Come gather 'round, people...

[rain_gryphon]

So, it looks like Iraq was known to have WMDs since at least sometime in 2003. The various senators, etc, who were claiming that none had been found stand exposed as partisan liars, or at any rate, bigger partisan liars than one would ordinarily expect senators to be.

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Congress may finally gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The times, they are a'changing. >:)

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It looks as well like the Senate's amnesty program has pretty much lost its magic smoke.

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It's exciting to live in times when major, long-term sociopolitical changes are actually taking place. The last time this happened was in the mid 60s, and I was really too young then to understand and appreciate what was going on.

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Baboons with flags.

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

Er...

Reading that document, it says to me 'We found a large amount of degraded (ie, useless) weapons stock. Despite our many efforts to find and destroy further stocks of working weapons, we have been unable to find any. Therefore they must exist, and are a threat.'

The entirity of this intelegence report is speculation, excepting the first point that they had found a relativly low amount of degraded weapon stock that they already knew about. Note, there is a wide margin of fudging available to someone writing these reports. There were sealed and guarded stockpiles of UN confiscated weapons within Iraq. Sadam had no access to them, and *prior* to the US invasion they were well guarded. After the US invasion however...

You really should have learnt not to trust 'intelegence reports' offered for political consumption. Especialy when it's as shallow as a one page summary.

[rabbitboy.livejournal.com]

Degraded doesn't imply useless. "While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal."

The report also doesn't imply that they'd been unable to find further stocks of working weapons. What it says is, "We have found X number of munitions. We assess that Iraq had Y number of munitions that we should have found. Therefore we presume that Y-X munitions still exist out there somewhere."

And then the report speculates that terrorists might want to get the ones we haven't found yet, and use them to do bad things. Purely speculation, sure, but I don't find it hard to stretch the imagination to believe that.

None of which changes the fact that yes, this is simply a little tidbit of political food to toss into the frenzy. The Mainstream Media is breathlessly reporting this as if it were some kind of sudden, surprising news, but we've been hearing about chemical weapons in Iraq for years. Those that have already been paying attention have nothing to gain from this report, and everyone else either isn't paying attention, or wouldn't believe it regardless.

So what's the point? To give bureaucrats something else to blather on about. That is, with few exceptions, all they're really good at.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

Looks like they've managed to alienate the intelegence officials at the DOD over this as well. I think this is turning into a bad backfire, since some of them are making comments to the press that the document is 'innaccurate'.

This is all starting to look like the slow stumbling decline of the GOP as a functioning political entity.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The GOP's been a flaming wreck for the past 20 years. If there were a credible opposition, they'd be in trouble. As it is, things will continue much as they have.

[duke-otterland.livejournal.com]

I really wish people would just get over how/why the Iraq War started in the first place and at least show a little sympathy for our troops.

And it's sad immigration has to be such a sensitive issue. Of course, that's probably because there are about 11 million living here, which makes me wonder how they managed to get away with it for so long...

[barberio.livejournal.com]

You do realise that supporting the troops, supporting the politicians and supporting the war; are not all the same item.

I happen to support the US troops. I happen to have several good friends in the US military. I don't think they should have been sent to Iraq, and I don't belive that Bush is the great military leader he claims to be.

[duke-otterland.livejournal.com]

I know W might not exactly have experience serving in the military, but at least he has surrounded himself with people who do have the experience. And even if he isn't what you'd consider a "great military leader," I don't think the politicans that complain about the war that haven't been in the military are, either, and I think they should visit Iraq themselves before making judgments. And you might want to read this column (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007611) by Joe Lieberman.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

"Surrounded himself with people who do have the experience."

Dick Cheney - Deferred from military service during Veitnam "because service would cause hardship upon his family".
Donald Rumsfeld - Spent Vietnam as a reservist flight instructor. No other military experience.
Condoleezza Rice - No military service.
Michael Chertoff - No military service.
John Negroponte - No military service.
Andrew Card - No military service.
Joshua B. Bolten - No military service.
Karl Rove - Defered his draft in Vietnam by taking a part time course at college. No military service.
Joe Hagin - No military service.
Harriet Miers - No military service.

In fact, the only people with significant military experience, and in positions to influence the president, appear to have been Tom "Duct Tape" Ridge in his short post as head of HLS, and Colin "Hard, Solid, Evidence" Powell who has pretty much admited he had little to no influence on the opinions of his president.

Not the weapons you went to war for

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

These WMD's are Weapons, Massively Degraded. :-)
If they were usable, they'd be live, as opposed to degraded.

[nimblesquirrel.livejournal.com]

Of course, these comments are based on the supposition that this document is real. If such a document were real, and really that sensitive, they wouldn't fax it. Anywhere. I'm sure the House of Representatives would have their own internal massage service for sensitive documents such as these.

A quick reverse lookup on the fax number shows it is in Washington DC, but it is a cell phone (registered to Verizon).

[barberio.livejournal.com]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13480264/

Intelegence officials rebuke claims in the document.

Whoops. Looks like this is going to be a nasty back fire for the guys who released this 'intelegence document'.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, all of the "rebuttals" centre on the idea that the WMDs found were produced before 1991. That may well be true, but it doesn't refute the fact that WMDs were found, and had been in Hussein's possession when he claimed to have none.