If Saddam was such a threat and he had WMDs, why didn't he attack us?

[originalpckelly]

That is the question you should ask all Republicans when you hear them crow about the "WMD" in Iraq. If he had the ability to attack us, why didn't he?

Not only that, if these "WMD" were so potent, why didn't he use them on the troops as they entered Iraq?

Why didn't he pass them off to terrorists to attack us?

Why did the President say the "smoking gun" would come in the form of a mushroom cloud, if he was talking about chemical weapons?

Why talk about yellowcake uranium, if we were only worried about chemical weapons?

That should sufficiently rattle their world.

[Norquist Nemesis]

1. Don't forget to mention the planes

Ask them where were the planes for the Iraqi Air Force? Do they even have a clue WHY they weren't part of it at the onset (or later)?

[Hugin]

8. Why were the planes buried?

Ask them that...

Unless they were some sort of subterranean submarine plane thingie.

[Yupster]

16. In the first Gulf War

Saddam flew his planes to Iran and never got them back.

He couldn't fight with them since they'd have a lifespan of less than 15 minutes in the air. He couldn't fly them away. So I guess he thought if he buried them he might salvage something after the war. Not a very good option, but I guess to him it was better than the other two choices.

[Norquist Nemesis]

27. Took me a while to find it, but...

This piece from Tom Paine sums up nicely what I had read about our pre-invasion bombings. The articles I had read were from the Chicago Tribune and long archived. They received little, if any, attention.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/06/24/the_war_before_the_war.php
From No-Fly To War Prep

The story begins with the No-Fly Zones imposed by the first Bush administration in the wake of the Gulf War of 1991. Those were intended to inhibit Saddam Hussein from using the remnants of his air force to suppress rebellions against him which broke out after his 1991 defeat. These zones were established over both northern and southern Iraq and enforced by U.S. and British aircraft flying from Turkey (for the north) and Saudi Arabia (for the southern zone). The latter operation, Operation Southern Watch, is the primary concern here.

Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, these No-Fly Zones were not established by the UN Security Council Resolutions that ended hostilities, nor by the Safwan ceasefire agreement reached directly by coalition forces and the Iraqi military command at the end of the war. Throughout the period from 1991 until 2002, these zones were maintained by means of constant U.S.-UK air patrols, with forces reacting by bombing or dog-fighting whenever the Iraqi air defenses actively opposed them.

Within weeks of taking office, the Bush administration signaled its toughness through a series of offensive air strikes against Iraq — but Operation Southern Watch then returned to business as usual. In fact the number of strikes against Iraqi ground targets in 2001 barely exceeded the previous year, and both years there were about half the number of strikes by Southern Watch aircraft as in 1999. All this changed in 2002. On January 24, 2002 allied aircraft struck an Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery site in southern Iraq. After that came a hiatus of three months.

Those three months involved very specific activity. In fact, Saudi Arabia, which did not support the U.S. adventure against Saddam, refused the use of its bases for anything more than the standard Southern Watch fighter patrols. In its search for operational flexibility the Bush administration shifted the locus of air operations to a base in Qatar that had to be developed on an emergency basis. Though the base at Al Uedid would not be complete until the fall, by May it had reached a condition permitting major aerial activity.
<snip>
More at link

[msongs]

2. he wasnt, he didnt, he couldnt. Bush does not attack people who can

fight back. Russian and China can do all 3 of those things but we don't attack them because they are not cowards like Cheney and Bush and Mehlman.

Msongs

can you sing?
www.msongs.com/vocalistwanted.htm

[originalpckelly]

3. Seriously...

these are good questions we must make sure the Faux News kind of people answer. If they can't then they should just shut up.

[gatorboy]

4. Maybe they thought Saddam would personally throw them at us.

His hatred for Freedom and Liberty gives him super strength, dontcha know?

