UN Report: Iraq Disarmed in 1994

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Keganator

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Source: yahoo news
U.N.: Iraq had no WMD after 1994

Tue Mar 2, 7:28 AM ET
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY

A report from U.N. weapons inspectors to be released today says they now believe there were no weapons of mass destruction of any significance in Iraq (news - web sites) after 1994, according to two U.N. diplomats who have seen the document.

The historical review of inspections in Iraq is the first outside study to confirm the recent conclusion by David Kay, the former U.S. chief inspector, that Iraq had no banned weapons before last year's U.S-led invasion. It also goes further than prewar U.N. reports, which said no weapons had been found but noted that Iraq had not fully accounted for weapons it was known to have had at the end of the Gulf War (news - web sites) in 1991.

The report, to be outlined to the U.N. Security Council as early as Friday, is based on information gathered over more than seven years of U.N. inspections in Iraq before the 2003 war, plus postwar findings discussed publicly by Kay.

Kay reported in October that his team found "dozens of WMD-related program activities" that Iraq was required to reveal to U.N. inspectors but did not. However, he said he found no actual WMDs.

The study, a quarterly report on Iraq from U.N. inspectors, notes that the U.S. teams' inability to find any weapons after the war mirrors the experience of U.N. inspectors who searched there from November 2002 until March 2003.

Many Bush administration officials were harshly critical of the U.N. inspection efforts in the months before the war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in August 2002 that inspections "will be a sham."

The Bush administration also pointedly declined U.N. offers to help in the postwar weapons hunt, preferring instead to use U.S. inspectors and specialists from other coalition countries such as Britain and Australia.

But U.N. reports submitted to the Security Council before the war by Hans Blix, former chief U.N. arms inspector, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, have been largely validated by U.S. weapons teams. The common findings:

Iraq's nuclear weapons program was dormant.

No evidence was found to suggest Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons. U.N. officials believe the weapons were destroyed by U.N. inspectors or Iraqi officials in the years after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraq was attempting to develop missiles capable of exceeding a U.N.-mandated limit of 93 miles.

Demetrius Perricos, the acting executive chairman of the U.N. inspection teams, said in an interview that the failure to find banned weapons in Iraq since the war undercuts administration criticism of the U.N.'s search before the war.

"You cannot say that only the Americans or the British or the Australians currently inspecting in Iraq are the clever inspectors - and the Americans and the British and the Australians that we had were not," he said.

And the truth will set you free. Will it change anything? Not likely. Yet another bit of blunder for the current administration. Hopefully (but not likely) will this bit of news hurt GWB's re-election campaign.
 
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C'mon keg. USA Today. :rolleyes: ;)

This is just the UN trying to save face. Saddam took them for a fool for more than ten years, now they're trying to make it look like this wasn't so after all by claiming that despite the clown hat they were made to wear they kicked some serious ass - "it's just that at the time nobody noticed, you see. We had them running in fear. We were totally in control." :rolleyes:

The Dems will have to come up with more than this to win.
 

Cold Killer

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Did anyone read that article that talked about how Saddam's military scientists lied to him about their progress in making nuclear weapons? It's interesting because that means that Saddam WAS in fact lying when he said that Iraq had none, even though they really didn't.
 

The_Fur

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This is just the UN trying to save face. Saddam took them for a fool for more than ten years, now they're trying to make it look like this wasn't so after all by claiming that despite the clown hat they were made to wear they kicked some serious ass - "it's just that at the time nobody noticed, you see. We had them running in fear. We were totally in control."

Lol yeah they are obviously lying because we've found huge stockpiles of wmd oh wai...
 

ninjin

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this is interesting news, since it would completely discredit Bush's and Blair's claims for starting the war, although nothing much is likely to happen.

personally... this tapping of the UN offices by the MI6 and NSA is intriguing.
 

5eleven

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I am not saying that there are or are not WMD's, I am not saying the war was justified or not, but here's the problem that I have with this UN report based on the article offered by Keg:

U.N.: Iraq had no WMD after 1994

Tue Mar 2, 7:28 AM ET
By Bill Nichols, USA TODAY

The war started March 19th/20th, 2003. While true that the US did NOT obtain support of the UN by final vote even after the UN APPROVED 1441, the call at that time by the major UN players was for more time for UN inspectors to inspect. Does this report indicate that it would have taken inspectors at a minimum of nearly a year to complete inspections and arrive at this conclusion? Let us also not forget that even UN inspectors prior to the war and after 1441 reported that they did not receive completely unfettered access or cooperation from Iraq while they attempted inspections.

