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As the other commenter said, there was also "classified evidence" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Why would you blindly "just trust them" when the

As the other commenter said, there was also "classified evidence" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Why would you blindly "just trust them" when there's enough history to show that skepticism is a much healthier attitude.

pyre 12y ago
IIRC, a lot of the evidence in the Saddam case came from a defector from Iraq that spun a story to tell the Americans what they wanted to hear. No one bothered to do enough verification of what they were hearing because it was what they wanted to hear.
- isaacremuant 12y ago
  I recall something of the sort, yeah. This doesn't change anything I said, though. Regardless of where it comes from, "hidden facts" from agencies with an agenda that don't necessarily align with citizens are not to be automatically trusted.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  North Korean defectors have also done this.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
personZ 12y ago
The common narrative is that the US contrived the whole thing to justify an attack. This is how that unfortunate situation gets used to explain all sorts of nefarious conspiracies. But they really, honestly had reason to believe that Iraq had WMDs (yes there were doubters and skeptics, and of course they get the bulk of the attention after the fact, but many actually believed it). Aside from defectors and people trying to lie their way to something, add that Saddam himself wanted the world (particularly Iran) to think that the Iraq government had WMDs. Iraq believed that having WMDs was a good defense (a good example since then is North Korea), so they tried to play the middle ground where they could seem to have WMDs hidden away, and could act as if they had that ace in the hole, but they would play along with UN inspectors just enough to try to avoid an attack, adding just enough mystery to the whole thing that there were open doubts. Intelligence is tough when the person you're trying to prove is doing something is also trying to convince you that they're doing something. The game of chicken didn't turn out well. But the recurring narrative that innocent Iraq was all along say no no no look where you want and the US invented the situation is historical revisionism.
- isaacremuant 12y ago
  I don't want to get into an argument here but calling it "historical revisionism" is absolutely disrespectful to the rest of the world. Historical revisionism is polls showing a huge percentage of Americans still think Saddam was involved in 911. USA had no business invading Iraq (nor practically any other country, for that matter) and using the excuse that "Saddam claimed he had them to look tough" in order to justify so many tragedies (mostly foreign but also American) is egregious. When someone performs threat assessment they do it based on facts and not on posturing or they'd prosecute every internet troll out there. ugh. I'm going to stop now because I'm pissed but I'm going to let you know that you're basically apologizing for crimes against humanity with what sounds like kinder garden excuses.
  - personZ 12y ago
    This isn't some lowbrow conspiracy site, and I don't expect the participants to have the sort of superficial, facile understanding of world events that you've so evidently demonstrated. If reality makes you "pissed", you should stick to gentler pastures that conform with your worldview. I don't think the US should have invaded Iraq for purely pragmatic and financial reasons. That does nothing to change the actual complex, convoluted reality that led to the decisions that were made, and then the long and fruitless, but very intense, search for WMDs after the attack.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      You know, we found WMDs after the attack. They were just the wrong ones. President George W Bush led the US into war in Iraq on the back of assertions that Saddam Hussein had recently-built weapons of mass destruction, supplies that had only increased in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. Yet all the chemical weapons found by soldiers were manufactured before 1991, the Times reported. They consisted largely of 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets – not designed for mass destruction, and produced in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. According to the Times, the reports were embarrassing for the Pentagon because, in five of the six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been “designed in the US, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies”. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraqs-hidden-chemical-weapons-us-covered-up-discovery-of-chemical-weapons-after-2003-invasion--and-many-are-now-in-isiss-hands-9795485.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraqs-hidde...

pyre 12y ago

IIRC, a lot of the evidence in the Saddam case came from a defector from Iraq that spun a story to tell the Americans what they wanted to hear. No one bothered to do enough verification of what they were hearing because it was what they wanted to hear.

isaacremuant 12y ago
I recall something of the sort, yeah. This doesn't change anything I said, though. Regardless of where it comes from, "hidden facts" from agencies with an agenda that don't necessarily align with citizens are not to be automatically trusted.
crdoconnor 12y ago
North Korean defectors have also done this.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

personZ 12y ago

The common narrative is that the US contrived the whole thing to justify an attack. This is how that unfortunate situation gets used to explain all sorts of nefarious conspiracies. But they really, honestly had reason to believe that Iraq had WMDs (yes there were doubters and skeptics, and of course they get the bulk of the attention after the fact, but many actually believed it). Aside from defectors and people trying to lie their way to something, add that Saddam himself wanted the world (particularly Iran) to think that the Iraq government had WMDs. Iraq believed that having WMDs was a good defense (a good example since then is North Korea), so they tried to play the middle ground where they could seem to have WMDs hidden away, and could act as if they had that ace in the hole, but they would play along with UN inspectors just enough to try to avoid an attack, adding just enough mystery to the whole thing that there were open doubts. Intelligence is tough when the person you're trying to prove is doing something is also trying to convince you that they're doing something. The game of chicken didn't turn out well. But the recurring narrative that innocent Iraq was all along say no no no look where you want and the US invented the situation is historical revisionism.

isaacremuant 12y ago
I don't want to get into an argument here but calling it "historical revisionism" is absolutely disrespectful to the rest of the world. Historical revisionism is polls showing a huge percentage of Americans still think Saddam was involved in 911. USA had no business invading Iraq (nor practically any other country, for that matter) and using the excuse that "Saddam claimed he had them to look tough" in order to justify so many tragedies (mostly foreign but also American) is egregious. When someone performs threat assessment they do it based on facts and not on posturing or they'd prosecute every internet troll out there. ugh. I'm going to stop now because I'm pissed but I'm going to let you know that you're basically apologizing for crimes against humanity with what sounds like kinder garden excuses.
- personZ 12y ago
  This isn't some lowbrow conspiracy site, and I don't expect the participants to have the sort of superficial, facile understanding of world events that you've so evidently demonstrated. If reality makes you "pissed", you should stick to gentler pastures that conform with your worldview. I don't think the US should have invaded Iraq for purely pragmatic and financial reasons. That does nothing to change the actual complex, convoluted reality that led to the decisions that were made, and then the long and fruitless, but very intense, search for WMDs after the attack.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    You know, we found WMDs after the attack. They were just the wrong ones. President George W Bush led the US into war in Iraq on the back of assertions that Saddam Hussein had recently-built weapons of mass destruction, supplies that had only increased in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. Yet all the chemical weapons found by soldiers were manufactured before 1991, the Times reported. They consisted largely of 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets – not designed for mass destruction, and produced in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war. According to the Times, the reports were embarrassing for the Pentagon because, in five of the six incidents in which troops were wounded by chemical agents, the munitions appeared to have been “designed in the US, manufactured in Europe and filled in chemical agent production lines built in Iraq by Western companies”. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraqs-hidden-chemical-weapons-us-covered-up-discovery-of-chemical-weapons-after-2003-invasion--and-many-are-now-in-isiss-hands-9795485.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/iraqs-hidde...