Oh no, not all this again

Roy

Israel it seems has an excellent eye for who has what in the middle east. Doesn't muck-about when it has a job to do. Just does it. It is of course in the front line. It knows the enemy and knows their thinking. What it doesn't know for sure is who are it's friends. It can't trust anybody. It might have been a good idea before the quashing of Saddam to have had intimate consultations with Israel and gleaned what intelligence they had. They may have avoided a war for this lack of humility.

Stanley Jerusalem Israel

Roy, how do you know they didn't? They wouldn't divulge their sources even if they had consulted Israel, would they?

Lynne T

Roy: That may have been true once, but the campaign against Hezbollah in summer 2006 was woefully inept, both militarily and on a PR level. Hezbollah certainly didn't achieve any military victory in the near term, but they have received the world's sympathy for Israel's alleged "disproportionate response" and Israel is going to carry the blame for the deaths of those UNIFIL officers that got killed, not Hezbollah for embedding themselves all around the outpost.

Frank Pulley

Whatever happened to 'Comical Ali', Saddam's erstwhile 'Press Officer', who provided us with so much entertainment in those early hours of the liberation of Iraq? We could do with him back to lighten up the proceedings? They didn't hang him, did they??

Ravi

Time to remind ourselves that Israel didn't push for the war with Iraq. They were more worried about Iran at the time. Remember that Saddam fired Scuds at Israel which they thought could contain biological or chemical elements, hence the issuing of chem/bio protection suits to the population. Saddam had no inhibition about firing missiles capable of bio/chem delivery. Remember that his missiles were taken out very early in the Iraq war.

Malcolm Dunn

You don't seem to appreciate Ms Phillips that there can be no greater wrong for the government to take this country to war on a lie.Blair should be on trial for this not swanning around the middle east as some ludicrous peace envoy. What the Syrian facility has to do with this I've no idea or all muslim countries the same to you.

Race against time

"You don't seem to appreciate Ms Phillips that there can be no greater wrong for the government to take this country to war on a lie." Malcolm, dear, we don't know it was a lie. All we do know is that when the Americans got there the weapons building facilities weren't there. Prior to that it was a job for anyone to work out what was going on. "What the Syrian facility has to do with this I've no idea or [sic] all muslim countries the same to you." Since when was this idea expressed in the piece? In case you missed it Malcolm, the Americans belatedly picked up sky high Geiger counter readings under the Euphrates river and (on satellite photos) some rather interesting convoys heading from Iraq over Syria's border. When Syria was bombed recently the country was somewhat shy about letting any media organisations know about the precise nature of what had been bombed. While the Americans might be rather embarrassed to have let Saddam's toys slip through their fingers and so can't really crow about any of this, any country that ended up with that toy set was likely to face a good pummelling without the luxury of being able to play 'victim' to the media as it might raise uncomfortable questions about what they were doing with that chemistry set in the first place. What did you think was being bombed in Syria? A party popping factory?

Malcolm Dunn

No 'Race against time' we don't KNOW it was a lie,although as all the evidence suggests it was we can make an educated guess can't we? Regarding Syria. Are you seriously suggesting that more than four years after the invasion Saddam's mythical weapons of mass destruction just happen to turn up in Syria?No wonder you post under pseudonym!

Race against time

So why wouldn't Syria let the media in Malcolm? What's the hush for?

pete woodhouse

"Saddam's mythical weapons of mass destruction".........why don't you ask the Iraqi Marsh Arabs, Kurds or the Iranians if these weapons were mythical or not Mr Dunn.
As for the Syrian facility, it is surely a possibility that the technology (whatever it was) could have been transported across the border to his Baathist friends, is it not? Saddam did the same thing with a large chunk of his airforce during the first Gulf War, when he sent them to Iran (at that time an enemy). Is it not also likely that such a facility would take some time to plan, authorise, fund and build, perhaps about four years?

Ann

I wonder whether Malcolm has ever been to the Middle East, and has any clue about the size and the inhospitable terrain of the deserts (e.g. in eastern Syria). Does he really think (a) that it is impossible to hide anything there, (b) that those nice people ruling Syria have no interest in storing anything that might potentially be used against Israel? Now, who mentioned useful fools?

Adam B.

