Tuesday: 79 Iraqis, 2 American Soldiers Killed; 37 Iraqis Wounded

inmytreeinmytree Posts: 4,741
edited November 2006 in A Moving Train
I know Kerry's comments are more easier to focus on, but here is some reality...


http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=9944

Tuesday: 79 Iraqis, 2 American Soldiers Killed; 37 Iraqis Wounded

Updated at 10:40 p.m. EST, Nov. 1, 2006

In the latest developments in war-torn Iraq, 79 Iraqis were killed and another 37 were wounded in violent acts. At least 40 more Iraqis are reported kidnapped in one incident alone and the U.S. military also reported two more American servicemember deaths today.

One American soldier was killed by small arms fire at about 5:00 p.m. yesterday in Baghdad. The other soldier was killed about a half-hour later elsewhere in the capital, when a roadside bomb exploded. Also, an Iraqi translator working for U.S. forces was killed in Diwaniya.

Near Tarmiya, gunmen attacked a convoy of minibuses heading toward Baghdad; 40 are missing and believed kidnapped.

A suicide car bomber in the Shaab neighborhood drove his car into a Shi’ite wedding party; at least 15 were killed and other 19 were wounded. Five militiamen were killed and one was detained when coalition forces raided their Baghdad building; they are suspected of being members of al Qaeda. In the Doura district, a roadside bomb killed a policeman while wounding three others. A car bomb at a Sadr City entry point killed three and wounded seven. Five unidentified bodies, including a woman’s, were so far discovered in eastern Baghdad; they were found bound, blindfolded, and showing signs of torture.

Five bodies were recovered from the Tigris River at Suwayra, where this is a common occurrence. Five more bodies, believed to be militiamen, were also discovered in an orchard, which was the scene of clashes between police and gunmen several days ago.

Eight bodies, which were bound, gagged and shot, were discovered in Baquba. A policeman and young boy were killed and four others wounded during clashes between police and gunmen. A second police officer was killed and two others wounded when a roadside bomb blasted a patrol in a separate incident. Two shop-owners were shot and wounded by a suspected Mahdi Army member, and at least four other people were shot and killed by gunmen throughout the city.

In Falluja, an Iraqi Army soldier died during clashes with gunmen. Also a roadside bomb killed one policeman and one civilian, another two civilians were wounded.

During clashes in Tal Afar, four gunmen and an Iraqi soldier were killed.

The morgue at Kut received 10 bodies. Five of them were allegedly were killed during a raid by U.S. forces in Shejeriyah.

In Mosul, three Iraqis were killed when their car approached a U.S. patrol.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • Irak sounds like Hell. its all fucked up.
  • AbuskedtiAbuskedti Posts: 1,917
    we are adapting to the changes tactics in Iraq. I suppose to maintain the hell we have created. Good for the economy or the future or something.

    Don't insult these troops on top of killing and maming them.. They'll be harder to recruit.
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    can you imagine if forums like this or the instant movment of information around the internet were around during WWII or veitnam when 10s of thousands of americans and civillians were dying. sometimes 1000s dying daily. war is a horrible thing.
  • hippiemomhippiemom Posts: 3,326
    jlew24asu wrote:
    can you imagine if forums like this or the instant movment of information around the internet were around during WWII or veitnam when 10s of thousands of americans and civillians were dying. sometimes 1000s dying daily. war is a horrible thing.
    Which is exactly why you don't start one unless you have absolutely no other options.
    "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." ~ MLK, 1963
  • inmytreeinmytree Posts: 4,741
    jlew24asu wrote:
    can you imagine if forums like this or the instant movment of information around the internet were around during WWII or veitnam when 10s of thousands of americans and civillians were dying. sometimes 1000s dying daily. war is a horrible thing.

