Were you 100% sure there were no WMDs or al Qaeda in Iraq circa October?

[WilliamPitt]

[vision]

1. No that is why I wanted the inspections to continue

I thought if he did have them he would use them and the easiest and safest way to find them was to continue with inspections.

[RichV]

18. Ditto

[FubarFly]

2. I'm still not 100% sure. But I didn't think Iraq was a threat ...

even if they did have them. That part I knew was BS.


On edit: I answered based on the WMD portion of the question. I never thought for a second that Iraq was tied to Al-Qaeda.

[JHB]

72. I second the notion!

jhb

[SOteric]

3. Honestly,

not being Saddam, an Iraqi or a UN missiles inspector, I don't know how I could have been anything close to 100% certain.

I was more convinced that they were fiction than I was that they were a reality. Still am.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. Of course not but I felt the inspections were adequately addressing the

situation. I was 100 percent sure that Iraq was not capable of striking us within 45 minutes with a nuke.

[are_we_united_yet]

5. Wasn't sure of either.

But I was 100% sure * and co. was blowing the threat way out of proportion.

[gulliver]

14. Bingo.

Me too.

[Dookus]

6. no, not 100%

But that's why we should've supported continued inspections. Even if he DID have them, we could've disarmed him peacefully. War was unnecessary.

[ButterflyBlood]

7. WMDs no, Al-Qaeda yes

n/t

[Romberry]

63. Ditto. nt*

**

[unblock]

8. 100% sure

well, only because 99.44% sure wasn't an option. "not 100% sure" would be way too misleading.

what i AM 100% sure of was that bush had ZERO meaningful evidence of either. had we found either, it would have been an amazing coincidence. bush fabricates some excuses to invade a country he wanted to invade for completely unrelated reasons, then lucking out that those fabricated reasons turn out to be true.

it would be a bit like getting robbed on the west side, then looking for your wallet in some random parking lot on the east side. sure, you might find it, but if you do it's not based on anything you knew beforehand.

[leftofthedial]

9. I was 100% sure there was no imminent threat to the US

I'm not sure what you're asking

[WilliamPitt]

12. It's pretty straightforward

October 2002. Were you 100% sure there were no weapons or al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq?

[Plaid Adder]

26. Somehow missed the Al Qaeda part

100% no to that one, baby. That stank to high heaven from day one.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[leftofthedial]

32. Technically, I was pretty sure there WERE

I thought there would be a few rusty chemical warheads from the 1980s buried in the desert somewhere.

and I thought it possible that the Kurds were harboring a handful radical Islamists with plausible connection to al Qaeda (no link to Saddam).

But these posed no imminent threat and were tangential to the arguments being made in favor of immediate invasion.

[welshTerrier2]

80. Excellent Point !!

the poll question is an empty exercise unless it seeks to draw a conclusion based on the poll results ...

and too often, that conclusion is that those who voted for the resolution correctly voted on the side of caution ... the argument is something like "since they (and we) couldn't absolutely know whether WMD existed, it was necessary to vote to give bush the authorization to use force so that we were more likely to have inspections ..."

this has been mr. kerry's wimpy defense of his vote ...

but the poll, as asked, cannot justify any such conclusion ... please be clear ... i do not necessarily ascribe such intent to mr. pitt, the poll's author ... as raw data, there is nothing wrong with the poll question ... but we should ensure that the poll's results do not become a justification for the resolution or for the invasion of Iraq ...

the standard for war must continue to be one of "imminent threat" ... the existence or non-existence (as the case seems to be) of WMD would seem to be a bit of a distraction from a much larger, much more important point ...

[E_Zapata]

10. I knew: no imminent threat to the USA

And I knew that Saddam and Osama were not soulmates.

Case closed, or so I thought.

[rooboy]

11. 90% certain on WMD, 100% on Al Qaeda.

Once the Iraqis challenged the US to send all the CIA agents it wanted to escort the inspectors, I knew something was up when Bush rejected the offer.

