Iran Super Thread- Merged

[48Highlander]

Really?  Want to name some of these other sources of revenue and perhaps provide figures?


Claiming that there's any one reason for the Invasion of Iraq is childish.  There were obviously a multitude of factors affecting that decision.  If the US didn't care about human rights abuses, terrorism, and WMD, they wouldn't have bothered maintaining a no-fly zone and handicapping themselves by placing sanctions on Iraq and refusing to buy oil from Iran.  On the other hand, if humanitarian concerns were the only reason, you're right, they would have gone into Africa or North Korea.  So obviously, there were numerous reasons, amongst them humanitarian, economic, and defensive.

 

[Wizard of OZ]

Think of the money private coperations are going to make from the rebuilding phases.  Think of the money the US grain and agriculture department will get supplying food.

By stabilizing the region they stabilize the price of oil in the whole region.  Have you seen how volital that market is. 

What i meant is there is more then Iraq's oil to be considered here.  Having a military presence in the area will keep OPEC honest, or as honest as say the UN. 

If WMD were a concern, where are they?

I do agree there were other forces but they new alot of what was going on in Iraq before they went in Iran is a different story my friend. 

oh yea no luck on my lottery ticket.

 

[Jarnhamar]

For sure. It's all about balancing reasons and pros&cons.

 

[dutchie]

You'd think that the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and the 60th anniversary of the liberation (and discovery) of Auschwitz (sp?), coupled with the humanitarian catastrophe occurring in Africa right now, that the West would actually act BEFORE the killing/genocide/whatever is complete.

Unfortunately, the pace of action is a lot slower (it seems) when there is not a financial investment involved. Colonial powers in Africa (like Belgium, France, Holland) act quick, but have questionable motives. African nations act fairly quick, but their capability (particularly in the area of logistical support of heavy airlift capability) is limited at best (not to mention their level of training). Unfortunately, that leaves the rest of the West....but we are SO SLOW to act, that it becomes too little, too late.

I understand that from a completely cold, political perspective, that securing western interests in the Middle East is a higher priority than stopping black Africans (Sub-Saharan) from killing each other, especially when they are located in a resource poor country....but for heavens sake, haven't the Sudanese been killing each other for months now? Isn't there any interest in stopping the killing of 1000's of Sudanese?


BTW, if anyone thinks that the War in Iraq has nothing to do with oil (throughout the Middle East, not just Iraq), they're fooling themselves. Sure, there are other reasons (like 48th said), but oil was a big reason.....no blame there, that's a legitimate reason for INTEREST in what happens there, but you still need other reasons to go to war.

Oops, just opened a can I thought I had firmly closed.

 

[Wizard of OZ]

I have a list here some where that has i think 12 legit reasons for war when i find it i will add it to this post.

And yup the can is open and the worms are crawling.

 

[Torlyn]

Really?  Want to name some of these other sources of revenue and perhaps provide figures?

I'm assuming this was for W of O...  What I was getting at in my post is that too many people claim that the Americans are in Iraq JUST for the oil...  I was trying to refute that in my post.  (Gotta work on that whole clarity thing )  I think Ghost778 summed it up best when he said " It's all about balancing reasons and pros&con".  While "stabilizing" (I have this in quotes, as $50/bbl isn't exactly a good stability for the Yanks) oil prices may have something to do with the Iraqi invasion, there are a mulititude of other reasons that the Americans are there, and claiming it's all about the money just doesn't sit well.  Sure, it helps, but it's not everything.  If the African nations were able to directly threaten American soil and interests the way the the Iraqis and al-Quaida (I always spell that wrong) did, I'm sure they would have shifted at least some operations to Africa by now...  Easy for me to say, as a self-proclaimed arm-chair general. 

T

 

[Bert]

Another Stratfor special I know everyone is waiting for...


The Three-Power Game
www.stratfor.com

By George Friedman


Now the question becomes Iran. But the Iran question is not the simplistic "next target" issue that has been framed by the media -- or the Bush administration for that matter. The Iran question is far more complex, subtle and defining. It divides into two questions. First, once Iraq holds elections, what will Iran's policy be toward Iraq's new Shiite government? Second, since the Shiite-Sunni split is fundamental to the Islamic world, how will the United States manage and manipulate that divide?

