1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?

Hornberger: Yes.

2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate – which just confirms that there is no real threat?

Hornberger: Yes.

3. Is it not true that those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?

Hornberger: Yes.

4. Is it not true that the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?

Hornberger: Yes. Also, former Marine and former UN Inspector Scott Ritter is openly challenging the administration's thesis that Iraq is a threat to the United States.

5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year?

Hornberger: Yes.

Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?

Hornberger: That fact doesn't support an attack on Iraq, making it easy for U.S. officials to forget it.

6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq's links to terrorism?

Hornberger: Neither the president nor Tony Blair have produced any evidence to contradict that conclusion.

7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?

Hornberger: Yes.

8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed al-Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the Kurds?

Hornberger: Yes.

9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?

Hornberger: Yes, but U.S. officials don't criticize their allies, even when they are headed by non-democratic, brutal military thugs.

10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent UN report the al-Qaeda "is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses"?

Hornberger: What better way to divert people's attention away from the chaos in Afghanistan and the failure to capture Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar (remember him? He was the leader of the Taliban and a prime suspect in the 9-11 attacks) than to attack Iraq? And you can't deny it's a brilliant political strategy to galvanize wartime "support-the-government-and-the-troops" patriotism right around election time.

11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States – and who may again attack the United States – and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?

Hornberger: Good question. Here's another one: Why was the FBI spending so much time and resources spying on bordellos in New Orleans and harassing drug users prior to 9-11 rather than pursuing the strong leads that pointed toward the 9-11 attacks?

12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world's worst suspicions about the US – and isn't this what bin Laden wanted?

Hornberger: Yes. The U.S. government's attack will engender even more hatred and anger against Americans, which will engender more attacks against Americans, which will engender more U.S. government assaults on the civil liberties of the American people. As Virginian James Madison pointed out, people who live under a regime committed to perpetual war will never be free, because with war comes armies, taxes, spending, and assaults on the rights and freedoms of the people.

13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army 1/5 the size of twelve years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country?

Hornberger: It's convenient to compare any target of the U.S. government to Hitler in order to make people emotionally negative toward the target. That's why federal officials called David Koresch Hitler before they attacked the Branch Davidians, including (innocent) children, with deadly, flammable gas at Waco. Remember that Hitler took over Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia and then had the military might to fight on two fronts against the Soviet Union, France, Britain, and the U.S. Iraq, on the other hand, has invaded no one in more than 10 years and, in fact, invaded Kuwait only after U.S. officials failed to give Saddam (their buddy and ally at that time) the red light on invading Kuwait. By the way, notice how they never refer to their targets as a "Joseph Stalin" even though Stalin was no better and possibly much worse than Hitler. The reason they don't is that Stalin was a friend and ally of Franklin Roosevelt and the U.S. government.

14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress?

Hornberger: Yes, but since the Congress abrogated its constitutional duty in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Granada, Panama, and other invasions, interventions, and wars, the president and most members of Congress believe that the declaration of war requirement has effectively been nullified, which is similar to Pakistan President Masharraf's unilaterally amending his country's Constitution to give himself more power.

Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion?

Hornberger: No. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and must be obeyed regardless of public opinion. In fact, the Bill of Rights expressly protects the people from the visisitudes of public opinion. The Consitution prohibits the president from waging war without an express declaration of war by Congress. That's why both Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt could not intervene in World Wars I and II without a congressional declaration of war.

Are presidents permitted to rely on the UN for permission to go to war?

Hornberger: No. The supreme law of the land – the law that the American people have imposed on their federal officials – is the U.S. Constitution. We the people are the ultimate sovereign in our country, not the United Nations.

15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?

Hornberger: I have not seen it, but it would not surprise me. As history has repeatedly shown, public officials in every nation consider it proper and useful to lie as a way to galvanize public support in favor of the war that they're determined to wage. Decades later, when people are finally permitted to view the files, the records inevitably reveal the falsehoods that led the people to support the wars. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which Congress enacted on the request of President Lyndon Johnson, comes to mind since it cost the lives of 60,000 men of my generation in the Vietnam War, including some of my schoolmates at Virginia Military Institute.

16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 US soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?

Hornberger: I didn't know that but it wouldn't surprise me. But when was the last time you saw high public officials worry about the welfare of American GIs? Vietnam? Somalia? VA Hospitals?

17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States?

Hornberger: It's impossible to know how many American casualties there will be, and you could be right about thousands of American casualties, given the urban fighting that will have to take place. On the other hand, American casualties could be light given the U.S. government's overwhelming military might and tremendous domestic dissatisfaction in Iraq against Saddam Hussein (many Iraqis will undoubtedly view American forces as liberators, given Hussein's brutal, dictatorial regime). From a moral standpoint, we should not only ask about American GI casualties but also Iraqi people casualties. After the Allied Powers delivered the people of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany to Stalin and the Soviet communists after World War II, those people suffered under communism for five decades, which most of us would oppose, but who's to say that they would have been better off with liberation by U.S. bombs and embargoes, especially those who would have been killed by them? I believe that despite the horrible suffering of the Eastern Europeans and East Germans, Americans were right to refrain from liberating them with bombs and embargoes. It's up to the Iraqi people to deal with the tyranny under which they suffer – it is not a legitimate function of the U.S. government to liberate them from their tyranny with an attack upon their nation.

18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a $100 billion war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there?

Hornberger: Federal spending is now out of control, which means that taxes are now out of control because the only place that government gets its money is taxation, either directly through the IRS or indirectly through the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies. My prediction is that they'll let the Fed do it, so that President Bush avoids blame for raising taxes and so that U.S. officials can blame inflation on big, bad, greedy businessmen who are "price-gouging." When you add the costs of the war and foreign policy in general, including foreign aid and bailouts to corrupt foreign governments, to the federal "charity" and pork that the members of Congress send back to their districts in an attempt to buy votes to get reelected, it doesn't portend well for the future economic well-being of the American people. After all, let's not forget how Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Empire – he made it spend itself into bankruptcy.

19. Iraq's alleged violations of UN resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of UN Resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty?

Hornberger: Yes. And since these are UN resolutions, doesn't that mean that only the UN, not a specific member of the UN, has the legal authority to enforce them?

20. Did former President Bush not cite the UN Resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?

Hornberger: I have no reason to doubt that this is true.

21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?

Hornberger: I didn't know this but nothing surprises me anymore.

22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe?

Hornberger: Absolutely, and what does it say about the U.S. government's commitment to the rule of law?

23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharraf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically-elected president?

Hornberger: The U.S. government's commitment to democracy is a sham, evidenced not only through its support of brutal non-elected dictators who follow its orders but also through its support of ousting democratically elected leaders who refuse to follow its orders, such as Chavez in Venezuela or Allende in Chile.

24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the U.S. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992 – including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?

Hornberger: I read a New York Times article on this just the other day. At the risk of modifying my statement above about not being surprised by anything anymore, I was stunned to learn that U.S. officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were supporting Iraq when it was using chemical weapons against Iranians. From a moral standpoint, how low can they go? And how hypocritical can they be?

25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein's rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran?