[Plaid Adder]

25. Actually, the Bush administration's antics

were one of the things I used to cite in favor of the "no WMDs" position. If you look at the way they were acting toward North Korea, which actually DID have WMDs...it was clear that they knew there was nothing that bad in Iraq, or they woudl ahve been a little more careful.

Or so one would like to think. One hardly knows what to think these days.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[lcordero]

13. If they can't produce the hundreds of tons and the tens of

thousands of liters of WMDs along with what the nigerian documents had then the parties that initiated this outright mugging and raping along with the parties that gave license to initiate it do not have a leg to stand on.

[lcordero]

19. BTW...shrubbo* has a history of lying.

Anything that he has ever said is not to be relied on as the truth.

[Plaid Adder]

15. I checked no, but

I was about 98% sure Iraq didn't have anything I really needed to be worried about.

There was always that nagging "but what if I'm wrong?" little doubt...but I was not at all concerned that my opposition tot he war might lead to a mushroom cloud over Washington. I knew Iraq wasn't a threat, or at least not one I needed to be worried about.

This is partly the fault of a deer who gave his life on a dark road in southern Indiana so that I could ahve this epiphany.

OK, in November 2001 my partner hit a deer on her way home from a deposition and totaled her car. I had to drive down to bring her home from the hospital. THAT was scary. Saddam Hussein, forget it.

Or, as I put it at the end of a sequence I posted at the DU poetry slam:

III. BUT WHAT IF HE REALLY DOES HAVE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?

All right, that’s enough now; it’s time
To get us both out of this poem.
So strike up the doggerel rhyme;
Put your arm round my waist, waltz me home.

What was all that about? Well, it taught
Me the sole thing I’m terrified of:
That people can always be lost,
No matter how deeply we love.

But I can’t live the rest of our lives
Aware—even if it is true—
That the world is all daggers and knives,
And every last one’s aimed at you.

Armageddon is always ongoing;
It could have been our turn last year.
Should I not drive to work when it’s snowing?
Are we going to declare war on deer?

If we fight to be safe, then we’re losing;
As long as we live, we can hurt.
So, then, what? So, we start by refusing
To go back on heightened alert.

Oh, any damn thing could attack—
A deer? Sure, why not a giraffe?
And now, after twelve years, Iraq?
Don’t make me laugh.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[jiacinto]

16. Well

I think that Iraq did have some WMDS or some crude materials with which to make them. But I do think Bush overexagerrated the threat. Whatever WMD was there, however, has long since been sold to every dangerous country/group in the world by black market arms dealers.

[RapidCreek]

53. Hey Carlos...

How does one overexaggerate? You know, as opposed to just plain exaggerating. Can one underexaggerate? Is this anything like reverse discrimination? :)

Your Good Buddy,

RC

[Syrinx]

17. I'm 100% sure of very little

But Bush is evil. I'm down with that.

[Virginian]

38. same as above...

But I couldn't understand why, if we knew he had the stuff and we knew where it was, someone didn't tell the inspectors so they could find it.

Then, when we went in, why didn't we go straight to the location(s) and secure all that bad stuff.

There were all those false alarms. Those seem to have let up.

Then there was the speech that tried to morph the "WMD ready in 45 minutes" to "WMD programs" and "Scientists who had once worked on developing WMD."

He had been spanked by the coalition and was behaving, sort of. I think he was acting suspicious to save face and keep control over the different factions of the Iraqi populice. I think after we leave, Iraq will be the same. Different Tyrant, same type of govt, a dictatorship.

I am still not 100%. They could still find something, I doubt it would be anything Saddam knew about, but it would be just enough to make Bush technically right if you stretch the truth a little.

[Cocoa]

20. not sure now

definitely not sure then.

[IndianaGreen]

21. 100% certain that Bush, Powell, Rummy, Blair & Co were lying

My posts in DU on this topic reflected my deep distrust of the WMD claims. Of course, my main source of information was the British press which may explain my scepticism.

The British press debunked every claim made by Bush and Blair on WMD and Al-Qaeda connection. The American media was more interested in "Countdown Iraq" than they were in the pursuit of the truth.