I remember that just a few days before the Iraq war started, Ariel Sharon said that the weapons of mass destruction had been moved out of Iraq to Syria, and that they no longer remained in Iraq. His comments were dismissed by the US. It was mentioned very briefly on a lunchtime news bulletin, and I never heard it again. It is amazing to me that this story has not been more prominent. And it's something that the lefties who go on about Israel/ the Jews pushing for the war seem to "forget".

field

Mythical? At the time Hans Blix was convinced they had them. I agree with Adam B. This behaviour is not as bizarre as might first appear - taking the WMD to Syria. Remember - in the first Gulf War he had the air force fly to Iran! Iran is the arch enemy - but gambler that he was, he calculated correctly that anti-American Islamic solidarity would win out. Why should we believe the bizarre theory that Saddam - who lied about everything - should be telling the truth about this one thing so dear to his heart, the WMD? Is there any suggestion that the nuclear facility in Syria destroyed by the Israelis might have been making use of Iraqi material (as well as North Korean material)?

THX1138

Race Against Time , Melanie Philips & Mohamed Al Fayed I just love all these loon conspiracy theories. Guys can I give it to you straight Prince Philip didn't murder Diana & the WMD weren't transported to Syria in space ships. Seriously can I suggest that you all look up the principle of Ockham's Razor you might find it enlightening.

Ahad Ha'moratzim

"we can make an educated guess can't we? " Apparently you can'tm Mr. Dunn. Nothing about your guesses betrays any sign of being educated. Let's see -- Sadddam stonewalls the inspectors, every world intelligence agency (including his own) thinks he has them, his weapons development people remain on the payroll, he tries to buy yellowcake uranium in Africa(Valerie Plame's husband claims that is a lie but ends up validating that it is true -- although no one denies that the attempted purchase failed), he bribes various European ambassadors to vote against heightened sanctions, he shoots at US planes flying over the inspection areas, suspicious movements occur from Iraq into neighboring Syria, no weapon labs are found after the US invasion -- but with a desert the size of California to hide them in, and a suspected weapons facility is blown up in Syria a few years after the invasion, with evidence that Saddams buddies the North Koreans are involved. Based on all that, what's your "educated" guess -- why, that Bush and Blair lied, knowing all along there are no weapons and that their lie was sure to be exposed after the invasion, and on top of all that were too dumb to plant any phony evidence despite ample opportunity to do so. If that's your idea of an educated guess, I'd hate to see your idea of irresponsible wild speculation.

anchorage

Of course the West knew Iraq had WMD - it was they who gave them to the Iraqis!

Malcolm Dunn

They were mythical Pete Woodhouse,as in they didn't exist or at least not by 2003. Noone knows what the Israelis bombed in Syria but if Saddam sneaked the weapons out sometime prior to the invasion gave them to his enemies in Syria who hid them successfully for a few years until they reappeared in the desert it would make a rather unusual scenario. Hans Blix was convinced of them field? I think you just made that up. It strikes me as very odd that some apparently sane people are willing to give Blair the benefit of the doubt over his behaviour leading up to the Iraq war. All the evidence points to the fact that he lied, this dossier is just one more example.I'm sorry that Melanie Phillips appears to find that boring but it's just tough.

Kenneth

In the lead-up to the war, Hans Blix was on his knees begging Bush to give him six more months, just six more months and he promised he would find the WMDs. The truth is everyone, even the French, believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

field

Dunn - You need to get your story straight. No one as far as I know has ever seriously claimed he NEVER had WMD. He used them against both Iran and Kurds. IN fact you seem to be the only person ever to suggest that was the case. What is claimed by the Appeasement faction is that Saddam voluntarily destroyed the WMD but did so secretly and with no documentary or other evidence. And yes, it is well attested that Blix though there were WMDs still to be found on the eve of war. Do you want me to go get the evidence? Not clear in what sense Syria was an enemy. A rival perhaps. But they have never been at war and had common enemies in the USA, Israel and the Kurds. The are both ruled by Ba'athist parties. And what was the alternative for Saddam to removing them from the country? Allow the weapons to be captured by the Americans so that they could prove him a liar?

MikeH

I'm looking at the October 16, 2002 "Authorization for Use of Military Force Iraq Resolution of 2002" (Public Law 107-243) http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf, and it still looks pretty good to me. "Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);" So, 1, 2, 5, 50, 1000 nerve gas shells, etc. - doesn't matter to me. The alternative?

Frank Pulley

WGAF about whether there were WMD in pre-liberation Iraq? Surely the point is that Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction. He and his evil issue are no more, that in itself justifies the liberation. Nobody speculates anymore about what the world would have been like if we had not taken him out. The prospect of tomorrow's world without his defiance is bad enough, just think of how worse it would be if he was still cocking a snoot at the UN and thereby exposing the weakness of the West. Ahmedinnerjacket next! Let's get on with it before it is too late. As for the Quisling MSM and their mentors of the looney left, screw 'em! That's what the blogosphere is for, ennit?.