Hornberger: This is during the time that Saddam was a buddy of the U.S. government. I wonder why they're not just offering him money again to re-become a buddy, as they do with other dictators, such as Masharraf, the brutal army dictator who took over Pakistan in a coup and who was a strong supporter and close friends of the Taliban.

Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?

Hornberger: No, it's highly hypocritical but it's effective with respect to those who refuse to believe that their federal government has engaged in wrongdoing overseas.

26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate US policy?

Hornberger: Yes, and wasn't that the preferred pretext of the Soviet Union when it committed acts of aggression during the Cold War?

27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?

Hornberger: Good question.

28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won't have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?

Hornberger: I suggest that we form a "Suicide Brigade" for all men over 40 who support sending American GI's into foreign wars. Their mission would be to blow themselves up on enemy targets, thereby bringing the war to a quicker conclusion. They've already lived their lives anyway, and their suicides would be helping to save the lives of younger American soldiers. My prediction: Not one single "hard-charger" will volunteer, but I would oppose drafting them into "service."

29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?

Hornberger: There is no moral argument. And here's one back at you: At what point does an unprovoked attack against a weak nation that kills innocent people go from being "war" to becoming murder?

30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?

Hornberger: It doesn't, but we are now experiencing the consequences of permitting U.S. officials to ignore the Constitution for decades, especially with respect to the declaration of war requirement. Question back to you: Did you ever think you would live in a nation in which one man has the omnipotent power to send an entire nation into war on his own initiative and the omnipotent power to jail any American citizen in an Army brig for the rest of his life without the benefit of trial or habeas corpus?

31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?

Hornberger: Yes.

32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?

Hornberger: Absolutely. We are learning that our Founders were right – that an unrestrained federal government is highly dangerous to the best interests of the American people. That's the reason they required a Constitution as a condition of bringing the federal government into existence – they didn't trust unrestrained government and intended the Constitution to protect us from unrestrained government officials.

33. Is it not true that since World War II Congress has not declared war and – not coincidentally – we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?

Hornberger: Absolutely true, and such false and fake resolutions as the "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" are shams that have prematurely snuffed out the lives of tens of thousands of American GIs.

34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence services, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban?

Hornberger: Yes, but the brutal Army general who took over in a coup and who recently unilaterally amended his country's Constitution without the consent of the people or the Parliament, is now doing what Washington tells him to do, and that's the difference.

35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress?

Hornberger: Because they're afraid to take individual responsibility, both politically and morally, for their actions. This way, they can straddle this fence – if the war goes well, they can claim credit and if it goes bad, they can blame the president. It's called political and moral cowardice, a malady that unfortunately has pervaded the U.S. Congress for many, many years.

Quoting Scott Ritter? This guy has admitted taking money from the Iraqi's. Has admitted to business dealings with a close friend of Tariq Azziz. He's damaged goods.

When we examine the history of the middle east it is totally ridiculous and hypocritical. The whole region would be completely irrelevent to American policy they way that African and Asian regimes are. However, because of oil and Israel, the US is dragged into that wasteland.

A fair solution may be to remove Saddam, explain they are not 72 virgins waiting for anyone upon death, and then authorize dividend checks to all Iraqis based on the amount of oil the multinational oil companies extract from their land. This way the idiots stupid enough to reside there and have offspring will share in the wealth of their natural resources and the corrupt, filthy middle eastern monarchies can be phased out.

A few observations.

When Ritter first left Iraq, he swore that Saddam Hussien had weapons of mass destruction. We know from Iraqi defectors that Saddam is trying to acquire the rest of the componants needed to build a bomb. |Ritter is nowcontradicting everything he said and swore to earlier.

Comparing Saddams ability to retaliate to that of the USSR is totally bogus. Teh Reds had the ability to clean us off the map, (MAD) while Iraq currently does not.

Who is the Madman Here?
Bush's UN Non-Sequiturs
by Tom Gorman

President Bush spoke to the UN General Assembly on Thursday, September 12 about the supposedly urgent need to attack Iraq. The following is a list of statements made by him that are either illogical, half-truths, or outright falsehoods, with responses to each.

1. "Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation."

Kuwait had been slant-drilling the Iraqi oil field of Rumallah as well as driving down the price of oil at a time when Iraq was in desperate need of funds to rebuild its infrastructure after the Iran-Iraq War (in which Iraq was the favored state of the US). While it is arguable whether this was justification for an invasion, this provocation is significantly less specious than that cited for, say, the American invasion of Panama seven months earlier.

2. "And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources."

Satellite imagery showed no Iraqi military buildup in the border regions with Saudi Arabia in either Iraq or occupied Kuwait in September 1990, as revealed in a series of articles in the <St.Petersburg> (FL) Times in January 1991. Yet the elder President Bush fabricated this "aggression" to justify Operation Desert Shield.

3. "Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations."

Hussein was appeased by coalition forces. After the cease-fire of March 1991, Hussein asked for permission to fly air strikes against rebels in both the northern and southern no-fly zones of Iraq. The elder Bush granted Hussein's wish, even though the American President had publicly encouraged the Kurdish population of Iraq to rise up. Hussein brutally suppressed the rebellion.

4. "In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities, which the council said threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored."

Of course it goes ignored, considering Bush's father gave Hussein the green light to continue his brutal suppression of Iraq's minorities.

5. "Last year, the UN Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights and that the regime's repression is all-pervasive."

Yes, and UN organizations have also repeatedly stated the devastating effects of US-led sanctions on the people of Iraq. Should Iraq then call on the international community to attack the US?

6. "Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape."

Unfortunately, this is quite the norm in many places in the Middle East, including close American allies Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Pakistan.

7. "In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American president."

In retaliation for this attempted assassination, evidence of which was dubious at best, the Clinton Administration launched 24 cruise missiles against Baghdad, killing six civilians, including artist Laila al-Attar. By this standard, Iraq could launch cruise missiles at Washington, as their leader has been the object of several assassination attempts by the US. (They would, of course, have to get in line behind Cuba, whose leader has been the target of American assassination attempts for much longer.)

8. "United Nations' inspections also reviewed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons."

The technology for such chemical and biological weapons was, of course, first given to Hussein by the US. The "Butcher of Baghdad" joyfully used this capacity against Iran (the intended targets of the American "largesse") as well as against Iraq's Kurdish minority (a nice ancillary benefit). The details of this American support for Hussein's chemical weapons program were detailed in an August 18, 2002 front-page article in The New York Times.

9. "We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993."

Making it only the second nation in the region to be so armed (third if we count Pakistan). Israel, of course, sought to maintain its neighborhood nuclear monopoly by bombing an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, an action condemned by the US so as to show support for its new ally, Saddam Hussein.

10. "Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence?"

From Israel's 35-year-old refusal to abide by Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for an immediate end to the US client's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and citing "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" (the same rationale which compelled the Security Council to condemn the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait), "cast aside without consequence" seems to reflect the position of the American government.

11. "We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced."

Read the above as, "We want those resolutions--and only those resolutions--aimed at America's official enemies to be enforced."

12. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it--as all states are required to do by UN Security Council resolutions."

Strange words from the leader of the only nation to be condemned by the World Court for terrorism, namely the United States terrorist war against Nicaragua.

13. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkemens and others--again, as required by Security Council resolutions."

And again, standards to which US allies are not only not held but are actively supported in violating (Indonesia murdering the Timorese, Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Turkey brutally oppressing its Kurdish minority). Never mind that, as stated above, Hussein's suppression of his domestic population was encouraged and supported by the US--both before and after the Gulf War.

14. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown."

Assuming they were even so inclined, it is unlikely that the Iraqi infrastructure--destroyed by over a decade of sanctions and bombing--is capable of making any accounting for missing coalition military personnel. Accounting for the more than 200,000 civilians killed by those coalition forces is itself an impossible task.

15. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the Oil-for-Food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people."

Demanding that Iraq "accept U.N. administration of funds from" Oil-for-Food makes as much sense as demanding that a prisoner serving a life-sentence "accept" that he is incarcerated. All money from the Oil-for-Food program is kept in a UN-administered account at the Bank of Paris in New York. Roughly thirty percent of that goes to pay the UN administration costs and reparations to Kuwait. The remainder is not spent on palaces, weapons, or anything else Hussein might desire, for he never sees or controls the money.

16. "The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. They've suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it."

Indeed, but liberty from whom? From the former American client, Saddam Hussein, who falls in and out of grace of the US, or Anglo-American-led sanctions that intentionally seek to deprive the Iraqi people of the most basic necessities of life? What is it exactly that the people of Iraqi deserve? Apparently, not even the means to repair their water filtration systems to prevent children from dying by the hundreds from diarrhea.

17. "Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest. And open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder."

Except, of course, the United States, which threatened the entire world with destruction for forty years, thinking billions of people better dead than Red.

Bush's thesis seems to be simple: Iraq cannot have nuclear weapons. This seems reasonable only for the two seconds that it takes to realize that Bush is the leader of the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in anger. Hussein is not allowed even to contemplate a horrible act for which the United States remains not only unapologetic, but even proud.

Fade, I can go with some of what you say about the hypocrisy, and I agree... he should've just stuck to the facts and left out the propaganda (IE, if he gets nuclear weapons there's a chance they'll be used against us one way or another).

That's also something you should try: Just the facts, no propaganda.

Explain for those who dont know,just who is hornberger.

The Case Against Saddam
Barry Farber
Monday, Sept. 16, 2002
The escalating argument over whether or not Iraq had a hand, or even a fingerprint, on 9/11 is misguided and exasperating. It makes me feel like a tired driver listening to two children in the back seat arguing over which is colder ? Alaska or the winter!

The vastly more important question is this: Might Saddam Hussein cooperate with al-Qaeda in the future to arrange for a nuclear bomb to explode in an American city? (I don't mean a "dirty" bomb, a conventional explosive wrapped up in nuclear waste. I mean a clean atomic bomb like the ones that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)

Very rarely is the logic of those you oppose so flimsy that you're driven to question not just their assumptions but also their motives. This is one of those times.

Columnist John LeBoutillier was the first to come out straightforwardly immediately after 9/11 and accuse Saddam Hussein of complicity.

And why not? Osama bin Laden's reasons for hating America are, may we say, "gaseous": Too many Americans are Christians, too many Americans have desecrated the soil of Saudi Arabia by standing on it, too many Americans see too many women with too few clothes on in too much advertising, too many Americans support Israel.

Saddam's reasons are not gas, not liquid, but good hard solids. A mere 11 years ago, America led the world in evicting Iraq from Kuwait, with staggering loss of Iraqi life and war machinery.

Yet those who oppose American military action to oust Hussein sound curiously like the old Nixon defenders who cried "no smoking gun" on Watergate for as long as possible, and those Clinton defenders who echo that cry when it comes to Clinton's alleged pawings, rough-ups and rapes. The stance of the "hands-off-Iraq" movement, if not their words, suggests, "We're not going to acknowledge any Iraqi connection to 9/11 no matter how high the evidence piles up. Not even if we secretly believe it; not even if we knew it before you did; not even if we know more than you do about its authenticity; we'll never admit it."

And that evidence is piling up as high as the now-tumbled towers themselves. The persistent Czech reports of Mohammed Atta meeting with an Iraqi diplomat in Prague prior to 9/11. The circumstantially interesting training camp at Salman Pak in Iraq where a real jetliner sits on the ground for use in hijack training. The constant reports of al-Qaeda personnel moving in and out of Iraq.

There's a link at the bottom of NewsMax's articles on Iraq ? Saddam Hussein/Iraq ? with quite literally more articles than I had time to count, many if not most of which bristle with indications that Saddam is far from confined to a ringside seat in the war against America.

If after going through those hundreds of commentaries you still say, "Fascinating, indeed, but still no smoking gun," I'll invite you to answer this question.

Suppose we agree there is no evidence ? bull-proof and pig-tight ? that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11; DO YOU BELIEVE HE WOULD NOW SUPPLY AL-QAEDA WITH A NUCLEAR BOMB IF HE BELIEVED IT WOULD EXPLODE INSIDE AMERICA?

Incredibly, many among those who don't want military action against Hussein say no. In spite of the fact that Hussein and al-Qaeda have the identical wish for America; in spite of the fact that a nuclear bomb handed off from Iraq to al-Qaeda could neither be traced to nor blamed on Iraq; in spite of the fact that it was the Arabs themselves who coined the cliché "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

In spite of it all, the hands-off-Iraq chorus still says no.

And I nominate their reasoning as the weakest in the world regarding any important issue. Listen carefully.

"Al-Qaeda, you see, is fundamentalist Moslem and Hussein's Iraq is secular; you can see women's faces, and then some, in Iraq and get alcoholic drinks over the bar. Therefore, there's a good, reliable firewall separating Saddam from al-Qaeda. In fact, Saddam and Osama hate each other."

There are probably history professors making that claim today who would flunk any of their students who weren't aware that the Soviet Union, teamed up with the U.S. and Britain, were triumphant allies in World War II.

In other words, the world's leading practitioners of communism and capitalism can intertwine like long-lost lizards in a common cause, but somehow fundamentalist Moslems can't similarly embrace secular Moslems.

I wouldn't risk marching a baby cat across that particular rope bridge. The Islamic world stretches from North Africa all the way across the Middle East and Asia clear down to Indonesia at the shores of Australia. And there are many Moslem fundamentalist groups active in many of those Moslem countries. But I've missed any evidence that those groups view secular Moslems as enemies.

Indeed, as recently as the 1990s, fundamentalist Iran and Libya provided arms and aid to Bosnian AND Albanian Moslems ? the most secular Moslems anywhere, unless you can find a Lebanese owner of a strip joint in Dearborn, Michigan.

Those fundamentalist Moslem groups, indeed, hate secular Moslem GOVERNMENTS and they seek to overthrow them in many places. And they often attack Christians and other non-Moslems. And Moslem leaders have on occasion committed mass murder against Moslems of a different sort who they feel threaten their control. (There quickly comes to mind Saddam Hussein versus his own Shiites and the late Syrian leader Hafez Assad against the Moslems in the village of Hama.)

But where do fundamentalist Moslems kill secular Moslems merely because they're not fundamentalist? Or vice-versa?

