Not to start...

[DiebytheSword]

There's no mystery there. The terrorist on the plane that crashed in mid Pennsylvania stated that he had a bomb, and would detonate it if people resisted.

I do believe that plane was shot down, btw.

In response to Dienekes;

There was an ongoing nuclear weapon research program which was found at the very beginning of the war. None of the research had stopped, it was hiding in a house.

There was a report from Hans Blix that he was searching a vaccine manufacturing facility. Do you know what the difference is between a vaccine facility and one that makes biological weapons? The one that makes vaccines kills the bugs at the end of the process, the one that makes weapons doesn't. France, Germany and Russia were all countries against going to war with Iraq, and all three countries had sent many such vaccination manufacturing machines and materials to Iraq before the war, and before the embargo. The media can lie up a storm all it likes, I know the difference between what was reported and what was in the WMD report, which if you had read, you would not be arguing these finer points with me.

I didn't say there were WMD in Iraq, I said that research and development was ongoing and waiting for the sanctions from the UN to expire, which would have expired in three months form the start of the war. That's the next best thing, and the WMD report stated that Saddam needed less time than Iran for a bomb with his research in place.

 

[Dienekes]

Since you've read the U.S. Iraq Survey Group Final Report, you must have also read the Operation Iraqi Freedom documents made available that states Iraq had dismantled their nuclear program, and destroyed their bio agent production facilities prior to the invasion (we're talking about the 90's) and that the only reason the UN was unable to account for 10% of perceived weapons and bio agents was because Saddam had them destroyed preemptively without UN oversight. The sanctions had worked, and even if he were to restart his bioweapon production facilities, it'd take Iraq a minimum of 7+ years to acquire the required assets and do some R&D.

I remember reading what you're talking about, but in that world of intelligence, that intel is ancient.

Meanwhile, as we were focused on Iraq, NK and Iran's nuclear programs exploded and one of the two acquired nukes, and the third is closer than ever before to creating them.

Mission accomplished.

 

[Damaera]

Yeah and terrorists buy their weapons and bombs from the local market.
Seriously Dam, you don't know, WE don't know what they might do and do not at the big and round table. To them we are merely chess pawns. Or do you want to say that they actually value people's lives? That's my opinion anyway.

The same goes for 9/11. I'm not saying it was conspiracy or that regular terrorist hijacked the planes and flew them into the towers by themselves.

Don't make me laugh, the US government is too retarded to pull something big like this off. It was a terrorist attack, end of story.

 

[DiebytheSword]

" Iraq had dismantled their nuclear program "

Dismantled facilities, yes, but not the program. Otherwise thousands of documents, dozens of computers, and a couple of scientists would not have been held up in that house. Again, I find some of the later intel to be questionable . . . its easier to say that we were fooled and didn't find anything, than it is to say we attacked because we know that they will have them shortly, which both the American people and the people of the world would outright reject.

Bio agent facilities were still in operation when Hans Blix was riding through the desert, as I've already stated, I worked for Aventis Pharma (now Sanofi) and understand the difference between a plant that can make biological weapons, and one that can make vaccines, which is to say, none at all. Delivery systems may have taken some additional time, but the tools to make the stuff that kills were readily available.

Iraq had a complex industrial setup in place, creating chemicals would also be very easy. Its not hard to manufacture nerve agents from common household cleaners. Even the later reports showed that he was ordering dual use items like crazy.

Additionally, there have been several reports, some from direct Air Force surveilance, that say weapons were transfered to Syria (another Baath party nation). There are also many things that do not add up on either side of the debate: Saddam should have been able to make much more of the weapons he had, but the UN went with the number of weapons he provided, which they found to be in exaggeration. So who is right? The long story short is, we'll never know, and the three month free pass to prepare for our attack means anything could have happened.

Also, you are talking about Iran and Korea, which I agree were higher priority targets. Korea in specific. But lets be frank, Iran can't be invaded without first taking Iraq due to logistical problems concerning air power, Iraq had a history of already having these weapons (without nuclear of course) and using them, and there was reason to believe that both Korea and Iran could be pressured into giving up the persuit. Korea has pressure from the Chinese government to keep that peninsula at peace, which is why Bush thought he could succeed diplomatically. Iran had close ties to Russia, and Bush administration again, felt that it could use that to its advantage. Iraq had no such pressure that could be utilized. I also find it funny that you don't mention Pakistan, India and Syria in your non-proliferation jab, mission accomplished indeed. You'll see that I said earlier that Iraq was a total **** up.