Second paragraph:
The historical review of inspections in Iraq is the first outside study to confirm the recent conclusion by David Kay, the former U.S. chief inspector, that Iraq had no banned weapons before last year's U.S-led invasion.

Following paragraph:
The report, to be outlined to the U.N. Security Council as early as Friday, is based on information gathered over more than seven years of U.N. inspections in Iraq before the 2003 war, plus postwar findings discussed publicly by Kay.

Anybody see a problem with these two paragraphs? How can a report that relied in part on postwar findings by David Kay, be included in a document claimed to be "the first outside study to confirm" Kay's conclusions?

In addition:
Kay reported in October that his team found "dozens of WMD-related program activities" that Iraq was required to reveal to U.N. inspectors but did not.
Nobody sees that as a potential problem? Would that not indicate at the outset that there was some additional deception of some sort going on? That's like saying a guy with 10 different methamphetamine recipes, and a shopping list with "100 boxes Sudafed, 5 gallons Denatured Alcohol, and 1 case Liquid Plum'r" shouldn't be suspected of having a meth lab in his basement. Agreed, WMD's haven't been found, and that's not good, but it definitely raises a level of suspicion that requires aggressive investigation.

Iraq's nuclear weapons program was dormant.

No evidence was found to suggest Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons. U.N. officials believe the weapons were destroyed by U.N. inspectors or Iraqi officials in the years after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraq was attempting to develop missiles capable of exceeding a U.N.-mandated limit of 93 miles.

Good, I'm glad their nuclear program was dormant. Although it's too bad the hoops that even the UN inspectors had to go through in order to verify this. If they had no concern, why were they chomping at the bit to get in there and look? Where was this report when the questions were initially raised by the IAEA?

Notice, it says that the UN officials believe the weapons were destroyed. It doesn't say they were, it doesn't say they weren't. All I have heard about is the meticulous documentation that the Iraqi's kept on all of their activities. Where are the records to verify that all stockpiles were destroyed? Didn't the US believe that Iraq had an ongoing WMD capability? Weren't we wrong in that belief? Can the UN not be wrong in their assessment?

Nobody sees a problem with Iraq developing a missile that is in violation of the UN's own 93 mile mandate?

Look, I'm not going to argue the justification of the war with anyone. But those that think this is a smoking gun in the UN's war of words and fight for relevance with the US, I disagree strongly. The UN, in my view a corrupt, and ridiculous organization, full of representatives of countries violating the UN rules that they claim to enforce, and of countries struggling to exert power on the world stage, is NO LONGER A RELEVANT BODY. Um, in my opinion. Flame away. :D
 

MadWoffen

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The war started March 19th/20th, 2003. While true that the US did NOT obtain support of the UN by final vote even after the UN APPROVED 1441, the call at that time by the major UN players was for more time for UN inspectors to inspect. Does this report indicate that it would have taken inspectors at a minimum of nearly a year to complete inspections and arrive at this conclusion? Let us also not forget that even UN inspectors prior to the war and after 1441 reported that they did not receive completely unfettered access or cooperation from Iraq while they attempted inspections."

Blix told to anyone who wanted to hear that it was a matter of months before proving if there was or not WMD...

As for the attitude of the Hussein regime, what do you expect if someone is coming in your house and start looking on your lingerie ? Iraqis have their pride, that's not a question of Saddam or dictature but the pride of a people itself...but yes the dicature also played it's role.
On another level, not having WMD but not saying it was helping Saddam against his rebels like the kurds or the shiites. Reveal the world that Saddam had no more WMD and several rebellions may have started. That was just a big poker game.




In addition: Nobody sees that as a potential problem? Would that not indicate at the outset that there was some additional deception of some sort going on? That's like saying a guy with 10 different methamphetamine recipes, and a shopping list with "100 boxes Sudafed, 5 gallons Denatured Alcohol, and 1 case Liquid Plum'r" shouldn't be suspected of having a meth lab in his basement. Agreed, WMD's haven't been found, and that's not good, but it definitely raises a level of suspicion that requires aggressive investigation.

