Blix was saying some progress was being made; he never said anything to the effect of “Saddam is fully cooperating with the inspections”. The progress he was referring to was the eradication of petty bombs to make it appear as though Iraq was doing something.
do you truely believe that destroying bombs is not doing something? Isn’t it that what the USA (officially) wanted the Iraq to do? to reduce its weapons?
That is progress, but it is very small. The bombs they did destroy were illegal, but the more insignificant ones. At the rate we were going, it would take many years to completely disarm Iraq and during these years he could move his nuclear program to one of the locations where he wasn’t allowing inspectors to see and continue with his work. And to be official, the U.S. didn’t want a gradual reduction of some weapons, they wanted an immediate disarmament of all illegal ones.
I thought that the UN inspectors could go anywhere. Could they?
PS I am in year 12 and i have to write a persuasive piece on the war on Iraq either for or against and this is helping, so thanks for posting here wethere your agruments are for or against the war. 
Paul: You mentioned a nuclear program in your post. There’s is no nuclear threat coming from Iraq. It has been very clearly stated several times that the nuclear program that used to exist has not been revived in any way, on any level or in any extent. There is absolutely no proof of any such program and all experts have said that it’s nearly impossible for Iraq to have nuclear weapons.
What comes to the inspections, Blix said there was significant progress going on - not perfect but still promising. The previous inspections had already left Iraq weak and the new ones were doing well. You said they were only destroying petty weapons and left all the significant untouched? Now tell me, what proof do you have that Iraq has those more significant weapons? The whole point is that there is no proof of any significant threat coming from Iraq. It’s obvious that Hussein hasn’t fully co-operated and has surely broken some rules. But the big question is: is this big enough a reason to attack Iraq and cause lots of innocent deaths and perhaps a humanitarian catastrophe? One can say all rules must be obeyed but still some sense can be used. It’s not like we sentence pocket thieves to death, is it? And the Iraq situation is about many, many ordinary civilian people, not just what Hussein has done. Also, it’s more than obvious the world is full countries breaking rules, including the US.
You also say that the US didn’t want gradual disarmament but an immediate one. First, it’s not - or it shouldn’t be - about what the US wants but what the world community, UN, wants (obviously the US forgot this at some point). Sure, immediate disarmament sounds peachy. That’s the way it should be. But if we can only get gradual disarmament, does it mean we have to immediately jump into a war? So what if we had to wait for a longer time? Sure it would have been expensive and perhaps frustrating but I say we should have paid that price instead the price of innocent people being killed. Like I said, Iraq already was very weak after the first inspection so even gradual progress in the second inspection would have been enough - it would have eventually lead to Iraq being so weak that it surely wouldn’t be a threat of any kind.
Somehow I find it a little daft to talk about the possible threat that Iraq is when it seems this is not even the main reason for this war - as has been said by experts. Oh well.
I just heard on the news that Iraq claims that 207 civilians have already been injured. I don’t know how trustworthy the Iraqi government is, but if there is even the slightest possibility of this being true then you can expect more civilians to end up in hospitals and in cemeteries. And there are also 7 (i think) British and US troops missing in some sort of a helicopter crash.
What has come from this war so far? NOTHING BUT DEATH.
20 british & american soldiers are DEAD
250 Iraqi Zivilists wounded or DEAD
…and more to come…
BTW, there are also several reporters missing…the media just confirmed that one of them died by a bomb that was placed inside a car…
But…it’s WAR…what did you expect?
I expected deaths but hoped they could be avoided, there have been many accidents that have killed people, they didn’t need to happen. It is a bad start to a war, but then again war is a bad start for anything.
Well said!
BTW, a patriot rocket shot down a british aircraft…
The Iraqis claim, that they have Prisoners of war…
allied forces @ umm kasr under heavy fire…wasn’t it the town that was captured yesterday? Makes me think…
Bush is killing his own soldiers for nothing. There’s no peace we can get with war. Does he know that violence leads to nothing but violence?
Cya,
Side 
I couldn’t say it any better than you.
For a couple of hours ago I saw something on the TV news that upset me. They reported about these prisoners of war captured by the Iraqis. Donald Rumsfeld (I think it was) was on TV telling that it is against the Geneve convention filming them blah blah. A commentator in the studio told that if the prisoners were treated against the Geneve convention, it would upset the Americans. Honestly, how can you Americans be upset about your own prisoners being filmed in Iraq, when you still have the prisoners from the war in Afghanistan in the Guantamo (or whatever) being treated worse than animals? I know that they are terrorists and “bad guys”, but still, don’t they have rights according to the international conventions? There is a fact that many of them have tried to commit suicide.
A mistake that is often made is confusing “America” and “American.” Americans are indivuduals with various opinions that sometimes don’t agree with America the country. The many anti-war protest in our large cities are proof of this.
I actually seen the same footage that you did, and yes, it was Donald Rumsfeld. Did you notice what the interviewer asked Mr. Rumsfeld? He asked “but don’t you think these videos will bring some comfort to the familes to see them alive.” Mr. Rumsfeld answered with “well, you could make that arguement.” This itself was an example of how all Americans don’t feel this way. Mr. Rumsfeld went own to explain that it was against the Geneve convention to humiliate POW on film. The act of filming alone was not the crime, it was the humiliation that was the offense.
The only pictures I’ve seen of these prisoners was a picture of them tied to the floor sitting down with cloth bags on their heads. … and they looked fat. They must have been fed well. What have your heard or seen that makes you think they are treated like animals? … I’m not saying they aren’t, but here footage like that is taboo. I’m curious of what other countries are hearing and seeing. Our news rarly mentions these prisoners.
