Bush: Bad president? Or WORST president EVER?

Now, am I rewriting history? Calling Hans Blix a failure while the invasion has failed to produce a single drop of evidence? hahaha. As you can see, yes I have plenty of "factual evidence."

If you look at the stock market downturn of 2002, everyone was going down. When did the stock market go up? You guess it. The day we went into Iraq, effective stimulating the economy temporarily. The main companies driving this economic turnaround were oil companies. If you bought any oil stock before 2002, you made profit literally overnight.

Also with fears of oil peaking, US has to secure priority to resources to counter the demand from India and China which are growing rapidly. The Iraq war is simply a product of a greater war going on: the economic war with the powers of the east.

Bush made a good move with the goal to open up US investment in the middle east. After all, you have to watch for a country's best interests. In order to make a case without causing a selling hysteria in the stock market, they had to use puffery to make their case to go to war.

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Originally Posted by fiddyonefiddy

mr clandestine dont take my words the wrong way,please
everyone has their opinion ,thats what makes the usa great is we can discuss things not favorable to our government openly and not be persicuted for it.

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Well said, and there's no hard feelings here. You don't seem like the kind of person who rabidly attacks others with your views, I generally only take their words the wrong way. I enjoy having these civil discussions with you and the other posters around here who just want to discuss, not attack.

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Originally Posted by fiddyonefiddy

now back to china why is that a different scenario?
we actually do have weapons of mass destruction? and so do they?

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Yes, we do, as do they... but the point I was trying to make is that our economy (sadly) is fairly dependent on China and their own economy. Economic relations aside, an invasion on Chinese soil would be an entirely different scenario... if nothing else than due to the sheer size of the country. We can all see that China has plenty of problems of their own, but at least they're not a country full of fanatical Islamo-fascists. Which is a huge plus for us, and for them.

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Originally Posted by fiddyonefiddy

we do it with foriegn policy.we dont have to take you out militarily
we can do it by sanctions, we do this all the time.if that doesnt work we take you out militarily,ask noreaga.

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Foreign policy is just part and parcel of being the superpower that we are. It's unavoidable, and (in my opinion) necessary to maintain a semblance of balance and peace in many foreign countries. We can have diplomatic foreign relations with other countries, too. So it's not all just sanctions, threats, and wars. Noriega was a close ally of ours, but he used this status to suit his own agenda... and in my opinion, got what was coming to him, too. At least he wasn't hanged.

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Originally Posted by fiddyonefiddy

they have already done it through another country north vietnam, who has nukes told us to fuck off,you think sodaminsane is whacky check out the dude in north vietnam.that dude is out there. notice we aint messin with his ass.

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I think even the idea of another war in Vietnam is enough to make most Americans cringe, but it's probably a war that we'd undertake if the prerequisites were there. Luckily, at least for the moment, our relations with the Vietnamese government isn't in turmoil... and hasn't been for quite some time.

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Originally Posted by fiddyonefiddy

we do run our mouths look at bush's speeches

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Bush can be pretty bold with his statements at home and to the rest of the world, but he's not the voice of America... just the politician who oversees our affairs and government. We (as a collective whole, not you personally) voted him into office, and so those of us who disagree with him are partially responsible for putting him where he is. If you did take the time to vote for another candidate, then you just had a bad stroke of luck. That's democracy for ya, but never forget that democracy allows we the people to make necessary changes that will benefit our country, and ourselves.

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Originally Posted by fiddyonefiddy

like i say the dude wasnt cool but there are alot of other much worse that we dont want to get into it with cause we would lose. plain and simple the guys in iraq i send em my heart they are trying to get money for college and paying the ultimate price for what? tell me what they are dieng for cause all i see is oil.id like to see bush and all his cronies go do one tour with them boys and we'd be out of there so fast it would make your head spin.

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Where you only see our soldiers fighting and dying for oil, I see them fighting and dying to defend our country from people who REALLY want to do us harm. Even if they signed up for military service so they could pay for college, they still took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from tyranny and people who desperately want to do harm to our country, and her citizens. That, in my opinion, is what they're dying for... even if it may not appear that way to others.

