Jay Reding does that typical chickenhawk dance by asserting that some opposed to the recent war in Iraq were claiming that "Iraq never had chemical weapons…" Really Jay? And just who was that? Name some names Jay, otherwise I'm inclined to believe your comments are meant as a slur against those who opposed interventionism in Iraq. Which, by the way, is par for the course for many folks who were in favor of the war. Nothing drives your point home better than a good old fashioned lie.
For the record for my newer readers, I was against the recent war and I knew that Iraq had for many years possessed chemical and biological weapons. How do I know that? Aside from it being common knowledge and well documented, I was actually in the military – unlike 99.9 % of those cowards chest-thumping for war while sitting on their asses stuffing cornchips in their mouths and swilling beer every night. As such, I have the wonderful distinction of having been in theater near enough to Khamisiyah to have been exposed to low levels of sarin and other nasty toxins when the Army mistakenly blew up that munitions dump. Fortunately, I only have recurring benign cysts to deal with. A lot of guys are really sick. Or dead. I'm guessing Jay wasn't there. Most pro-war folks have never donned a uniform, other than maybe for football in high school. But then, what good is firsthand experience, when you've got Rush and Bill to tell you what to think?
So, just who in the Hell on the anti-war side of this argument has been claiming that Iraq never had chemical weapons? It beats me. As a Marine and an individual who was against this war, I can't stress how disgusting I find Jay's assertion that anti-war folks claimed the weapons had never existed. What we have now is one more unnecessary conflict which has further diluted troop strength and exposed yet another generation of veterans to the detrimental effects of depleted uranium, experimental drugs and who knows what else. Then we have almost 1000 wounded and 300 dead Americans and thousands of civilian Iraqi casualties. I don't know of a single person against the war who claimed the weapons had never existed. The question was never about the existence of chemical weapons in Iraq. The issue at hand was whether or not Saddam was threatening the U.S. with such weapons. His failure to use such weapons during the major combat phase of the conflict has destroyed the argument that such weapons were threatening the U.S. Is there some nut in Idaho who believes that Iraq NEVER had chemical weapons? Perhaps, but I ain't met him. Lies may be fun, but some of us who actually wore a uniform beg to differ. Put on the uniform and surrender your liberty for several years, then feel free to thump your chest for war and mock me all you want.
Until then, kindly continue to zone out to ESPN while shutting the Hell up. By the way, you're almost out of cornchips…
Exactly. Everyone knew he HAD them in the past. I can’t think of anyone — besides Scott Ritter — who said that he did not CURRENTLY have chemical weapons.
I and many others opposed to war were very much afraid that he would use his chemical weapons against our troops. At no time did I ever think that maybe he didn’t have them.
Indeed, one argument against war was “he’s more likely to use weapons against Americans if those Americans are invading.”
To claim now that those opposed to war (on left or on right) were saying there were no weapons at all is absurd. The closest you can get is Ritter saying there weren’t any CURRENTLY — because he personally had helped destroy them. And by and large, the majority of us anti-war folks did not believe him! Most of us thought there were still chemical weapons.
Poor Ritter. Someone owes that dude an apology — he was right after all.
–Kynn
8/25/2003 3:48:00
Thanks for your service, and thanks for your rant. As for me, I’m just the garden-variety chicken.
Be sure to tune in to news coverage, if any, of the American Legion convention meeting tomorrow, where some veterans may actually have the temerity to call the Administration to ask for the sorry state of VA funding. I’m not sure where you stand on the underlying issue, but it should hopefully be a decent platform for the tens of thousands of vets just waiting for an initial doctor’s visit.
8/25/2003 8:45:00 AM
Mr. Landrith,
Thank for this entry, and of course, thanks for your service to our nation.
(And thanks very much also for linking to my blog. And the other one, too!)