[Virginian]

39. You must have seen their lips moving.

n/t

[lcordero]

22. I'm 14000000000% sure that shrubbo* is not to EVER be

trusted.

[Dr Fate]

23. Even though I was fully aware of the several known Bush deceptions

regarding the War (Plagerized dossier, forged Nigerian Documents, edited Bin Laden audio tape, etc,etc)-even with all the lies and deception, I was not 100% sure that Saddam did not have "somthing."

Thats not to say that the way Bush went about everything would have been justified- it would not have...

I did have a very strong feeling, based on the facts, that Saddam was not the threat that the GOP/media kept insisting they were- it turned out they (GOP/media) really were lying all along, in a big way...

[dudeness]

24. I was as sure as humanly possible

taking into account i never believed WMDs were the justification of this invasion..of that I was 100% sure..

[Plaid Adder]

34. Yeah, that's the other thing

I was abotu 500% sure that they were using the WMD issue as a pretext. Which did not *necessarily* mean that Iraq didn't ahve any. The WMD thing could have been "framing a guilty man," as it were...but one way or another it was a frame-up for sure.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Booberdawg]

27. No but ...

there was enough information available to know they were not capable of nuking us. I knew there was no "imminent danger"

[Plaid Adder]

36. Well, that "45 minutes" claim was prima facie bullshit

If they really could nuke us in 45 minutes...invading them would ahve been a real stupid thing to do, wouldn't it?

Oh, wait...it was a stupid thing to do anyway.

But what I mean is, nobody would just up and invade a country that they believed had the capability to deliver a nuclear weapon to their own capital in 45 minutes. That would be crazy. That's why North Korea is still sittin' over there laughin' at us.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Booberdawg]

50. I never believed they had any nuclear capability AT ALL!

the "45 minute" stuff was utterly absurd. The proof was there. But that was the kind of obvious BS I got seconded guessed and dismissed by my own family as just a partisan wacko case. They KNOW me better than that. (But they ARE Republicans)

And WHY would Iraq DO that?? We'd be all over them like flies on shit in a New york second!! It was too ridiculous to comtemplate.

[Plaid Adder]

71. Why would Iraq nuke us? Well, because

...everyone knows Arab dictators are insane fanatics incapable of making such a thing as a rational decision!

The Iraq war is like the outcome of some massive synergy of stupidity. It woudln't have happened if most Americans weren't so primed to see all Arabs everywhere as dangerous lunatics who would set themselves on fire just to take the chill off one American's beer. They started working on that image under Reagan when we bombed Libya (remember how Qadafi was gonna destroy the world? Remember? And where is he now? Hangin' with Osama and Saddam in the hot tub?) and they've been playing that song ever since. So naturally everyone believes that Saddam Hussein was clever enough to keep himself in power for an entire generation, but somehow not clever enough to figure out that he couldn't win a nuclear war with the U.S.

Man. I guess I'm still, what, carrying some ANGER about this.

Fume,

The Plaid Adder

[AWD]

28. You see, I had read this book....

.....so I was pretty confident.

You know the book.

[Sal316]

45. Hey! I think I read that one too!

:hi: AWD!

[WilliamPitt]

82. I know the book

:)

It influenced my vote, too.

[LearnedHand]

29. Actually, I was 1000% sure...

...that Clusterfuck Bush* was lying through his teeth to us, and even if the streets in Bagdhad were paved with WMDs and Saddam Hussein was picking his teeth with them, I wasn't going to believe a syllable that came out of Bush's* mouth.

[ComerPerro]

30. Sure, but nervous

I was sure that the WMD weren't there. But I wanted inspections to prove it.

I figured Bush was so gung-ho about the invasion because he was absolutely certain that there would be no WMD to be found. However, there were moments where it occured to me that Bush wanted to soldiers to be led to slaughter in Baghdad by a WMD, just so he could say "I told you so"

[maggrwaggr]

31. I didn't care. I knew Saddam wasn't suicidal

so it didn't matter what he had, he wasn't going to use them on any of his neighbors because we would destroy him if he did.

