COMMENTS:
Voted : Yes it is partly responsible, we should be grateful to Israel
Indeed, partly because of Israel's past actions, the Iraqis were slowed down on significant nuclear development toward such weapons. The other factor of course was the US-led efforts of international sanctions against Iraq. That is why Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons.
Flying American Made Jets, Piloted by American trained Pilots, dropping American Made Bombs on Targets illuminated by American Intelligence gathering Teams...geez, were the Israelis even there?
This ballot makes no sense at all.
patch- It's quite simple. Years ago, that is, years before the US invasion of Iraq, the Israelis launched air-strikes against Iraqi nuclear facilities. Would you say this would have slowed down Iraq's nuclear progress or not?
Voted : No, but we shouldnt be grateful, they did it for themselves primarily.
Again, you repeat the same logical fallacy, inherent within the choices presented.
You are asking one question, and prsenting your choices as if you are asking two, both of which are apparently dependant on one another.
Your primary question; Is it partly because of Israel that Iraq didnt get nuclear weapons?
My answer; to a degree, yes.
Your second, hidden question (determined by working backwards from your ballot chocie answer)
If the answer to the first question is yes, should we be grateful to Israel for that?
My answer; no, they did it for themselves primarily, and as a consequence the rest of the world/region MAY have benefitted
Thus, we should be glad that Israel may have deterred Iraq from getting nuclear weapons, but to be grateful would suggest theu did it for anyone but themselves, which they probably didnt.
If you are going to present strawman answers to hidden questions Soc, try and make them less obvious.
Ignore my first, non-sensical choice by the way.
Doctordraw- So countries can't have overlapping interests, and thus cannot be grateful at one country that worked both in its own interest, which also happened to be that of others? And contrary to your assumption making- no, I am not a staunch supporter of Israel at all. The state of Israel shouldn't have been created in the first place.
patch- It's quite simple. Years ago, that is, years before the US invasion of Iraq, the Israelis launched air-strikes against Iraqi nuclear facilities. Would you say this would have slowed down Iraq's nuclear progress or not?
by Socrates on Wed Apr 11, 07 2:21pm
Fine, then let Israel attack Iran. Not our problem. Anyone who belives Iran can or would attack the mainland USA is ignorant of basic facts. Israel is the one that feels threatened. Let them handle it.
Saddam Hussein with nukes. Anyone think that a murderous dictator who used chemical weapons on his own people, who attacked two countries (Kuwait and Iran) with the intent of conquering them along with the rest of the middle-east would have absolutely NO INTENT whatsoever of using nuclear weapons against others? Sure he would have used them against Israel. However he had no qualms about slaughtering his own people, Iranians, and Kuwaitis.
Here is the deal. Publicly, leaders of almost all countries denounce Israel when they do something that benefits everyone but is "politically incorrect". Privately, they all cheer Israel a successful attack like this.
Of course, France, Italy and other countries with oil interests in Iraq wanted "diplomacy" to solve the problem. The US wasn't much better as their intelligence assessment was identical to Israel's - that Iraq was trying to build a nuclear weapon. Of course, like Iran... the facility was for "peaceful research". Research actually continued for some time and concerned the world enough so that during Desert Storm (the coalition consisted of several countries including Arab ones):
“On the third day of the Desert Storm air campaign, a large conventional daylight strike by 56 F-16s with unguided bombs attacked the nuclear complex, which was one of the three most heavily defended areas in Iraq. The results were assessed as very poor. According to DIA, the nuclear research facility was not fully destroyed following the F-117 strikes on day 6 of the campaign. An additional 48 F-117s were tasked seven more times against the target over the next 32 days, dropping 66 more bombs. Moreover, on day 19 of the campaign, 17 F-111Fs were tasked to strike the site. On 26 February 1991, day 42 of the campaign, DIA concluded that the ability to conduct nuclear research or processing at the site was severely degraded.”
Source: Federation of American Scientists
1975: Saddam Hussein described his country's efforts to buy a nuclear reactor as "the first Arab attempt at nuclear arming." 1977: Naim Haddam (member of Iraq's Central Revolutionary Command) stated: "The Arabs must get an atomic bomb. The countries of the Arab world should possess whatever is necessary to defend themselves."
Source: These quotes are well documented on numerous reputable military, and security web sites in several countries.
BTW, Iran attacked and damaged the site on September 30, 1980 with two Phantom Jets, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. You don't see the leftists up in arms over a fascist theocracy when an enemy of the west does something like that.
All of you Israel haters and leftists should be grateful for what Israel did.
There was certainly nothing wrong with Israeli strikes against nuclear development sites in a country like Iraq.
Voted : Yes it is partly responsible, we should be grateful to Israel
If it really did, then yeah, I don't see why we shouldn't.
