from Ami:
<<"In early December 2002, Iraq filed a 12,000-page weapons declaration with the UN. After reviewing the document, U.N. weapons inspectors, the U.S., France, United Kingdom and other countries thought that this declaration failed to account for all of Iraq's chemical and biological agents.">>
Well, that's kind of selective. We know who didn't think that Iraq had accounted for "all" of its chemical and biological agents - - the two invaders themselves, plus France (suddenly regaining credibility in the eyes of conservatives) and "other countries." (probably the same stooges that the U.S. blackmailed, bribed, inveigled and ortherwise schmeered or coerced into their criminal venture) What we don't know from the article is which countries felt that Iraq had accounted for all or most of its chemical and biological weapons. (BTW, it's kind of funny that whereas Iraq had to account for all of its chemical weapons, the U.S.A. was perfectly free to use its WP bombs and shells on the civilian population of Falluja. Go figure.)
That's the problem with using Wikipedia as a source in partisan matters. The stuff is heavily edited and re-edited by partisans, sometimes going through a couple dozen re-edits, so you're not really sure whose spin you're picking up when you dip into it.
<<"On January 27, 2003, UN inspectors reported that Iraq had cooperated on a practical level with monitors, but had not demonstrated a 'genuine acceptance' of the need to disarm. >>
Somebody no doubt can explain that little brain fart.
<<Inspector Hans Blix said that after the empty chemical warheads were found on the 16th, Iraq produced papers documenting the destruction of many other similar warheads, which had not been disclosed before. This still left thousands of warheads unaccounted for however. >>
Blix said there were thousands of warheads unaccounted for? I don't think so. In whose opinion were the number of unaccounted warheads in the thousands? The article doesn't say. My recollection of the editorial comment of the day was that every single warhead had not been accounted for, but the number of unaccounted for warheads was small and consistent with what you would expect could be "lost" through record-keeper errors over so long a period of time.
<<Inspectors also reported the discovery of over 3,000 pages of weapons program documents in the home of an Iraqi citizen . . . >>
Well, that's a crock as stated. 3,000 pages of what, exactly? Outdated phone numbers of weapons program technicians? Drawings and specs for equipment that was never purchased? Who was the Iraqi citizen? A scientist who took the stuff home to work on? An employee who stole whatever he could lay his hands on for fun and profit? A retired guy who had the stuff for years and never got around to returning it or shredding it?
<< . . . suggesting an attempt to 'hide' them from inspectors >>
Yeah. Or a plant by an American agent on the inspection team. Or a slip in the Iraqi document-control procedures.
<< . . . and apparently contradicting Iraq's earlier claim that it had no further documents to provide.>>
Yeah, Jeeziz, like it's totally unheard of for a taxpayer, let's say, to turn over all his documents in a file to the IRS and then later discover more documents that weren't included in the original handover. Like nothing ever gets misplaced or misfiled. VERY suspicious. I guess if you ever get audited by the IRS and find more documents that weren't turned over originally, that's proof positive that you were hiding something and the IRS should just stop their investigation and sock you with the maximum penalty because your guilt has been established beyond dispute.
Can't believe (a) how the administration's defenders turn to the most trivial bullshit in support of their asinine propositions and (b) how many morons they can find to take such crap seriously. A sucker is born every minute.
<<In addition, by the 28th, a total of 16 Iraqi scientists had refused to be interviewed by inspectors. The United States reports that sources have told them that Saddam has ordered the death of any scientist that speaks with inspectors in private. Iraq insists that they are not putting pressure on the scientists.">>
Again, you'd have to be pretty naive not to recognize what's going on here. A scientist would have to be nuts to speak to a UN inspector. They can't guarantee his life and if Saddam thinks anybody fucked up, that is the end of a life. The only smart thing for any scientist to do is to clam up. That way, no matter what happens, he can say "Boss I never met with them, never talked to them. Couldn't a bin anything I said."
Of course Iraq says it puts no pressure on scientists. Doesn't have to - - the pressure comes from the scientists. What the inspectors were dealing with was the normal quotient of fear that comes with the territory in any Middle Eastern dictatorship.
<<The United States reports that sources have told them that Saddam has ordered the death of any scientist that speaks with inspectors in private>>
Yeah, that's rich. Their sources also told them that Iraq was buying yellowcake from Niger, that Saddam was behind the WTC attacks, that Saddam's WMD could be launched in 45 minutes, that the U.S. Army would be welcomed as liberators, that the boys would be home by Christmas, that they would create a new democratic Middle East through the shining example of Iraq, blah blah blah. Their sources told them a lot of things. Basically, whatever they need or want their sources to tell them, they advise the sources what they want to hear and the sources tell them. This is NOT one of the more impressive arguments in the neocon arsenal.