 

[Pain]

Do you think this could have been stopped before it happened?

Well, when you get an intelligence report titled, "Bin Laden determined to strike inside the United States," one would think the situation could have been avoided.

 

[DiebytheSword]

Well, when you get an intelligence report titled, "Bin Laden determined to strike inside the United States," one would think the situation could have been avoided.

I will agree with that, and the buck does not stop with one administration. There were several times where he could have been stopped, though arguably another person would have stepped in his shoes. Clinton crippled the CIA and several other intelligence operations, Bush continued with those policies in place until the attack happened. At that point, the CIA had been out of the game for nearly 8 years, not allowed to shoot, and pulled out of most of the dangerous countries around the world. The collapse of the Soviet Union put our intelligence efforts in a relaxed state that should not have continued as long as it did.

 

[Tenzo]

Don't make me laugh, the US government is too retarded to pull something big like this off. It was a terrorist attack, end of story.

And you know that because....? Do you really think that a president or the government do what they want?
This whole "terrorists" cover leaves room for many things. And i'm not saying it just because 9/11.

 

[Damaera]

And you know that because....? Do you really think that a president or the government do what they want?
This whole "terrorists" cover leaves room for many things. And i'm not saying it just because 9/11.

Every true American knows that the US government is too retarded to pull something like that off.

 

[Dienekes]

\" Iraq had dismantled their nuclear program \"

Dismantled facilities, yes, but not the program. Otherwise thousands of documents, dozens of computers, and a couple of scientists would not have been held up in that house. Again, I find some of the later intel to be questionable . . . its easier to say that we were fooled and didn't find anything, than it is to say we attacked because we know that they will have them shortly, which both the American people and the people of the world would outright reject.

Bio agent facilities were still in operation when Hans Blix was riding through the desert, as I've already stated, I worked for Aventis Pharma (now Sanofi) and understand the difference between a plant that can make biological weapons, and one that can make vaccines, which is to say, none at all. Delivery systems may have taken some additional time, but the tools to make the stuff that kills were readily available.

Iraq had a complex industrial setup in place, creating chemicals would also be very easy. Its not hard to manufacture nerve agents from common household cleaners. Even the later reports showed that he was ordering dual use items like crazy.

Additionally, there have been several reports, some from direct Air Force surveilance, that say weapons were transfered to Syria (another Baath party nation). There are also many things that do not add up on either side of the debate: Saddam should have been able to make much more of the weapons he had, but the UN went with the number of weapons he provided, which they found to be in exaggeration. So who is right? The long story short is, we'll never know, and the three month free pass to prepare for our attack means anything could have happened.

Also, you are talking about Iran and Korea, which I agree were higher priority targets. Korea in specific. But lets be frank, Iran can't be invaded without first taking Iraq due to logistical problems concerning air power, Iraq had a history of already having these weapons (without nuclear of course) and using them, and there was reason to believe that both Korea and Iran could be pressured into giving up the persuit. Korea has pressure from the Chinese government to keep that peninsula at peace, which is why Bush thought he could succeed diplomatically. Iran had close ties to Russia, and Bush administration again, felt that it could use that to its advantage. Iraq had no such pressure that could be utilized. I also find it funny that you don't mention Pakistan, India and Syria in your non-proliferation jab, mission accomplished indeed. You'll see that I said earlier that Iraq was a total **** up.

If you're saying we were told wmd were in Iraq, but the real reason for going into Iraq was to stop what may or may not have occurred in a decade, then ultimately we still went into the war based on a lie. I find it difficult to believe our initial intel was more accurate than all of the intel we've gathered since the initial invasion, simply because everything we know now is the complete opposite of what we were told during the build-up. To me, it makes more sense to say the previous administration decided to dumb down and sexy up intel in order to sway our emotions:

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-...-B3DB-1461-98B9-E20E7B9C13D4&lng=en&id=106212

And again, the invasion of Iraq was penned before 9/11, which says to me 9/11 was exploited to attempt to achieve prior goals.

