Using common sense about WMD's existence

[louis c]

When I debate my freeper and RW friends, and they contend Iraq was a threat, the subject invariably trends toward the WMD's existence.

Their argument goes that just because we didn't find them, that doesn't mean Saddam didn't hide them or destroy them.

Enter Logic.

Their argument tends to remind me of my hippie days. Your at home, little reefer, and the police are coming. Flush it down the toilet, or try to hide it in a light socket in the wall where they'll never find it. Quite a stretch for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

If Saddam had WMD's, and it was obvious the U.S. was invading, why didn't he use them. I can just see Saddam in his palace when word came that the U.S. troops were coming out of Kuwait. "Quick, quick, here come the Americans. Hide the weapons. We don't want to get busted. Flush 'em, flush 'em." Ya right. If Saddam had them he would of used them right there and then.

What the F**k good are WMD's if your not going to use them when your mortal enemy is invading your country?

Common sense, people. Common sense. If they existed in any form, and if Saddam is the madman we all think he is, they would have been used. What was he afraid of, some of his own people might die? If he used them and got captured, the U.S. might be pissed at him?

I have never used this argument with a Chimp supporter and received a reply. Not a foolish answer, mind you. Any answer. You can't think of a response in support of the WMD's existence in the face of this argument without looking like a complete moron. There is no response, people. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Check and checkmate.

Try this at home with your friends, and tell them Louis sent you.

[Fescue4u]

1. Its a good argument but there is a good rebuttal

Some day a smart freeper ( :) ) may respond as folows

"Sure Saddam would have used WMDs in completed form, but its quite possible that they were not complete. What if Saddam had a 50% completed nuke. Hardly useful as a weapon, but could be sold for cash...and wasnt saddam found with millions?"

Understand, Im just playing the devils advocate for fun here.

[louis c]

2. They have always said

that he had Chemical and Biological weapons that were already used. That he didn't comply with U.N. resolutions and destroy those stockpiles.

He was an imminent threat. The argument has always been that those weapons were in finished form, ready to go.

He already demonstrated their existence when he used them when Cheney and Rumsfeld were his buddies.

[ant]

3. not exactly

It depends what weapons you're talking about. No one ever claimed that he had nukes, only that he was working to get them and we had to attack before he was successful. (The admin did try to scare people with the image of a mushroom cloud, but the assessment was always that Saddam was a few years away from a nuke, depending on what sort of foreign assistance he might get.) Removing a nuclear armed Saddam would've been way more difficult than removing a pre-nuclear Saddam. (I'm not saying I buy that argument, just that that was the argument.)

As for chem weapons, like you said, he had used them before, so he clearly had the capability. Chem weapons aren't as difficult as nukes, and Iraq could've easily restarted its program and had some weapons in a matter of weeks/months. This is assuming, of course, that they had rebuilt the infrastructure in the 5 years that inspectors weren't around - not a huge assumption given what was discovered after the first gulf war. (I am NOT saying this justified an invasion, mind you, just that the suspicion was justified. How to deal with those suspicions was, in my mind, what the whole debate before the war was about.)

Anyway, many argue that the reason Saddam didn't use such weapons during the first Gulf War was that he was deterred by the US. He knew the US would probably nuke him if he dared to launch a chem attack, so he didn't.

While I agree the freepers are delusional if they think we're just going to find these things somewhere, the fact that the weapons were not used is not proof that they weren't there. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and all that.

[BillZBubb]

5. Hold on a minute there!

All those White House assholes talking about mushroom clouds did the propaganda heavy lifting. Because of that, many Freepers believed he had nukes. Believe me, I talked to several of them.

So, stating "no one ever claimed" is just buying into the deniability side of the big lie campaign. They implied it at every opportunity and gave the weak minded something to cling to.

As to the final part of your comment, that is also a clever, illogical, Rumsfeldian twist. In logic, someone stating existence is required to prove existence. PERIOD. That should be easy, just produce the object. For the person questioning that assertion, proving non-existence is not only not necessary but is usually impossible.

If you buy your position, we have to accept the BushCo lie that Iraq had all these weapons at the time of the invasion, but we just cannot account for them now. So, they may or may not turn up, but it doesn't matter. Highly falacious.

[ant]

15. that's what I said

I wasn't "buying into" the deniability side of the campaign, just pointing out that it existed. I completely agree that the admin deliberately hazed up the issue to create confusion and fear in the minds of citizens, but it doesn't change the fact that they did it quite well, covering their asses and all that.

As to the final part of your comment, that is also a clever, illogical, Rumsfeldian twist. In logic, someone stating existence is required to prove existence. PERIOD. That should be easy, just produce the object. For the person questioning that assertion, proving non-existence is not only not necessary but is usually impossible.