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Self-Answering Question

He never had them. They knew he never had them. They even knew he had no usable chem weapons in 2000 - 2003. They knew the whole time. The whole thing is a lie to establish a permanent military presence in the middle east on "non-holy" soil. Not that this will work. This is what happens when we put dumbasses in charge.
The Professor

[originalpckelly]

6. That's the reason you must ask these questions...

when you discuss it with any freepers. The truth is the most powerful weapon when used right.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. We Agree Completely

I was attempting to amplify your point, not disagreeing. We are on the same page.
The Professor

[ima_sinnic]

7. yes, ask the dumb@$$es if they have a shotgun, do they hide it

if someone "attacks" their home by breaking and entering?

I have been asking this question since Day 1 of *'s war (didn't the fact of no retaliation with the very first attack show there were no weapons of any note, let alone WMDs?) and have never received an answer from anybody. Somehow, rational questions don't resonate with illogical minds. They would prefer to believe that a country allegedly able to blow up the world "hid" the weapons by which it could have defended itself and to this day prefers to be destroyed than to fire anything back.

[originalpckelly]

9. The Republicans are the only Americans dumb enough to believe this...

Americans are just like our President. "Fool me once, sham on you. Fool me twice, I won't get fooled again." They aren't going to be fooled again.

This a Rove tactic just remember this quote:
"The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack." Karl Rove, Quoting Napoleon

Hint to Karl: Napoleon lost.

This is the rhetorical equivalent of Waterloo. Rove will strike back, but he will lose again.

[Yupster]

23. Of course you certainly might

hide a shotgun if someone breaks into your home.

There could be many reasons for that.

If you see there are more than you can handle even with a shotgun, you might think you're better off if the bad guys don't see a gun and get mad.

It might be your husband's shotgun and he's not home and you don't know how to load and shoot it.

You might hear the badguys talking and know they just want to grab your purse on the kitchen table and run so you don't want to escalate the situation.

They may have your daughter hostage in her bedroom and you introducing a gun into the situation might cost your daughter her life.

Anyway, it is not unreasonable for a person with a shotgun to be robbed without getting the shotgun. The person could have many good reasons.

___________________________________________________________________

As far as your question as to if the Iraqis had WMD why wouldn't they use them the very first day.

That kind of shows an ignorance of military strategy.

There is nothing militarily wrong with luring an opponent onto land of your choosing and then attacking him.

The Russians are certainly expert at this allowing opponents to gobble up land until they counterrattack once winter hits. I imagine if you were a General Staff officer in the OKH in 1941 your advice to the Front Commanders right as winter was hitting would have been that the "Russians have no reserves and can't attack you. If they had reserves they would have used them already."

For Saddam, if he had WMD, he'd probably only have one chance to surprise the attackers with them before his regime would be on the run. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that he would choose the very best time and place to use them and that very well might not be day one.

Perhaps it would be best to wait until after the US has crossed the desert? Then once we're attacked we would be maximum distance from our supplies and bases. Perhaps then the guys in pickups could snap our supply lines in the desert after the attack.

It's certainly stupid to assume that if he didn't use them the first day, then he doesn't have them. I guess there have been many generals throughout history that have made assumptions like that before and were crushed by the counterattack by the reserves that they couldn't have because if they had them they would have used them.

[ima_sinnic]

29. whatever. I suppose the Iraqis are still "waiting for the right moment"

:eyes:

[mike923]

10. Our army thought he was going to....

my best friend was stationed in Kuwait during the initial invasion in '03, in a company whose sole job was to clean up after a chemical weapons attack. They trained for months, had all the equipment, and basically didn't have much to do when they weren't used.

[originalpckelly]

11. Well...

That's the sort of thing that happens when you lie to people.

[mike923]

14. Or, there were just wrong.

The US army was pretty sure, and trained for it. The Iraqi army also had provisions (gas masks, ect) to fight a chemical battle.

[originalpckelly]

15. I should have been more clear...

Rumsfeld and Cheney were the ones who lied to the rest of the Administration. That's why those poor soldiers had to prepare.

[Yupster]

17. If you remember the embedded reporters

They all had their chemical suits ready and even on sometimes.

The whole way to Baghdad the soldiers were speculating that Saddam would use them when we reached this line, no that line, no that line.