Yeah, it was dormant as these fighter jets they found in the desert. We all know these jets were totally wrecked by the sand. Same for chemicals weapons which were obsolete. As for the programs in themselves, name me only ONE big country with no WMD programs in the computers of some of their scientists, I wish you good luck...
The thing is the way Iraq was monitored, it was really hard for them to prepare anything with a real military value.



Good, I'm glad their nuclear program was dormant. Although it's too bad the hoops that even the UN inspectors had to go through in order to verify this. If they had no concern, why were they chomping at the bit to get in there and look? Where was this report when the questions were initially raised by the IAEA?

Same thing and it would have been much harder for Iraq to really restart a nuclear program, the technologies involved are so much complex that it would have been easy to trace any evidence. Look at Iran how they were faced to evidence traced by the IAEA and despite massive help Iran got from Pakistan.

Notice, it says that the UN officials believe the weapons were destroyed. It doesn't say they were, it doesn't say they weren't. All I have heard about is the meticulous documentation that the Iraqi's kept on all of their activities. Where are the records to verify that all stockpiles were destroyed? Didn't the US believe that Iraq had an ongoing WMD capability? Weren't we wrong in that belief? Can the UN not be wrong in their assessment?

The UN officials weren't give the necessary time to check all clues and to finalize their conclusion thanks to a certain Chimp...

Nobody sees a problem with Iraq developing a missile that is in violation of the UN's own 93 mile mandate?

A missile that was found by the UN inspectors and scrapped in accordance. UN inspections not working ? I see that as an evidence they were working...

The UN, in my view a corrupt, and ridiculous organization, full of representatives of countries violating the UN rules that they claim to enforce, and of countries struggling to exert power on the world stage, is NO LONGER A RELEVANT BODY.

Agreed. 99,99% of countries are runned by corrupted politicians, we can't expect much from the UN which is a body representing these countries...
 

5eleven

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MW, you make some good points, however, I never heard Blix say that it was "a matter of months" before proving if there were WMD. And I haven't "googled" that, it's just my recollection. I remember him saying that they needed more time, or recommended additional time in order to make a determination.

I disagree completely with the first half of your second paragraph: This is not a question of a democracy, but a question of a dictator and his thugs, who clearly had no qualms about using WMD to quell uprisings or destroy dissenters. It's not necessarily what you have, but the manner in which you use it. The pride of the Iraqi people isn't in question. The narcissistic personality of their leader is what is in question. As far as the poker game analogy, I agree with you wholeheartedly, but while Shiites and Kurds couldn't ante up, and the rest of the Arab community seemingly allowed him to bluff, the US called. That is an unfortunate result of trying to play poker with lives on the world stage.

Yeah, it was dormant as these fighter jets they found in the desert. We all know these jets were totally wrecked by the sand. Same for chemicals weapons which were obsolete. As for the programs in themselves, name me only ONE big country with no WMD programs in the computers of some of their scientists, I wish you good luck...
The thing is the way Iraq was monitored, it was really hard for them to prepare anything with a real military value.

I understand what you are saying about the jets.....but honestly, couldn't those jets be salvaged and used. I understand, they weren't going to unbury themselves and fly off into the Empire State Building, but having the hardware, and the hardware being temporarily unusable........seriously, are the jets unsalvagable? I agree with your analogy, and I agree that some major countries DO in fact, have WMD programs, the US being one of them. Again, I point to the difference and distinction between a democracy, a civil society, and to a country ruled by an absolute dictator. I just see that as a major difference. I know many of you will disagree, mainly because of your dislike for my country, but nonetheless, that's how I feel.

Same thing and it would have been much harder for Iraq to really restart a nuclear program, the technologies involved are so much complex that it would have been easy to trace any evidence. Look at Iran how they were faced to evidence traced by the IAEA and despite massive help Iran got from Pakistan

Excellent point.