C'mon, fellows. Are you quite convinced Saddam is sufficiently religiously alienated from Osama bin Laden to rule out any cooperation ? especially cooperation against the United States and MOST especially if such cooperation could lead to the vaporization of one or more entire American cities?

Is there really a firewall separating Saddam from bin Laden? Or is it more like a Venetian blind?

Perhaps my skepticism of the "firewall" theory owes its genesis to a story my mother-in-law used to enjoy telling.

She was a 5-year-old girl when the very first car came to her hometown of Orebro in south central Sweden. Think about that! The initial sighting of a "horseless carriage" was not all that far short of a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

She looked, and then turned around and ran a few blocks away to the home of a professor who was a good friend of the family. She banged on the door and roused the professor from somewhere deep in study and thought.

"Come quickly!" she shouted. "There's a carriage on the square that doesn't need a horse. It moves by itself. You've got to come see it. It's called an 'automobile'."

"That's preposterous," said the learned man. "That's impossible.

"You see, Ingrid," continued the professor, "'auto' is Greek, and 'mobile' is Latin." And with that, he closed the door and resumed his studies.

The automobiles, however, continued to arrive in endless profusion.

Point two is stupid.

We will wait till they can nuke us before we do anything to stop them????

We attack him before he uses them{and he always uses them**.

Saddam Hussein never gave up his hope of turning Iraq into a nuclear power. After the Osirak
attack, he rebuilt, redoubled his efforts, and dispersed his facilities. Those who have followed
Saddam's progress believe that no single strike today would eradicate his nuclear program. I
talked about this prospect last fall with August Hanning, the chief of the B.N.D., the German
intelligence agency, in Berlin. We met in the new glass-and-steel Chancellery, overlooking the
renovated Reichstag. German industry is well represented in the ranks of foreign companies that
have aided Saddam's nonconventional-weapons programs, and the German government has been
publicly regretful. Hanning told me that his agency had taken the lead in exposing the companies
that helped Iraq build a poison-gas factory at Samarra. The Germans also feel, for the most
obvious reasons, a special responsibility to Israel's security, and this, too, motivates their
desire to expose Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. Hanning is tall, thin, and almost
translucently white. He is sparing with words, but he does not equivocate. "It is our estimate
that Iraq will have an atomic bomb in three years," he said.So the head of German intelligence
believes Saddam will - not "might" but "will " - have a nuclear capacity in three years. And he
also believes no single missile-strike will remove it. Why hasn't anyone called Schroder on this?


http://www.andrewsullivan.com/
thursday 9-12

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/cd/Qus-attacks-iraq-atta.RZiE_CS8.html

MILAN, Sept 8 (AFP) - Mohammed Atta consulted Saddam Hussein prior to leading the suicide
attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, according to Richard Perle, an advisor to the
US defense secretary.

"Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and we
are sure he wasn't just there for a holiday," Perle told Italy's business daily "Il Sole 24 Ore".


"The meeting is one of the motives for an American attack on Iraq," added Perle, who is chairman
of the Defense Policy Board and consultant to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a leading
advocate of an attack on Iraq.

"The main objective of the American administration is to avoid weapons of mass destruction
falling into the wrong hands," said Perle.

Prague officials reconfirmed the story this past June. They said they had expelled the Iraqi agent in question in April of last year for engaging in spying and suspected terrorist activities. After U.S. intelligence officials tried to discredit the story, the Prague Post reported that the Czech envoy to the UN confirmed that the meeting had taken place. Czech officials were offended when Newsweek implied that they had retracted the earlier report. Newsweek hadn?t bothered to confirm its story with them.
Recently the Los Angles Times quoted a senior Bush administration official as saying that the White House thinks the initial reports were accurate. It doesn?t identify the source, but in the past "senior administration official" has usually meant the President?s National Security Advisor, in this case Condoleeza Rice. The L.A. Times also reported that the FBI has been examining Mohammed Atta?s links to Iraq with "renewed vigor" recently. The Czechs think that the Washington officials who tried to discredit the story were trying to dissuade President Bush from blaming Iraq for the nine/eleven tragedy.

The CIA missed 9-11 also.

aturday, Sept. 14, 2002 11:46 p.m. EDT
Iraqi Nuke Chief: Saddam Has Enough Uranium for 3 Bombs

The one-time head of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program said Saturday that the Iraqi
dictator now possesses enough uranium to construct three workable nuclear bombs.

"[Iraq] already has a stockpile [of uranium], something like ten tons, and some of it's likely
enriched uranium," Dr. Khidir Hamza told Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera.

"The stockpile itself is already enough for three nuclear weapons," Dr. Hamza contended.

"What I'm afraid of is the production of the fissile material in Iraq is of more danger than just
Iraq getting enough fissile material for one or two bombs, because then Iraq would be a major
nuclear power," explained the former Iraqi nuke scientist, who defected to the U.S. in 1994.

Although the nuclear weapons expert said he still believed Saddam was still two years away from
perfecting a nuclear bomb, others say the capacity to produce enriched uranium could considerably
shrink that time frame.

"We certainly believe he has the ability to put together a nuclear weapon very quickly, in a
matter of months," the International Institute of Strategic Studies' John Chipman told the BBC
earlier this week.

Chipman is the author of the highly respected think tank's report on Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program.

The British weapons expert said that in order for Saddam to perfect the bomb that soon he would
have to "obtain fissile material from abroad, steal it or buy it in some way," since he didn't
think the Iraqi madman had developed the capacity to produce enriched uranium.

But if Dr. Hamza's report to Fox News is accurate, Saddam "likely" already has the key nuclear
component.

Iraq: Beyond the Crisis du Jour
David A. Kay
March 1, 1998
Testimony Delivered by David A. Kay[1] before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

For more than a decade the international community has sought unsuccessfully a long-term solution
to an Iraq led by Saddam and armed with WMD. Indeed the start of any sensible long-term approach
to Iraq is to understand why the United Nations arms inspections slid into irrelevance and more
than 3 years ago came to and end.

UNSCOM?s efforts to eliminate Saddam?s WMD capacity, which effectively ended in 1998 when the
inspectors left Iraq, were based on four assumptions, all of which turned out to be false. These
were:

· Saddam?s rule would not survive the disasters suffered by Iraq as a result of its invasion of
Kuwait;

· Iraq?s WMD capabilities were not extensive nor significantly indigenous;

· A post-Saddam Iraq would declare to UNSCOM all of Iraq?s WMD capabilities;

· UNSCOM would be able to "destroy, remove or render harmless? Iraq?s WMD capabilities leaving an
Iraq that would not have WMD capability as an enduring legacy.

The reasoning of US Administration officials at the end of the Gulf War that no regime could
survive a disaster as compelling as Iraq?s defeat in the Gulf War was no doubt true for a
democratic system. Saddam?s endurance, however, stands as yet another stark reminder of the
dangers of attempting to understand the world on the basis solely of our own values and
experience. Saddam?s Iraq was and is a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship that can survive as
long as it maintains coercive power over its citizens. Once Saddam?s survival became a fact
then all hope of his voluntarily yielding up the very weapons that allow him to hope to dominate
the region was lost.