To approach these questions, we need to look at the world through Iran's eyes. Iran has a single, overwhelming national security interest: protecting itself from encroachments by foreign powers. After World War II, the primary threat came from the Soviet Union. Another threat, both ancient and continual, came from Iraq. Under both the shah and the ayatollahs, Iraq constituted what became Iran's major national security threat.

The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s had a devastating effect on Iran. There is hardly an Iranian family that did not suffer a loss in that war. Iraq came out ahead in the war militarily, but had it simply defeated Iran, the result would have been catastrophic. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Iraq has been Iran's nightmare.

This is why the Iranians did not seriously object to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. To the contrary, the Iranians did everything they could to encourage and entangle the Americans in the war -- including providing intelligence that triggered American responses. There was nothing more important for Iran than seeing Saddam Hussein's regime collapse.

For Iran, the best outcome of the war would be a pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad. The second best outcome would be chaos in Iraq. Both provide Iran with what it needs: a relatively secure frontier and an opportunity to shape events to the west. The third -- and least acceptable -- outcome would be a neutral Iraq. Neutrality is highly changeable.

It had been Iran's hope that the U.S. invasion would create a pro-Iranian regime in Baghdad. The United States certainly dangled this possibility in front of the Iranians. Ahmed Chalabi, the original fair-haired boy of the Pentagon, had a dual role to play. He was the conduit the Iranians used to pump intelligence into Washington that justified and required the invasion. He was also the channel used by the United States to convince the Iranians to keep the lid on the Iraqi Shia. Chalabi told Iran that the United States would give them what they wanted if the Shia remained quiet. Chalabi, like a figure in a Cold War espionage novel, was used and used up by both sides.

The Iranians will get a Shiite government in Baghdad after the election. It is not clear at all that it will be a puppet state. The Iraqi and Iranian Shia have diverging interests and somewhat different views of the kind of regime they want. Nevertheless, whatever the tensions, any Shiite regime is better than a Sunni regime as far as the Iranians are concerned. Even for this there will be a price. The new government will continue to control Shiite regions and probably have the cooperation of the Kurds. It will not control Sunni regions, where the insurgency is in place. There will not be a real Iraqi state unless the Sunni insurgency is defeated. The Shia -- with the Americans -- can potentially defeat the Sunnis, but Iranian cooperation is necessary. At the very least, the Iranians will have to avoid destabilizing the Shiite government by manipulating the Iraqi Shia to get more pro-Iranian officials in place. They will also have to share tactical intelligence on the Sunni insurgency with the Americans.

Alternatively, they can go with their second-best choice: chaos in Iraq. Under that scenario, the Shia in Iraq are pressured not to fight the Sunnis and the Iraqi regime becomes the government of Shiite Iraq and nothing more. At that point, Iraq, in effect, becomes divided into three states -- Shia, Sunni, Kurd.

This is a tempting proposition. The problem the Iranians have is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If Iraq collapses and the Iranians dominate southern Iraq, then the road is open militarily to Kuwait and Saudi oil fields. The Iranians might not want to take advantage of this, but the Arabs cannot hope for the best as a foreign policy.

The Saudis cannot afford chaos in Iraq or for the road from Iran to be wide open. They will increase their dependence on the United States and will be forced to do whatever they can to reduce the rebellion in the Sunni region. A united Iraq under a Shiite-dominated coalition government will secure Iran's western frontiers, but will deny it the opportunity to dominate the region. A divided Iraq will give Iran secure borders, an opportunity for domination and serious responses from Arab states. It will drive the Arabs into the Americans' arms. Things could get dicey fast for the Iranians. The United States is letting them know -- via the convenient conduit of Seymour Hersh and The New Yorker magazine -- that it is ready to push back hard on Iran. U.S. President George W. Bush directly warned the Iranians on Jan. 26 to stay out of the Iraqi elections. The Iranians are signaling back that they are a nuclear power -- which is not true yet.

The Iranians have a fundamental strategic decision to make. They can work with the United States and secure their interests. They can undermine the United States and go for the big prize: domination of the Persian Gulf. The first is low risk, the second incredibly high risk.