The UN officials weren't give the necessary time to check all clues and to finalize their conclusion thanks to a certain Chimp...
I disagree. Based solely on the timing of this report. Again, I never ever heard any comments by Blix that they were ready to make a definitive statement about WMD in Iraq. Besides, once war was inevitable, I imagine that it would be easy to make that comment. Sort of like my view on Kay. Seemed like he just said, okay, well, I've been here a year, I can't find them, I'm definitely better prepared and more qualified than the UN inspectors, therefore WMD do not exist in Iraq. I'm not saying personally that they do or don't exist. But they never found the body of Jimmy Hoffa either......does that mean he isn't dead, or never existed? Whether Iraq did actually destroy the WMD they had, or whether they shipped arms and programs to Syria or other sympathetic and monetarily tied countries, the questions are still unanswered as far as I'm concerned.

A missile that was found by the UN inspectors and scrapped in accordance. UN inspections not working ? I see that as an evidence they were working...
Good point, however what about the period of time that Iraq refused to comply and refused to allow inspectors back into the country? My point is that if they had complied, and were intending upon compliance, why try to restrict inspectors, remove inspectors or try to dodge inspection programs?
 
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Woffen, what the UN functionaries & Blix kindly laft aside in their statements is that the inspections had been going on for over ten years, unsuccessfully, with the political pressure financed largely by the US. Blix presented it like it was the first time they ever inspected anything in Iraq and "of course Saddam will be reluctant, until he sees the merits of these inspections, we're making good progress, yadda, yadda". If this had been the case, there would never have been a war. Ten years with no conclusive results is not what I call "Good progress".

As for your House&lingerie analogy, it's utterly flawed: The correct analogy would be "What do you expect if you resist a law enforcement search of your premises against a valid search warrant." - Do that and you're bound to your front door busted in, arrested and your entire house turned upside down. Just because, they'll figure, if you had reason to resist, it must be that you have something to hide.

And that's exactly what happened, for better or for worse. - F*ck pride. :D
 

[C22]-Mort

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I never believed for a second that there WERE WMD present, everybody surely knew it was just a pretext for the invasion or whatever you want to call it.

I personally no longer care about WMD in Iraq, there's civil war, genocide, wide-spread gang rape by Militia groups on children as young as 9 leaving them with permanent injuries happening in The Congo NOW.

Since 1999 over 50,000 people have been killed and more than half a million refugees yet the international community and most forums still want to bang on about WMD in Iraq, why?

A small french led UN force has been dispatched, and is totally under-manned and under-resourced, where is the International outrage, why are Abbott & Costello, sorry Bush & Blair, not telling us we should be doing something about it? Why are they not mobilising?

Because there's nothing in it for them, that's why!

When politicians talk about moral outrage and "peace-keeping", you know it's nothing more than an excuse to pick a country up by it's feet, shake it, and take whatever falls out of it's pockets! If there's NOTHING in those pockets then they aren't interested!
 

MadWoffen

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First point: I don't hate your country, 511, I just hate the Chimp and his band of baboons who are running it. I wonder when the american society will realize that being critic of their leaders doesn't mean being unpatriotic or hatefull toward this country...

Secilnd point about Blix: I think it's the 3rd or 4th time I bring this issue on the BU forums =>

It will take several months to check whether Iraq has complied fully with its disarmament obligations, chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix says.

"It will not take years, nor weeks, but months," he told the UN Security Council.

I'll advise you to read the rest of the article (about the so-called tubes or hidden laboratories), even if you consider BBC being liberal. :rolleyes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2829213.stm

As for the pride, that's for you and WolfBeing: not taking in account the natural pride of the Arab people in your decisions (for every gvt), discussions (for every John Doe) or else is like talking blindly about a subject you don't know jack shit. It exists, will ever exists and so far is taking an important part in their diplomacy because for a lot of countries it is almost the only thing left for their people (I'm not talking about their gvt but their PEOPLE).

For the inspections: aftyer the first Gulf War, it was well known that more than 95% of Iraqi WMD have been disabled and the rest (mostly chemicals) where outdated by themselves (these weapons have a short lifeterm). Some of these weapons were destroyed by heavy bombardment, others by the first inspections. Ten years later, when pressurized by the UN and Bush admin., they released a lot of documents and DVD's (remember those ?) but all this stuff was dismissed by Bush and his baboons...
(and keep in mind these points: pride of arabs and the poker Saddam was playing with the world but also with the kurds and the shiites: "I'm the man ruling this country, I may have or may not have WMD, wanna try a rebellion to check it ?")
How can you prove something to someone when that someone will never accept any of your statements ?
Face it, the Chimp and his baboons WANTED this war! Even if Saddam would have showed all signs of good behavior, the Chimp would have entered with his toys (I say toys speaking of Bush because I consider this guy has no respect for the boys working in the US army, don't get me wrong on this).
I'm pretty sure that even if Saddam would have resigned, the Chimp would have find a way to send in an occupation force (to avoid civil war as an excuse) and to lead this force without having to be liable to anyone...