It's this little thing called "containment". It can work.

[stevedeshazer]

33. Yes

100% sure. No credible evidence showed otherwise.

[sandnsea]

35. Yes I was sure

But I wanted the inspections anyway because I thought the sanctions were keeping out the weapons but that the no-fly zones weren't letting reconstruction occur in the north and south and the Iraqi people were starving and dieing as a result of it all.

;)

[IranianDemocrat]

37. I was damn sure we would find SOMETHING.

eom

[Pobeka]

40. I'll qualify my 100%

100% sure there was no Al Queda connection
100% sure there were not enough WMD's to pose a significant threat

[mac56]

77. Good answer, Pobeka.

That's how I'd put it too. I'm rarely 100% sure about anything, but I was 100% sure about those things.

[sasquatch]

41. I was 100% sure because we attacked Iraq and not North Korea

That shows that they're afraid of losing in poll numbers because if they attacked North Korea they would've had heavy casualties.

[Old and In the Way]

42. No, I was out of the loop on the briefings.

That's the nut, isn't it? Who could be 100% sure except maybe those that controlled the intel. And if you couldn't be sure based on the politicization of our intel, how could you make an informed decision? If the threat was as presented, I think I'd expect my Congress to be looking out for our collective best interests.

But I also think that most knew the data was BS. But given no investigation of 9/11 and the Anthrax hit on Congress, were Democrats being set up on this vote? Vote "No" and another "event" occurs....would that have sunk the Democratic Party and any semblance of a democracy in this country? I know that this line of reasoning could never be uttered by our Reps in Congress, but I wouldn't put it past these fascist bastards....

[Terwilliger]

43. umm...is this the doctrine of pre-emption?

My neighbor has a tendency to leave his garbage in the middle of the road. Should I burn down his house?

We made Saddam Hussein and pay back that favor to the Iraqis by killing more of them.

[Sal316]

44. 100% sure and damn proud of it.

Being a chemist involved in weapons programs (traditional weapons, not chem or bio weapons...but aren't explosives chemicals?) I know what it takes to make/manufacture these things and the delivery systems.

Knowing that, and the public knowledge of our spy satellite systems, there was no doubt that there wasn't any. If there were, * would have been on TV showing clear, concise, and detailed satellite photos. Plus, the emissions these plants would give off would be obvious.

al Qaeda? That was a no-brainer.

[Beam Me Up]

46. Sure but nervous

I thought they would fake a WMD find. That they haven't leads me to think they don't believe they NEED to.

[AndyTiedye]

47. Not Sure

For this we have UN weapons inspectors.
They did their job well.
By spring, it was clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

[Sweetpea]

48. I Held My Breath for Weeks.

[diamondsoul]

49. No, I wasn't, not even close.

And that's one of a couple of reasons I can't hold a vote for use of force in Iraq against any Congressmember...except Lieberman because he just went whacko with it.

I didn't believe Iraq was an imminent threat to the US, but I don't have access to all of US intelligence, so I deferred to those who did. Why wouldn't many members of Congress do the same?

[tinnypriv]

51. 100% sure there WASN'T al Qaeda - 50% sure there WERE weapons

n/t

Hell, even Chomsky thought they had WMD.

[juajen]

52. I certainly was nervous

My opinion at that time, however, was that the inspectors would find weapons if they existed. I doubted that Iraq had them because of sanctions and our eyes in the sky. How horrible that everything we thought was true, is true, and the quagmire continues drawing countless terrorists in the ME.

As far as I'm concerned, the guilty congress aided and abetted this idiocy by continually giving * anything he asked for, from The Patriot Act then, to $87 billion dollars they will probably give him now. All they had to do was listen to their senior statesman in the Senate, the wonderful Robert Byrd, and their very brave Representative, Dennis Kucinich. I know there are others who were against this war that I have left out, just believe that these were the most outspoken. I liked Dennis's remarks regarding this horrible war to Gephardt at the debate Monday night. Gephardt looked like a deer in the headlights.