Behind this all there is a complex three-power game. There is the United States, in a war with factions of the Sunni. There are the Sunnis themselves, divided and unsure of their direction. There are the Shia, maneuvering to shift the political balance with the Sunni without becoming American puppets. Within each of these communities -- including the American -- there are deep divides, complex contradictions and political tensions. Each side is trying to use these to its advantage.

How this relationship plays out is the real issue. The question of the Sunni insurrection in four provinces of Iraq is not unimportant, but it is not defining. It is simply the arena in which the basic strategic complexity is being played out. But the real game is: Three players, each trying to create an alliance that locks out the third without limiting its own freedom of action, with none of the players really in control of the situation. It reminds us a bit of the U.S.-Soviet-Chinese game in 1968-1970. But even there, although internal factionalism was rife in all three countries, the decision-making process was not that chaotic.

That's why, in the end, it does not boil down to the Shia as much as to Iran. Iran can opt to align with the United States and define the terms under which it will accept a united Iraq under a Shiite-led coalition government, or it can go for it all, undermine the Shiite leadership in Iraq and open the door to the division of Iraq into three parts, with southern Iraq in the Iranian sphere of influence and the road to the western littoral of the Persian Gulf wide open -- except for the United States.

Iran has a low-risk, low-reward choice and a high-risk, high-reward choice. How lucky is Iran feeling?

 

[Marauder]

Let's face it, the Sudanese (or residents of any other African country) would still be killing each other even if there was an American/NATO presence in the area. The first time some section of Marines was being overrun and opened up the emergency can of "You die now", the press would be screaming bloody murder. Then Kofi would have to take time out of his busy schedule of spinning his offspring's involvment in the "Oil for Fraud" business to denounce the senseless killing of some fifth-rate thugs with third-rate (Russian/Chinese) equipment by some ugly 'Mericans. Then there would be the usual navel gazing and second guessing of the grunts on the ground, and it just turn into another Rwanda/Srbernica. The REMFs and generals would slap on a restrictive ROE and order no interference, and the guys on the ground would have to stand by and let the killing go on ad nauseum. Then the whacko left would whine that the troops are "letting the genocide occur before their eyes", and if the troops whacked some of the skinnies with guns, then the troops would be racist, vicious babykillers who are out of control. Damned if you do, fucked over if you don't.

You think Iraq is a quagmire? Remember the whole Somalia debacle? Remember what happened when one shithead went off the deepend and got the whole CF smeared as racist murderers, and dealt the death blow to the Airborne? Africa is nothing but trouble, with no discernable benefit to Canada, except setting the Forces up to be the Government's bitch yet again. Nothing the CF could accomplish in Africa would last more than a week after we pulled out. Let's fight and kill the people who can do us actual harm, not the ones who will just force us to do harm to ourselves. May sound selfish, but I'm an asshole. So what?

 

[Jarnhamar]

One might argue that since our troops are fighting in iraq and afghanastan ergo (hey look, im trying to sound like the university debater types) there has been no attacks on US soil.  Though honestly i'm still a little skeptical that iraq had anything to do with 9/11.

Anyhow, theres a million considerations that could have been made.
Occupy their attention to keep them away from north america.
Fixing a mistake they made.
Removing a possible threat.
Giving their troops combat experience.
Testing new inventions and weapons.
Giving  companies contracts in said occupied country.
Heck maybe even just getting rid of old rations
Theres a million and one reasons why we went to war, some noble, others much less so.

I really liked one post Infanteer made a while ago about the game civilization. (I probably won't do his post credit here)
Basically your country, when your a democracy, hates war. If your constantly making war your going to loose support of your people. Sooner or later they revolt. You need to make peace soon.
However, when you run our of rubber, steel, oil [whatever] you had better find a new sourse of it fast, including invading another country for it. When the resources stop flowing (and as i see it, the quality of life drops) your people will let you do just about anything to get it back.
Not totally relivant to this conversation but i think it's something to consider when people act like going to a war for a resource is something only the anti-christ would do.