One last thing about inspectors chased out of Iraq in the 90's, you seem to forgot (or never knew about it) why they have been chased: some western inspectors weren't only working for the UN but also spying for the account of their country...

As for the jets, are you kidding ? Salvage them ? Lol. They are totally useless, an american expert confirmed these jets were buried for too long in the sand to be salvaged as fighter planes. They were there since the first Gulf War.


Last point about narcissic dictators oppressing their people: just read what Mort wrote about Congo and keep in mind there are some dozens countries like this in the world and no one is questioning their government (or very poorly when they are not in business with them). These countries range from Pakistan to North Korea passing by Cuba, Myanmar, Caucasian republics or old Soviet republics or even Russia...
 

MadWoffen

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To echoes Mort and my last point, some fresh news:

Study: Thousands of Girls Fighting on Front Lines
Reuters
Wed Mar 3,11:54 AM ET


By Bernard Woodall

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of young girls are fighting on front lines across the developing world and not just serving as cooks and sex slaves to male soldiers, according to a study released on Wednesday.




"There is a tendency to overclassify girls in the countries where we worked as sex slaves when in fact they are more often front-line fighters," said Dyan Mazurana, one of the study's authors.

Mazurana and fellow U.S.-based researcher Susan McKay wrote "Where are the Girls?" after three years interviewing more than 300 girls under 18 in northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique. Their study, funded by the Canadian government, also looked at wars from Nepal to the Middle East to Colombia.

Girls are in battle and also in domestic service as cooks, a job that often includes providing sex on demand to male fighters, Mazurana said in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

To help such girls, who are usually kidnapped and forced into service, international aid agencies must address their often-hidden presence and role as front-line fighters, the study said.

In northern Uganda, children make up about 80 percent of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, and up to half of those are girls, Mazurana said.

"The majority of the girls in northern Uganda, in the LRA, are 10 to 13 years old," she said.

ABDUCTIONS

Two weeks ago, the LRA, which says it wants to win a better life for Uganda's northern Acholi people but has never clearly stated its demands, killed as many as 230 people in a raid on a camp for Ugandans left homeless by the 17-year insurgency.

Girls were active in such raids, Mazurana said.

"People are not willing to join the LRA and as a result it is much more efficient for them to simply capture people and force them to participate," she said. "An accurate estimate is 50,000 people abducted by the LRA."

"In sub-Saharan Africa, if we want to understand the kind of war economies and what is at the foundation of these conflicts and how they operate, we absolutely have to pay attention to the role of youth -- boys and girls."

In Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, which ended two years ago, 22,500 of the rebel Revolutionary United Front's 45,000 members were children, and 7,500 of them girls, the study found. A second Sierra Leone rebel group, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council, had 10,000 soldiers, half of whom were children and about 1,700 were girls.

The rebel groups were infamous for their brutal tactics, including hacking off the limbs of civilians and forcing children to kill their parents and fight while high on drugs.

After the war, U.N. peacekeepers helped disarm 47,000 fighters, many of them children inured to violence.

The program set up to help the former soldiers return to civilian life helped only 5 percent of the girls linked to the two main rebel groups, Mazurana and McKay found.

Girls in Sierra Leone, Uganda and Mozambique spent from several weeks to as long as 10 years or more in the service of rebel armies and government-sponsored paramilitary groups, with the average stay being six years, Mazurana said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...&e=15&u=/nm/20040303/wl_nm/arms_girls_un_dc_1

Who is going to help them ? The UN reports and the nations don't even look at it. At best a charity group labelled "liberal" or "leftist" by some of you will try to do something with almost no real structure.
This is just an example on what is going on in the world and in countries WITHOUT embargos on some essentials goods.
Welcome to Earth...
 
