Bush Says Iraqi Weapons Sites Were Looted

[mikenycLI]

Now, if only the WMD's of the Iraqi's, would "magically" appear !

Courtesy of Reuters....

Bush Says Iraqi Weapons Sites Were Looted

Sat June 21, 2003 10:11 AM ET



By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush, trying again to explain the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, said on Saturday that suspected arms sites had been looted in the waning days of Saddam Hussein's rule.

"For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein went to great lengths to hide his weapons from the world. And in the regime's final days, documents and suspected weapons sites were looted and burned," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

It is believed to be the first time Bush has cited looting to explain the inability of U.S. forces to uncover chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, a U.S. official said.

Bush had previously said weapons may have been destroyed before the war. The U.S. military has been criticized for failing to prevent looting at an Iraqi nuclear facility.

Bush has been widely criticized for misleading the public by asserting that Saddam had stockpiles of unconventional weapons that menaced the world. The allegations were Bush's main justification for bypassing the United Nations and ordering the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"The intelligence services of many nations concluded that he had illegal weapons and the regime refused to provide evidence they had been destroyed," Bush said. "We are determined to discover the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes."

This week, Bush dismissed questions over his reasons for going to war as the work of "historical revisionists."

In his radio speech, he sought to address problems in post-war Iraq, including attacks on U.S. troops and the slow pace of reconstruction.

"American service members continue to risk their lives to ensure the liberation of Iraq," he said, blaming "dangerous pockets of the old regime" and their "terrorist allies" for the attacks. The U.S. military was combating the threats by hunting down Saddam loyalists and "terrorist organizations."

The United States has provided more than $700 million in humanitarian and reconstruction aid for Iraq, Bush said.

With its allies, it was fixing water treatment plants, boosting electricity supplies and vaccinating children. A $100 million U.S. fund, billions of dollars in recovered Iraqi funds and revenues from oil sales will help pay for reconstruction.

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jht ... ID=2966243

[mikenycLI]

I saw, one of the author's of an interesting, three page, online article from the New Republic, on CSPAN this morning...

http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=a ... udis063003

[Rspaight]

OK, in other words, we went to war with Iraq to prevent WMD from getting into the wrong hands. As a result of the war, the WMD was, er, "looted" and we have no idea where it is. I feel safer already. Thanks, George. Way to contain the terrorist threat.

It's a sad state of affairs when the spin ("the weapons were stolen and we don't know where they went") represents greater levels of incompetence than the truth ("we lied about WMD to get support for the war").

But, boy, we sure locked those oil fields down in a hurry, didn't we?

Ryan

[mikenycLI]

If you loved the WMD looting story, you're going to love this one too....

Iraq to Get New Army, Senators Warn of Long U.S. Stay


Mon June 23, 2003 12:12 PM ET

By Alistair Lyon

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - The United States announced new plans to pacify angry former Iraqi soldiers and create a new Iraqi army Monday as two visiting U.S. senators said American soldiers could stay for more than five years.

American efforts to restore order in Iraq took another blow when an oil export pipeline, not in use since the U.S.-led war began on March 20, exploded near the Syrian border, in the third Iraqi pipeline blast this month.

Two visiting U.S. senators said American troops may need to stay in Iraq for at least five years.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, urged President Bush to do some "real truth-telling" to explain to his people how much commitment and money would be needed to rebuild the country from the ruins of war and 35 years of Baathist rule.

"I think we're going to be here in a big way with forces and economic input for a minimum of three to five years," his Democrat colleague Joseph Biden of Delaware told reporters.

Many Iraqis were glad to see the back of Saddam Hussein, but are impatient to get rid of their U.S.-British occupiers.

One grudge is the failure to install an interim Iraqi government and get public servants back to paid work.

The U.S.-led administration disbanded the old army last month along with security agencies and the information and defense ministries, making about 400,000 people jobless. "This country was grotesquely over-militarized," Walter Slocomb, an aide to chief administrator Paul Bremer, told a news conference. "It is the fact that most people who were in the old army will not be able to continue military careers."

RECRUITING FOR THE NEW ARMY

Slocomb said recruiting would begin next week for a new light infantry force that would eventually number about 40,000 to guard Iraq's borders and key installations.

The aim was to get one 12,000-strong division fully operational a year after training began. Two more divisions would be trained and ready within two years, he said.

Slocomb said former soldiers would now be paid a "monthly interim stipend" slightly lower than their previous salaries until a new Iraqi government could decide their future.

Payscales for the stipend would be similar to civil servant salaries, ranging from $50 to $150 a month. Senior Baathists would be excluded from the compensation plan and the new army.

Anger among unpaid soldiers boiled into violence last week when U.S. troops shot dead two protesters in a crowd that was stoning a military convoy as it drove into the administration's headquarters in Saddam's former palace compound in Baghdad.

Ex-soldiers, many of whom put up no serious fight during the war, are furious at being sacked, and say previously promised payoffs were inadequate or failed to materialize.

They have staged several protests outside the palace compound, though last Wednesday's was the first in which U.S. troops had fired on demonstrators in Baghdad.

The fatalities have prompted U.S. combat forces to train with unfamiliar non-lethal riot control equipment.

A score of American soldiers with visors, protective leg pads, plastic shields and wooden batons went through their paces outside the palace compound Sunday evening. A truck with what looked like a water cannon on top was parked nearby.

"We're not just saying we'll do better next time," Capt. John Morgan said. "They're doing some training, they're reacting, they're getting better at what they do."

Apart from facing protests by laid-off state workers, U.S. troops have frequently come under fire in and around Baghdad.

A soldier was killed and one was wounded in a grenade attack on a military convoy south of Baghdad Sunday, bringing to 19 the number killed by enemy fire in Iraq since Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

The United States has blamed diehard Saddam loyalists for looting, sabotage and attacks on its troops, but anti-U.S. sentiment also springs from anger at the occupation.

It was not immediately clear if the latest pipeline explosion, near the Syrian border, was the work of saboteurs.

"An explosion took place in the oil pipeline near the Syrian border ... last night," said an Oil Ministry official, who asked not to be named.

He had no details on the blast, which followed one on Saturday that set a gas pipeline ablaze in the western desert and which Oil Ministry officials said was due to sabotage. Iraqi civil defense workers put out the gas fire Monday.

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jht ... ID=2973657

[Ron]

It's a sad state of affairs when the spin ("the weapons were stolen and we don't know where they went") represents greater levels of incompetence than the truth ("we lied about WMD to get support for the war").

As much fiction as this current administration writes, you'd think that they'd find someone half-way decent to do the writing. I mean *really*--if you're gonna make something up, show a little common sense and check to see if the lie better serves you than the truth would.

[Rspaight]

Ex-soldiers, many of whom put up no serious fight during the war, are furious at being sacked, and say previously promised payoffs were inadequate or failed to materialize.

I'd like to know more about these payoffs. I'm curious just how much it costs to get an Iraqi soldier not to fight.

I mean, think about it. There are about 25 million people in Iraq. Let's say the war cost $80 billion (Bush's number), and the "three-five year" reconstruction (as a wild guess) will cost $200 billion. Take that $280 billion, divide it by 25 million, and you get $11,200 per Iraqi.

Do you think that if we paid each Iraqi man, woman and child $11,200 in US money, they would have kicked Saddam out themselves and set up a US-friendly government? (Keep in mind that the average wage earner in Iraq makes about five bucks a day.)

Ryan

[mikenycLI]

i guess they figure, it's better of having them on the US Payroll, when they are shooting at us, and plotting to suicide bombing us !

This way, it look's better, to be screwed by a friend, than, technically, an enemy !