    I would see it as a good thing...perhaps veitnam would not have lasted as long as it did...thus, saving lives....do you see that as a bad thing...?

    are you implying knowlege and discussion is a bad thing...?
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    inmytree wrote:
    I would see it as a good thing...perhaps veitnam would not have lasted as long as it did...thus, saving lives....do you see that as a bad thing...?

    are you implying knowlege and discussion is a bad thing...?


    no not at all. its just an observation.
  • inmytreeinmytree Posts: 4,741
    jlew24asu wrote:
    no not at all. its just an observation.

    fair enough...:)
  • callencallen Posts: 6,388
    jlew24asu wrote:
    can you imagine if forums like this or the instant movment of information around the internet were around during WWII or veitnam when 10s of thousands of americans and civillians were dying. sometimes 1000s dying daily. war is a horrible thing.

    really are lucky to have forums like this...we can get upbiased opinions....like them or not. (-;
    10-18-2000 Houston, 04-06-2003 Houston, 6-25-2003 Toronto, 10-8-2004 Kissimmee, 9-4-2005 Calgary, 12-3-05 Sao Paulo, 7-2-2006 Denver, 7-22-06 Gorge, 7-23-2006 Gorge, 9-13-2006 Bern, 6-22-2008 DC, 6-24-2008 MSG, 6-25-2008 MSG
  • AbuskedtiAbuskedti Posts: 1,917
    jlew24asu wrote:
    can you imagine if forums like this or the instant movment of information around the internet were around during WWII or veitnam when 10s of thousands of americans and civillians were dying. sometimes 1000s dying daily. war is a horrible thing.

    Maybe is would'nt have taken 20 years to realize how right the troops, like John Kerry, were abou vietnam...

    maybe only 10 years - saving thousands of lives
  • cincybearcatcincybearcat Posts: 16,446
    callen wrote:
    ...we can get upbiased opinions....

    Now that is a good joke.

    We get plenty of unbiased opinions with all the links to MoveON and GWisapieceofcrap.com, etc.
    hippiemom = goodness
  • OpenOpen Posts: 792
    jlew24asu wrote:
    can you imagine if forums like this or the instant movment of information around the internet were around during WWII or veitnam when 10s of thousands of americans and civillians were dying. sometimes 1000s dying daily. war is a horrible thing.
    Pathetic excuse! Dont even try to compare this to WWII; we were attacked by Japan. Iraq did nothing for us to invade them.
  • know1know1 Posts: 6,794
    How many would have been killed if the U.S. was not involved in this "war"?
    The only people we should try to get even with...
    ...are those who've helped us.

    Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    Open wrote:
    Pathetic excuse! Dont even try to compare this to WWII; we were attacked by Japan. Iraq did nothing for us to invade them.

    slow down buddy boy! I wasnt making an excuses! I was making an observation!
  • cincybearcatcincybearcat Posts: 16,446
    Open wrote:
    Pathetic excuse! Dont even try to compare this to WWII; we were attacked by Japan. Iraq did nothing for us to invade them.


    Ummm...invading Kuwait and not abiding by the terms of the cease-fire is more than enough cause really.

    Did nothing? Did you already forget?
    hippiemom = goodness
  • hippiemom wrote:
    Which is exactly why you don't start one unless you have absolutely no other options.

    Save your breath for your porridge. That is AMERICAN porridge you're eatin' ?!
  • Ummm...invading Kuwait and not abiding by the terms of the cease-fire is more than enough cause really.

    Did nothing? Did you already forget?
    That was the LAST Gulf War, not this one.

    This one was about their fictional weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, that sort of thing.

    Don't get your Iraq invasions confused, now.
    "Things will just get better and better even though it
    doesn't feel that way right now. That's the hopeful
    idea . . . Hope didn't get much applause . . .
    Hope! Hope is the underdog!"

    -- EV, Live at the Showbox
  • OpenOpen Posts: 792
    Ummm...invading Kuwait and not abiding by the terms of the cease-fire is more than enough cause really.

    Did nothing? Did you already forget?

    Amazing check your memory; thats not why we invaded Iraq. Thanks for confirming my memory comment.
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    Hope&Anger wrote:
    That was the LAST Gulf War, not this one.

    This one was about their fictional weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, that sort of thing.

    Don't get your Iraq invasions confused, now.


    this war had to do with this

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441
  • PaperPlatesPaperPlates Posts: 1,745
    callen wrote:
    really are lucky to have forums like this...we can get upbiased opinions....like them or not. (-;


    no he didnt.


    yes he did.