Where you only see our soldiers fighting and dying for oil, I see them fighting and dying to defend our country from people who REALLY want to do us harm. Even if they signed up for military service so they could pay for college, they still took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from tyranny and people who desperately want to do harm to our country, and her citizens. That, in my opinion, is what they're dying for... even if it may not appear that way to others.

i wish it was for defending our country,our right to sit here and chat,and disagree.i believe some of the wars we were in were for that. i believe thats what my grandfather went to war for.
even the going into afghanistan,i was for that. but iraq is a totally different thing.
my dad used to tell me keep your yard clean first then worry about your neihbors.this used to be our foreign policy.

i hear my neihbor next door arguing with his wife i dont go and smash in his door and kick his ass. you cant do that, but ole gw is special he can make his own rules to please himself fuck the people of the usa.he knows whats best for us.palease. he is now not letting the soldiers who have completed their contract with the military go home. you cant get out now till they are done in iraq.because no one wants to re enlist and go there and die for oil.the soilders believed what you believe clandestine till they get there and see what is really going on.

as i said b4 send ole gw and darth over there for a tour and no more war.simple as that.

You guys have a very good discussion about the war going on here, but this thread is about whether Bush is a good or bad president. Here's a new thread for you about the war: http://boards.cannabis.com/politics/...war-worth.html

Enjoy!

you know everyone just wants to goto the gaspump and fill up there vehicle's and have no worries bush got the job done and no one has thanked him for that yet!as american's you all need to thank him
for the terrific job he has done securing the US from any futher attacks! i myself thank him !so he's got some downfalls does'nt everyone? His main job is to protect us and provide for us.
Thank You George Bush ty for making my country safe!!:thumbsup:

Whoever privatized the national treasury was the worst president ever. He created the corruption known as america along with 3 other rich bankers. He even said he ruined the country on his deathbed i forget his name and dont have time to look it up im sure someone on here knows.

Onto the real question. No bush is not the worst president ever. He is just a bad president. He has done very many dishonest and deceitful things. He had an agenda that did not have the countries best intentions at heart.

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Originally Posted by thcbongman

Rewriting? Did you ignore what was occuring at the time? Seems you forgotten how Colin Powell stated his facts to the UN council. But to this day we seems to have failed to prove the facts.

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You say "we" as if "we" were the sole member of the security council with a vote.
Are you forgetting the ten+ years of UN sanctions, the nuke, chem and biological thecnologies disposal, or the inspections leading up to the finale? How about the bogus weapons declaration report they tried to pass-off as legit, or the use of WMD against his own people and against the Iranians...? And yes, the mobile biological weapons laboratories:
AFTEREFFECTS: THE HUNT FOR EVIDENCE; Trailer is a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning Out Bioweapons, a Team Says - New York Times

With regards to Blix, you could lay out a stack of evidence in front of him, and he'd just turn it, and the supplier of that evidence, over to the enemy.
Family fears for Iraqi who sought help from UN - Times Online
If an auditor (tax inspector) was on a corporate tax fraud case, and some crazy accountant jumps into his cruiser with a stack of papers and tells him "save me, save me, I may have your proof", do you really think a good detective would just push him out of the car, and let the corporations security detail 'remove' the intruder without investigating the situation a little closer?
If the UN hires you to inspect, but you only go thru the motions, what does that say about how your credibility? You think his views on the mission had no bearing on the outcome?
Regardless if Adnan had sensitive info or not, Blix and friends made sure to immediatelly have this intruder arrested by the Iraqi guards. No inspectors interviews with the man, (an Iraqi scientist)
Dean's World - A ludicrous sideshow (half way down page) no going thru the mans belongings and papers...no inspection.:wtf:

Then there was the omission of facts in Blix's report:
Bush aides say Blix left out data
Delivery drones, anthrax, cluster bombs, mobile chemical weapons vehicles...
"WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration accused the chief United Nations weapons inspector yesterday of omitting from his public report to the Security Council last week several key examples of Iraq's development of prohibited weapons.

Administration spokesmen said that chief inspector Hans Blix did not give details of a drone that could carry chemical weapons, nor did he mention a possibly large supply of anthrax and the possible existence of a cluster bomb that could deliver deadly poisons. Those matters were covered in Blix's written report to the council but not mentioned or covered in detail in his verbal presentation on Friday. Asked about the drone, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the information `should be of concern to everyone. . . . We're concerned about that, and I think other information will be coming forward that suggests Iraq has really not changed.''

Other administration officials suggested that taken together, Blix's omissions in his televised address to the council had resulted in the failure to disclose a full picture of how Iraq was withholding information on prohibited weapons.

However, Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the UN's Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, denied that Blix had concealed or failed to highlight key information in his address Friday to the Security Council. Buchanan said that inspectors were still not clear whether the Iraqi drone was a banned item, and that Blix has repeatedly talked about possible anthrax stockpiles.
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On Friday, Blix said, ''Inspectors are also engaged in examining Iraq's programs for remotely piloted vehicles. A number of sites have been inspected, with data being collected to assess the range and other capabilities of the various models found, and inspections are continuing in this area.''

Along with the drone, US officials noted two other disclosures in the written report. First, Iraq had developed a version of South African cluster bombs -- first reported in yesterday's New York Times -- that the Americans said could be retrofitted to spray deadly chemicals instead of ordnance.

Also, the written report said that inspectors now have ''credible information'' that Iraq produced 1,820 more gallons of biological warfare agents in ''bombs, warheads, and in bulk'' than was declared, and the agent was most likely anthrax.

In their 173-page written report, the UN weapons inspectors did not say whether Iraqi drone aircraft could carry chemical or biological weapons. Instead, the report said in general that unmanned vehicles are of concern, because of ''their potential to deliver a weapon to a remote target.''

The report said the undeclared Iraqi drone had a wingspan of 24.6 feet -- possibly longer than Iraq is legally allowed. ''Officials at the inspection site state that the drone had been test flown,'' the UN report said. ''Further investigation is required to establish the actual specifications and capability of these . . . [and others and whether they] exceed'' the 93-mile limit. Iraq is banned from having missiles that exceed that range.

Some UN diplomats, who had spent the weekend pouring through the document, said some of the new information was troubling. ''Just look at the sections on drones and anthrax,'' said a council diplomat, who requested anonymity.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the information on the drone and cluster bombs ''was late-breaking news, very late last week'' to the administration. In the past, he said former weapon inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, discovered that Iraq had modified the fuel tanks on its drones, allowing them to fly beyond the 93-mile limit.

''There's no question the munitions are capable of dispensing chemical and biological weapons,'' Fleischer said. ''And based on past reporting that UNSCOM did, there is also a concern about the UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] being modified for this exact same purpose, which is the spraying of chemical and biological weapons. We're talking about weapons of mass destruction.''

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Fleischer said that the United States would press UN weapons inspectors on the drone and cluster bombs during closed-door Security Council hearings this week.

US officials, including Powell, cited sections of the report yesterday in their efforts to persuade the six undecided Security Council members to support giving Iraq a deadline of next Monday to disarm.

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank on security issues, said yesterday if Iraq possessed drones capable of flying into Kuwait, or if it had cluster bombs that could spray chemical weapons, ''you should be quite worried about that. If I was sitting there trying to figure out if the Patriot or Arrow missile-defense systems would thwart a chemical or biological attack, I would be pretty worried about those drones.''


FOXNews.com - Raw Data: Hans Blix's Report to the U.N. - U.S. & World
"In 1991, Resolution 687 (1991), adopted unanimously as a part of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, had five major elements. The three first related to disarmament. They called for:

â?¢ Declarations by Iraq of its programs of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles;

â?¢ Verification of the declarations through UNSCOM and the IAEA;

â?¢ Supervision by these organizations of the destruction or the elimination of proscribed programs and items.

After the completion of the disarmament:

â?¢ The Council would have authority to proceed to a lifting of the sanctions (economic restrictions); and

â?¢ The inspecting organizations would move to long-term ongoing monitoring and verification.

Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance â?? not even today â?? of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

As we know, the twin operation "declare and verify," which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of "hide and seek." Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programs and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations.

As a result, the disarmament phase was not completed in the short time expected. Sanctions remained and took a severe toll until Iraq accepted the Oil for Food Program and the gradual development of that program mitigated the effects of the sanctions.

The implementation of resolution 687 (1991) nevertheless brought about considerable disarmament results. It has been recognized that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed under this resolution than were destroyed during the Gulf War: large quantities of chemical weapons were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision before 1994.

While Iraq claims â?? with little evidence â?? that it destroyed all biological weapons unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological weapons production facilities in 1996. The large nuclear infrastructure was destroyed and the fissionable material was removed from Iraq by the IAEA.

