Iraq owns no oil

[nichomach]

it's a precursor, and certainly a coincidence when the bush administration was wanting to completely outlaw abortion.

I agree, and as I said...

it appears to lay the groundwork for giving a foetus legal personality independent of the woman carrying it, but it does not in itself make abortion illegal.

But you can't state that in itself it makes abortion illegal; that's just using the same tactics of distortion, outright lies and scaremongering that the Right usually rely on, and is a good way to lose the moral argument before you start.

[andybasford]

no WMD eh,

so what did saddam use on the kurds aprox 13 years ago....the pics of woman and kids in the street gassed, whole villages killed, then the army sent in and they were just dumped in mass graves ?????

do we really think he thought, oh i will dismantle these and destroy them ?????

or

do we think they are either :

a: buried deep in the desert
b. put on a train to syria and stored in syria (this seems the most likely imho)

its easy to judge now that we havent found any WMD, BUT he did have them, and he used them on his own people, and they are still somewhere

If it is as clear cut as you say, then why are there now enquiries in practically all the countries of the "coalition of the willing" investigating our intelligence failures in believing Saddam had weapons.

[G4Z]

I watched an interesting repeat of a panorama program last night and in it an Iraqi republican guard officer said the republican guard had responsabillity for the chemical weapons and it was they who used them in 1988 against the kurds. He also said that once sanctions were in place the supplies of chemical weapons were no longer available and were never availible once in the last 11 years. tbh I dont belive saddam ever had any "WMD" (hate that phrase as well tbh, nobody had ever heard of it until bush said it in his "axis of evil" (another phrase I hate) speech) and that he was basicaly hanging a beware of the dog sign at his door when he never really had a dog.

[blue..matt]

I watched an interesting repeat of a panorama program last night and in it an Iraqi republican guard officer said the republican guard had responsabillity for the chemical weapons and it was they who used them in 1988 against the kurds. He also said that once sanctions were in place the supplies of chemical weapons were no longer available and were never availible once in the last 11 years. tbh I dont belive saddam ever had any "WMD" (hate that phrase as well tbh, nobody had ever heard of it until bush said it in his "axis of evil" (another phrase I hate) speech) and that he was basicaly hanging a beware of the dog sign at his door when he never really had a dog.

where did the pictures of that gassed Kurd town come from ?????

[blue..matt]

If it is as clear cut as you say, then why are there now enquiries in practically all the countries of the "coalition of the willing" investigating our intelligence failures in believing Saddam had weapons.

its not really clear cut, and i am not expert on this matter, BUT we have pictures of a kurd village gassed , and reports of drone-like aircrafts dropping gas payloads

i guess it could be all "US war machine hype" personally, i dont think it is, we know that Saddam was a dictator and answered to no1, well till now

i know the Iraq effort is going wrong, BUT we have got rid of a tyrant, and supporter of Al-Queda, we have proof that since afganistan fell to the US, Al-Queda had been using Iraq (in the north) as a training ground

Yes we know the US was more interested in the OIL, but they did a job of removing a threat to the western world, im not a big fan on the US, they wil not stop till they control the world, but if its a safer world, i dont mind singing "star spangled banner" ifact i like the Jimi hendrix version

of course this is all my opinion, and i hope no1 will take offence at it

[Oakey]

You're referring to something that happened 11 years ago, sure he had them then, the US know this, as the old joke goes; they checked their receipts

Do they still have them now? Unlikely don't you think? It's been a year and they've found sweet FA. And if they did have them, when it was becoming obvious that Iraq was going to fall, wouldn't they have used them?

But hey, if that's not enough for you, and you want some real shady conspiracy stuff, do some research into the Bush's ties with the Bin Ladens and the Saudi royals (you do know the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi right?) and how members of the bin Laden family were allowed to fly in those few days ater 9/11 whilst all other planes were grounded. This kind of activity makes Bush capable of anything imo.

[G4Z]

2 points really, I already said that the republican gaurd used chemical weapons in 1988 and that the iraqi officer said that the chemical weapons were no longer available once sanctions were in place (see 1991 Iraq war...)

also, the noth of iraq has been free from saddam for a number of years with local kurds running the show, so if Al Queda had ties there it likely had nothing to do with the saddam regime. Also this whole assosiation ebtween iraq and Al Queda has never been proved and to me it just seems like its a case of say it enough times and people will beilive you. I also saw footage of colin powell (the same panorama program) in febuary 2001 saying that iraq was effectively contained and had no capabillity to produce or deploy chemical or biological weapons. kind of a contradiction to what he said after spetember 2001 dont you think?

[andybasford]

I think it was obvious to most people in the run up to war that the whole WMD thing was a complete charade.
It seemed obvious that the only intelligence about the weapons was hypothetical scenarios based on the assumption that Saddam would be trying to procure weapons.
The prime examples being the two British "dodgy" dossiers and the 45 minute claim.
If it was solely based on WMDs then why did we go to war against the judgement of the chief weapons inspector, the man who was solely responsible for judging the cooperation(or otherwise) of the iraqis.

[Stoo]

The chemical weapons that he had in '91 only have a certain shelf-life, just about everything else other than the basics fell into disrepair..

