Inspector's Report to Detail Iraqi Plans to Undermine Sanctions...NYT

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 - A report to be made public on Wednesday by the top American weapons inspector in Iraq will outline new details of attempts by Saddam Hussein's government to undermine United Nations sanctions as part of a plan to produce illicit weapons if those sanctions were lifted, Bush administration officials said Monday.

The report by the arms inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, will make clear that Iraq did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the American invasion in 2003, and that it had not begun any large-scale program for weapons production by the time of the invasion, the officials said. Those findings had previously been reported, based on an early draft of the document.

Mr. Duelfer's conclusion that Iraq clearly intended to produce illicit weapons if the sanctions were lifted had also been previously reported. But the final version of the document, in making that case, describes new evidence of concerted Iraqi efforts to bypass the sanctions while they were still in place and to undermine international support for them, the administration officials said.

That evidence is expected to be figure prominently in efforts by the administration to cast the report in a favorable light. With Election Day less than a month away, the White House has been seeking to persuade voters that the war in Iraq was justified even though the weapons stockpiles it cited as the main rationale for the invasion now do not appear to have existed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/politics/05weapons.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I guess this is about those

weapons-related program activities.

Not much new here, but that won't be obvious from any upcoming media reports. I'm sure there will be a major effort to spin WMD out of some pretty weak threads here.

[funnymanpants]

2. More propaganda

You go to war with another country because that country is a threat.

You don't go because the country wants to get weapons, which wouldn't be a threat anyway, because you are a million times more powerful than he and he has no motivations.

The problem with the WMD story is that it sets the bar ridiculously low. Now Bush doesn't have to prove that Saddam had WMDs that he intended to give to terrorists; he merely has to prove he *wanted* to get weapons at some unknowable date.

Also, why is it news that Saddam wanted to undermind the sanctions? Really? You don't say? The sanctions were ruining his country, and it was no secret that he wanted to get rid of them.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. kick