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I agree Woffen, but who's going to pay for it? - "What's in it for me?" is a valid question, especially when, as in the case of the US, you are implicitly being asked to provide the majority of manpower and logistics. Nobody else has the financial and logistical means, which is why France only has a token force in Congo. They can hardly afford what they have now.

That wonderful wall of political and military pressure that enabled the UN-inspections in Iraq was paid for mostly by the US taxpayer. - Of course the more conservative forces in the US blew a gasket when it one day looked like this was being taken for granted while the rest of the world played the "international community"-game. They felt that their views were not being respected after the tens of billions they spent on the project.

Somebody has to pay for it, and the US have been the only ones willing to do so. The fact that nothing is being done at all anymore now that the US are no longer as willing to step in (because they're streched thin themselves) shows what a huge masquarade the whole "international community" thing was. Europe played along as long as the US kept the cost of involvement low for them. Now that they have to cough up the dinero and political liability themselves there's a whole lot of nothing going on.
 

[C22]-Mort

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AS an interesting exercise, Take a map of the world and 25 red pins & 25 blue pins, make a list of all the countries where the US has finanacially supported UN intervention and has since set-up a permanent military presence and place a Blue pin in the map on that country.

Next make a list of the most politically un-stable yet materially wealthy nations (wealthy in terms of resources, Oil, Coal Mineral & metals) and place Red pins in those countries!

Look at the pattern!

Nobody is doubting that the US were the only nation willing to finance these efforts but please don't imply that it was in ANY way a humanitarian gesture, it has and will always be about gain monetary before political, it VERY rarely has anything to do with the good of the people living there! Of course that makes sense in a selfish, self-centred way, but in no way does any of these military actions enable anybody to take the moral high-ground!

oh and btw...whenever a nation reports the cost of these actions (US, UK anybody else) it is always the GROSS cost not the NETT cost (i.e. the Gross cost less what the upkeep cost of those forces would have been for that time period anyway)! not that those figures are samll either ;) ;)
 
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MadWoffen

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Wolf Being said:
That wonderful wall of political and military pressure that enabled the UN-inspections in Iraq was paid for mostly by the US taxpayer.

Source please ?

AFAIK, the first war was mainly paid by Japan, Germany and other countries.
What was the status of the force that remained there ? For which goal ? Maybe if the US and UK wouldn't have played spy games inside Iraq and the UN, the case would have been finished for years...
The Chimp was there to wage war, to say the pile-up of armed forces was only to allow UN inspections is kinda laughable.
 
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That's not what I said Woffen. The pileup was of course because there had been a rather large ground war in '91 (duh), then a negotiated truce under the condition of inspections and full compliance. A simple chronology of the UN inspections will make it painfully obvious that inspectors only were allowed to take up inspections again when the US and UK dropped heavy bombs. Surely you remember.

I'm talking about '91 to '03, not just '03. Blix was the last straw for UN credibility on Iraq. Too many politicians wouldn't recognize this, which ultimately led to his failure, because Saddam thought he could bluff it. Well, someone called.

As for who paid for it, do you think a couple of aircraft carriers and a quarter-million ground troops with fully integrated C3 and doctrine suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the eve of desert storm, fully trained and equiped, asking only that someone pick up the tab afterwards? Being the top military power in the world costs money. Simply put, Europe invested in social security, the US invested in the military.

The 'operating cost' of desert storm is but a fraction of it all, because there is no way in hell that operation would have come together without the contribution of the US. - If you want to see laughable, check out the idea of making cash donations to substitute for putting the lives of your own citizens on the line.

Anyway, this has all been done to death. I just think the 'angelification' of the UN is pretty ridiculous. It's an assembly of nations that each are acting in their own best self-interest. It's a wonderful institution and the world is a better place thanks to it. But it has its limits: Where there is no will, there is no way. And on the eve of this last war, there was no will to a peaceful solution on either side of the court.

edit: typos
 
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ninjin

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i would like to note that Japan has paid BILLIONS of yen for the first Gulf War and got absolutely NO recognition from the states apart that "it should do better" and Japan wasnt even listed on the list of countries that helped in the Gulf War.
 

SaraP

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At this point, I've ceased to care how the war was justified to the blind sheep that make up the majority of the American public -- getting rid of Saddam was a Really Good Thing.