What is much less well understood is the impact that the discovery of the gigantic scope and
indigenous nature of Saddam?s weapons program had on the prospects of being able to eliminate
this program by inspection alone. We now know that the Iraqi efforts to build an arsenal of
weapons of mass destruction:

? Spanned more than a decade;

? Cost more than $20 Billion;

? Involved more than 40,000 Iraqis and succeed in mastering all the technical and most of the
productions steps necessary to acquire a devil?s armory of nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons as well as the missiles necessary to deliver them over vast distances.


The capability to produce weapons of mass destruction arising from a national program on the
scale of that of Iraq?s cannot be eliminated by simply destroying "weapons? facilities. And would
should credit the UN inspection process with destroying a substantial nuclear weapons
establishment in Iraq that was largely unidentified at the time of the Gulf War and that had
survived unscathed the coalition bombing campaign. The weapons secrets are now Iraqi secrets well
understood by Iraq?s technical elite, and the production capabilities necessary to turn these
"secrets? into weapons are part and parcel of the domestic infrastructure of Iraq which will
survive even the most draconian of sanctions regimes. Simply put, Iraq is not Libya, but very
much like post-Versailles Germany in terms of its ability to maintain a weapons capability in the
teeth of international inspections. As long as a government remains in Baghdad committed to
acquiring WMD, then once that capability can be expected to become quickly a reality when
sanctions are eased, or ended.

To compress a lot of bitter history: In December 1998, the United States conducted military
attacks against Iraq after UNSCOM, reported that it could not achieve its mandated disarmament
and monitoring tasks with the limited access and cooperation Iraq allowed. All UNSCOM activities
in Iraq then cease. UNSCOM, the first UN effort to eliminate Iraq?s WMD program passed out of
existence and was replaced by the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) through the adoption of Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December
1999. UNMOVIC was to be more acceptable to Iraq, led by a Commissioner that Iraq and their
sympathizers on the Security Council found more acceptable. Even under this more favorable
inspection regime, however, Iraq has continued to refuse to admit UN inspectors.


In the nuclear area, the Committee has posed a set of critical questions:

How has the Iraqi nuclear changed from the Persian Gulf War and UNSCOM inspections to today? What
impact has UN sanctions had on the weapon program? How has international opinion of the Iraqi
nuclear threat changed during this time period?

The point of beginning to think about how one would describe Iraq?s nuclear program today is to
recognize the serious impediments that we all face in trying to understand that program. On-site
inspections in Iraq were never easy and by 1995-96 Iraq had put in place a major deception
effort designed to mislead inspections as to the intent, scope and continuing activities in the
nuclear area. When UNSCOM inspections managed, as they often did, to penetrate this web of
deceptions, Iraq resorted to physical denial of access and threats of violence to neck down the
scope of inspections. By 1997 effective, sustained inspections in Iraq had come to an end. The
final ending of all inspections in 1998 was in fact an anti-climax. Lacking on-site inspections,
with unfettered access to all of Iraq, for over three years has meant that it is impossible to
be sure where their nuclear program stands today. It also means that even if inspections were to
begin tomorrow it would be impossible to answer this question without a very long, sustained
period of unfettered inspections. The baseline of Iraq?s nuclear program is broken and it will be
impossible to quickly re-establish that baseline.

Based on Iraq?s activities before 1998 and sketchy insights available from defectors and exposure
of continued Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear related capabilities, one can say a few things
with confidence:

· Iraq?s pre-war nuclear accomplishments have ensured that if can acquire fissionable nuclear
material from any outside source it will be able to fabricate at least a crude, improvised
nuclear device in months not years. For Iraq, just like every other aspirant to nuclear status,
the key obstacle is the acquisition of fissile material. Iraq had a viable weapon design and the
capacity to produce all the elements of a weapon. If Iraq has to rely on its own efforts to
produce nuclear material then one can do little better than the public estimate by German
intelligence authorities last year in which, citing major Iraqi procurement efforts that the
Germans had knowledge of, that Iraq could, in the worst case, have a nuclear weapon in 3-6 years.


· Iraq will have dispersed and shielded with elaborate deception arrangements its nuclear
activities.

· Iraq understands the methods used by inspectors and will be ready to frustrate all efforts to
get close to activities they are determined to shield.

· Iraq has not abandoned its efforts to acquire WMD. A recent defector has stated that an
explicit order to reconstitute the nuclear teams was promulgated in August 1998; at the time
Iraq ceased cooperation with UN-led inspections. There should be no doubt that Iraq, under
Saddam, continues to seek nuclear weapons capability and that given the time it will devote the
resources and technical manpower necessary to reach that goal.

· Economic sanctions know longer significantly restrict the financial resources that Iraq can
devote to WMD programs and over the last five years have been of declining value in restricting
the flow of goods and technology.


The attitude of states in the region and even many of our European allies toward Iraq?s WMD
program is harder to understand. By 1996 the real aim of the inspections, the elimination of
Iraq?s WMD weapons and production capacity and the establishment of a long-term monitoring
process began to slide away in the face of resolute Iraqi defiance and the desire of the Russians
and the French for short-term economic gain. We should also credit a successful Iraqi propaganda
campaign that has gone largely unanswered and has convinced many in the Gulf and in our own
country that the US is responsible for keeping on economic sanctions that have devastated Iraq
women and children.

Major states in the region, certainly including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are no longer
willing to let an automatic anti-Saddam reflex define their policy in the Gulf. Even states, such
as Kuwait and Bahrain, which are much more dependent upon the US for their security, are
resisting US leadership when it threatens military confrontation. Equally important, Iran is no
longer the marginalized state that it was in 1990-91 and has learned to skillfully play each
crisis to benefit its long-term goal of removing US influence from the Gulf.

We are left with "allies? that lack sufficient military power to stand up to a rearmed Iraq, and
that are increasingly unwilling to provide the US with the political support and operational
bases that would allow the US to deal with Iraq even in its present weakened state. This same
splintering of alliance ties can be seen in the non-regional allies that were a key part of Gulf
coalition structure. The French are no longer willing partners, and the Russians can no longer
be coerced or bribed into silent cooperation. If there were ever a psychological campaign that
either was not fought or misfired, it has been the US effort to make the states of the Gulf and
our European and Asian allies understand how much more dangerous the future is about to become
as Iraq rebuilds its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, the Iranians further accelerate
their own efforts and the rest of the region scrambles for political and military protection.

What choices are we left with? Few and mostly bad is the simple answer. The easy nostrums ?
support the opposition, containment as we did with the Soviets, or the Secretary General?s 1998
statement "I can do business with Saddam? ? seem expensive, risky and, at best, only partial
answers.

The re-introduction of UN inspectors, now called UNMOVIC not UNSCOM, into Iraq may well result
in constraining Iraq?s WMD ambitions, but freeing them of all restraint. UNMOVIC is a product of
a successful effort to remove UNSCOM from Iraq and replace it with an inspection regime more
acceptable to Iraq. The Iraqi complaints concerning UNSCOM related to its insistence on
unrestricted access to anything in Iraq it deemed relevant to determining the scope of Iraq?s WMD
program and an equal insistence that they would not acceptable any time limit on how long it
might take to accomplish this objective. If UNMOVIC were to compromise on either of these, we
might end up with Iraq begin declared free of WMD, when if fact all that would be certain is that
UNMOVIC could not find any evidence of WMD.

