U.S. shipments of dual-use biological and chemical agents to Iraq that may have been used against U.S. troops in the Gulf War and probably was the cause of the illness known as Gulf War Syndrome. (7)

August 2002. "The use of gas [during the Iran-Iraq war] on the battle field by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern... We were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose." Colonel Walter Lang, former senior U.S. Defense Intelligence officer tells the New York Times. (4)

This chronology of the United States' sordid involvement in the arming of
Iraq can be summarized in this way: the United States used methods both
legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The U.S. supplied chemical and biological
agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians.

The U.S. supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was known that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents.

The United States blocked U.N. censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology.
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ikez78 · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Chicago

This is pure leftist tripe. Everything and anything is pure partisan ammunition to you hacks on the left. The U.S. did arm Saddam with chem weapons. Almost ALL of his conventional and non conventional weaponry came from the countries that were most opposed to the invasion of Iraq, particularly China and Russia.

Get your facts straight and stop inventing anti Republican, anti American BS to satisfy your hatred for both. Makes you look like a fool.
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Saddam Hussein and terrorism

debbie77 · Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Posts: 56 Location: California

ikez78,

I'm sure it must be painful to discover the truth and realize the people you put your faith in for so long turned out to be crooks, liars and murderers, but as painful as it may be the sooner you own up to your mistakes and mis-judgements about people the better.

It's not just the republicans that have done wickedly in their illegal war campaign, but the democratic congress went along with them and didn't stop the funding, so they're guilty too.

But regarding leftist propoganda I suggest that you read the information I posted carefully before making rediculous and untrue comments about it, because those are all PUBLIC RECORD. You cannot sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen, because it's public record, in fact some of us who have been alive more than 21 years remember some of those events very well. If your in your 50's or older you might even remember Oliver North and Ronald Reagan.
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ikez78 · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Chicago

Instead of partisan drivel how about you actually source some of your stuff instead of just posting it.

FYI - I've researched this stuff a lot and suggest your read http://ajacksonian.blogspot.com/. This guy has worked in government for years and written countless reports on this topic.

You aren't just a liar by saying the U.S. government supplied wmd to Saddam, you are a partisan and unpatriotic liar.
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Saddam Hussein and terrorism

argvetiaber · Joined: 25 Mar 2008 Posts: 1

It simce Ikez have too narrow right "party" angle, taking narrow angle on patriotism for anything Republican, that is still controlled by mentality of old German Guard of "Ikez" Eizenhower that patrioticly expelled most of non-Germans and WW2 European arena veterans from USA army and government...

It simce that his ooponent, he classify as lefty, also have a narrow angle, but not necessary lefty and sertainly just harmless listing of events, without wider angle of logical analysis of history....

Well, most of weapons were supplied to Iraq by USSR and the East, but they were just conventional, along with civilian, industrial and construction assisance for oil money, payed by Iraq,
But the Western assistance was rather incidious:
German extraction entities, Boll and others, were forging Iraq's Nuclear, Chimical and Bacteriological projects...
USA's sofistication of Iraq military capability was given to fight Iran, possibly to punish Iran for expelling CIA and for the USA hostages (by the way, Reagan-Bush postponded hostages release for promiss not to attack Iran)...

Russia also had an insideous angle, but of different nature - taking over USSR and Euro-Asia and trying to resurect a colonial empire, Hrutchev's Russia was spreading mentality and ideology of conquering of the smaller nations.
One of such results of Russian instigation was for China to conquer Tibet and other constitutional republics of China, following Russian example...
Another - to subvert Iraq from a National Assembly to a tirrany of Sadam's Arabs, to be Great like Russia by taking over Kurds, Shiates, Assirians and others...

ikez78 · Joined: 20 Dec 2006 Posts: 13 Location: Chicago

Funny how our troops never talked about Saddam's guys attacking them with American weapons. It was all Russian, Chinese, French, etc. stuff.

On the WMD stuff, I'll usually debate on almost anything but since you can't be bothered with offering any evidence I am not wasting my time with hate America garbage.
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Saddam Hussein and terrorism

CL · Joined: 18 Apr 2006 Posts: 9253

[quote="ikez78"]Funny how our troops never talked about Saddam's guys attacking them with American weapons. It was all Russian, Chinese, French, etc. stuff.

On the WMD stuff, I'll usually debate on almost anything but since you can't be bothered with offering any evidence I am not wasting my time with hate America garbage.[/quote]

The above quoted message was posted in March 2008 and the only messages posted on this forum since ReCaptcha was installed are spammers plus mine (this one).

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