The stated argument was that IF Saddam had actually had weapons THEN he would've used them during the war. The final part of my post was to point out the flaw in this logic. There could be a variety of reasons for why Saddam did not use his weapons - fear of nuclear retaliation by the US, for instance - and not having those weapons in the first place is only one possible explanation.

The original poster was not stating that we know the weapons don't exist because we haven't found them. S/he was saying that the weapons don't exist because Saddam didn't use them. That's a different argument than the one you seem to be defending.

If you buy your position, we have to accept the BushCo lie that Iraq had all these weapons at the time of the invasion, but we just cannot account for them now. So, they may or may not turn up, but it doesn't matter. Highly falacious.

Why would you have to accept that Iraq had all these weapons at the time of the invasion? I'm not disagreeing with the original poster's conclusion about weapons, I'm just saying that the specific argument s/he laid out to reach that conclusion doesn't really hold up.

[ant]

17. to clarify

I was using the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" argument in the narrow context of what Saddam did and did not use during the war. I was not applying it at large.

Consider this statement: Because the US did not use nuclear weapons during the war in Iraq, that proves the US does not have nuclear weapons.

Get my point now?

[iangb]

12. Sorry, but you are wrong.

Rummy claimed that Saddam could have nukes within 6-12 months........it was the IAEA that refuted that claim, and pointed out that they estimated 2-3 years. (Rummy had misquoted an IAEA report in his original claim).

As to Chemical (and Bio) weapons, the Administration claimed Saddam had 40,000 artillery shells.....and at least 20 scuds with chemical warheads...........not to mention the thousands of kilograms of chemicals stockpiled and ready to use.

UN inspectors led by Hans Blix were on the ground following up US 'intelligence leads' of chemical weapon facilities until shortly before the attack......they found nothing to support the Admin's line, and not much else either.

The story was that Saddam was an immediate threat......not a potential threat......that line is part of the rapid re-writing of history we've been seeing over the last few months.

The Admin's original story has been shredded. Finding evidence of any WMD program now cannot alter that.

[ant]

14. doesn't change the argument, though

Your comments on the nukes are basically consistent with mine. If someone claimed he had X amount of chem/bio rather than just the ability to produce chem/bio on demand, then I was wrong there, but considering the manufacturing process we're talking a small time difference and I don't see how it matters.

And I completely agree that the admin's justification for war has been shredded. I don't believe I claimed otherwise. However, I would argue that even if Saddam did have some chem/bio stocked up, it wouldn't have justified the war. We maybe want to be careful about putting all our eggs in the WMD basket. The issue for me, at least, was never whether or not Saddam had chem/bio weapons. I assumed he had them and I assumed he was working on nukes. The difference between me and the admin, though, is that I believed the inspections were enough to get at the truth and manage the problem. The WMD problem is likely to come up again, so if we're going to argue that a lack of WMD is enough to shred the administration's case then we have to consider what happens to our argument when there ARE WMD around. I would say that even then, war for regime change should not be the immediate response.

All of that's irrelevant, though, because it doesn't change the fact that the argument "if he had had weapons he would've used them" doesn't hold up.

[iangb]

18. Agree with most of your points, but........

......if WMD does become an issue, it's important to point out that the main justification for war was complete....well......horseshit.

The picture being built was of Iraq bristling with WMD, ready, willing and able to take on the US and its allies in a 'Pearl Harbor' type attack. That picture was risible.

[louis c]

19. The point is

if he had them he would have used them while American troops were in Kuwait.

The fact he didn't use any chemical or biological weapons against an invading American army proves he never had them.

If, as the Chimp's administration claimed, he wanted to use these weapons against Americans, here we come. What's he waiting for.

He didn't have them, pure and simple. There aren't any. In fact, the chimp knew it at the time.

[TryingToWarnYou]

7. True, but you can always remind them of the "45 minute" claim that was BS

[rustydog]

4. Try this: we took all of our spy satellites and trained them on Iraq

In the buildup to the invasion.
Bush said Saddam had a million pounds of sarin and vx!!!
A MILLION Fucking Pounds!

With all the satellites allegedly spying on these sites (Bush said he knew WHERE the WMD's were) how in the fuck did one million pounds of WMD material disappear to? Where did the chemical labs on wheels disappear to? (why weren''t there satellite images instead of artist renderings of the trucks?

Is 860 some dead Americans worth the lies Bush told?
Are 55 thousand dead iraqis worth the lies?

[Nevernose]

6. With Freeper-types you've known for a while--

You know how you can tell the admin is lying about WMDs? There aren't any...they haven't found a single one. And didn't I tell you before we went into Iraq that there weren't any? Was I wrong?