The best hope of the opposition was in the chaos at the end of the Gulf War. This opportunity,
however, was lost when the US decided to stand aside and let Saddam freely slaughter many brave
Iraqis. In the intervening years US policy toward the opposition has grown to resemble nothing
so much as the mating ritual of the female Back Widow ? promising but quickly lethal to the
male. I do not believe that it is true that supporting forces of democratic change is something
that Americans are genetically unable to do. It is clear, however, that we generally have been
so inept at it that it is likely to deplete the gene pool of promising opponents to tyrants
before we are successful.

Containment has a nice ring and the virtue of a clear success in the fall of the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, one can only despair that those who urge containment of Saddam as an
appropriate policy have not examined the preconditions of the Cold War case to see if they
exist in the Gulf. The US maintained for 40 years more than a million troops in Europe as part
of its effort to contain the Soviets and invested vast resources in the social, political and
economic reconstruction of Europe into a bastion of democratic values. In the Gulf there is no
simple overriding fear of Saddam that will dominate all politics the way the Soviet threat did.
For example, the Iranians who have every reason to fear the Iraqis will not see a US presence
that contains Saddam as serving their interest. Many holders of traditional tribal societal and
fundamentalist religious values worry more about the threat of democratic and modern influences
that flow from US presence than they will the threat from Iraq. Some of the states in the region
are more fearful of a rapid democratic modernization of their societies than they are of Saddam.



Iraq is of a class of problems where all the easy answers seem to have been in the past and all
the near terms options are not answers. But that is the future in the Middle East. If it is of
any comfort, we should all acknowledge there were never any easy answers in the past. Unless we
take immediate steps to address the issue of obtaining fundamental political change in Iraq, we
will soon again face a rearmed and embolden Saddam.


David A. Kay led for the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNSCOM, three arms inspection
missions as chief nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq during 1991-92. Now a Senior Corporate vice
president with San Diego-headquartered Science Applications International Corp., he is based in
McLean, Va The views expressed here are entirely his own and do not represent the views of SAIC.

point 4 is missleadding if not flat out a lie.

The UN's chief weapons inspector said yesterday that until inspectors return to Iraq, the world body has no firm evidence - including any activity spotted on aerial photographs - that the country is trying to rebuild weapons of mass destruction.

Earlier, after presenting his latest report to the UN Security Council, he had told reporters that hints that Iraq is rebuilding at several sites are ''not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction.''

But Blix, the executive chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, said key, troubling questions remain unanswered about Iraq's weapons programs, such as whether entire stockpiles of anthrax have been destroyed, as the country had claimed.

Such questions could be answered within a year, if Iraq allowed inspectors to return and cooperated with their work, he said.

Iraq has continued to allow annual inspections of one warehouse in a Baghdad suburb, part of the
Tawaitha nuclear research center, by a different team of the atomic agency. In their last visit,
in January, the inspectors did not detect any illegal weapons activity there.

But Iraq has not been reporting to the United Nations its "dual-use" imports ? substances that
might be used for weapons production as well as nuclear fuel ? as it is required to do, according
to a report released today by Hans Blix, the head of the biological and chemical weapons team.




They said they could not verify or denie the presents of nukes but confirmed the facilities for them are being rebuilt.And they probably have other weapons.

Monday, Sept. 9, 2002 9:04 a.m. EDT

Think Tank: Iraq Could Have Nukes in Months

A leading British expert on Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program warned Monday that Iraq
could be just months away from building a workable nuclear bomb.

"We certainly believe he has the ability to put together a nuclear weapon very quickly, in a
matter of months," the International Institute of Strategic Studies' John Chipman told the BBC.

Chipman is the author of the highly respected think tank's report on Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program.

The British weapons expert said that in order for Saddam to perfect the bomb that soon he would
have to "obtain fissile material from abroad, steal it or buy it in some way," since the Iraqi
madman doesn't now have the key nuclear component, enriched uranium - as far as anyone knows.

But according to the IISS scientist, the Iraqis are developing machines to make nuclear material
for weapons, the Associated Press reported.

Chipman's assessment echoes the account of Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr. Khidir Hamza, who ran
Saddam's nuke program until he defected to the U.S. in 1994.

As far back as November of 1990, Dr. Hamza's Atomic Energy Department had nearly completed a
nuclear device. But it was the size of a refrigerator - far too big to fit into a missile
warhead, he told U.S. News & World Report last December.

Iraq had been able to extract enough of the key nuclear ingredient enriched uranium, 18
kilograms, from its Osiraq nuclear reactor, the facility bombed into oblivion by the Isaelis in
1981, he told the magazine.

But two things stopped Saddam from going nuclear twelve years ago: Fears of discovery by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, which would have halted efforts to obtain any more enriched
uranium, leaving Iraq with just one oversize bomb.

And the Gulf War, which, Hamza told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity in February,
derailed Saddam's nuke quest - if only temporarily.

Another factor, Hamza said, was the reluctance on the part of Saddam's nuke team to turn over the
terrible technology to their madman-boss, whom they knew would put it to evil uses.

"We [scientists] dragged our feet," he told radio host. "We really had enough material to make
the bomb then. We delivered it now back to the French but we [told Saddam] that we could not
extract enough uranium to put in a nuclear core."

"Actually, everybody [dragged their feet]," Hamza added, "including the chemists who were in the
process of extracting the uranium from the French bureau. Nobody wanted to give Saddam a bomb
because we know he would use it recklessly and finish Iraq with it."

The top Iraqi nuke scientist told Hannity that, based on what he witnessed, Hussein is likely now
working on "Hiroshima size" weapons of "12 to 20 kilotons."

But Dr. Hamza cautioned, "There was some enhancement to the bomb that could raise it to 40
kilotons. So you are looking at [a] realistic nuclear weapons stockpile equivalent to that of,
say, at least India and Pakistan - and if it continues, probably larger."

IRAQ could produce nuclear weapons within months using pirated German equipment and uranium
smuggled from Brazil, according to a dissident Iraqi nuclear scientist.

The revelations painting an alarming picture of President Saddam Hussein?s nuclear capabilities
came as the White House made its strongest link yet between Saddam and al-Qaeda, and demanded a
United Nations resolution as soon as this week.

Dr Khidir Hamza, who was science adviser to the Atomic Energy Establishment and later helped to
start and direct Iraq?s nuclear bomb programme before he defected in 1994, claims in an
interview with The Times today that Saddam could be in a position to make three nuclear weapons
within the next few months, if he has not already done so.

Dr Hamza gave warning that UN inspectors would be useless because even if they were given
?unfettered access? they would find it far more difficult than before to detect the nuclear
assembly line. ?The beauty of the present system is that the units are each very small and in
the four years since the inspectors left they will have been concealed underground or in
basements or buildings that outwardly seem normal,? Dr Hamza said.

Dr Hamza gave evidence before Senator Joe Biden?s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on
Iraq in Washington last August but it was only after the recent International Institute for
Strategic Studies report on the threat from Saddam that he became aware of the West?s imperfect
understanding of the urgency of the situation.