The airstrikes were a joint US-Israeli operation carried out from Israel using US assets. Israel is unable to unilaterally sanction this type of attack absent US/UN support because it violates overflight of sovereign airspace under international law.
Crediting the success of the airstrikes to Israel is unmerited. The airstrikes were responsible for inhibiting Iraq's nuclear weapons program but Iraq still possessed weapons grade nuclear materials (Enriched Uranium) and had materials for developing the capabilities to deliver them.
After the Gulf War, he succeeded in concealing them from UN inspections but immediately prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom he negotiated a deal selling them to Iran.
Recall, once US troops secured the major facilities failing to locate any, the Administration began looking at Iran, accusing them of developing nuclear weapons?
passive- If you want to give the US credit for it as well- okay, to an extent. But I believed that the UN condemned the whole air-strike, so they get no credit.
As for Iraq selling nuclear weapons to rival Iran? I would like a source on that please. And not one that considers the possibility, but rather one that provides evidence of it as fact.
From Iraq, through Syria, to Iran :
Nothing will document the evidence thew way you want it. It's unrealistic to expect a smoking gun when dealing with issues of military intelligence, national security and classified weapons programs. You're expecting an ideal case but there wouldn't even be a controversy if one exists.
these are rogue, hardliner nations covertly endeavoring to develop weapons technology prohibited by the international community. These highly classified documents aren't a monthy maintenance receipts for the family car. Saddam wasn't a docile retard, he was devious, calculating, and a homocidal despot.
He wouldn't carelessly leave the evidence of his illegal weapons programs under his mattress. Countries wanting to acquire plutonium for clandestinely building nuclear warheads or radiation dispersal weapons would hardly advertise their successes. There is no way for the world to know whether any plutonium and highly enriched uranium have already been sold, and if so, how much and to whom.
Federation of American Scientist website.
But in April 1991, Iraq’s inventory of safeguarded highly enriched uranium included fresh unirradiated fuel used for the Soviet IRT 5000 reactor, including 68 fuel assemblies of 80% enrichment with a U235 content of 10.97 kilograms and 10 assemblies of 36% enrichment with a U235 content of 1.27 kilograms. In addition, there was a set of fresh fuel plates for the French Tammuz-2 reactor with an enrichment of 93% and a total U235 content of 372 grams. Other highly enriched material included 35.58 kilograms of U235 which had been irradiated but could not be readily used in weapons production since the fissile material would have been difficult to extract quickly from the irradiated fuel. However, it was enriched to 93% which gave it high strategic value. Iraq had accumulated considerable experience in uranium metallurgy, and in January 1991 was ready to commence the recovery of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the safeguarded IRT-5000 research reactor fuel.
Although Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in its endeavour to produce highly enriched uranium through the electro-magnetic isotope separation (EMIS) process, there is no indication that Iraq has produced more than a few grams of weapon-usable nuclear material nor any indication that Iraq has otherwise acquired such material. Iraq claimed that only about half a kilogram of uranium at an average enrichment level of 4% had been produced.
Iraq produced a few grams of weapon-usable nuclear material in 1991.
Iraq has withheld important details relevant to its nuclear program, including procurement logs, technical documents, experimental data, accounting of materials, and foreign assistance.
Baghdad also continues to withhold other data about enrichment techniques, foreign procurement, weapons design, and the role of Iraqi security services in concealing its nuclear facilities and activities.
The findings of the IAEA as to the status of the Iraqi weapons program after December 16, 1998 are that:
Iraq was not able to produce more than a few grams of weapons-grade fissile material through its own enrichment programs, far too little for a nuclear weapon.
According to the list provided by Iraq, half a kilogram of slightly enriched material had been produced during testing.
Details of experimental activities that involved the fabrication of natural uranium oxide fuel, its irradiation in one of Iraq's research reactors (IRT-5000) at Al Tuwaitha, and, thereafter, the separation of minute quantities (3 grams) of plutonium. The ability to separate small quantities of plutonium from irradiated fuel had already been admitted to the IAEA by Iraq and reported in a first inspection report of 4 June 1991 in which separation of 2.26 grams of plutonium was noted.
The first removal of highly enriched uranium from Iraq in compliance with resolution 687 took place. A UN cargo flight loaded with 42 fresh fuel elements from the IRT-5000 research reactor a Al Tuwaitha, containing a total of 6.6 kilograms of uranium-235.
Evidence of the Possession and Concealment of weapons grade material.
National Security Estimates declassified in April 2004
Uranium Acquisition. Iraq retains approximately two-and-a-half tons of 2.5 percent enriched uranium oxide, which the IAEA permits. This low-enriched material could be used as feed material to produce enough HEU for about two nuclear weapons. The use of enriched feed material also would reduce the initial number of centrifuges that Baghdad would need by about half. Iraq could divert this material -- the IAEA inspects it only once a year -- and enrich it to weapons grade before a subsequent inspection discovered it was missing. The IAEA last inspected this material in late January 2002.