    'unbiased'



    wow.
    Why go home

    www.myspace.com/jensvad
  • jlew24asu wrote:
    Weren't you bitching at me just last week about too much wikipedia? What are you, a convert or something?

    Anyway, yes, I read the UN resolution. I read it when they adopted it. The "breach of the ceasefire" was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. I don't know if you know this -- they didn't have one. They had dismantled it. And the weapons inspectors (and the CIA folks who were experts on Iraq) believed that they dismantled it after the first Gulf War. No Weapons of Mass Destruction. None. (Revealing his love for the troops, Bush made a hilarious joke about it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner one year when the death toll was only 500 American soldiers. Yuk Yuk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm)

    So you see, this resolution is based on a web of lies (or "inaccurate intelligence") that we told the world when the world was still willing to believe us.

    Incidentally, my favorite part of this resolution? The bitching about Iraq's not letting weapons inspectors into the country -- those same weapons inspectors that we had to get out before we started dropping the bombs.
    "Things will just get better and better even though it
    doesn't feel that way right now. That's the hopeful
    idea . . . Hope didn't get much applause . . .
    Hope! Hope is the underdog!"

    -- EV, Live at the Showbox
  • jlew24asujlew24asu Posts: 10,118
    Hope&Anger wrote:
    Weren't you bitching at me just last week about too much wikipedia? What are you, a convert or something?

    Anyway, yes, I read the UN resolution. I read it when they adopted it. The "breach of the ceasefire" was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. I don't know if you know this -- they didn't have one. They had dismantled it. And the weapons inspectors (and the CIA folks who were experts on Iraq) believed that they dismantled it after the first Gulf War. No Weapons of Mass Destruction. None. (Revealing his love for the troops, Bush made a hilarious joke about it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner one year when the death toll was only 500 American soldiers. Yuk Yuk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm)

    So you see, this resolution is based on a web of lies (or "inaccurate intelligence") that we told the world when the world was still willing to believe us.

    Incidentally, my favorite part of this resolution? The bitching about Iraq's not letting weapons inspectors into the country -- those same weapons inspectors that we had to get out before we started dropping the bombs.


    I never bitch at you. and I agree with you about this resolution.
  • cincybearcatcincybearcat Posts: 16,446
    Hope&Anger wrote:
    That was the LAST Gulf War, not this one.

    This one was about their fictional weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, that sort of thing.

    Don't get your Iraq invasions confused, now.


    Ummmm...maybe you don't understand....when Iraq wasn' following the requirements put on them in oder for the US and everyone else to leave Iraq after the first war, it then gives the US and everyone else reason to go back in.....

    I'm hardly confused. But it appears you are highly confused.
    hippiemom = goodness
  • cincybearcatcincybearcat Posts: 16,446
    Hope&Anger wrote:
    Weren't you bitching at me just last week about too much wikipedia? What are you, a convert or something?

    Anyway, yes, I read the UN resolution. I read it when they adopted it. The "breach of the ceasefire" was Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. I don't know if you know this -- they didn't have one. They had dismantled it. And the weapons inspectors (and the CIA folks who were experts on Iraq) believed that they dismantled it after the first Gulf War. No Weapons of Mass Destruction. None. (Revealing his love for the troops, Bush made a hilarious joke about it at the White House Correspondents' Dinner one year when the death toll was only 500 American soldiers. Yuk Yuk. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm)

    So you see, this resolution is based on a web of lies (or "inaccurate intelligence") that we told the world when the world was still willing to believe us.

    Incidentally, my favorite part of this resolution? The bitching about Iraq's not letting weapons inspectors into the country -- those same weapons inspectors that we had to get out before we started dropping the bombs.


    Holy shit????? The weapons inspectors were IN iraq but they were not allowed access to the areas required by the resolution. Iraq did not provide the needed access nor the required documentation and proof of destruction of their weapons.

    You can argue about the verbage used by Bush, you can argue about whether or not Iraq violating the resolution was enough to really require a full scale war.....but the fact that Iraq had not complied with the requirements of the cease-fire...you can't argue that.
    hippiemom = goodness
  • Holy shit????? The weapons inspectors were IN iraq but they were not allowed access to the areas required by the resolution. Iraq did not provide the needed access nor the required documentation and proof of destruction of their weapons.