Suppose Iran did start shit with the states, could the states effectivly deal with them you think?
I remember always hearing that the US armed forces were suposed to be able to fight a major conflict on two fronts. (I picture something like ww2?)
It seems in they are having a hell of a lot more trouble in iraq than they thought. From issues of body and vehicle armor to retention rates and dwindling new recruits.  Given that thought, i'm not sure how easily the US could "blow through" iran's defenses.

 

[a_majoor]

Suppose Iran did start crap with the states, could the states effectively deal with them you think?
I remember always hearing that the US armed forces were supposed to be able to fight a major conflict on two fronts. (I picture something like ww2?)
It seems in they are having a heck of a lot more trouble in Iraq than they thought. From issues of body and vehicle armor to retention rates and dwindling new recruits.  Given that thought, I'm not sure how easily the US could "blow through" Iran's defenses.

Ghost, please take the time to read all the pages on this thread, or better yet go to the "Syria and Iran, War of the Future?" thread, and you will see some of the options we believe are possible (although not necessarily desirable) for the United States.

Your remarks about the "two conflict rule" represent American thinking during the Cold War era (i.e. fighting in Germany and North Korea), but I do not believe this is the rule anymore. Even if it is unofficial policy, the deep force drawdowns during the Clinton administration would make it quite difficult to enact, and it will take several years to build new American divisions (just like it will take us up to five years to recruit, train and equip the 5000 troops the Prime Minister promised in the last election. Perhaps you could drop him a note asking what has happened to that plan?).

Most of the "issues" about body armour and so on have been revealed to be "selective" in nature. When that soldier quizzed Donald Rumsfeldt about the lack of armoured HMMVWs in Iraq, his unit already had over 70% of the fleet armoured, and the remainder were being kitted out in the motor pool as he spoke. Perhaps he, or the reporter who put him up to it just didn't bother walking through the compound. Perhaps serving Americans can give us the exact figures, but many military "bloggers" report high rates of re-enlistment among troops in or just returned from Iraq, since they feel they are making a positive contribution. The reporting issues are so bad that at least on American LCol has written a piece (posted on this forum, although I can't find it just now) which openly states the media are practically committing treason by ignoring the achievments of the troops and reporting for the Jihadis (who are never called Jihadis or terrorists by the media).

Your point about competition for resources is correct in historical terms, empires were created to gain access to resources, and wars were fought between empires over the colonial resource base (or lack of same). On the other hand, we in the West are moving away from that paradigm, shifting to many less resource intensive processes and activities (replacing copper telephone wire with glass fiber optic cable, for example). We still use a huge amount of resources, but also get far more from them. The United States is accused of consuming something like 30% of the world's resources, but produces about 40% of the worlds economic output. Imagine if they were as efficient as the Chinese, for example.

Resource driven conflict will be a smaller factor in the future, as we move in fits and starts to a more information intensive economy. (The final realization may be centuries away, when information technology is embedded in everything), but conflicts driven by ideas may become far more dangerous in the future. You can't win a military victory, you must defeat and discredit an idea as well. Victor Davis Hanson is the military historian who expresses this idea most clearly, look up "The Soul of Battle", "Carnage and Culture", and "Ripples of Battle" to examine the thesis for yourself.

Cheers

 

[Jarnhamar]

Ghost, please take the time to read all the pages on this thread, or better yet go to the "Syria and Iran, War of the Future?" thread, and you will see some of the options we believe are possible (although not necessarily desirable) for the United States.

Thanks for the direction, i'll take a look at that thread as well as go through this one. 
I appologize for not reading the whole thread before weighting in (I think i've gave posters shit for that in the past).  I scanned a page or two and each post I looked at seemed pretty far off track. Some other posters [*waves to CiviU and magienoire*] gave me the idea that it was just one big argument so i skipped to the end.. Maybe I just had bad luck with which posts i looked at.  Never the less, bad form on my part and i'll smarten up 

 

[ajax]

This has been an interesting read so far, but I have to think that your all getting pretty old.   We spent the majority of Highschool learning about Europe/WW1/WW2 and some of you have it bang on while some seem to have a rather anti american view that over shadows the truth.  

Would you have let a probable 1million of your people die, or kill what?   100,000 of the enemy?   Considering they were fire bombing them at the time aswell it worked out better to nuke em.

On topic though.