One of three important questions before us today is how much might remain undeclared and intact from before 1991; and, possibly, thereafter; the second question is what, if anything, was illegally produced or procured after 1998, when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.

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For nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the Secretary-General and Arab states and pressure by the United States and other Member States, that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again accept inspections without conditions.

Resolution 1441 (2002) was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active.

UNMOVIC shares the sense of urgency felt by the Council to use inspection as a path to attain, within a reasonable time, verifiable disarmament of Iraq. Under the resolutions I have cited, it would be followed by monitoring for such time as the Council feels would be required. The resolutions also point to a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as the ultimate goal.

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I turn now to the key requirement of cooperation and Iraq's response to it. Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access.

I shall deal first with cooperation on process.

Cooperation on Process

It has regard to the procedures, mechanisms, infrastructure and practical arrangements to pursue inspections and seek verifiable disarmament. While inspection is not built on the premise of confidence but may lead to confidence if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection.

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Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections. We seek to be both effective and correct.

In this updating I am bound, however, to register some problems. Firstly, relating to two kinds of air operations.

While we now have the technical capability to send a U-2 plane placed at our disposal for aerial imagery and for surveillance during inspections and have informed Iraq that we planned to do so, Iraq has refused to guarantee its safety, unless a number of conditions are fulfilled. As these conditions went beyond what is stipulated in Resolution 1441 (2002) and what was practiced by UNSCOM and Iraq in the past, we note that Iraq is not so far complying with our request. I hope this attitude will change.

Another air operation problem â?? which was solved during our recent talks in Baghdad â?? concerned the use of helicopters flying into the no-fly zones. Iraq had insisted on sending helicopters of their own to accompany ours. This would have raised a safety problem. The matter was solved by an offer on our part to take the accompanying Iraq minders in our helicopters to the sites, an arrangement that had been practiced by UNSCOM in the past.

I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time farfetched allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of intelligence character. While I might not defend every question that inspectors might have asked, Iraq knows that they do not serve intelligence purposes and Iraq should not say so.

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Cooperation on Substance

The substantive cooperation required relates above all to the obligation of Iraq to declare all programs of weapons of mass destruction and either to present items and activities for elimination or else to provide evidence supporting the conclusion that nothing proscribed remains.

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be "active". It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of "catch as catch can". Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

The Declaration of 7 December

On 7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to Paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome.

One might have expected that in preparing the Declaration, Iraq would have tried to respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues, which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the UNSCOM document (S/1999/94) of January 1999 and the so-called Amorim Report of March 1999 (S/1999/356). These are questions which UNMOVIC, governments and independent commentators have often cited.

While UNMOVIC has been preparing its own list of current "unresolved disarmament issues" and "key remaining disarmament tasks" in response to requirements in resolution 1284 (1999), we find the issues listed in the two reports as unresolved, professionally justified. These reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to lack of evidence and inconsistencies, which raise question marks, which must be straightened out, if weapons dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise.

They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM. Regrettably, the 12,000 page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions or reduce their number. Even Iraq's letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the President of the Security Council on 24 January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.

Chemical Weapons

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed.

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few [metric] tons and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponized. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponizied. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

I would now like to turn to the so-called "Air Force document" that I have discussed with the Council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 [metric] tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate. During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of investigation. Since then it has reported that it has found a further four chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.

Whilst I am addressing chemical issues, I should mention a matter, which I reported on 19 December 2002, concerning equipment at a civilian chemical plant at Al Fallujah. Iraq has declared that it had repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM supervision, and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed technical evaluation of it. On completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.

Biological Weapons

I have mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions and I come back to it as it is an important one.

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraq's Foreign Minister stated that "all imported quantities of growth media were declared". This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax.

Missiles

I turn now to the missile sector. There remain significant questions as to whether Iraq retained SCUD-type missiles after the Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption of a number of SCUD missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense system during the 1980s. Yet no technical information has been produced about that program or data on the consumption of the missiles.

There has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four years presented by Iraq as non-proscribed activities. We are trying to gather a clear understanding of them through inspections and on-site discussions.

Two projects in particular stand out. They are the development of a liquid-fueled missile named the Al Samoud 2, and a solid propellant missile, called the Al Fatah. Both missiles have been tested to a range in excess of the permitted range of 150 km, with the Al Samoud 2 being tested to a maximum of 183 km and the Al Fatah to 161 km. Some of both types of missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi Armed Forces even though it is stated that they are still undergoing development.