    You can argue about the verbage used by Bush, you can argue about whether or not Iraq violating the resolution was enough to really require a full scale war.....but the fact that Iraq had not complied with the requirements of the cease-fire...you can't argue that.
    Okay, maybe I'll take the administration's word for it that Iraq was not in technical compliance with the resolution. Of course, they have lied about so many other things, I'm not sure why I should believe them about this. But okay . . .

    Seems to me that it's more important having the weapons inspectors -- like Blix -- come out and say that there is no WMD program in Iraq. That seems like substantive (as opposed to technical) compliance with the resolution --more so than not giving inspectors access to the right places. But again, if you want to strictly adhere to the terms of the resolution, I won't disagree.

    And you seem willing to concede that we shouldn't have gone to war over a failure to technically comply with a UN resolution that was passed based on the US providing false and misleading information to the rest of the world. So okay, I'm fine with that.
    "Things will just get better and better even though it
    doesn't feel that way right now. That's the hopeful
    idea . . . Hope didn't get much applause . . .
    Hope! Hope is the underdog!"

    -- EV, Live at the Showbox
  • I love how the U.S. shits all over the UN until they need a UN resolution as a tool for engaging in war.

    But anyways, someone from the right needs to explain something here. Resolution 1441(?) not only talks about iraq, but it also talks about obligations placed on other countries (ie: the U.S.) to divulge all it knows about said weapons and to convey that to the UN who was still in Iraq at the time. This is stated in article 9 or 10 of the resolution. The funny thing is, virtually every piece of U.S. intel re: Iraq's supposed WMD that was given to the UN turned out to be totally useless. The US essentially sent the UN inspectors on a thousand dead-end calls throughout Iraq.

    So my question is twofold:

    1) why should any country be able to proceed on the Bush Doctrine (pre-emptive action) when they haven't completely proven the need to do so?

    2) How come the intel provided to the UN was so completely at odds with what Colin Powell said at the UN in Feb., 2003. ? (You may remember, according to the US, the world was about to end if Iraq wasn't invaded).
  • rebornFixerrebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    Hope&Anger wrote:
    And you seem willing to concede that we shouldn't have gone to war over a failure to technically comply with a UN resolution that was passed based on the US providing false and misleading information to the rest of the world. So okay, I'm fine with that.

    I'll concede that point as well ... One should have more than a failure to comply with a UN resolution in order to launch a war. Hard evidence of a real threat would have been much, much better. That being said, I am not as sure as you seem to be about Iraq not having WMD prior to the beginning of this second war. If Saddam had nothing to hide, why not just comply with the resolution in the first place? Iraq already had a clear track record of using poison gas in battles with Iran and on ethnic groups within its own borders ... And then Saddam decides to act shifty? Not too bloody smart on his part.
  • OpenOpen Posts: 792
    Holy shit????? The weapons inspectors were IN iraq but they were not allowed access to the areas required by the resolution. Iraq did not provide the needed access nor the required documentation and proof of destruction of their weapons.

    You can argue about the verbage used by Bush, you can argue about whether or not Iraq violating the resolution was enough to really require a full scale war.....but the fact that Iraq had not complied with the requirements of the cease-fire...you can't argue that.

    Amazing have you forgotten what reasons were given for us to go into iraq? Just amazing what short (or convenient memories as someonelse mentioned) some people have.....regarding the inspectors...

    http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/iraq.weapons/

    Iraq war wasn't justified, U.N. weapons experts say
    Blix, ElBaradei: U.S. ignored evidence against WMDs
    Monday, March 22, 2004 Posted: 1:34 AM EST (0634 GMT)





    WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand at the time.

    "I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who oversaw the agency's investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

    Blix described the evidence Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003 as "shaky," and said he related his opinion to U.S. officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

    "I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said.

    Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke to CNN from IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

    ElBaradei said he had been "pretty convinced" that Iraq had not resumed its nuclear weapons program, which the IAEA dismantled in 1997.

    Days before the fighting began, Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in with an opposing view.

    "We believe [Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong," Cheney said. "And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency in this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what Saddam Hussein was doing."