It was sure a pain for the soldiers having to wear those bulky suits every time there was an alarm.

I don't think there's any doubt the army on the ground expected Saddam to use WMD against them before they reached Baghdad. Of course they can only go by what they're told.

[InternalDialogue]

12. The BLC (Baathist Leadership Committee)

told him to "keep his powder dry."

:sarcasm:

[originalpckelly]

13. They are gonna have to start making more shit up soon...

I don't think we're buying this. :rofl:

[InternalDialogue]

19. By the way, all your questions in the OP are valid.

A few of them occurred to me during the initial invasion, when news reports showed soldiers togging up in chem gear based on battlefield rumors. If he had them, why didn't he use them then? If he knew his government would fall and his army desert, why would he knowingly leave behind WMD? In fact, in hindsight, his behavior is exactly what you would expect from a leader whose military power is mostly for show, for keeping the locals in line -- he probably cut a deal to let his loyal soldiers escape from certain destruction by us, he took to hiding, and he left behind, well, basically nothing.

The mutating scare tactics, though, are a great observation. WMD, whether chemical, biological, or nuclear, are horrific enough -- had the administration known the threat was real, they would have fixed on a definite tactic and stuck with it, whichever it was. The multiple story lines are the product of a campaign of fear that sprang from a too-general idea of "scare them with WMD." Too many people latching onto disparate snatches of questionable intelligence -- you end up with 18 different stories and no common ground.

The same thing will happen with Santorum -- it's another trailing thread of fear, but he's like the kid at the campfire who starts a scary story that's been told before. The nation is about to yell, in unison, "Heard it already!"

[maine_raptor]

18. The Right Wing Answer:

"He knew that if he used them, we'd nuke his ass."

To them, that is why they never got used.

And as for none being found; why they got shipped to Syria, don't ya know?

Of course, why you ask them why, it that's the case, didn't all the drone's, spy planes, sats, etc. flying over Iraq BEFORE the war spot something (kinda hard to move 500 tons of anything without a truck), they'll just mutter something under their breath, call ya a "commie" or a "Terror-symp", and slink away.

Sorry, but the logic that you titled the thread with does not compute with those idiots.

[GreenPartyVoter]

21. The RW answer is "He did! 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!"

[maine_raptor]

22. LOL

Most of the ones I talk with add at least 4 references to 9/11, though.

[zbdent]

24. In the run-up, the righties/freepturds were trying to accuse us as

wanting our troops to be hit by WMDs and chem weapons, saying that we're going to look foolish when our troops are dying of the nerve gases and such . . . :eyes:

[originalpckelly]

25. ...

:eyes: :rofl:

[teknomanzer]

26. He did attack us...

Don't you remember he and his Republican Guard Hijacked four planes with bravado and box cutters and flew them into buildings. Saddam personally piloted the second plane attack against the WTC the whole time screaming, "Death to the Great Satan!"

I know, I heard him. Even though I was in Florida.

After the plane slammed into the builing in a great explosive ball of fire Saddam landed safely next to Satam Al Suqami's passport. Then he stopped by the post office to drop off a handful of letters filled with anthrax spores. He made a quick pass to M&M Grocery to pick up some aluminum tubes before he sneaked out of the country to purchase uranium from Niger; the last components needed for the nuclear bomb that he would attach to his fleet of intercontinental unmanned drones.

Its all true. I saw it on Fox news.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. Turn Off The TV

Put down the remote. Back away slowly, and nobody gets hurt. Some nice men in nice white suits will be here in a little bit and take you to a happy, happy place. :evilgrin:

The Professor

[teknomanzer]

30. Dammit professor...

Why do you hate America so much? You people in the reality based community can just sit there and observe us creating reality!

Saddam is linked to Al-quaeda and 9/11.

We'll be greeted as liberators.

The insurgency is in its last throes.

Now we're turning the corner... again.

I'm the King of Spain! Hoo! Hoo! WAAAAAAAHoooooeeee! Burble Burble! nyuck nycuk nyuck!

:crazy: :silly: :crazy: