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"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." — Dick Cheney, before the US and coalition of the willing invaded Ir

• deregulateMed 5y ago
  Not commenting on OP, but you are talking about a single US regime. And Many countries did independently investigate, and refuse help.
  • SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    From late 2002 to 2003, it was very much the international consensus that Iraq might have active WMD programs. The Security Council never authorized a war, but they did issue a unanimous resolution declaring that Iraq was in violation of its disarmament obligations and offering "a final opportunity to comply".
  • GordonS 5y ago
    Actually, the US worked to fabricate evidence in collaboration with the UK too. The UK had an expert produce the so called "dodgy dossier", that was used as Blair's justification to follow the US into their illegal war. The media called it out as obvious bullshit, then the guy that produced the report allegedly committed a timely suicide.
    • wyuenho 5y ago
      But the EU didn't join the war.
      • baby 5y ago
        Thanks to France.
      • DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
        The EU doesn't ever go to war. Individual EU countries do. The UK, Spain, Italy and a few other EU countries took part in the illegal invasion of Iraq.
        • cbnotfromthere 5y ago
          Why would you call it "illegal"? I'm not trolling, I'm curious.
        • Goety 5y ago
          Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (chemical) and they didnt find evidence of nuclear weapons outside the email trail inside their military. It was not illegal
          • DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
            An invasion of another country that is neither carried out in self-defense against an imminent attack nor authorized by the UN Security Council is illegal under the UN Charter. This is one of the central principles of the modern international system. > Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (chemical) Even the US government admitted after the war that it could find no evidence of an Iraqi WMD program. All the US found were a few misplaced ancient, rusting artillery shells from the 1980s. These things were unusable, and were more of a danger to the people handling them than anything else. This is not the WMD stockpile the US claimed Saddam had. Nobody would ever have accepted to go to war on the basis of, "We think there are still a few misplaced, unusable artillery shells with degraded chemical agents in Iraq."
            • Goety 5y ago
              HN frowns on political commentary so I'll attempt to be brief The vast majority of the most recent wars have not been UNSC authorized. UN involvement is not necessary for a war to occur nor do they prevent wars or proxy wars between countries on the UNSC. The "modern international system" is an ideal. The US was attacked. >ancient, rusting artillery shells (from the 1980s) 20-30 years old isnt ancient, they were serviceable, and they had chemical weapons in the quantity for the potential of wmds. That is only what they found, and I imagine there were more not found. >Nobody would ever have accepted to go to war There was reasonable evidence they had more that the allied force didn't find. The international community is more to blame for the conditions after involvement than the instigators 10+ years on. A neighbor is beating up another neighbor and both are blaming it on someone else.
      • Goety 5y ago
        The EU does not have a foreign policy thus will never go to war. France has tried to boost their MIC as an alternative to the US and in doing so actively sought to damage US goals.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      Source please.
      • GordonS 5y ago
        I doubt you'll find a credible source - the security services are afterall very good at what they do. It's all circumstantial, but at the time you'd have been hard-pressed to find a single citizen who believed Kelly very conveniently killed himself at just the right time to prevent further damage to the government and their web of lies with the US.
        • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
          That's shit though. That can be said of anything. Moon landings were faked but the CIA is very good at what they do.
          • GordonS 5y ago
            There is a bit of a difference - we have an abundance of evidence disproving the fake moon landing stories. OTOH, there were no witnesses of Kelly's death, and the timing was so very convenient - frankly, it's naive to think our security services wouldn't do this, especially with what was at stake. Keep in mind the the US and UK were fabricating evidence as justification for an illegal war. One that they knew would claim many, many casualties, and for which they must have known would end up destabilising the whole region and growing fundamentalists and terrorists (this was certainly obvious to many at the time). I do see your point, mind, but I don't think such damning circumstantial evidence is "shit"; by that logic, MI6 could never be responsible for anything, unless of course they signed a confession.
        • SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
          I'm not sure I see what the theory is here. I could understand an argument that Kelly was killed to send a message, but it's hard to see what damage it could have prevented. If anything, his death confirmed the web of lies; the whole thing wouldn't have been a big deal if it were just a question of minor messaging details as the government was claiming.
  • AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
    Many countries did also provide help, even though they knew the "single US regime" was likely to be lying & fabricating. This regime has remained in power ever since Bush's 8 year reign of terror. In fact, they were in power even before George W. Bush's administration. The name of the president may change, but the people running the US war machine remain the same.
