On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 20:49:23 -0800, "SteveB" wrote:
"PhysicsGenius" wrote in message
.. .
Mike Patterson wrote:

I have the impression that you are one of the folks who believe that
the invasion of Iraq was based on a false claim of Iraqi complicity in
the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

No, I'm one of the folks who believe that the invasion of Iraq was based
on a false claim of Iraqi ownership of WMDs.


Then the gas weapons they (the Iraqis) used to kill hundreds of thousands of
Kurds weren't WMDs?

No and no. First of all, Iraq hasn't gassed "hundreds of thousands of Kurds".
The only documented case caused casualties of under 5,000, and that was
because the Kurds were in the path of the advancing Iranian army, which was
the actual target. It isn't even clear whether it was Iraqi gas or Iranian gas
which did them in, since both sides were using gas (mustard gas) in that battle.
Such collateral damage is common in war. There have been some other
unconfirmed claims, but none so large. Second, gas is at best a tactical
battlefield weapon, and a tricky one to employ effectively at that, as Europeans
learned in WWI.

Note well two other things. First, the US supplied Iran with the materials to
make the gas used in the Iraq-Iran war. Second, there is little or no evidence
(16 empty gas shell casings) that Iraq maintained a stockpile of poison gas
after the 1991 Gulf War in contravention of the ceasefire accords. The UN
didn't find any, the 1400 man US task force searching for WMD haven't found
any, even though Bush claimed in his State of the Union address that Iraq
still had 29,234 shells loaded with gas. Makes one wonder, how Bush knew
such an exact number, and why he hasn't clued his task force as to where
he did the count.

What is YOUR definition of a WMD?

Strategic weapons. Example, a 300 kT or larger city buster nuke. Gas doesn't
qualify as a city buster, since the quantities required would be huge. Biological
weapons might, though we have to go back to the Black Death to actually see
an example, which had more to do with lack of sanitation and medical services
than the actual plague agent.

Ordinary bombs aren't traditionally considered WMD, but when applied in
sufficient numbers, as with the firebombing of Dresden in WWII, the effects
are much the same, 135,000 civilian dead in a single raid.

Meanwhile, Bush proclaimed that Iraq had 45,000 liters of biological weaponry,
but not so much as a microliter has been found by his 1,400 man task force.
He also claimed the Iraqis had mobile biological warfare laboratories, but the
claims to have found the trailers so proudly hawked at the start of the war
have been quietly withdrawn, after the British manufacturer came forward
and confirmed that they were actually barrage balloon inflation trailers as
the Iraqis had maintained.

The Big Lie can be an effective propaganda technique, but only as long as
the pesky truth doesn't insist on surfacing.

Gary