[salmonhorse]

54. OMG, another DU poll...

Well, let's see. Hmm...were there WMD or not? Jeepers. That is a tough one I mean; they were there. Rumsfeld was there when Saddam gassed the Kurds and all that shit but then, well you know, maybe they weren't.

I say sure they were there just for the hell of it with the proviso that I am not 100% sure either way. It's the new world order don't you know(?) Or do you not care?

[rman]

65. *when*

Of course there once were 'WMDs' in Iraq: Rumsfeld sold m to Saddam.
And yes Saddam used it on the Kurds while the whole world was looking the other way.

That's why the UN went over there to do weapons inspections, with results.

* fast forward a decade or so, post 9/11:

where there (still) WMDs then?
was Saddam and his WMDs a "threat to the world" by the time Bush went to war?

[salmonhorse]

78. Well isn't that just what it is all about...

...or is it? Of course they were there. We supplied Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war as well. Gave him classified Intell shit to keep him on his feet. He was 'friends' with Reagan and Bush's daddy and Bush's Vice President, the illusive Dick Cheney, did business with Saddam as recently as 3yrs ago and yet the American sheeple; to the tune of 71%, actually think that Saddam had more to do with 9/11 than Saudi Arabia.

Americans are led off point so easily as to be considered child-like or mentally dim in their every pursuit.

"Tarzan", "Flash Gordon", "Tarzan", "Flash Gordon"...

While the world goes unplesantly insane ~

[Celebrandil]

55. Saddams pride

I wasn't sure whether they had WMD or not, but I was sure that noone had been able to prove anything really. Saddam did his best making sure to the Arab world that he wouldn't let anyone scare him. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that he actually had anything to hide. I think the Europeans were able to understand that Saddams refusal to open up for inspections could have something to do with pride, while Bush just saw that as another proof. When it comes to Al Qaeda I was 100% sure that they didn't have anything to do with Saddam. In order to control his country Saddam wouldn't gain much from a bunch of religious fanatics. It sure amused me seeing pictures of supposed-to-be Al Qaeda camps in northern Iraq. If Saddam was seeking support from Al Qaeda, why put those camps in the curd controlled no-fly zone beyond his reach?

Marten (Sweden)

[GalleryGod]

56. YUP. BTW- the kids in my class think that the NeoCons PieCut Iraq

George Will was floating the Cheyney/Rove solution that they faxed him!
To quote Letterman::wow: "Let's Not forget-There's 2 LL's in Halliburton!"

[salmonhorse]

58. Did someone say, "PieCut Iraq"?

Then hold your nose and jump on in ~

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3035cheney_cptbggrs.html

[Classical_Liberal]

57. Yes on Al Qaeda. no on WMD, but I was 100% sure he wouldn't use them

.

[Merlin]

59. It was obvious all along.

As to the al Quaeda connection, anyone who reads knew that Iraq was the most westernized Islamic country in the world aside from Turkey. It's a culture directly antithetical to Osama's beliefs and to al Quaeda's principals.

On the WMDs, I have never been able to figure out what he would have wanted them for. He's never been terribly concerned with the Palestinian-Israeli thing. His army was decimated by the '91 conflict, and he was in absolutely no shape to challenge Iran again. At the same time, he knew the US would NEVER permit Iran to attack him either. So he had not real defense needs.

By reading about the evolution of the neocon and PNAC philosophies it was clear that Iraq had been in their crosshairs for a decade--and it had nothing at all to do with WMDs.

Further, reading press reports from a year ago, it was clear the inspection teams and our own CIA did not believe there was any serious WMD program. The administration kept delaying revealing any real evidence, but promising it soon would.

Then the clincher was when Powell went to the UN and trotted out such feeble "evidence" it made the rest of the world cringe.

Hussein was nothing more than a tinpot dictator. He was ruthless to his political enemies. But he ran a reasonably enlightened operation for a Muslim. The equality of opportunity for women--which has now evaporated in favor of traditional Muslim intimidation of women--was notable. He permitted gun ownership--unheard of in most dictatorships. The culture was highly westernized, and people enjoyed all measure of freedoms, except of course the biggie, political freedom.

