Ok for starters some intel or press the year or so and a little more leading up to the invasion of Iraq. What I find apalling is that someone still attempts to justify invading another nation. resolution 687 was referring to forbidding Iraq to posess, use, or develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons???? He had nothing. What he did have was a nuclear reactor or weapons program that got blasted by the Israeli's in 81. So yes he had aluminum tubes and uranium and plutonium. This is why it was little reported. Read this next paragraph and get out of that cloud. We say its ok for Iraq to have and use WMD when they were at war with Iran even though it violated treatys we signed. In essesnce we helped him acquire these products and intel of when n where to kill the Iranians. These actions caused us more grief than you will ever know. For starters the first time we went to Iraq it was because of rumors of the treatment and genocide against Kuwaiti's. Also it was quoted "we feared he would invade other OIL PRODUCING NATIONS" as another reason to get involved. Rumors that were found to be untrue and speculation fueled public approval for going to war. What's sad is it didn't take much to dupe Bush and djwils looks like it wouldn't take much to dupe you either. Now we know Iran does have weapons shouldn't we do the right thing and disarm them? Heck we helped Iraq poision em. Or can you say maybe we need to be careful and not make the same mistake as Iraq. Our policy towards the middle east has been a collection of mistakes for almost 40 years. It seems like the only thing we did right was manage to kill people and make em all hate us. The American people have little to nothing against the middle east up until the 90s but our government obviously has a plan few of us know.
Despite the removal of Saddam and his regime by American forces, there is deep resentment and anger in Iran that it was Western nations that helped Iraq develop and direct its chemical weapons arsenal in the first place and that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons throughout the war. For example, the US and UK blocked condemnation of Iraq's known chemical weapons attacks at the UN Security Council. No resolution was passed during the war that specifically criticized Iraq's use of chemical weapons, despite the wishes of the majority to condemn this use. On 21 March 1986 the United Nation Security Council recognized that "chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian forces"; this statement was opposed by the United States, the sole country to vote against it in the Security Council (the UK abstained).
The US claimed that Iraq's weapons report which was filed with the U.N. leaves weapons and materials unaccounted for; the Iraqis claimed that it was destroyed, something that had been confirmed years earlier by Iraq's highest profile defector, Hussein Kamel. According to reports from the previous U.N. inspection agency, UNSCOM, Iraq produced 600 metric tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, VX and sarin, and nearly 25,000 rockets and 15,000 artillery shells, with chemical agents, that are still unaccounted for. In fact, in 1995, Iraq told the United Nations that it had produced at least 30,000 liters of biological agents, including anthrax and other toxins it could put on missiles, but that all of it had been destroyed.
In January 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that they had found no indication that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or an active program. Some former UNSCOM inspectors disagree about whether the United States could know for certain whether or not Iraq had renewed production of weapons of mass destruction
Scott Ritter stated that the WMDs Saddam had in his possession all those years ago has long since turned to harmless substances. Sarin and tabun have a shelf life of five years, VX lasts a bit longer (but not much longer), and finally botulinum toxin and liquid anthrax last about three years. On March 7, 2003, Hans Blix's last report to the UN security Council prior to the US led invasion of Iraq, described Iraq as actively and proactively cooperating with UNMOVIC, though not necessarily in all areas of relevance and had been frequently uncooperative in the past, but that it was within months of resolving key remaining disarmament tasks.
On May 30, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz stated in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine that the issue of weapons of mass destruction was the point of greatest agreement among Bush's team among the reasons to remove Saddam Hussein from power. He said, "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but, there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two." The same day, General James T. Conway, senior Marine commander in Iraq, expressed similar thoughts in a satellite interview with reporters at the Pentagon. "It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it."
OK so we knew there were missing WMDs and knew for a fact without a doubt their shelf life had expired and still had to dramatise his posession of expired weapons.
Yes we knew Iraq was in the nuclear business and your point is? djwils:"Iraq has never, I repeat never had plans for any kind of nuclear energy generation facility"
.... France built Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in the late 1970s. Israel claimed that Iraq was getting close to building nuclear weapons, and so bombed it in 1981. Later, a French company built a turnkey factory which helped make nuclear fuel. France also provided glass-lined reactors, tanks, vessels, and columns used for the production of chemical weapons. Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French. Strains of dual-use biological material also helped advance Iraq’s biological warfare program.
Italy gave Iraq plutonium extraction facilities that advanced Iraq’s nuclear weapon program. 75,000 shells and rockets designed for chemical weapon use also came from Italy. Between 1979 and 1982 Italy gave depleted, natural, and low-enriched uranium. Swiss companies aided in Iraq’s nuclear weapons development in the form of specialized presses, milling machines, grinding machines, electrical discharge machines, and equipment for processing uranium to nuclear weapon grade. Brazil secretly aided the Iraqi nuclear weapon program by supplying natural uranium dioxide between 1981 and 1982 without notifying the IAEA. About 100 tons of mustard gas also came from Brazil.
