codeorama Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Comments Revive Doubts Over Iraq Weapons 1 hour, 19 minutes ago Add World - AP to My Yahoo! By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer BRUSSELS, Belgium - European critics of the Iraq (news - web sites) war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official seen as playing down the importance of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as a reason for going to war. In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited bureaucratic reasons for focusing on Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s alleged arsenal. "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon (news - web sites) transcript of the interview. Vanity Fair provided a slightly different version in the article: "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." In the interview, Wolfowitz cited one outcome of the war that was "almost unnoticed — but it's huge": it removed the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power. Vanity Fair interpreted Wolfowitz to say that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia was one major reason for going to war, rather than just an outcome. Those troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the desert kingdom against Saddam, whose forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, but their presence in the country that houses Islam's holiest sites enraged Islamic fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, the United States announced it was removing most of its 5,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and would set up its main regional command center in Qatar. "Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government," he said. "It's been a huge recruiting device for al-Qaida. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things." As the United States sought to build international support for the war, it did not publicly spell out as a goal the withdrawal of its troops from Saudi Arabia. Instead, the Bush administration focused on Saddam's failure to dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Wolfowitz was asked about the Vanity Fair interview during a news conference in Singapore on Friday and referred reporters to the Pentagon transcript. He said the United States had three concerns about Iraq before the war: weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and the abuse of Iraqi citizens by Saddam's regime. "All three of those have been there, they've always been part of the rationale, and I think it's been very clear," he said. Nevertheless, the focus of the debate over the need for war centered on Saddam's weapons, and the failure of U.S. forces to locate extensive stocks has raised doubts in a skeptical Europe whether Iraq represented a global security threat. Wolfowitz's comments followed a statement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who suggested this week that Saddam might have destroyed his banned weapons before the war began. On Friday, the commander of U.S. Marines in Iraq said he was surprised that extensive searches have failed to discover any of the chemical weapons that U.S. intelligence had indicated were supplied to front line Iraqi forces at the outset of the war. "Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," Lt. Gen. James Conway told reporters. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there." The remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld revived the controversy over the war as President Bush (news - web sites) left for a European tour in which he hopes to put aside the bitterness over the war, which threatened the trans-Atlantic partnership. In Denmark, whose government supported the war, opposition parties demanded to know whether Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen misled the public about the extent of Saddam's weapons threat. "It was not what the Danish prime minister said when he advocated support for the war," Jeppe Kofod, the Social Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said in response to Wolfowitz's comments. "Those who went to war now have a big problem explaining it." Former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said he was shocked by Wolfowitz's claim. "It leaves the world with one question: What should we believe?" he told The Associated Press. In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting newspaper said the comments about Iraqi weapons showed that America is losing the battle for credibility. "The charge of deception is inescapable," the newspaper said Friday. In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war, said he doubted Iraq had any such weapons. "The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a pre-emptive strike, 'Hit Saddam before he hits us,' " Cook told British Broadcasting Corp. "It is now quite clear that Saddam did not have anything with which to hit us in the first place." During a visit to Poland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said Friday he has "absolutely no doubt" that concrete evidence will be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. "Have a little patience," Blair told reporters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted May 30, 2003 Author Share Posted May 30, 2003 Sean Penn "Ads" more comments about WMD.... Sean Penn defends Baghdad visit in New York Times ad 2 hours, 8 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AFP to My Yahoo! NEW YORK (AFP) - Actor and anti-war activist Sean Penn answered controversy surrounding his December visit to Baghdad in a paid, full-page advertisement in The New York Times. Penn's sometimes philosophical, sometimes poetic comments ran under the title "Kilroy's still here." He justified his three-day visit to Baghdad, which some called treasonous. He said the US-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) was, "done without any credible evidence of imminent threat to the United States. "Our flag has been waving, it seems, in servicing a regime change significantly benefiting US corporations." "Our Secretary of State presented plagiarized evidence of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq to the American people and the world," Penn wrote in reference to US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites)'s justification for war before the United Nations (news - web sites) Security Council. "We see Bechtel, we see Halliburton," he said in reference to companies that have benefited from contracts to rebuild Iraq. "We see no WMD's. We see dead young Americans. We see no WMD's. We see dead Iraqi civilians. We see no WMD's. We see chaos in the Baghdad streets. But no WMD's." The actor, 42, ended his text with an appeal to readers to make their voices heard and vote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted May 30, 2003 Author Share Posted May 30, 2003 I personally think it will get really interesting and maybe combative during the up coming election... Bush will try to use 9/11 as a platform for himself and evoke patriotism... The Challenger will probably throw the "no WMD" argument up and bring up the big business arguments... It should be exciting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redman Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Spicoli needs to pipe down and stop cavorting with mass murderers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted May 30, 2003 Author Share Posted May 30, 2003 Originally posted by redman Spicoli needs to pipe down and stop cavorting with mass murderers. To this date, that is still the only movie of his that I like...:laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phat Hog Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 To quote one of my favorite radio broadcasts.... "They will find WMDs - even if they have to FedEx them in! !" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Originally posted by codeorama To this date, that is still the only movie of his that I like...:laugh: You didnt like The Thin Red Line, The Game, or even Carlito's Way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted May 30, 2003 Author Share Posted May 30, 2003 Originally posted by The Evil Genius You didnt like The Thin Red Line, The Game, or even Carlito's Way? The thin red line lost me, I fell asleep while it was on HBO, I've honestly never seen the other two... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted May 30, 2003 Share Posted May 30, 2003 Actually, Code, the Dems have told their people to stay away from WMD altogether. Gallup and their own internal polling shows that 75 percent plus of society doesn't care about them. Polls also show that negative comments about Iraq kill the perception of people. The Democratic challengers won't touch Iraq. The economy is their shot. That and convincing people that a $330 billion tax cut over a period of time in which the government is slated to spend nearly $25 TRILLION is somehow irresponsible and harmful and too big. They've got their work cut out for them . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted May 31, 2003 Author Share Posted May 31, 2003 Art, If I were the Dems, I would go for the throat and call Bush on the WMD and such... You can't win playing not to lose... I don't believe the polls (either way), I've said before that I've taken part in a phone poll recently and the questions were slanted so that it seemed as if I was a war supporter. I believe that most polls do that and the figures don't mean jack, the election is the only thing that will count. That being said, you are probably right, I doubt the Dems have the guts to be that aggressive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SkinsHokie Fan Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 And not only that..... ask any Iraqi if they actually care? They can now go out and do stuff and try and live life. Sheesh this will never stop..... simple thing is Iraq and 26 million Iraqi's are free of Saddam and his sons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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