I fear that you may be right. However lets keep hope that something good may come from this. There is no doubt that Saddam is a threat and a terrorist. He terrorized his people daily with daily executions to show his people discipline. He murdered his family that didn’t agree with him, he has murdered his government officials that didn’t agree with him. He has “professional” rapist to rape women. He again has used women and children as human sheilds. Even without weapons or WMD he is a terrorist and terrorizes his people. The operation is called “Iraqi Freedom” and is properly titled. It is not “Operation Saddam dis-arment.” The goal now is eliminating the threat of Saddam. Saddam’s violence has beget violence.
screw everything. We should attack. Its not like we are simply blowing up a random area of military bases, we’re isolating these missiles to hit specific military targets, even if evil suddam has placed schools next to these bases, our military technology allows us to only destroy the base next to the school, without even getting the school dirty. You guys don’t understand how incredibly advanced our military technology is right now that we’re using on Iraq. There aren’t 100’s of innocent civilians dieing like so many democratic extreamist hippys are saying. We are liberating the ppl of Iraq, freeing them from the bullshit suddam is pulling on us and his own ppl. Many Iraq ppl are celebrating these attacks on bases because suddam has been ruling with such terror for so long. Suddam is much like cancer, you can’t just leave it alone, or it will get worse. Our soldiers are fighting for the ppl of Iraq AND America. The Iraq troops are the evil ones. Yesterday many of them pretended to surrender, then open fired on the American troops when they came over to them. 
- Just think about that.
Are you kidding? The technology we’re using is more advanced than it’s ever been but it’s not even close to this kind of accuracy. And it doesn’t matter how accurate the bombs are, the level of destruction is such that surrounding buildings will unquestionably be damaged.
Did you hear of the helicopter crashes? Or the US patriot missile which brought down a British jet? Does this sound like technology advanced to the point of perfection to you?
We had the same thing in the first Gulf War, ridiculous claims of technological accuracy and computer-controlled weaponry which would eliminate mistakes. We had a wonderful parade of statistics and footage from the nose of smart-bombs. It didn’t stop the mistakes, or the civilian casualties, it didn’t stop more Allied soldiers being killed by their own side than by the enemy.
It’s not a surgical, sanitised operation, it’s a war.
hi everybody
it makes me very sad and frustrated that there are people out there who really believe the propaganda of the bush government. how can one really be so naive and believe bush he would do that for the iraqi people or the disarmament of saddam hussein! There is no proof that saddam hussein has any of these dangerous weapons! also fact is that people’s life in iraq won’t get better after the usa have won the war, they will put a usa friendly so called democratic government in charge who rules the oil business in the favour of the usa! fact is also that this war(after won) is highly profitable for the usa! the only reason for this war is oil, again it will be highly profitable for the usa! common, think about it! you don’t really believe they would put so enormous amounts of money in a war if it wouldn’t pay back, do you?! then i would like to say something about the usa tv channels!! the same story sometimes is totally different on usa and european tv channels! for a objective point of view, i think, it’s necessary to get your information from different medias, not only from usa tv channels! i understand that if somebody who watches only the us channels
gets a totally wrong point of view, because they are often misused for propaganda and also don’t show pictures we can see on european channels!
Right now I only have Norwegian newspaper reports to rely on. They report the same about prisoners tied on their arm, sitting on their ground with all hair and beards shaved aways and their eyes and ears completely covered up (so they can’t see or hear anything) at the Guantanamo base. Another report from the same newspaper tells about over 30 cases of suicide attempts on a base of close to 600 prisoners. We don’t hear much about them over here either. I am not sure if they are treated any better now, but this info gives me a couple of hints that they are not treated so good.
That was what I wanted to say, I just forgot to include the little bit about filming to humiliate. I think photography is also covered by this restriction. 
My point was that the Americans can’t expect any other to treat American POWs any good when the USA itself refuse their prisoners basic human rights and Geneve convention rights. (but maybe they couldn’t expect it of the Iraqis anyway. I think my point is losing itself a little here 
)
And BTW, sorry for generalising. Of course I didn’t mean to say that ALL Americans thinks and acts the same way. Of course I know that Americans are just as different as other people.
Here are the newspaper reports. Unfortunately they are only in Norwegian. Does anyone know of any good language translators that include Norwegian on the Web?
vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=8476444
vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=1794445
the gulf war was long before the major technological advances we have made to our missile systems. I’ve seen these things at conventions and how they work. I listened to this guy talk about them and how they have all these new computer systems inside. They measure out exact amounts of explosives to cover the exact area of the base, they dont just launch missles here and there, each one is prepared for each target.
But I don’t think the recent conflict in Afghanistan was, was it? And didn’t we accidentally destroy a red cross centre? Yes.
I hardly think the words of company men at conventions can be taken as an unbiased view of the technology.
Hi
Here in germany, I also heared about the camp.Some organisations blamed the US to treat their prisoners very bad, but since these are anti-war or anti-imerpialistic organisations this isn´t surprising.
The german newspapers and TV-station said that the USA didn´t accept any rights of the imprisoned ones (since they aren´t “prisoners of war”), and that they decided that they can keep the prisoners as long as they want without any kind of trial.
Here are some fotos from the transport, that some unknown soldier made as noone watched him:
I saw the video of the POW’s and the dead KIA Americans. Al Jazeera videotaped and aired it on Iraqi television. You can get the video from Kazaa or Ogrish.com (it’s on the first page but under 18 shouldn’t even go to site or anyone with a weak stomach)
War causes deaths…there are going to be a lot more on both sides and you can’t even begin to hope that no one else is going to die. It’s just gonna happen. We are all pretty lucky that we are sitting at our computers not having to be on a battlefield with bullets flying all over the place.
josh