It's funny, a liberal says "Where are the WND's, we don't see them". But when asked to produce unseen US weapons, "They were there a minute ago". How delightfully hypocritical. You cannot argue or enlighten people that think this way. It has to be genetic.

I guess you could say if the US supplied Iraq with coke bottles, it would be true that we provided the means for them to make Molotov cocktails. Most of their chemical programs came from dual-use technology and information that has been available for over 50 years.

Believe me, I do. I totally see the humour in the idea that CIA conspiracies need only not be disproven to be true whereas plain evidence is quite visible for the alternative theory.

Judging from the liberals' conviction that Saddam Hussein was a staunch US ally and the facts on the ground that show no US goods and no US support whatsoever for the man, I guess the best description is that the US supported Saddam Hussein in every possible way short of actual help.

I think liberals count as staunch US allies everyone they think is evil. But even that doesn't stop them from speaking up and defending those people when the US finally want to take them out.

This is a strawman, I know, but I did once find a list on the Internet of "fascist dictators supported by the US". It counted as "fascists" among others the King of Morocco (who refused to participate in the Shoah and protected Moroccan Jews from the Nazis) and the Shah of Iran (whose participation in World War 2 allowed for American goods and munitions to reach Russia, saved the Soviet Union, and ultimately won the war against Hitler).

Oddly enough "chairman" Arafat, the nephew of Hitler's Muslim friend Al-Husaini was not an official "fascist", probably because he was not supported by the US and because he was ideologically to close to the Nazis to be a fascist from the point of view of the global left.

It was classic propaganda material used by the left to move the US into the fascist camp together with some of the most famous anti-fascists who refused to be lefties and instead remained conservative and religious.

No, we didn't give two rips about that either. What I'm talking about is the real reason why most wars are fought- economics. There was a point, during the early to mid 80's, in which it looked like Saddam was going to open up his economy in the same way that Saudi did in the 60's.

This would mean that our engineering firms would land contracts to build entire cities and infrastructure just like was done in Saudi, and in the same fashion all of this work would be essentially traded in oil to us.

So, we would land a huge amount of long term economic growth -and- secure Iraq's oil.

Once it became clear that Saddam was -not- going to do this, THEN we turned him into a real bad guy!

No, clearly you are not!

Well, a nice quick look-up can be found here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran-Iraq_war

For all your talk of Soviet support, the Soviets largely pulled the plug once the Iran war began. Saddam openly opposed the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan and allowed the CIA to open an office in Baghdad.

Oh, one other thing. I do believe that in 1986 the UN was going to come down on Iraq for it's use of chemical weapons, but guess who stopped the resolution?

You got it, the U.S vetoed it!

Nitro, I never said that Iraq -never- had any WMD's.

I believed the lies we were fed and was pro-invasion.

It turns out that Iraq really did get rid of almost all of their non-conventional weapons, with absolutely NOTHING resembling a wmd by the time the 2003 invasion kicked off

No, no, and no. Again, show me where I've said he was a "staunch" ally? You keep missing the point, as long as his actions were convenient to us, we turned a blind eye to his indiscretions. The moment that convenience and the benefits it provides dry up, then we launch a crusade of the good guy swooping in to take out the bad guy!

WMD: nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.

Iraq had sarin gas, lots of it was found... most of it was degraded sarin inside delivery warheads. but sarin degrades in WEEKS, and they had the raw chemicals and the chemists (who testified it was their job) to mix more as needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin

Iraq had dabbled in biological warfare, specifically an enhanced anthrax virus.

Iraq had LOTS and LOTS of partially enriched uranium, it was not weapons grade, but it was enriched beyond powerplant grade (just not enough)... the UN was formally complaining about the us removing tons (literally) of the stuff out of iraq.

So in reality Iraq was involved with ALL THREE types of weapons of mass destruction.

Yes taltamir, you're absolutely right. Iraq did pursue all three types of WMD's. This, I have never, ever disputed. In fact the Center for Disease control and State Dept. of the U.S authorized anthrax and other goodies to be sent to Iraq.