Iraq has about 500 metric tons of yellowcake1 and low enriched uranium at Tuwaitha, which is inspected annually by the IAEA. Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake; acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons.
The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
March 19, 1999
A complex known as either al-Ubur or al-Musna al-Iraqi al-Kabir (The Big Iraqi Factory) is, in the view of U.N. weapons inspectors, designed to manufacture enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.
It isn't the only facility in Saddam Hussein's clandestine nuclear-weapons program. He has built more than a dozen such plants across the country. And there is evidence that Iraq has also worked on projects to build a nuclear reactor that could help him produce weapons-grade plutonium.
After the Gulf War U.N. arms inspectors uncovered thousands of documents revealing a vast and extensive nuclear-weapons program. According to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), in 1994 an Iraqi nuclear technician who had worked on uranium-enrichment programs defected to the INC in northern Iraq. This man was debriefed by the CIA and the details from the debriefing were never passed on to such presumably interested parties as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or UNSCOM. Even the then-head of the CIA's nonproliferation center, Gordon Oehler, doesn't recall receiving detailed reports on the defector's information.
The IAEA, used sophisticated environmental sampling gear that could pick up heat signatures and other telltale signs from an operating nuclear plant but never detected such activity. The defector's report explains that Iraq's reactor is dismantled and transported easily, its components hidden at sites throughout the country. It would then be undetectable to inspectors.
The defector's report said the Iraqis had manufactured 200 uranium fuel bundles (almost enough for an entire reactor core) before the war and hid them from U.N. inspectors. The uranium fuels the nuclear reaction and generates plutonium as a by-product. Former IAEA inspector David Kay says that while this type of reactor is not the ideal way to obtain weapons-grade fuel, it does produce plutonium.
An IAEA official confirms that Iraq maintains a vast nuclear-production capability, only small portions of which were subject to U.N. monitoring. With the end of the U.N. inspections Saddam is free to bring his nuclear gear out of hiding and resume a crash program to build the bomb. "The threat is in the present and the future."
Iran receives Iraqi Jets for safe Keeping? Iran's willing exploitation of Saddam's fall. Bush names Iran member of Axis of evil, accuses Iran of possessing WMD.
In a surprise move at the beginning of the allied war in 1991 to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the Iraqi regime ordered its air force to fly some 150 war planes to Iran for safekeeping.
In the words of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene'i, "The US claims that its objective is the elimination of Saddam and the Baathist regime. This is, of course, a lie. Its real aim is to appropriate OPEC and to swallow up the region's oil resources, to offer a closer support to the Zionist regime and to plot more closely against Islamic Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia…"54
Tehran's suspected nuclear ambitions and its alleged misbehaviour in other realms58 led the Bush administration to characterise Iran as part of an "axis of evil" in the president's January 2002 State of the Union speech. Thus, as U.S. plans for an Iraq war began to unfold, Iran's primary decision makers saw no tangible benefits in support for either side.
From the Government Information Service (GIS) :
The Iraqi Government and Armed Forces have moved substantial caches of chemical weapons and related materials to safe-havens across the border into Syria, to avoid any chance of discovery by United Nations (UN) inspectors.
Iraq moved stockpiles of chemical weapons and nuclear matériel as well as key production machinery and key experts to the Hsishi compound near Kamishli , in Syria, along with strategic weapons, ammunition, military fuels and other defense matériel, gold reserves, national archival records and national art treasures. It is believed that the moves took place in late August and early September 2002.
It is also understood that some of the matériel, production machinery and experts moved into Hsishi compound were from the al-Qaim facility, which had been based near the H-3 base area in Western Iraq. The al-Qaim facility had been involved, before 1991, almost exclusively in uranium enrichment for nuclear weapons, but since it was reconstituted after the bombings of the 1991 Gulf War it was engaged in chemical and biological weapons development work, along with some nuclear-related activity. It is believed that some of the warhead materials for the chemical and biological weapons were at the al-Qaim facility, and that this is now in Hsishi.
The move reflects the earlier breakthroughs in strategic relations between Iraq and Syria, given the fact that Syria is strategically dependent on Iran, which has traditional rivalries and hostility with Iraq. The movement of Iraqi strategic combat matériel into Syria is the first tangible evidence of the accords which have been struck between Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus in the escalation of the war against Israel and the US.
passive- even if that is true, then Iraq's nuclear program would have still have been even more advanced than it was if it were not for the Israeli air-strikes, wouldn't you agree?
You mention Iran being placed on the axis of evil, out of contemplations that it was because of nuclear ties with Iraq? I disagree. Even if this were so, which isn't established as fact, Iran would be placed on the list nonetheless. This is due to its status as a state supporter of terrorism and terrorist organisations.
