Via the soon to be Harvard graduate, Matthew Yglesias, I see that the main WMD hunt in Iraq is over:
The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of outlawed arms, according to participants.
The 75th Exploitation Task Force, as the group is formally known, has been described from the start as the principal component of the U.S. plan to discover and display forbidden Iraqi weapons. The group’s departure, expected next month, marks a milestone in frustration for a major declared objective of the war.
This means that I was wrong about something, and time will tell which one. Here is the list of choices (and note they are not necessarily mutually exclusive):
1.) The abundance of WMD in Iraq- I thought the place was going to be littered with CHem/Bio, and I felt relatively sure that we would easily find plans and paperwork that would lead towards development of nuclear weapons. This simply did not materialzie, despite the fact that here and there have been found certain such items, the empty battlefield was not littered with cannisters as I expected it would be.
2.) The ease with which we would find the WMD, or alternatively phrased, the laziness of the regime in covering its tracks. There is no doubt there were WMD in Iraq- that much has been proven (they were there in 1998- what happened to them). I feel confident they would still be there and we would find them. I did not think, as has been suggested, that the regime would go to the fforts they have to hide them or to move them out of country (provided they did- as I stated, time will tell). So far, I have been wrong.
3.) The main thing I was wrong about, however, was that I was convinced WMD would be used in combat. I never said so out loud or blogged about it, because I was half-afraid it would happen, and I did NOT want to be right about that. I am glad I am wrong about this one.
4.) The sophistication of the regime. I was very surrprised that of the few WMD or WMD labs that were found, one was mobile. I always believed that the labs would be underground, fixed, and primitive, with poor security and precaution. I thought the “mobile’ labs was just spin- something that could help to explain why it was so difficult to find the WMD. Turns out, they were more sophisticated than I thought, and that is one of the few things we have found.
All in all, does this failure to find the amounts of WMD make me change my mind about supporting the war. Not one bit, at this point.
HH
There’s a lot of dissembling going on about this article, that’s for sure.
Ted Barlow
I’m very glad to see that a whole-hearted war supporter has noticed this article. Would you mind expanding on this point? It seems to me that the best case for the Administration is that Saddam did, indeed, have WMD, and they are now in unknown hands. This the “best” case because it means that they’re not the victims of a massive intelligence failure, and they’re not liars.
However… HOLY SHIT! Thousands of tons of chemical, biological, and nuclear WMD materials are in unknown hands. This is a fucking catastrophe!
Or am I missing something?
JKC
I, too, am glad that Saddam is gone, although I’m not sure the average Iraqi will fare much better under a fundamentalist Islamic theocracy. (Women will fare much, much worse.)
It does bother me, though, that the Bush League either lied about their rationale for war (much worse, to me, than lying about a blow job between consenting adults), or were grossly incompetent vis-a-vis post war planning.
May God help us all if there really are WMD’s floating around on the black market now.
BF Durbin
Why worry about Why.
You know the answer:
Because we can. And no one can stop us.
If you must have a why, say quietly to yourself:
It was about the Oil.
Moe Lane
“If you must have a why, say quietly to yourself:
It was about the Oil.”
This would be a germane comment if we were discussing France’s Iraqi stance… alas, the issue at hand is the reasons for the USA’s policies.
BF Durbin
Gee, Moe
Haliburthisone – it’s about controlling the oil.
HH
In this situation, like many others, it’s not “either/or.”
But the award for faulty reasoning certainly goes to BF.
BF Durbin
HH
Or say “it’s all about oil.”
RW
“it’s about controlling the oil.”
Which is why we controlled it after the gulf war.
[/groan]
I’m surprised anyone still tries to pass off far-left talking points, since the far-left has been so thoroughly discredited lately.
BF Durbin
An oil man from an oil state with oily friends and, of course, it’s not about the…
David Perron
I don’t think it’s abusing as much as making fun of. The “it’s all about oil” argument has been nearly as well supported in fact as the claim that alien beings have been imprisoned at Area 51.
BF Durbin
Ya’ll keep yapping about what hit’s not about, tell me then – what it is all about?
BF Durbin
WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Army Corps of Engineers has said a contract awarded without competition to a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. basically gives the company the power to run all phases of Iraq’s oil industry.
Halliburton — a company with close ties to the administration — can include operation’ of Iraqi oil fields and ‘distribution’ of Iraqi oil.”
Haliburton, which has been appointed to repair Iraqi oil fields, is still making annual payments to its former chief executive, the vice-president, Dick Cheney. This company has also doubled its political contributions to $1.2m, mostly to Republican candidates.
David Perron
If you think that we declared war on Iraq just so Halliburton could pump oil for a couple of years, your grasp of cause and effect is nearly as weak as your grasp of logic.
Wow. A whole million dollars in campaign donations. What on earth would the GOP do without that? Answer: 99% of what they did with it.
David Perron
Also, they didn’t cite their source. Who says Halliburton gave $1.2 million? Over what time span? Halliburton PAC (note that this denotes individual contributions, not corporate) gave about a third of that in the 2000 elections.
BF Durbin
Well, gosh, you got me there. Your facts and figures surely convinced me. I regret cluttering up this venue with my weak grasp of effective causes. I guess it wasn’t about the oil afterall. It must have been the weapons of mass destruction all along?
I guess I better votes republican next time cause they don’t needs the money and they got clever fellers like you to tell me what it’s all about.
David Perron
Always glad to help.
BF Durbin
Since you were so helpful before, maybe you could help me with these:
“The Bush Administration’s most outspoken war-for-oil proponent is Richard Perle, chair of the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group. Perle’s Rand Corporation report briefing submitted in July, 2002 recommended invading Iraq as a first step in gaining U.S. control over oil throughout the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia.”
