Quote:
Originally posted by mohrds
Buried. I saw an interview on PBS with a former Iraqi military commander who talked about what the soldiers did with the weapons before they surrendered to Coalition forces.
Doug
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I've also seen plenty of quotes from former Iraqi military personnel which seem to indicate that by the time we invaded there were no chemical weapons. Saddam made every effort to look like he still had them - even telling his tropps that he had them. It looks like every defensive position around Baghdad said the same thing - 'we didn't have chemical weapons, but we were told by our superiors that the guys next to us did.'
I think it's very possible that there were some lingering WMDs before we invaded. We certainly had some good intelligence suggesting that there were. But, facing an imminent (and crushing) American invasion, they could damage our international relations by quickly getting rid of them and leaving us empty-handed after the dust settled.
As Lwin said, it was a bluff. But I don't agree with Lwin that, since we called it, we lost. We will only have lost if we fail to help the Iraqis rebuild their country with a representative government incapable of the sort of atrocities Saddam inflicted on his neighbors and his own people. If we had 'left in 7 days,' like he suggested - that would be a loss.