According to every report I've read, every bio and chem agent they found was dead and could not be used due to improper storage and expiration date. Were their facilities still manufacturing these agents? No. And they were never claimed to be doing so. What they may have done in 10 years time isn't a sufficient reason to go to war with a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the event that initiated the "War on Terror". Should we have invaded because Saddam decided to buy household cleaning supplies based on a gut feeling that he was going to create bio and chem weapons? **** no. That's ridiculous.

The reports of Iraqi wmd being transported to Syria were dubious at best, and were never proven to be true. If it isn't good enough for a court of law, it isn't good enough to start a war campaign. In my opinion, anyway. I'm but one man.

As for Iran, does it make sense to take out their sworn enemy, creating a power vacuum that Iran may have been able to exploit? Not quite. Had the Iranians played their cards correctly, they could have exploited the situation, become diplomatic allies and had a good portion of the Middle East standing behind them. But no. They had their own problems to deal with, culminating in the pre-revolutionary riots that we are currently witnessing.

Why do I need to mention Pakistan, India and Syria in a rant about why we shouldn't have attacked a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11? I only mentioned NK and Iran to show that, if we were actually targeting threats to our nation, we could have chosen a high priority target.

Moving on.

The funny thing about the Clinton-Osama thing is he actually attempted to go after him multiple times and was thwarted just as many times:

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2006/osama_bin_missing_whos_tried_hardest_to.html

Hindsight is 20/20, gents.

 

[DiebytheSword]

Did I not say that going to war to prevent something that hasn't happend yet would be widely rejected? Seriously, do you skim through my posts to ignore things I agree with you on? Also, the 7 year number is in question, and if your math somehow equates 7 years to a decade, we are going to have issues.

You need to mention Pakistan, India and Syria because they are examples of nuclear proliferation in non-stable states (India has poor relations which border on cold war problems with China, and has occasional conflicts with Pakistan.) Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism, and has an active WMD program, connect the dots at your peril. You were the one who mentioned other states that needed to be dealt with, I simply expanded your list to include what is on the actual list.

As far as Syria and Iraqs weapons. There were pictures, Syria cannot be inspected because they never signed the treaty to stop production of chemical weapons. Good luck proving anything. If I were the Iraqi leader, I would have played that move with my three months to prepare for the incoming secret attack.

Again with Iran, you are proving my point. Why attack a nation that has internal strife? Iraq was relatively buttoned down by comparison, exempting the kurds in the north, which posed no threat to the nation as a whole. We went for Iraq first out of the three because it was belived to be both the easiest and most politically isolated.

Clinton failed because he demonstrated time and time again that he cannot effectively weild military power. One needs not be reminded of how badly Mogadishu was handled because of his ineptitude. I have freinds who fought in Somalia, and all of them will tell you that Clinton had the military know how of a retarded school child. Many Generals quit during his tenure as president because he was a failure as Commander in Chief. On the other hand, Clinton's domestic policy after his first few years was excellent. That being said, his dismantling of the CIA overseas spypower on the ground, his poor command of USA's force projection, and his inability to inspire his own soldiers spoke volumes of why he failed to nab Osama Bin Laden. Just as Bush's inability to capture Osama before he fled to the western mountains of Pakistan shows his ineptitude in the same fasion.

Either way, we are horribly derailing this thread, and it seems were at risk of being the same boring left vs right arguments over the whole mess. If you feel the need to rebut, fine, but I will not be responding further. You aren't going to convince me, and I'm certain that your mind is made up as well. The same goes for everyone else in this old hat, no one is going to be swayed by any arguments here. So with that, back on topic please.

 

[Dienekes]

Did I not say that going to war to prevent something that hasn't happend yet would be widely rejected? Seriously, do you skim through my posts to ignore things I agree with you on? Also, the 7 year number is in question, and if your math somehow equates 7 years to a decade, we are going to have issues.

You need to mention Pakistan, India and Syria because they are examples of nuclear proliferation in non-stable states (India has poor relations which border on cold war problems with China, and has occasional conflicts with Pakistan.) Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism, and has an active WMD program, connect the dots at your peril. You were the one who mentioned other states that needed to be dealt with, I simply expanded your list to include what is on the actual list.