However, Iraq gave up the last efforts to pursue any of these in the mid to late 90's.

By the time of the invasion in 2003, all that remained were a few dozen artillery shells with expired gas and a handful of obsolete rockets. Hardly an 'arsenal' by any contemporary standard!

got any evidence to backup that "fact" that the us provided iraq with biological weapons?

And as i said, the gas expires in TWO WEEKS, unless its very pure at which case it will last at most 6 weeks. And we DID catch ice cream tructs converted to sarin production labs and chemists whose job was to produce it on demand (up the point at which WE took down sadam). Those facilities could not produce very pure sarin (6 weeks shelf life), but the less pure 2 week shelf life one is JUST AS DEADLY to humans.

The late 90s was merely the last time (out of many) that saddam actually USED the chemical weapons. the assumption that after 30 years of using chemical weapons every now and then, he dismantled all production facilities and all plans for further use right after the last time he used them is ludecrous.

It's difficult enough to deal with a world in which people who have never been in a country and know little of its people or its history always know best about what the current government secretly does.

But it's even worse, I guess, that for some reason those in power never listen to people like you but keep pretending like having had a real chance to see actual evidence is somehow supposed to be part of being an expert and giving advice.

(The gas expires within two weeks.)

The same could be said about this article......two weeks ago

Thank you for saying absolutely nothing..... FYI, much of my information on Iraq comes from a very good book by Thomas E. Ricks called Fiasco.

Ricks has spent much of his professional life reporting on conflicts around the globe. I suggest you pick up his book and give it a go, rather than spout ideology and portend to know all there ever was or is about Iraq after having spent two weeks in the mostly northern regions.

Oh, and by the way Leauki.

You were wrong about your statement regarding the armenian genocide. The Grand Vizier, Said Halim Pasha, was indeed the ruler of the Ottoman empire at the time and the deportation orders were signed by him. While the "young turk" movement was indeed responsible for the overthrow of the previous ruler, the empire at the time was still ruled by a constititutional monarch, the Grand Vizier.

he said a lot. for one thing he pointed out that even the most avid anti war democrats are not brazen evenough to put forth such lies as you would.

Wonderful, a liberal Washington Post journalist writes a book and you believe for everything he says. Surprise! Surprise! Here is an example of what else Thomas E. Ricks has to say:

"Dunno why, but I've managed to pick fights with parts of the Navy and the Army at the same time. On the ground, I recommended in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post that West Point and the other service academies be closed."

He really sounds like a "fair and balanced" jounalist....not. If your that easily influence by one hack trying to sell a book along with his philosophy, please don't read Mien Kampf or similar materials. I'm sure you can find other books that advance your personal thoughts on the issue....doesn't make it correct though. Research the material, not some else's interpretation of the material.

Well, have you read the book? And by the way, he's got a very exhaustive bibliography listing his sources and material. Again, I always quote my sources, all of which quote their sources, and yet the only response I get is

"biased liberal lies!!!"

Yet, the on-the-ground truth remains that the commander of the entire U.S military was against the invasion and was one-hundred-percent correct in his analysis that the plan cooked up by Rumsfeld and other civilian politicians was woefully inadequate and would lead to needless bloodshed and insurgency.

The reaction? He was fired by Rumsfeld.

This is not a "liberal biased opinion" but pure fact which is exposed, not just by Ricks but by military journalists themselves.

Did you know that Rumsfeld declared war on the pentagon the day before the 9/11 attacks- he wasn't very popular and stated that the Pentagon was it's own worst enemy and would therefore have much of it's functions be outsourced to the private sector. Hello expanded contracts for Halliburton, Triple Canopy and Blackwater.

But no, just sit back and content yourself with the fact that since the journalist is a "liberal" therefore everything  he reports is clearly garbage and there is no necessity to actually pay attention to any of it

Last line you quoted from my post says it all.