– Boston Globe, 9/10/02.
“Oil giants including ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and ConocoPhillips are the most likely to lead any development efforts in a post-war Iraq,” according to energy analyst Peter Zeihan of Stratfor, an intelligence-consulting group based in Austin, Texas (“Reaping the spoils of war: Ousting Saddam could put U.S. oil giants in ‘driver’s seat’,” CBS.MarketWatch.com, 1/31/03).
“[T]he early spoils would probably go to companies needed to keep Iraq’s already run-down oil operations running, especially if facilities were further damaged in a war. Oil-services firms such as Halliburton Co., where Vice President Dick Cheney formerly served as chief executive, and Schlumberger Ltd. are seen as favorites for what could be as much as $1.5 billion in contracts. The major oil and natural-gas producers won’t be far behind.” (“U.S. Oil Wants to Work in Iraq”, The Wall Street Journal, 1/16/03.
BF Durbin
Oh, help with this one too:
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has already awarded Kellogg Brown & Root a contract to assess operations and safety in the industry and make emergency repairs. Their subcontractor, Boots & Coots International Well Control Inc., will be helping to fight the well fires. Indeed, in an odd twist, Kuwaiti firefighters say the U.S. military asked them to slow down their efforts so the Americans could take part. “They didn’t want the Americans to find [the fires] already extinguished,” says Essa Buyabis, who heads the Kuwaiti group.” Business Week
BF Durbin
And, since I have so much trouble with effective-sounding reasons, or what did you call it, cause and effect, how about your assistance on:
“25,000 liters of an thrax … 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin … materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent … upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents … several mobile biological weapons labs … thousands of Iraqi security personnel … at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors.”
– (GWB, State of the Union, Jan. 2003)
David Perron
I don’t understand the question. More to the point, it sounds as if you don’t understand it, either.
As for the oil companies being eager to get in on the business, that doesn’t make a case for that the war was all about oil. It would still be true if the war weren’t about oil. The Halliburton contract, if you’d bothered to understand what you were reading, was put in place in anticipation of Hussein blowing up his own oil wells. So that well reconstruction could begin immediately. So that Iraq could start selling product to facilitate self-rebuilding.
I’m not sure why this is so difficult a concept to understand. Right now you have zero evidence that wraps up a case that the war was for oil, but you’re forging ahead with failing to make the case anyway. Knock yourself out.
BF Durbin
I don’t think oil is the only reason. But, if it’s part, small or large, of the reason then let’s be honest and say so. I like cheap gas as much as the next.
If the claim is that it’s not part of the reason, that’s what’s difficult to grasp.
Hyprocrazy is tough to swallow for some.
Your argument appears to be: “I’m right, you’re wrong. And you’re an idiot.”
That seems a bit specious. Please offer evidence to the contrary. I have offered some evidence from fairly reputable publications. Of course, your take would be “so there’s money to be made, GB supporters are going to make it, that doesn’t mean they are war profiteers, and even if they are, you can’t prove it short of showing me a document in their handwriting that says, “Go get that Iraqi oil for us Georgie. That’s why we put you in the whitehouse.”
How about you proving otherwise?
Billious diatribe at an end.
David Perron
Nope, don’t need to. What you have to do, as the offerer of the “war for oil” theory, is accompany that offer with some supporting fact. Which you haven’t done. I certainly don’t have to prove it’s NOT about oil.
But even if I stipulated that it was all about oil, let’s follow the money, shall we? Who gets rich from cheap oil? Hint: not the oil companies. Oil company profits increase with price. Also, it tends to put domestic exploration on hold and devalues domestic exploration leases. Not a good thing for anyone Bush knows in the oil business in Texas, and certainly not a good thing if ANWR exploration is still on Bush’s agenda.
Incidentally, I don’t really think you’re an idiot. I just think the claim that it was a war for oil is unsupported and unsupportable.
Robin Roberts
But the argument approaches idiocy for the reasons you outline, David. The oil industry is not benefitted by cheaper petroleum which is the result of putting all of Iraq’s production back onto the market.
BF Durbin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1138009.stm
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=482
http://www.fpif.org/cgaa/talkingpoints/0209oil_body.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4538509,00.html
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Scholarly/Lakoff_Gulf_Metaphor_1.html
David Perron
Which would simply make the cost come down. No one makes any money. Sorry, you still have yet to make a cogent case for “war for oil”. Unless you are under the impression that Bush is just out to get the American people cheaper gas? I’m not sure how you’re going to make that one fly, especially when by doing so Bush will screw over his purported “oil cronies”.
BF Durbin
I was thinking if someone controls production, they control supply. There’s some myth floating around about a link between supply and demand. Thus a controller manages the price.
Not too high, not too low, and everybody makes some dough. [that was luck]
If “others” control production, they can drive the price down by overproducing and dumping (see steel).
In fact, we now have a credible (world’s second largest oil field and all) capacity to do that ourselves. Think of the squeeze we can put on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, & other Opecies one and all. Does that put us in the driver’s seat?
I think I’m farting in the wind. The rejoinder, “prove it”, always trumps.
Cui Bono?
Quod Erat Demonstrondium
Adios.
David Perron
Yes, but you have to control enough of the supply to control price. Currently, Iraq is supplying zero of our oil supply. How is supply control supposed to affect price in the upward direction, again?
Again, the only direction our (purported, not yet shown) control of Iraqi oil can push oil prices is down. Who, exactly, is going to make money from a cheaper product?
You can claim victory all you want. Last refuge, and all.