• bradford 5y ago
  I'd ask that we be more thoughtful on this and evaluate separate allegations on their own merits. Why do you think invoking Cheney's statement is relevant to this discussion? As an aside, I'm not sure what's more frustrating: Witnessing the Bush administration circa 2001-2004 be called out on these lies, by numerous entities, and still march inexorably toward armed conflict, or... having to witness these lies being used to disingenuously discredit any future allegations made by the US.
  • dathos 5y ago
    I think the Iraqi war was more frustrating than those two put together. You realize that this wasn't the first time the US did this, so I feel we should question these claims as much as possible.
  • tablespoon 5y ago
    >>> There is so much doubt in this comment section around the validity of the accusations. >>> We have a number of countries putting forward the knowledge they have mutually agreed upon. What is shared is known to a high degree of certainty. Any details that are questionable would not have been shared prematurely. >> "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." — Dick Cheney, before the US and coalition of the willing invaded Iraq. > I'd ask that we be more thoughtful on this and evaluate separate allegations on their own merits. Why do you think invoking Cheney's statement is relevant to this discussion? I think the logic is once an organization or its leaders get something wrong, you should never, ever believe anything that organization ever says ever again. Even 20 years later after the leadership and staff has turned over a couple times. Of course, that's totally unworkable idea when applied consistently, so it's only used, knowingly or unknowingly, to reenforce existing biases.
    • DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
      It's not a question of getting something wrong. The Bush administration carried out a massive disinformation campaign to convince the public that Saddam had WMD - something they knew they had no good evidence for. Large parts of the media and most senior politicians in both major parties (including the current President of the US) went along with this disinformation campaign. After that experience, I'll believe the US government only when they make all their evidence public, and even then, I'll be exceedingly skeptical.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  This is meaningless. You're saying that since we have gotten it wrong in the past it must be wrong this time? That's not how it works. Show me your superior intelligence that contradicts this.
  • stelonix 5y ago
    No, he's saying since the USG used a lie in order to further its' interests and which caused more than 500k deaths, it should not be trusted when it says anything about any other adversary.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      >The U.S., NATO and other allies Okay. What about NATO and "other allies" then?
• mjreacher 5y ago
  I always see this is trotted out as to say that Iraq did not possess WMDs, however technically it is wrong, as WMDs (chemical weapons in this case) were found after the invasion, (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#2003_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...). While there was no evidence of nuclear weapons or an active program I believe that a better quote should be used since the pretences that it is quoted for are technically wrong.
  • throwawaycuriou 5y ago
    Of course, because WMD is a manufacturered phrase with tautological utility. A kitchen knife wielded in a sinister way is capable of mass destruction.
    • elefanten 5y ago
      No, there's a pretty stable presumptive meaning of "weapons of mass destruction". It means radiological, biological and chemical. There are always people trying to expand the definition, but it's usually from more left-leaning critical schools of thought that want to classify landmines, sanctions or guns as WMD. But in official usage, it's been pretty stable at those three.
      • throwawaycuriou 5y ago
        The utility is in the muddying. To use the broader term (WMD) instead of the specific (chemical weapons) is to imply the broader abuse. While the specific abuse is something the US turned a blind eye to a generation previously (chemcial weapons by Iraq against Iran)
    • jollybean 5y ago
      It's not a manufactured phrase. A knife is not generally a weapons. Saddam 100% had WMD's and was capable of making more. But he didn't have an active program, stockpiles were small and there wasn't really a huge risk of him selling to 'terrorists' etc.. The misrepresentation was really one of magnitude and capabilities and especially how the information is presented. "He Has WMD's" is very true and legitimate (different than 'he has a knife'), but obviously the misrepresented context makes it a giant lie. To this end, I suggest that the US would do better in their public communications if they revealed some Twitterable/TikTokable visuals and graphics which highlighted the nature of some of the incursions, so as to more strongly make their case i.e. it's easier to believe 'something material' than accusations.
• partiallypro 5y ago
  Logical fallacy to say that China/Russia being behind hacking is false simply because of the Iraqi war. Of course I'm sure China/Russia absolutely love and actively push this fallacy. Just as China uses US's failures on certain civil rights to deflect from their concentration camps and slave labor.
• Apofis 5y ago
  Yeah, it turned out to be ISIS.
• godelski 5y ago
  There's a few things wrong with this callback. 1) When that was stated there was serious pushback not just from US reporters but also other countries/allies. 2) It's pretty reasonable to believe that it is far easier to obtain hacking tools and knowledge as compared to weapons of mass destruction. You can't just download the knowledge and tools for nuclear weapons through the internet. I get the cynicism and I agree that we should be doubtful and not trust our leaders at face value. But that doesn't mean that we should throw all evidence to the wind. It just demonstrates that we need to be more thoughtful in our analysis.