The US has more ties with Al Queda and the Bin-Laden's than Iraq ever has..

Don't get me wrong, Saddam is an evil sod is is probably better off out than in, but he is a sod that both the US (and British Governments if you go far back enough) installed many years ago, and our meddling back then has turned around and bitten us on the backside.

I just hope the UK aren't dragged down any further by jumping in two-footed with the US again. :/

[Blub2k]

WMD
Axis Of Evil
sound bytes
suckaaaaz
the power of marketing as brought to you by corporate USA

[blue..matt]

But hey, if that's not enough for you, and you want some real shady conspiracy stuff, do some research into the Bush's ties with the Bin Ladens and the Saudi royals (you do know the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi right?) and how members of the bin Laden family were allowed to fly in those few days ater 9/11 whilst all other planes were grounded. This kind of activity makes Bush capable of anything imo.

I didnt know this, will look into it, isnt the net wonderfull, shame we allways get sucked into these conspiracy sites, who shot JFK

my theory is, the WMD were trained to syria along with the $$$$'s that we are still on the hunt for and some of the higher ranking Iraq people

[blue..matt]

are we talking of the daughters here ?????....didnt they want to become pop stars if i remmber correctly

[Saracen]

Oh, and on April 1st, Bush signed in a paper, which "makes it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on a pregnant woman." (i.e. makes abortion illegal)

Huzzah for the land of the free

Makes abortion illegal? It does no such thing. What it DOES do is to make the harming of the foetus a separate federal offence IF the pregnant mother is assaulted during the commission of another federal offence - and the Act defines some 68 such federal offences, and does NOT apply to lawful abortions. It has nothing to do with abortion - at least, not directly. It could be argued that it establishes the precedent of action for the murder of the foetus, and is perhaps the first step on the road to making abortion illegal, but even if that is true, there's a long road ahead. Roe v. Wade still applies, and Bush can't overturn it - that requires the Senate to act.

Also, Bush did not make this law - he merely rubber-stamped it. It was passed in the Senate by a vote of 61-38, and had previously been the subject of a very long fight in House of Representatives. Arguably, it would have been an erosion of the "land of the free" if he HADN'T passed it, as to apply the presidential veto could be argued as overruling the wishes of the elected Senate and House of Representatives. Besides which, a two-thirds majority in Congress can overrule a presidential veto anyway.

[url]Translated, it says that all Iraqi pretroleum products, reserves, inetersts, anything at all related to oil, count as being on United States land and are under the control of the United States or US-licensed businesses.

Iraq no longer has any oil reserves to call their own.

No, it doesn't say that. What it does say is that the Development Fund and any Iraqi oil-related assets are protected from any form of legal action in the United States. It categorically does NOT say that Iraqi oil and things relating to it count as US land.

Whether this EO is justified or not, or is too wide-ranging or not, is another argument. But there is precedent - both Reagan and Carter took similar actions over the Iran crisis.

The final arbiter will be how this act is used. Bear in mind it does not preclude legal action being taken against these assets, it just prevents it being done without explicit authorisation under this EO. So the judgement needsto be on how this is implemented. On the one hand, it could be used to prevent resources that should be dedicated to the redevelopment of Iraq being sqaundered instead in lawsuits -and we all know how litigious the US courts can be, and how large awards can be. On the other hands, it could be used to shield US corporations from being held accountable for gross negligence in their Iraqi operations, and thereby denying the victims of that negligence the usual recourse to the courts. BUT, of course, such licence could be granted undert he EO under those circumstances.

Consider though - the Iraq development Fund is a big fat target for anyone looking for something to sue, and the money is SUPPOSED to end up benefitting Iraq, not some greedy US lawyers. This EO precludes such raids, unless specifically authorised, becausethe Dev Fund and other oil-related funds and resources in the US are protected.

But you can't state that in itself it makes abortion illegal; that's just using the same tactics of distortion, outright lies and scaremongering that the Right usually rely on, and is a good way to lose the moral argument before you start.

I agree completely.

[VladTheImpaler]

"do we think they are either :

a: buried deep in the desert
b. put on a train to syria and stored in syria (this seems the most likely imho)

its easy to judge now that we havent found any WMD, BUT he did have them, and he used them on his own people, and they are still somewhere"


"I didnt know this, will look into it, isnt the net wonderfull, shame we allways get sucked into these conspiracy sites, who shot JFK

my theory is, the WMD were trained to syria along with the $$$$'s that we are still on the hunt for and some of the higher ranking Iraq people"

There is none as blind as one who does not wish to see......

[DaBeeeenster]

An interesting post from Noam Chomsky's weblog...

http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000171.html#more

What do people think of this? It all seems fairly obvious from here, and I am surprised that such a large swathe of people (particularly in the US) are still sticking to the original gameplan (less links with Al Qaeda, WOMD etc).

Here in Oz, the PM John Howard actually stated that he thought the invasion of Iraq would DECREASE the risk of terrorism in Australia. I mean, I cant see a single argument for this at all...

[spazman]

Bush is the worst thing to happed to the world in 60 years.

edit: Read dude wheres my country by Michael Moore, it will scare you sh*tless.