Dr Hamza?s new estimation of the speed with which a nuclear bomb could be produced is centred on
the number of pirated centrifuges that Baghdad has been able to produce and the rapidity with
which the re-processing programme is being undertaken. The scientist?s intelligence suggests a
more immediate threat than reported last week by the IISS, which concluded that Iraq could make a
bomb only if it smuggled in the necessary uranium or radioactive material.

According to Dr Hamza, that material is already inside Iraq and is currently being processed to
weapons grade. He said that Iraq was using a centrifuge method to get a bomb which is easier and
quicker than other methods. ?Unless he?s stopped soon, Saddam will have set up a whole nuclear
bomb industry, not just have made a couple of bombs,? Dr Hamza said.

Dr Hamza gave warning that UN inspectors would be useless because even if they were given ?unfettered access? they would find it far more difficult than before to detect the nuclear assembly line. ?The beauty of the present system is that the units are each very small and in the four years since the inspectors left they will have been concealed underground or in basements or buildings that outwardly seem normal,? Dr Hamza said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-417076,00.html

5 is to stupid to beleive.The payments to palastinian suicide bombers families is enoug to proove that a load.

I have nomore time for the rest of this propaganda sheet.

Secular Muslims? That's a nice oxymoron.

Originally posted by FaDeThEBuTcHeR
Bush's thesis seems to be simple: Iraq cannot have nuclear weapons. This seems reasonable only for the two seconds that it takes to realize that Bush is the leader of the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in anger. Hussein is not allowed even to contemplate a horrible act for which the United States remains not only unapologetic, but even proud.

Is this your own quote? I would like to use it as a signature on some other forums, although it is a bit long.

Originally posted by Lorenzo


Is this your own quote? I would like to use it as a signature on some other forums, although it is a bit long.

Why the hell would you want to make yourself look silly and quote that garbage? Used in Anger? Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of millitary history would know better. Why should we apologize to the japs for saving our own ass? Maybe we should apologize for rebuilding their nation and bringing their 12 century, depraved culture into the modern world too? Useless garbage, and if you quote it in a sig you'll look like a complete moron, IMO.

Originally posted by 86Dude


Why the hell would you want to make yourself look silly and quote that garbage? Used in Anger? Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of millitary history would know better. Why should we apologize to the japs for saving our own ass? Maybe we should apologize for rebuilding their nation and bringing their 12 century, depraved culture into the modern world too? Useless garbage, and if you quote it in a sig you'll look like a complete moron, IMO.

Amen to that.
Im sure they both would've preferred Americans dying in a land invasion of Japan.:rolleyes:

Then there is this bit,which make sthe use of the quote and those that like it seem so blind to history and reality:

Hiroshima and Baghdad
By Lowell Ponte
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 7, 2002

AS JAPAN REMEMBERED HIROSHIMA on the August 6 anniversary of its 1945 meltdown beneath the mushroom cloud of an American atomic bomb, the news that this week shook Japan caused scarcely a ripple in the West.

Documents have just been returned to Japan by the widow of one of its World War II nuclear scientists, Kazuo Kuroda, who fled with them to the United States in 1945 and later became a professor at the University of Arkansas.

As the Red Army closed in on Japan’s secret nuclear research facilities in occupied Korea, the military leadership in Tokyo ordered all nuclear weapon plans and other evidence destroyed. But as Britain’s The Independent reported Monday based on a story in the Japanese liberal newspaper Asahi Shimbun, fellow scientists from Japan’s Institute of Physical and Chemical Research "decided to save at least part of the plans by giving them to Mr. Kuroda," who kept the documents secret until he died in April 2001.

What these diagrams reveal, as some historians had long speculated, is that Japan may have been within days of testing its own atomic bomb.

My friend and fellow radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock, while visiting the peace memorial at Hiroshima, met an elderly Japanese veteran of the war. They agreed that this bomb had been terrifying and terrible.

But if you had developed an atom bomb before we did, Hedgecock at last asked him, would you have used it on us? Replied the elderly warrior matter-of-factly, with little emotion, "Of course we would."

"Every day Saddam [Hussein] remains in power [in Iraq] with chemical weapons, biological weapons, and the development of nuclear weapons is a day of danger for the United States," said Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, last weekend on "Fox News Sunday."

How close is Saddam Hussein to obtaining one or more nuclear weapons? Hussein’s former weapons chief last week told Senator Biden’s committee that the Iraqi dictator has developed the capability to produce at least three such weapons by 2005. (Thank God Israel preemptively destroyed the French-made Osirak reactor near Baghdad in 1980 before it became operational, or we would have faced an atom-armed Saddam during the Gulf War more than a decade ago.)

And as with Japan during World War II, Saddam may be closer to possessing nuclear weapons than we know, either through foreign technological help or black market purchase. This wild card possibility could come to pass at any moment.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, this week joined Senator Biden in rebuffing Saddam Hussein’s invitation to members of Congress to visit and inspect Iraqi facilities. This, said Senator Daschle, "seems to be yet another attempt by the Iraqi leadership to deflect attention from their unwillingness to fulfill a commitment they’ve already made to the international community."

Yet in force, too, is Public Law 102-1, enacted in early 1991. This law, wrote former Justice Department lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey in the July 28 Wall Street Journal, authorizes the President "to use the ‘United States Armed Forces’ to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iraq…‘to restore international peace and security in the area.’" This also gives President Bush the authority to act without additional Congressional approval.

The threat from Iraq includes not only incipient nukes but actual chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Last weekend The Times of London reported evidence that Saddam Hussein was not only "developing a range of biological agents that can be ‘delivered’ by an aerosol system," but also that Iraq is recruiting Palestinian terrorists to serve as delivery systems for such weapons.

Biological warfare of a sort is already underway against Israel. "Israeli doctors have learned that many of the suicide bombers are infected with diseases ranging from hepatitis to HIV," writes Michael Ledeen at National Review Online. "When they blow themselves up, there is danger of blood exchange, or of flesh projectiles penetrating the bodies of their victims."

I would add to this some questions. Could this mean that many suicide bombers believe that they have already received a "death sentence" from AIDS? Could it be that some have deliberately been infected by sexual or other contact - or been falsely told they were infected - as a means of bomber recruitment? Have groups such as Hamas cynically targeted homosexual Palestinians for recruitment both because they are vulnerable and, to fanatical Muslims, sinful? Is Saddam Hussein paying $25,000 apiece to the families of HIV-infected bombers as a way to use not only explosives but also biological warfare against Israel - and perhaps also against America and Americans, five of whom died days ago in the Hebrew University bombing in Jerusalem?"

The only smoking gun the umbrella bunch will accept is in the form of a mushroom cloud in an American state.
Better yours than mine buster.

The umbrella crowed need to wake up.

ROFL Frontpagemag

Wow!What an intelectual respons that was.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2170881.stm

instead of degradding the source,check out the facts you idiot.
http://www.sinequanon.********.com/
monday august fith archive.

the guardian and any number of other leftist sources or rights all reported on it.

So try adressing the facts instead of trying to demonise the source.
:rolleyes:

Gee, this Hornberger guys seems to say yes a whole lot. Is there anything he has his own opinion about?

Lets try to keep it civil fellas.

sorruy Butcher.

I should not have called you an idiot.

It bafles me that peopele will only beleive what is either in right wing or leftwing sources,and all others are to be luaghed at.

Originally posted by 86Dude


Why the hell would you want to make yourself look silly and quote that garbage? Used in Anger? Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of millitary history would know better. Why should we apologize to the japs for saving our own ass? Maybe we should apologize for rebuilding their nation and bringing their 12 century, depraved culture into the modern world too? Useless garbage, and if you quote it in a sig you'll look like a complete moron, IMO.

Was my post even for you? No! So why don't you have yourself a big cup of STFU.

But since you want to perpetuate the American double-standard perspective, let me ask you this: why is it that when the Japanese attacked our naval fleet it's called a heinous act and is now known as A Day of Infamy, Taliban operatives crash planes into civilian filled buildings then they are cowards and despicable, but when we the United States double nuke two cities with old men, women, and CHILDREN it's totally justifiable and something to be proud of? Now Bush is threatening war against a country that hasn't done jack**** to us AND has already agreed to abide by UN resolutions (not the new, pulled out of thin air resolutions but the ones that were previously agreed to) and this is called acting in self-defense and absolutely necessary. Puhleeeze.....I smell bull****.

Not that you'd probably believe me but I am not anti-USA. I'm actually proud to be an American. It's just the hypocrisy of you people that I find disgusting.

But since you want to perpetuate the American double-standard perspective, let me ask you this: why is it that when the Japanese attacked our naval fleet it's called a heinous act and is now known as A Day of Infamy, Taliban operatives crash planes into civilian filled buildings then they are cowards and despicable, but when we the United States double nuke two cities with old men, women, and CHILDREN it's totally justifiable and something to be proud of?


I'll tell you why.

Nuking the Japs SAVED thousands, if not tens of thousands AMERICAN lives. That would've been the result had we done a land invasion. A land invasion, or Nuke was the only way the Japs were going to surrender.
It ended the war, thank god.
We were attacked by the Japs and by the Islamo fascists. We didnt ask for either of these wars, but since they invited us we are morally obligated to do what it takes to win and do it in a manner that preserves AMERICAN lives.
We have a right to defend ourselves, and our way of life and in my opinion, using any and all means to save AMERICAN lives.
Im sorry you dont see it that way.

Since that time we have made painstaking efforts NOT to kill innocent civilians and we have accomplished that better than anyone else. But the japs were teaching their people to defend and fight with swords if there was a land invasion....the people blindly followed their leaders and surrender wasnt an option.
Knowing all of this we had a choice, Nuke em and end the war or land invasion with huge American casualties and another drawn out battle.
We did the right thing.

Now Bush is threatening war against a country that hasn't done jack**** to us AND has already agreed to abide by UN resolutions (not the new, pulled out of thin air resolutions but the ones that were previously agreed to) and this is called acting in self-defense and absolutely necessary.

This new agreement is a sham my friend. According to Saddams latest agreement we are NOT allowed access anytime, anywhere.
In fact, we are only allowed to investigate military sites, no civilian sites. Well, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out where he's going to hide his stuff now does it?

Powerboss,
that is a cool Captain America av. I don't recognize the artist though. I've been out of the Marvel loop for a while now; mostly read DC, but am loving Marvel's MAX series (e.g. Alias, Cage, etc.).

Oh and about the previous posts, we will have to agree to disagree. There might be a 1000 and 1 ways in which we could argue with each other about it, but something tells me it won't make a lick of difference to either of us.

Thanks, a friend found it for me so I have no idea where it actually came from.



Oh and about the previous posts, we will have to agree to disagree.

Thats cool.
I have been on the fence about Iraq for a long time....Im still not 100% certain about it, I will admit I lean towards it but I have reservations.
I am awaiting Tony Blairs "indisputalbe" docier on the links between Iraq and Al Qeada.

so who believes this to be true? :

I would think anyone could see the defference between a sfneak attack like Pearl Harbor (at least it was a military target), the WTC, (non military) and Hiroshima. We were at war, and the nuke was the quickest safest way to end it. The good guys won and we helped rebuild Japan.

As to IRaq, they lost the last war and are not abiding by the surrender terms. We know they possess WOMD, why wait until they supply a terrorist group with these or possible use them in an attack on Israel, which will probably result in Nukes being tossed. We are the worlds superpower, we believe in peace, have proved it many times, we some times have to fight for it though.

Why did we fight the last war if we didn't intend to accomplish anything?

Was my post even for you? No! So why don't you have yourself a big cup of STFU.

If you don't want it debated, don't post it.

But since you want to perpetuate the American double-standard perspective, let me ask you this: why is it that when the Japanese attacked our naval fleet it's called a heinous act and is now known as A Day of Infamy, Taliban operatives crash planes into civilian filled buildings then they are cowards and despicable, but when we the United States double nuke two cities with old men, women, and CHILDREN

Actually, they were Al Quaeda operatives not Taliban. Cowards? No. Despicable? Yes.

Truman wanted a complete millitary target, and a minimum of civilian casualties. Truth be told, such a target didn't really exist, and better Hiroshima than Tokyo or Kyoto. First and foremost he wanted to save American lives, and that is the bottom line, either us or them. At least some portion of the civilian population was doomed anyway. Had we simply continued to contain them, many would have eventually starved, and suffered. Had we invaded, a bunch of civilians would have died defending it, and they were certainly prepared to do so. B-29's would have continued to drop incindiary bombs on Tokyo and Soviet intervention did not, necessarily, guarantee jap capitulation.

No rational human being is proud of nuking civilians, however, by judging the act in the context of those times, it is more easily understandable. It is, however, pathetic that some people have to continually use this 57 year old act as ammunition for present day anti-american rhetoric.

Not that you'd probably believe me but I am not anti-USA. I'm actually proud to be an American.

Nobody is questioning your allegiance or nationality here, at least not I.

Just to let you know, I e-mailed like 70 people in my address book telling them all to visit this thread. It makes a very good point (lots of them, actually), and I sincerely hope that the American public breaks its historical trend and gets smart about something for once.

That said, I am relatively certain that if we invade Iraq, I'll be at the front line of the Neo-Hippie movement.

--Zach

The reason is that he has violated his agreements he made with the UN for over a decade.



Just to let you know, I e-mailed like 70 people in my address book telling them all to visit this thread. It makes a very good point (lots of them, actually), and I sincerely hope that the American public breaks its historical trend and gets smart about something for once.

What point(s)?
That we are somehow as evil and on an equal plane as AlQeada and terrorists as many people on the far left would try to dupe people into thinking?
Sorry, I shouldnt jump to conclusions.

That said, I am relatively certain that if we invade Iraq, I'll be at the front line of the Neo-Hippie movement.

And you are proud of this?

The mentality of imperial japan was to die for the emporer.Evn the children were taught this from the time they could walk.I have seen many films of them teaching thir children to fight and use weapons for the coming invasion.

Do you know the phsycological dificulty that forceing g.i`s to have to tarhet kids with thier weapons posed?

Fortunatly,the bomb prevented more than it caused.

I would galdly go in the place of a young man and do wha has to be done. I know what war is, am quite familiar with its horrors, if I could spare someone from experienceing those i would feel that i did some good.