    Now, more than a year later, ElBaradei said, "I haven't seen anything on the ground at that time that supported Mr. Cheney's conclusion or statement, so -- and I thought to myself, well, history is going to be the judge."

    No evidence of a nuclear weapons program has been found so far.

    Blix, who recounts his search for weapons of mass destruction in his book "Disarming Iraq," said the Bush administration tended "to say that anything that was unaccounted for existed, whether it was sarin or mustard gas or anthrax."

    Blix specifically faulted Powell, who told the U.N. Security Council about what he said was a site that held chemical weapons and decontamination trucks.

    "Our inspectors had been there, and they had taken a lot of samples, and there was no trace of any chemicals or biological things," Blix said. "And the trucks that we had seen were water trucks."

    The most spectacular intelligence failure concerned a report by ElBaradei, who revealed that an alleged contract by Iraq with Niger to import uranium oxide was a forgery, Blix said.

    "The document had been sitting with the CIA and their U.K. counterparts for a long while, and they had not discovered it," Blix said. "And I think it took the IAEA a day to discover that it was a forgery."

    Blix said that during a meeting before the war with the U.S. president, Bush told him that "the U.S. genuinely wanted peace," and that "he was no wild, gung-ho Texan, bent on dragging the U.S. into war."

    Blix said Bush gave the inspectors support and information at first, but he said the help didn't last long enough.

    "I think they lost their patience much too early," Blix said.

    "I can see that they wanted to have a picture that was either black or white, and we presented a picture that had, you know, gray in it, as well," he said.

    Iraq had been shown to have biological and chemical weapons before, "and there was no record of either destruction or production; there was this nagging question: Do they still have them?" ElBaradei said.

    Blix said he had not been able to say definitively that Iraq had no such weapons, but added that he felt history has shown he was not wrong.

    "At least we didn't fall into the trap that the U.S. and the U.K. did in asserting that they existed," he said.

    ElBaradei faulted Iraq for "the opaque nature of that Saddam Hussein regime."

    "We should not forget that," he said. "For a couple of months, their cooperation was not by any way transparent, for whatever reason."

    ElBaradei said he hoped the past year's events have taught world leaders a valuable lesson.

    "We learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work."
  • I'll concede that point as well ... One should have more than a failure to comply with a UN resolution in order to launch a war. Hard evidence of a real threat would have been much, much better. That being said, I am not as sure as you seem to be about Iraq not having WMD prior to the beginning of this second war. If Saddam had nothing to hide, why not just comply with the resolution in the first place? Iraq already had a clear track record of using poison gas in battles with Iran and on ethnic groups within its own borders ... And then Saddam decides to act shifty? Not too bloody smart on his part.
    Well, no one said he was sane, right?

    Seriously, Hussein did, in fact, let weapons inspectors into the country. It is true that he didn't let them go everywhere they wanted, but a great deal of that was bluster and performance for the benefit of Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world. It's hard -- if you're a sociopathic, genocidal dictator -- to turn around and say "oh yeah, let me open the doors and come on in."

    The UN weapons inspectors found no weapons, and believed that they had enough access to Iraq to back up that conclusion. More importantly, analysts in our own CIA believed that Iraq had no WMD program based on the reports of family members of the people who had participated in that program. Sadly, our policy-makers took no heed of those analyses. (James Risen has written a wonderful book about this -- State of War.

    And it's true that Iraq had used the chemical weapons on Iranians during the war and on Kurds in his own country (when Bush I failed to come to their aid, as he hinted he would, at the end of the Gulf War). But that all happened a very long time before this war. Lots of horrible dictators are doing lots of horrible things all over the world, and we look the other way.
    "Things will just get better and better even though it
    doesn't feel that way right now. That's the hopeful
    idea . . . Hope didn't get much applause . . .
    Hope! Hope is the underdog!"