Nonetheless he was nothing more than a tinhorn dictator the Bushies demonized for their own political purposes. Now their ideological zealotry is about to become their own undoing. I pray!

[Merlin]

61. Don't miss the Meacher article in the Guardian. Says the same thing.

Thanks to Dancing_Dave for opening a GD thread on this piece and bringing it to our attention.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,1036772,00.html

The plan (PNAC) shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

PNAC was of course written before the 2000 election.

[T_i_B]

60. Sure of no Al-Quaida

That is the main reason why I started protesting in September. I was challenging chickenhawks the length & breath of the net to prove to me that Saddam & Al-Quaida were linked for a month before I took up my protest sign. As you can probbably guess I could see no links between the two.

As to WMD's I was not really questioning whether or not it was a load of tripe until Blair got caught plagarizing his dossiers. That said, even if Saddam HAD got WMD's wouldn't he have used them?

All in all it was a pretty pointless invasion really, well unless you are after somebody elses oil. :eyes:

[ProfessorGAC]

75. Me, Too!

It was patently obvious to me that the Baathists and al Qaeda were polar opposites. It didn't take all that much searching to find that al Qaeda has issued a fatwa against Hussein every bit as vitriolic as the one issued against the U.S.

Lastly, since Hussein already knew what would happen if he crossed the great Western powers, he was the least likely guy in the world to partner with lunatics who wanted the destruction of the U.S. He would have run away screaming from those folks.

So, i knew for sure that any such link was a lie.
The Professor

[RapidCreek]

62. Well....I became 100% sure when

Bush began attributing 9/11 to Iraq. Now ask yourself this simple question.....If you had what it was claimed Saddam Hussien had and you were mixed up with Al Queda why the hell would you bother dicking around trying to fly airplanes into buildings? Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to explode a few cannisters of VX in New York, LA, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas and Seattle? It would be a pretty elementary undertaking really.

Frankly If I were Hussein and AWOL started making noises like he was gonna kill me, I think I would use them, immediately, If I had any....particularily if I was as mean, nasty and ruthless as Hussein is supposed to be. Why wouldn't I? I mean I'm dead either way. What's to loose?

In that Brer Fox Hussien quite obviously didn't have any such weapons he did the next best thing to using them. He allowed Brer Rabbit Bush to make a complete ass of himself and his country while simultaneously destroying it's economy. ....and the Brer Rabbit, he keeps on a punchin and a kicken dat ole Tar baby, yep...and Brer Fox Hussien he lay low.

Don't know if you're familiar with this Uncle Remus fable folks...but it's a swell one...and quite applicable, really. Check it out and tell me if it don't sound real familiar. Only thing is, in our story Brer Rabbit Bush, he ain't smart enough to ask to be thrown in the briar patch.


Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby



RC

[CWebster]

64. yes

they simply couldn't afford to have the UN affirm what they already knew---there was no credible threat from Iraq - it was an obvious fabrication propped up by debunked but continually repeated lies.

The latest manuevering attempt seeks to legitimize it by updating it as THE war on terrorism.

[JanMichael]

66. Not 100% but I was confident that the WMD BS was, well, BS.

I was also fairly certain that the ultra relgious fanaticism of Osama wouldn't jive with the brutal anti-Shite policies of Saddam, period.

[sendero]

67. the only way....

... I would be 100% sure is if I had been there myself and looked around. Anyone who wasn't who was 100% sure - wanna play poker?

[Orangepeel]

68. I believed my own Senator Graham -- Iraq was not an imminent threat

I was 100% sure there were no nuclear weapons and that they weren't responsible for 9/11. I thought that there were probably leftover chemical or biological weapons.

[Jack Rabbit]

69. To be honest, I have to say 'No', but could almost say 'Yes'

As for the al Qaida connection, I as 100% certain there was none.

I couldn't say that Saddam possessed no WMDs, but I didn't think he had enough that he could launch a sustained attack or even mount a credible defense. I was 100% certain that Saddam was not a threat.