You claim that Saddam's nuclear program was much more developed than is thought? Doesn't that mean that the US was correct in its invasion of Iraq? At the moment and previously I have maintained a stance against the invasion of Iraq, but with your pressing claims perhaps I should have and be supporting the war in Iraq? And your arguments also make me more prone to be more distrustful of Iran and Syria as well. Indeed, your arguments are very much making me think I should perhaps back the neo-cons on their policies. Your comments are interesting and may very well make me change my stance in support of the neo-cons. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to consider that the neo-cons were correct.
But you talk about nuclear links to Syria (which indeed I have heard of such claims before), but I saw nothing indicating nuclear links toward Iran as you have claimed?
"these are rogue, hardliner nations covertly endeavoring to develop weapons technology prohibited by the international community... Countries wanting to acquire plutonium for clandestinely building nuclear warheads or radiation dispersal weapons would hardly advertise their successes."
- I disagree. What about North Korea? If anything these rogue states would like to give the international community an impression that they are more developed than they are, in hopes of creating a deterrent.
Iraq's nuclear program would have still have been even more advanced than it was if it were not for the Israeli air-strikes, wouldn't you agree?
The airstrikes were responsible for inhibiting Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
However, Crediting the success of the airstrikes to Israel is unmerited.
You mention Iran being placed on the axis of evil, out of contemplations that it was because of nuclear ties with Iraq?
Negative. Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom , Bush names Iran member of Axis of evil, accuses Iran of possessing WMD. Iran has independently pursued obtaining legitimate commercial nuclear technology, which under UN regulations it has the right to do. However, Bush's anti-nuke disposition against Arab/Muslim States prompted him to declare Iran amoungst the Axis of Evil.
When US forces failed to find Iraq's Weapons Grade Nuclear Material, Bush accused Iran of possessing the material.
I saw nothing indicating nuclear links toward Iran as you have claimed?
Iraq moved stockpiles of chemical weapons and nuclear matériel as well as key production machinery and key experts to the Hsishi compound near Kamishli , in Syria,
The movement of Iraqi strategic combat matériel into Syria is the first tangible evidence of the accords which have been struck between Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus in the escalation of the war against Israel and the US.
If anything these rogue states would like to give the international community an impression that they are more developed than they are, in hopes of creating a deterrent.
Saddam made that mistake early on in the 80's prompting the US/Israeli Airstrikes. Iraq hoped to intimidate neighboring States in the Mid East with his boasts. His invasion of Kuwait in 1991 generated the justifacation of the UN to dismantle his weapons capabilities.
However when the inspections stopped in 1998, Saddam again had liberty to pursue development of a nuclear weapon. He concealed the program and some materials for 7 years. He wasn't about to hint again.
North Korea is predominately sheltered by China. The US relies heavily on an allience with China to broker with North Korea indirectly. a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would definately strain that alliance.
There is a concensus throught the western empires to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of extremist nations with a vengence against Israel. That would be Palistinians, Arabs and Islamic Nations.
The only Muslim Nations possessing nuclear capabilities is Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. Between the three of them, Iraq and Iran are adversarial enemies of Israel. Pakistan is moderately managable.
Pakistani nuclear weapons programs are carefully supplied and monitored by UN member nations because Pakistan refused to sign the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
See ballot #104225
passive- "Crediting the success of the airstrikes to Israel is unmerited."
- Why?
And why is Cuba on the axis of evil, as it does not fit your definition of what makes one a member of that list.
"Iraq moved stockpiles of chemical weapons and nuclear matériel as well as key production machinery and key experts to the Hsishi compound near Kamishli , in Syria,
The movement of Iraqi strategic combat matériel into Syria is the first tangible evidence of the accords which have been struck between Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus in the escalation of the war against Israel and the US."
- The problem of course is that Iran and Syria are not the same country. I don't see how supposed movement of material to Syria equates to Iran getting it. Indeed, Syria and Iran have pretty strong links, but that doesn't prove this specific being talked about.
"There is a concensus throught the western empires to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of extremist nations with a vengence against Israel."
- Firstly, I disagree with your use of the word 'empire' in such a context. Secondly, perhaps it is because the anti-Israeli Islamic fundamentalists also happen to be anti-Western as well. Therefore it is not serving Israel's interests it is also the Western power serving their own. These Islamist states are antagonistic with other nations usually in unpredictable ways. For example, Libya's support for Islamic terrorists in the Philippines and Thailand- had nothing to do with Libyan national geo-political interests, nothing to do with Israel, nothing to do with Filipino or Thai foreign policies- rather very stange and fundamentalist, which is why such Islamist regimes are irrational and cannot be trusted.
|
