Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Yes, Raid is prettymuch Sarin gas, don't believe me, go look it up yourself.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
I'm sorry Finn, but the plain fact of the matter is that the horror story that the Administration painted was just that: a story. It was far away from the reality of the situation ... a reality readily available to anyone who chose to listen to ground-based evaluations.

And getting back to the original point: That is how I knew that Saddam DIDN'T have WMD.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:

And getting back to the original point: That is how I knew that Saddam DIDN'T have WMD.

---

Signy, Finn is showing no flexibility in his thinking on this, he has gone all Herbert on us. Your arguments, while magnificent, are wasted on him I'm afraid. Good show, though.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
[ So you knew he didn’t have WMDs, because we found WMDs in Iraq. No amount of logic can bring you to that conclusion – that is driven by ideology.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’ve heard a lot of magnificent arguments about why I’m going to hell, but I don’t buy those either.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’m not often persuaded by ideology. I tend to look at the facts.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
[ So you knew he didn’t have WMDs, because we found WMDs in Iraq. No amount of logic can bring you to that conclusion – that is driven by ideology.

---

LOL, yeah, and I once found my son with an empty box of cookies, so I said "Where are you hiding the rest, whelp?"
He said there were no more, that he'd just finished the box that was there, but I knew better- so I tore apart the house. I didn't find them, but I KNEW they existed...perhaps the mice spirited them away.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’m not often persuaded by ideology. I tend to look at the facts.

---

Yeah, but people just blindly following Ideology say the same thing.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I’ve heard a lot of magnificent arguments about why I’m going to hell, but I don’t buy those either.

---

Just for the record, I had you as going upstairs.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Some of my more devout friends don’t like my point of view about the inability to “know” unknowable things, anymore then others do.

---

Quote:

---

Raid uses pyrethroids, which are only really toxic to Insects.

---

Quote:

---

People who blindly follow ideology tend to claim that know things they can’t possibly know.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:
I am prepared to be wrong about stuff. Gorram it, I WANT to be wrong about stuff sometimes!

(the above was a hint, nudge nudge, wink wink)

---

Quote:

---

But sometimes formulating an opinion on something clouds your judgment, because you will always want to see that opinion as “right.”

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:
And has your opinion clouded your judgment because you thought that it was "right"?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by rue:
All of that tells me Bush and his administration knew ahead of time there were not enough WMDs to be a threat, and they lied, and lied, and lied, and then lied some more to start an illegal war.

---

Quote:

---

I’m not often persuaded by ideology. I tend to look at the facts.

---

Quote:

---

we’ve found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:

Quote:

---

I’m not often persuaded by ideology. I tend to look at the facts.

---

I've heard no "facts" from YOU sufficient to support the administration's "imminent threat" claims.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
BTW- I knew that Saddam "had" WMD. The operative word is "had". I expected, in the rout of the first Gulf war, that some things would be left behind.

Quote:

---

we’ve found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.

---

But you're claiming "stockpiles". By which you imply... meaningful amounts of imminently threatening WMD, not old leftovers scattered here and there?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I don’t remember administration stating that Iraq was an imminent threat.

---

Quote:

---

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
• White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
• President Bush, 7/17/03

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
• President Bush, 7/2/03

"Absolutely."
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03

"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
• President Bush 4/24/03

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
• Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
• President Bush, 3/19/03

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
• President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
• President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
• President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
• President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
• President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
• President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
• President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
• President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02

---

Quote:

---

Rumsfeld thanked those people for their relatives' willingness to serve the country. He then very directly laid out the threat an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction poses to the United States and the world. He said people should think back to the time before Sept. 11, 2001, and ask themselves when the attack of Sept. 11 became an imminent threat.

"When was it sufficiently dangerous to our country that, had we known about it, we could have stepped up and stopped it?" he asked. "When was it that we could have saved 3,000 lives?"

He asked listeners to move forward in time and imagine what would happen if Saddam Hussein were to use weapons of mass destruction or transfer those weapons to groups like al Qaeda.

"With a weapon of mass destruction, you're not talking 300 people or 3,000 people being killed, but 30,000 or 100,000," he said. "If you think about it, it's the nexus, the connection, the relationship between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks that has changed our lives and changed the security environment of the world."

---

Quote:

---

A somber and steely President Bush, speaking to a skeptical world Tuesday in his State of the Union address, provided a forceful and detailed denunciation of Iraq, promising new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime poses an imminent danger to the world and demanding the United Nations convene in just one week to consider the threat.

But the president made clear his decision whether to attack Iraq would not hinge on U.N. approval.

"All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack. We are asking them to join us, and many are doing so," the president said. "Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decision of others."

Calls have mounted in recent weeks for the president to make a better case for going to war. In response, Bush argued that use of force is not only justified but necessary, and that the threat is not only real but imminent.

---

Quote:

---

"We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today/’s adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction - weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning."

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
As far as I’m concerned we have yet to know whether those WMDs exist or not.

---

Quote:

---

It’s possible that Signym Clairvoyance is right and that Saddam destroy at least some of those WMDs – he obviously didn’t destroy all of them, since we’ve found stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.

---

Quote:

---

It’s possible that more stockpiles of WMDs still exist in Iraq to total the unaccounted for amount.

---

Quote:

---

It’s possible that Hussein had large stockpiles of WMDs transported to Syria or Lebanon or another country.