I am also 100% certain now, as I was then, that Bush knew there as no association between Saddam and al Qaida and that Bush knew Saddam was no threat. There is no way the invasion of Iraq can be characterized as anything other than colonial piracy and a war crime for which Bush and his chief aides should face trial by an international tribunal.

[notadmblnd]

70. I was 100% certain

I had a conversation with a co-worker (yes, I still have a job for the time being) about this. I told him that I thought all the weapons had been destroyed before Richard Butler told the inspectors to leave in 1998. He told me that Saddam threw the inspectors out. "Au contrair" (I like to disagree in french, it really pisses them off)said I, "that is the lie this administrations has told you", but he insisted Saddam threw them out. I pulled up the CNN page from Feb 1998 and right there in print was, Richard Butler tells UN inspectors to leave the country in case US bombs.

I e-mailed the link to him. I'm still waiting for him (although not holding my breath) to come back and tell me I was right. They just hate it when I expose the lies they believe for just what they are, LIES!

Oh well, at least I got another one thinking....

[Mairead]

73. I felt on the order of 99.99% certainty

[Sinistrous]

74. Expecting 100% certainty about anything is naive and illogical.

Hell, I'm not 100% sure the sun will come up tomorrow. Also, see Lord Hume.

[Avis]

76. I prayed there weren't

and was in tears as my republican friends hoped and prayed they were there. My son in law was there - and the last thing I wanted was to have WMD - it was as if the republicans would rather be right than care what happened to any of the people over there - Iraqis or our military. Shouldn't we all be cheering and relieved that they weren't there? - if they were, most certainly Saddam would have used them - and I wish that even the republicans wouldn't want that.

[IrateCitizen]

79. WMD's? Some possible. al Qaeda? Definitely not.

There was always the possibility that there were some stores of WMD's -- but nothing approaching the amount that could be classified as a "threat". Plus, they had no delivery systems even if they DID have them. All the more reason to continue the inspections.

As for al Qaeda, I did not believe for a minute they were in Iraq, at least not in the areas controlled by the Baathists. Of course, now, the entire country is crawling with them.... :grr:

[Cat Atomic]

81. I thought there must be *something* there.

I was sure the Administration was being dishonest (using forged evidence, overstating the threat, suggesting ties to al Qaeda that didn't exist, etc.) but I assumed there must be *some* sort of WMD present in Iraq, or they wouldn't have used it as a justification for invading.

All of their actual arguments were debunked before the invasion even began, but I assumed they must know something I didn't. It turns out, they knew less.

[Fescue4u]

83. I thought there were....

And I still do..

But clearly they are in such small numbers as to have never been a threat.

[oasis]

84. check in

[Isome]

85. Never sure! But, this is the kicker:

I didn't give a damn if he had them or not!! I was sure he wasn't an imminent threat to the U.S., and I didn't (still don't) believe this nation is the final authority on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, since we possess the bulk of them and have shamelessly sold them. And, I certainly don't believe we are entitled to invade other countries to ensure they don't develop, or possess, any weapons that could make them as big a threat to us, as we are to the rest of the world.

The UN was established for the purpose of bringing nations together to compromise and maintain worldwide peace. Non-proliferation treaties, and the like, exist for the same reason.

Waging war to make peace doesn't work -- as evidenced by the bloody mess in Iraq today.

[Postman]

86. No one can claim 100% certainty for either but,

given our (left-liberal) tendency to expose ourselves to wider sources of information than the right-wing propagandists...

I was sure there were NO connections to AL-Qaeda. Result - there were no AL-Qaeda in Iraq BEFORE the invasion.

I was NOT sure about WMD's. Chemical/biological-maybe, Nuclear-I was sure there were NONE. Result- No WMD's of ANY KIND.

The reasons for this INVASION was one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people and for that I will never forgive the Republican Party, nor would I ever vote for ANY republican no matter what the cause.

[phillybri]

87. I knew no Al-Qaeda for sure, and not enough WMD to be an IMMINENT threat..

IMHO