    -- EV, Live at the Showbox
  • cincybearcatcincybearcat Posts: 16,446
    Open wrote:
    Amazing have you forgotten what reasons were given for us to go into iraq? Just amazing what short (or convenient memories as someonelse mentioned) some people have.....regarding the inspectors...

    http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/03/21/iraq.weapons/

    Iraq war wasn't justified, U.N. weapons experts say
    Blix, ElBaradei: U.S. ignored evidence against WMDs
    Monday, March 22, 2004 Posted: 1:34 AM EST (0634 GMT)





    WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United Nations' top two weapons experts said Sunday that the invasion of Iraq a year ago was not justified by the evidence in hand at the time.

    "I think it's clear that in March, when the invasion took place, the evidence that had been brought forward was rapidly falling apart," Hans Blix, who oversaw the agency's investigation into whether Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

    Blix described the evidence Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003 as "shaky," and said he related his opinion to U.S. officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

    "I think they chose to ignore us," Blix said.

    Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke to CNN from IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

    ElBaradei said he had been "pretty convinced" that Iraq had not resumed its nuclear weapons program, which the IAEA dismantled in 1997.

    Days before the fighting began, Vice President Dick Cheney weighed in with an opposing view.

    "We believe [Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. ElBaradei, frankly, is wrong," Cheney said. "And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency in this kind of issue, especially where Iraq's concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what Saddam Hussein was doing."

    Now, more than a year later, ElBaradei said, "I haven't seen anything on the ground at that time that supported Mr. Cheney's conclusion or statement, so -- and I thought to myself, well, history is going to be the judge."

    No evidence of a nuclear weapons program has been found so far.

    Blix, who recounts his search for weapons of mass destruction in his book "Disarming Iraq," said the Bush administration tended "to say that anything that was unaccounted for existed, whether it was sarin or mustard gas or anthrax."

    Blix specifically faulted Powell, who told the U.N. Security Council about what he said was a site that held chemical weapons and decontamination trucks.

    "Our inspectors had been there, and they had taken a lot of samples, and there was no trace of any chemicals or biological things," Blix said. "And the trucks that we had seen were water trucks."

    The most spectacular intelligence failure concerned a report by ElBaradei, who revealed that an alleged contract by Iraq with Niger to import uranium oxide was a forgery, Blix said.

    "The document had been sitting with the CIA and their U.K. counterparts for a long while, and they had not discovered it," Blix said. "And I think it took the IAEA a day to discover that it was a forgery."

    Blix said that during a meeting before the war with the U.S. president, Bush told him that "the U.S. genuinely wanted peace," and that "he was no wild, gung-ho Texan, bent on dragging the U.S. into war."

    Blix said Bush gave the inspectors support and information at first, but he said the help didn't last long enough.

    "I think they lost their patience much too early," Blix said.

    "I can see that they wanted to have a picture that was either black or white, and we presented a picture that had, you know, gray in it, as well," he said.

    Iraq had been shown to have biological and chemical weapons before, "and there was no record of either destruction or production; there was this nagging question: Do they still have them?" ElBaradei said.

    Blix said he had not been able to say definitively that Iraq had no such weapons, but added that he felt history has shown he was not wrong.

    "At least we didn't fall into the trap that the U.S. and the U.K. did in asserting that they existed," he said.

    ElBaradei faulted Iraq for "the opaque nature of that Saddam Hussein regime."

    "We should not forget that," he said. "For a couple of months, their cooperation was not by any way transparent, for whatever reason."

    ElBaradei said he hoped the past year's events have taught world leaders a valuable lesson.

    "We learned from Iraq that an inspection takes time, that we should be patient, that an inspection can, in fact, work."


    I'm not even talking about the 'talking points' used by the administration to gain public support....the fact remains, Iraq was not abiding by the cease-fire...without the cease-fire we are still at war, no?

    You don't seem to be able to separate the issues.
    hippiemom = goodness
  • I'm not even talking about the 'talking points' used by the administration to gain public support....the fact remains, Iraq was not abiding by the cease-fire...without the cease-fire we are still at war, no?

    You don't seem to be able to separate the issues.
    I'm sorry -- I did. I argued that there was a technical violation of the cease-fire that did not justify the war. So why not answer me?
    "Things will just get better and better even though it
    doesn't feel that way right now. That's the hopeful
    idea . . . Hope didn't get much applause . . .
    Hope! Hope is the underdog!"

    -- EV, Live at the Showbox
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