---

Quote:

---

We don’t know – so there’s no way to say what is right or wrong.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I don’t remember administration stating that Iraq was an imminent threat.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
• White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
• President Bush, 7/17/03

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
• President Bush, 7/2/03

"Absolutely."
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03

"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
• President Bush 4/24/03

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
• Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
• President Bush, 3/19/03

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
• President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
• President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
• President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
• President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
• President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
• President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
• President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
• President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

"Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:
Point is: in this option, you seem to suggest that Saddam had stockpiles of WMDs in his power in relatively recent times.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:

Quote:

---

It’s possible that more stockpiles of WMDs still exist in Iraq to total the unaccounted for amount.

---

Your option 2: they had WMDs and hid them in Iraq.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:
Your option 3: they had WMDs and hid them outside Iraq.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:
Except you seem to be only considering a choice between Iraq having WMDs and Iraq having WMDs, which doesn't allow for as much right and wrong as some other posters here. It does suggest a not very open mind.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:
Here's my question: Can you allow, with equal weight and consideration, the possibility that Iraq never developed any new WMDs past what they had in 1992? Which, by the end of that war and certainly after years of inspections, wasn't a helluva lot.

Just... can you see that as a valid possibility?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
I don’t remember administration stating that Iraq was an imminent threat.

---

Either you're playing with us or somewhere in your mind you've actually come to believe yourself here, either way you've put a LOT of thought into distortion.
Simply weighing facts & evidence takes SO much less energy, Finn.

But you'll keep over-thinking it, I suppose. Have fun.

---

Quote:

---

By stockpiles of WMDs, I imply stored WMDs found in Iraq by coalition forces following the 2003 Iraqi war, which you are aware of but ignore.

---

Quote:

---

The Bush Administration is now saying it never told the public that Iraq was an "imminent" threat, and therefore it should be absolved for overstating the case for war and misleading the American people about Iraq's WMD. Just this week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan lashed out at critics saying "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used." But a closer look at the record shows that McClellan himself and others did use the phrase "imminent threat" – while also using the synonymous phrases "mortal threat," "urgent threat," "immediate threat", "serious and mounting threat", "unique threat," and claiming that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction" – all just months after Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that Iraq was "contained" and "threatens not the United States." While Iraq was certainly a dangerous country, the Administration's efforts to claim it never hyped the threat in the lead-up to war is belied by its statements.

---

Quote:

---

GAWD Finn! Are you NOW trying to portray the Administration as never having fear-mongered?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:

The thing is, he probably DOESN'T actually remember them saying that; he's wiped his mind utterly clean of any fact that might contradict his ideology. In his mind, it doesn't exist, didn't happen, and doesn't matter. That's the only conclusion I can reach, given the evidence.

---

Quote:

---

I have to continue looking for that hidden stockpile of cookies my son stashed away four years ago, I've expanded my search to neighbour's houses, and some of 'em are putting up quite a fight letting me do my inspections.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
Hey, when you find those cookies can I have some?

Unless they're stale by now, in which case... you can have 'em! (And I advise you to let your neighbors do the same.)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:

While it's true that some cookies will go stale, SonIsAll's cookies were stored as cookie precursors, that won't ever go stale.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:
Point is: in this option, you seem to suggest that Saddam had stockpiles of WMDs in his power in relatively recent times.

---

Since stockpiles of WMDs were found in Iraq by coalition forces, then without question, these weapons existed in Iraq until they were removed by coalition forces. You choose to ignore these WMDs, so that you can claim none were found in Iraq – but that is not true, they were found.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:

Cites please?

The rest of the discussion is moot until this is clarified. Where were the stockpiles, and what exactly did they consist of?

---

Quote:

---

Saddam had WMD as late as 1990, and he hasn't accounted for them although they're well past expiry. We're concerned that he may be manufacturing more, although we haven't seen any evidence of that. UNMOVIC may not be doing a good enough job to assure us that ongoing WMD programs do not exist.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. And that includes Finn and his refusal or inability to simply say, "You were right. I was wrong."

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:

They're stockpiled! They're growing! They're deployed! We can't wait! We have to invade NOW!!!

What would you call that?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by swish:

Cites please?

The rest of the discussion is moot until this is clarified. Where were the stockpiles, and what exactly did they consist of?

---

Here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/30/AR2006
063001528.html

Basically, a bunch of used-to-be dangerous stuff.

Dustyisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
So we find stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq, but it's just a "bunch of used-to-be dangerous stuff."

Like I said, ideology, not facts. The FACT is that WMDs were found in Iraq. Some of you are so ideologically driven that you are terrified to even consider factual evidence that doesn't completely support your preconceived notions.

---

Quote:

---

The FACT is that WMDs were found in Iraq

---

Quote:

---

I don't feel it is enough. Finn apparently disagrees.

---

Quote:

---

There could have essentially been a room full of WWI era mustard gas in an old mud hut in the middle of the Iraqi desert, and he would point to it and say, "See? Justified."

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
So we find stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq, but it's just a "bunch of used-to-be dangerous stuff."

Like I said, ideology, not facts. The FACT is that WMDs were found in Iraq. Some of you are so ideologically driven that you are terrified to even consider factual evidence that doesn't completely support your preconceived notions.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SignyM:
He HAS to disagree, because otherwise he'd have to consider the possibility that our authorities aren't moral and virtuous.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnthonyT:

I don't feel it is enough. Finn apparently disagrees. I don't think we'll be able to breach that gulf.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:


So you're saying Finn actively supports the overthrow and replacement of the Bush regime? After all, we DO have stockpiles of WMD, and we HAVE used them in the past. And all that really matters is the past, right?

---