I had wanted to post something here, to let you know about a discussion that we have been having at this entry at the Sgt. Stryker blog. I think I had seen something at this site before on the issue of illnesses facing our soldiers who served in the first Gulf War. In that entry, Sgt. Stryker seems to be denying these claims, and he also blasts the great Col. David Hackworth. And Stryker didn’t like what I had to say there, either (in the comments discussion). The points that you raise in this entry are very good, and I have been thinking and writing about these issues a lot lately. Please check out that entry at Sgt. Stryker… Like I said there, it is disappointing that an entry like that would be posted at what is supposed to be a pro-soldier site.
Thanks!
Scott Ritter is who I was referring to, specifically this quote from this article:
http://tiger.berkeley.edu/sohrab/politics/ritter_conversation.html
"Therein lies the rub: According to Scott Ritter, who spent seven years in Iraq with the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams performing acidly detailed investigations into Iraq’s weapons program, no such capability exists. Iraq simply does not have weapons of mass destruction, and does not have threatening ties to international terrorism. Therefore, no premise for a war in Iraq exists. Considering the American military lives and the Iraqi civilian lives that will be spent in such an endeavor, not to mention the deadly regional destabilization that will ensue, such a baseless war must be avoided at all costs."
(Emphasis mine)
It was already known of Saddam Hussein’s support of terrorist groups such as Hizb’Allah and Islamic Jihad. The terrorist training facility at Salman Pak could be seen in publicly-available satellite imagery.
Then again, Ritter also said "We do not have the military means to take over Baghdad and for this reason I believe the defeat of the United States in this war is inevitable." (http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,6119,2-10-1460_1338708,00.html)
And yes, I was personally told by at least three anti-war protestors in Minneapolis that Iraq never had chemical weapons, and that the chemical attacks on Halabja were made by Iran.
8/26/2003 9:03:00
Mr. Redding,
The quote from that article says that, according to Col. Ritter, Iraq simply does not have weapons of mass destruction. [emphasis yours]
The key word is have. When did Col. Ritter ever claim that Iraq never had chemical weapons?
As for those “three anti-war protestors,” one could find three people on the street who would say any number of things. But as for that second statement, about the possibility that it was Iran, not Iraq, that actually gassed the Kurds at Halabja, there they may have a point. Some people in the Reagan/Bush administration took that exact same stance. Our government was allied with Iraq at the time, and was trying to prevent Iran from defeating Iraq in the war. When the U.S. Congress wished to imposed sanctions against Iraq as a result of these genocide charges that arose following that war, the Reagan/Bush administration intervened to oppose those measures.
In 1990, there was a Pentagon report released by experts on the U.S. Army War College that dealt with this issue. The entire report is 93 pages in length, but part of it deals specifically with the Halabja incident. You can read that excerpt at the following web page:
Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East
Excerpt: Chapter 5
U.S. SECURITY AND IRAQI POWER
(Go here for the material.)
Dr. Stephen C. Pelletiere, who was a professor at the U.S. Army War College, and was the CIA’s top political analyst during the Iran-Iraq war, wrote an OP-ED which was published in the New York Times on January 31st. That article is no longer available for free at the NY Times website, but it has been posted here and here, and is also featured, with commentary by famed conservative economist and commentator Jude Wanniski, here, and in Mr. Wanniski’s latest memo as well.
If one looks through that information – especially the Pentagon report, and the article by Dr. Pelletiere, it seems that there is a real possibility that it was actually Iran, not Iraq, that committed the massacre. We may never know for sure whether it was the Iraqi gassings, or the Iranian gassings, that actually caused the deaths of the Kurds at Halabja. In any case, whatever did happen, Iraq’s actions were not so severe that our government leaders decided to cut off ties with Iraq after that day in 1988. Our government leaders and representatives were continuing to negotiate with, and develop relations with, Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi government until about 1990. For decades, the Ba’athist regime of Iraq has been viewed by U.S. leaders and by our intelligence services as an ally in our battle against the threats of Communism and militant Islam. The difference now is that the Cold War is over, and situations have changed. The Ba’athists of Iraq have now outlived their usefulness to Washington. If situations were different, we may still have been allied with the Iraqi government today, rather than having gone to war to remove it from power.