Sunset War Authorization

[Dr. Shane]

The weapons inspectors never found the chemical weapons that that they had cataloged prior to being kicked out in 1998. As Joe Biden made so clear, we knew he had WMDs because the inspectors had cataloged them. Parts of some of these cataloged weapons have been found at scrap yards throughout the middle east with the UN catalog numbers still on them. So yes, we knew he had them. No, we didn't know where.

After the invasion is when we discovered the UN Oil-for-food scandal which was on track to get sanctions lifted which would have allowed Saddam to get a nuclear weapon - ACCORDING TO JOE BIDEN. So, we must ask ourselves, if we hadn't invaded, would we have ever discovered the scandal and prevented sanctions from being lifted.

[Dr. Shane]

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When you categorize an artillery shell as a WMD

An artillery shell with sarin nerve agent or mustard agent is a WMD.

Ok, let's pretend we are all so gullible that we are going to believe that Saddam could have lost track of these WMDs. We have been finding them buried in fields and hidden in various places. Imagine if a group of Kurds or some other enemies of Saddam had found them. They could have taken the sarin nerve agent or mustard agent off the artillery shell, put it in a dirty bomb and blown it up wherever they wanted to. The idea that Saddam would lose track of these WMDs is preposterous. No government with WMDs is going to lose track of them. Not unless the government is overthrown and those entrusted with the weapons steal them in the process.

[Dr. Shane]

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And Cheney *did* repeatedly and publicly, make a Saddam/Al Qaeda connection...

There is a difference between linking Saddam to al Qaeda and linking Saddam to 9/11. Saddam did give al Qeada safe harbor in Iraq. At one time Saddam even offer Osama an Iraqi passport (that was before 9/11). So there was a "murky" connection. However there is no connection between Saddam and 9/11.

When asked on Meet The Press if there was a connection, Cheney said, we don't know. A year later when told, on Meet The Press that many Americans connect Saddam to al Qeada, he said that was understandable but he did not go as far as to say it was correct.

Saddam was his own worst enemy. If Saddam would have cooperated with the inspectors from the beginning, they would have been out of Iraq by 1994. When Zarqawi fled to Iraq, if Saddam would have captured him and turned him over to the US, there is no way the US would have ever invaded. If Saddam would have just left Iraq within 48 hours before the invasion as Bush offered him, the whole war would have been avoided. Saddam is the bad guy in all of this.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

let's pretend we are all so gullible that we are going to believe that Saddam could have lost track of these WMDs

Let me apologize. That is probably not worded in the kindest way. However if Saddam did actually lose track of WMDs, that would make him far more incompetent than the anti-Bush people want lead people to believe Bush is.

[Neil D]

Quote:

An artillery shell with sarin nerve agent or mustard agent is a WMD.

I am sorry, but it is not.

One of the main news media, AbC or NBC, described how mustard gas would work when Sadam used it on the Kurds. It would take 5 artilary guns and each one would take several shell to lob the shells onto ONE city Block and would have to be in a tight pattern to gass that ONE block. Each of those gases that you mentioned would explode and would tend to stay within that narrow confines of the explosion...a narow area.... until the wind thinned it out. The US did give Saddam those Weapons that he used on the Kurds from OUR arsenal. What was found was what was left over.

Sorry, Shane...As for those shells that he did find, he knew our leaders were nothing short of mad about his use of those weapons. He burried them to keep us from finding them....

[Dr. Shane]

The poisonous gas itself is considered a WMD. An artillery shell is not the most effective way of using it. There are some left-wing groups that have tried to spin the discovery of chemical artillery shells as not being WMDs. Their motives are obviously dubious.

Their spin is that since a single artillery shell loaded with poisonous gas can only kill a handful of people, than it isn't really a WMD. That has a certain amount of logic to it. However by the same logic, "tactical" nuclear weapons cannot be considered WMDs either.

Now let's consider that a terrorist gets a hold of the chemical weapons in the artillery shells, takes it into a mechanical room in a shopping mall and puts it into the return air duct so the heating system blows it into various stores. Would we call the heating system a WMD? Of course not, even though it was the means of delivery for the chemical. It isn't the means of delivery but the chemical that is the WMD. So while artillery rounds are an inefficient means of delivery, that point isn't relevant when it is the chemical being identified as the WMD.