So how did a schmuck like me, a guy with a cable modem and the address of the BBC and the NYT figure this out, and the guys at the CIA and FBI and NSA and State Department didn't? Well, they did, and the administration lied about it. Either that or I outsmarted the CIA, and I ain't that bright.

The only answer I've ever gotten is "He must have moved them to Syria." That's after a long look of desparate panic in which their paradigm begins to crumble.

[Make7]

8. Do you follow that....

by asking them if they are now convinced that Bush doesn't deserve another term?

I'm sure they are. They'll never, ever believe the lie that covered up the previous lie.

:) Make7

[Sweetpea]

9. Another common sense one is

Michael Moore makes a movie based on false evidence, NOW it's time to protest. They took the country to war based on false evidence, an persecuted those who protested.
Though we are having the last laugh or cry however you react to trauma.

[NickB79]

10. I just wanna know where the factories are

Where are the G*D-DAMNED factories needed to produce these large amounts of chemical and biological weapons? Where are the clean-rooms, the fermenting vats, the refridgerated storerooms? The administration tried to dispell this question by saying that a) they used "dual-use" facilities like chlorine plants used for purifying drinking water, and b) mobile labs. The first question, while plausible on the surface, has fallen apart because you can detect the remnants of chemical weapons and their precursors when the factories were inspected by US weapons inspectors. Even a full scrub-down of the facilities wouldn't remove all traces, and we can detect those. Question B also falls apart when you consider the logistics of trying to produce chemical/biological weapons in a space smaller than most high-school chemistry labs. You have no room for the equipment needed to produce WMD's on a large-scale basis. Unless Saddam had thousands of these Winnebagos-of-death circling in the Iraqi desert, it would have taken DECADES to stock-pile enough quality chemicals or spores to be a threat. This also assumes that the mobile labs could maintain sterile conditions out in the desert, with blowing sand and dust working its way into everything. A few mold spores in your batch and its toast.

[Stockholm]

11. I believe the WMD programs and material was destroyed during the 90´s

unfortunately pride, knife and dagger attitude and bureaucratic malfunctions prevented the Iraqis from properly securing evidence of the destruction.

The stuff popping up now and then is just residues from the past.

Remember the famous quote "The absence of evidence does not necessary mean evidence of absence" from the US administration. A logic and reasoning which suggest that the outcome of the affair was predetermined.

[quaker bill]

13. Common sense goes one step further.

Activities to enrich uranium require large facilities and produce radioisotopes that can be easily detected by remote sensing. We are adequately equipped that no one on the planet can engage in this activity undetected. The nuke weapon claim was completely debunked well before the invasion. While Saddam probably did have a motive to pursue this program, there was no competent evidence that he was or even could have without our knowing about it well in advance.

As far as Chem/Bio weapons, what would have been Saddam's motivation to engage in their development?

Saddam had only one real enemy, the United States. We were watching him like a hawk and occupied 2/3 of Iraqi airspace daily. We had been blowing up his air defenses weekly for the previous 12 years.

In 1991 Saddam had a massive stockpile of Chem/Bio weapons that for whatever reason proved entirely useless against the US military. These weapons are expensive to produce, have a limited shelf life, are difficult to keep secure, and are ineffective against his one likely adversary. Saddam's available resources were reduced by sanctions. Why would he spend his limited resources to build weapons that were not useful against his enemies?

On the other hand, there were numerous available weapons technologies that would be potentially useful against the US military that Saddam could buy and possess legally under the sanctions. The evidence is quite clear that he spent his money on them.

The notion that Saddam was not pursuing Chem/Bio weapons requires no assumption of any act of compliance or good faith on his part, only modestly enlightened self-interest has to be assumed. Someone who does not consider his self-interest first, often, and quite effectively does not survive as a brutal dictator in the middle east for 25 years.

Logical analysis of the situation predicts the results we have obtained. Arguments for the notion that Saddam was pursuing Chem/Bio WMD assume a certain irrationality that is inconsistent with his noted ability to survive in a clearly hostile environment. In short, the argument never held any water.

[Ohio Dem]

16. You don't invade a country with WMD's and say it's gonna be a cakewalk.

They were lying about one or the other. Period.

Turns out, they were lying about both.

[shraby]

20. I know when the war started, I kept worrying

about our soldiers being gassed or hit with bios, so the administration did convince me those weapons existed. On retrospect, if they did believe the weapons existed, they probably wouldn't have been so quick to go to war because if Saddam had them, he would have used them. My conclusion, the administration lied big-time, openly and are lying now big-time.