As far as Syria and Iraqs weapons. There were pictures, Syria cannot be inspected because they never signed the treaty to stop production of chemical weapons. Good luck proving anything. If I were the Iraqi leader, I would have played that move with my three months to prepare for the incoming secret attack.

Again with Iran, you are proving my point. Why attack a nation that has internal strife? Iraq was relatively buttoned down by comparison, exempting the kurds in the north, which posed no threat to the nation as a whole. We went for Iraq first out of the three because it was belived to be both the easiest and most politically isolated.

Clinton failed because he demonstrated time and time again that he cannot effectively weild military power. One needs not be reminded of how badly Mogadishu was handled because of his ineptitude. I have freinds who fought in Somalia, and all of them will tell you that Clinton had the military know how of a retarded school child. Many Generals quit during his tenure as president because he was a failure as Commander in Chief. On the other hand, Clinton's domestic policy after his first few years was excellent. That being said, his dismantling of the CIA overseas spypower on the ground, his poor command of USA's force projection, and his inability to inspire his own soldiers spoke volumes of why he failed to nab Osama Bin Laden. Just as Bush's inability to capture Osama before he fled to the western mountains of Pakistan shows his ineptitude in the same fasion.

Either way, we are horribly derailing this thread, and it seems were at risk of being the same boring left vs right arguments over the whole mess. If you feel the need to rebut, fine, but I will not be responding further. You aren't going to convince me, and I'm certain that your mind is made up as well. The same goes for everyone else in this old hat, no one is going to be swayed by any arguments here. So with that, back on topic please.

I'll keep this short since you are correct about derailing the thread, though I highly doubt we'll see much debate after this.

7 years was the absolute minimum amount of time Iraq had before they may or may not have had the capability to begin producing bio and chem weapons again. Absolute minimum, in the best case scenario for Iraq. Fine. It isn't 10 years, but it isn't, "Let's go invade Iraq because they're about to target America" serious, either. Again, the reason for going into Iraq was because they "had wmd" and we "knew where they were". Both proved to be untrue at best, bold faced lies at worse.

It isn't my opinion that we need to invade any further countries, including NK and Iran. I mentioned them because while we got sucked into a single focal point, our other perceived enemies were doing as they pleased. If our goal was to combat the enemies of tomorrow, and if we were truly serious about that goal and didn't have ulterior motives, our attention would have been focused elsewhere; not on Iraq.

Believing Iraq to be the easiest of the three to attack still doesn't offer an honest explanation as to why we went there in the first place, and decided to let Afghanistan fester while we moved a great deal of our soldiers and marines into Iraq. Ultimately, Iran isn't on the same level as the Taliban, whom they almost invaded Afghanistan over, and Al Qaeda. They're a nation we simply don't agree with. There was no internal strife during the initial invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan. They were good to go until fairly recently, when fraudulent elections lit a fire under their asses. I don't think that kind of strife affects a nation retroactively. If our goal from the beginning was to, in the end, surround and destroy Iran, it's a strategy that predated 9/11, and again, is another example of a horrible event being exploited. For what? Your guess is as good as mine at this point.

The article I linked explains quite well how Clinton was hamstrung in his pursuit of Osama, so I'll leave that alone. I will say this, though. We had Osama in our sights during the initial invasion of Afghanistan. We had him and our guys were told to let him go.

I'm not trying to sway your opinion so much as get information out there for everyone who isn't as knowledgeable as you. If we're going to talk about whether or not 9/11 was planned, or allowed to happen, we need to understand how the administration worked, and we get a pretty good glimpse of that with the invasion of Iraq and the events that followed after the war ended and the occupation began.

With that said, have a good one.

 

[Brosiris]

If Jinx were around he'd surely have something to show you on youtube.

I may be making a reductio ad absurdum here, but basically those who think 9/11 was an inside job claim there is no way that commercial airliners could have caused the damage we saw on that day. There's more to what they have to say than that, but that's about it. I just don't feel like playing the Devil's advocate in this topic.

Fixed.

I'm pretty sure all the books and documentaries on 9/11 can tell you what happened on 9/11 if you have any questions. Also, Google has a lot of info.