The Al Samoud's diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760 mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600 mm. Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.
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In addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number of casting chambers, which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM supervision. They had been used in the production of solid-fuel missiles. Whatever missile system these chambers are intended for, they could produce motors for missiles capable of ranges significantly greater than 150 km.

Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import, which has been taking place during the last few years, of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost amongst these is the import of 380 rocket engines which may be used for the Al Samoud 2.

Iraq also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

Mr. President, I have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and that need to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq to answer these questions? I have pointed to some during my presentation of the issues. Let me be a little more systematic.

Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should have the benefit of the doubt, be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it â?? or I think anyone else after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 â?? presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem. Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific.

Find the Items and Activities

Information provided by Member States tells us about the movement and concealment of missiles and chemical weapons and mobile units for biological weapons production. We shall certainly follow up any credible leads given to us and report what we might find as well as any denial of access.

So far we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122 mm warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine. Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and destroy it under our supervision?

Find Documents

When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. All existing relevant documents have been presented, we are told. All documents relating to the biological weapons program were destroyed together with the weapons.

However, Iraq has all the archives of the Government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports on how they have been used. It should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports on production and losses of material.

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The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals.

This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring home papers from their work places. On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.

Any further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. The Iraqi side committed itself at our recent talks to encourage persons to accept access also to private sites. There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed items, activities or documents. A denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.

Find Persons to Give Credible Information: A List of Personnel

When Iraq claims that tangible evidence in the form of documents is not available, it ought at least to find individuals, engineers, scientists and managers to testify about their experience. Large weapons programs are moved and managed by people. Interviews with individuals who may have worked in programs in the past may fill blank spots in our knowledge and understanding. It could also be useful to learn that they are now employed in peaceful sectors. These were the reasons why UNMOVIC asked for a list of such persons, in accordance with resolution 1441.

Some 400 names for all biological and chemical weapons programs as well as their missile programs were provided by the Iraqi side. This can be compared to over 3,500 names of people associated with those past weapons programs that UNSCOM either interviewed in the 1990s or knew from documents and other sources. At my recent meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to supplementing the list and some 80 additional names have been provided.

Allow Information Through Credible Interviews

In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by Iraqi officials. This was the background of Resolution 1441's provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews "in the mode or location" of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.

To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraq's monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in the presence of an Iraqi official. This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say.

At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews "in private", that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed. However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities, knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews, in Baghdad or abroad.

UNMOVIC's Capability

Mr President, I must not conclude this "update" without some notes on the growing capability of UNMOVIC.

In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built-up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. This includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well as security personnel, communications, translation and interpretation staff, medical support, and other services at our Baghdad office and Mosul field office. All serve the United Nations and report to no one else.

Not the United States, the United Nations.


veggii: Were President Bush to have had a congress seated that actually held national security as a higher priority than banal senate investigations, times would be different.
But blaming Bush for gas prices is like blaming your tailor, because your donuts taste like shit. There is not much the president can do to change prices of the commodities, when supply and demand are the controlling factors. Want more oil at cheaper prices, try Anwr. (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge)

HerbalConfusion: As you are not the only one with that opinion, you are definatelly not alone in that none of y'all provide evidence of your liberal 'facts'. If bashing ANY US president is more important to liberals than understanding the reasoning behind our governments decisions on matters of foreign policy, national security and global economics, then all liberals will ever know is gossip.

[QUOTE=

Onto the real question. No bush is not the worst president ever. He is just a bad president. He has done very many dishonest and deceitful things. He had an agenda that did not have the countries best intentions at heart.[/QUOTE]

and this agenda you speak of is??
How to stop the Planes , Building's and Innocent Civilian's
in the US from being blown up!

SECURE THE OIL, WAIT I MEAN IRAQ

Quote:

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Originally Posted by veggii

and this agenda you speak of is??
How to stop the Planes , Building's and Innocent Civilian's
in the US from being blown up!

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Narrow-minded... well he did a great job stopping them maybe you didnt know they got blown up. Good call he really protected our borders. Anyway i dont even beileve that he was trying to stop the planes as i think he was aware of the 9/11 attacks im not going to say he was behind it cause i dont beileve he was but i know he was aware. Hes to stupid to plan it out himself.