[antimedia] antimedia: Half of the country is insane....

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Posted by antimedia:
Half of the country is insane....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1155089795.shtml


   ....[1]according to Charles Hanley, Pulitzer Prize winning writer for
   the AP.

     Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have
     weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
     Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and
     experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk
     radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline
     here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing
     need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
     People tend to become "independent of reality" in these
     circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
     The reality in this case is that after a 16-month,
     $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as
     the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its
     chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N.
     oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N.
     inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in
     Iraq.

   In [2]the report's conclusions, the ISG stated:

     Saddam wanted to recreate Iraqâs WMD capabilityâwhich was
     essentially destroyed in 1991âafter sanctions were removed and
     Iraqâs economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of
     capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to
     develop a nuclear capabilityâin an incremental fashion,
     irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic
     risksâbut he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical
     chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.

   A rational person would ask, if Iraq dismantled their WMD programs in
   1991, then why in God's name did Saddam's son-in-law take the (for
   him) fatal step of revealing the existing programs in 1995, just
   months after [3]he and Saddam may be heard on tape discussing the
   weapons the ISG claims did not exist? And how in God's name could the
   ISG have possibly missed that stunning inconsistency?
   In the ISG's [4]final report, Duelfer admitted that the group had only
   exploited "about 10%" of the identified sites. As I have documented
   (in the Dave Gaubatz archives), the ISG didn't even bother to
   investigate sites in southern Iraq identified by US federal agents.
   How anyone could definitely say "there were no WMD in Iraq after 1991"
   is left to the readers' imaginations.
   In the [5]scope note, the report details the problems encountered by
   the ISG in their efforts to uncover the WMD programs. To think that a
   completely thorough inventory could have been taken is to misapprehend
   the conditions in Iraq, the willingness of witnesses to cooperate and
   even the consistency of the analysis done by the "experts". The ISG's
   final report is, in fact, a superficial analysis of Iraq's WMD
   programs.
   Hanley also ignores a host of other evidence that contradicts the
   liberal and media line that there were no WMD in Iraq. [6]Recently
   translated documents from Iraq buttress the case that some WMD were
   transferred to Syria, with the assistance of the Russians, before the
   war began. Duelfer himself [7]admitted to Congress that "a lot of
   material" went to Syria before the war and that he "couldn't rule out"
   that WMD were included. An [8]addendum to the report (pdf) states,
   "ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule
   out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war."
   A [9]series of articles on this blog detailed the efforts of Dave
   Gaubatz to get someone, anyone to inspect four WMD sites that his team
   identified in southern Iraq. To date those sites have never been
   investigated.
   That Hanley ignores all these facts says more about his predetermined
   conclusion than it does about the facts.

References

   1. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060806/ap_on_re_us/iraq_believing_wmd;_ylt=AqMlCIAUggT26Awr6oI6GFkDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDJjOXUyBHNlYwNtdm5ld3M-
   2. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol1_rsi_key-findings.htm
   3. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/18/hussein.tapes/index.html
   4. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/
   5. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol1_scope-note.htm
   6. http://iraqdocs.blogspot.com/2006/07/iraqi-dissident-talks-about-wmd-moved.html
   7. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40946
   8. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2005/isg-addendums_mar2005.pdf
   9. http://www.antimedia.us/dave_gaubatz/