[EDITED FOR INFLAMMATORY REMARKS:  AJAX, YOU OBVIOUSLY ARE OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE, SIT BACK, LISTEN AND REFRAIN FROM OFFERING UP SUCH SILLY, JUVENILE COMMENTS - INFANTEER]

What's almost as bad is the U.N.   I thought they were supposed to stop massacres/genocides.   Heck we learned that's why the League of Nations was scrapped as they didn't do thier job, and hence WW2 started.   The U.N seems to be going the same route and should similarly be dumped, I mean with what's going on in Africa, the scandals etc it's pretty obvious that something needs to change.

 

[Torlyn]

What's almost as bad is the U.N.  I thought they were supposed to stop massacres/genocides.  Heck we learned that's why the League of Nations was scrapped as they didn't do thier job, and hence WW2 started.  The U.N seems to be going the same route and should similarly be dumped, I mean with what's going on in Africa, the scandals etc it's pretty obvious that something needs to change.

MY sympathies to the provincial high school systems...  :

T

 

[Wizard of OZ]

I love seeing other get jumped on instead of me in a post. ;D

The policy that said they had to be able to fight to major conflicts at the same time did date back to WWII. (Domino Theroy)  It was also based in the Naval thought after WWI that said they needed to have a navy equal to the the next to largest navys in the world so twice the size of its competition. I can't remember the name of the admiral that started that policy i want to say MONROE but that is not right. 

The Problem with going into affrica as opposed to South Asia even for Humanitarian aid is (this is my opinion only) three things. 

A.  The corruption at all levels is so great that money given to rebuild and build new infastructure in the nations is divereted to arms or private personal.

B.  The people are so used to coroption and war that they would not know what to do with peace.

C.  To many different factions killing each other for nothing other then race/religion and the list goes on and on.  They don't want peace it would be to hard to enforce because as what happened in Rwanda and even Somalia at the first sign of trouble the UN or what ever nation was in would have to pull out.  Not because they could not handel the conflict but then they would seem like the bad guys.  You have to remember the warlords are smart they know how to play the press.  Arm the kids and tell them to shoot the troops footage like that would kill the americans at home ad around the world

remeber this is my opinion only

If they want to go into Africa then you have to go in as a war maker not a peace keeper as there is no peace.  You have to come with an Iron fist as it is the only thing these people tend to understand.

Ok now you guess can hammer me.  :-X

 

[Infanteer]

You got your ideas mixed up a bit:

The policy that said they had to be able to fight to major conflicts at the same time did date back to WWII. (Domino Theroy)

The Domino Theory was the theory that if one state fell to communism, it's neighbours would soon also fall to revolutionary fervor.   This is a different than the concept that saw the US Military judge its readiness by being able to respond to two Major Regional Contingencies at the same time.

It was also based in the Naval thought after WWI that said they needed to have a navy equal to the the next to largest navys in the world so twice the size of its competition. I can't remember the name of the admiral that started that policy i want to say MONROE but that is not right.

This was a Royal Navy policy, I believe.   A longstanding policy which was applied to ensure the security of the British Isles, the Empire, and the sea-lanes in between - it really got trumpeted when a newly-created Germany industrialized and sought its "place in the sun".   As for the Admiral's name, I don't think Admiral Sir Jack Fisher was the creator of such a policy, but he sure was a drumbeater for it in the latter half of the 19th century.

 

[48Highlander]

Think of the money private coperations are going to make from the rebuilding phases.   Think of the money the US grain and agriculture department will get supplying food.

And who's paying for the majority of the rebuilding?  How exactly does it benefit the US for their companies to get paid for the rebuilding when they're the ones who end up paying for it?  How much money is being put into providing food and water?  Do you REALLY beleive that the ammonunt of money they make will be even half of what they've spent?

By stabilizing the region they stabilize the price of oil in the whole region.   Have you seen how volital that market is.  

Yeah but when the price is "stabilized" at a level higher than the pre-war average, that's not really a positiv thing now is it?

What i meant is there is more then Iraq's oil to be considered here.   Having a military presence in the area will keep OPEC honest, or as honest as say the UN.  

That we can agree on.

If WMD were a concern, where are they?

I really hate that line of argument.  Ever hear of probable cause?  If a police officer has reason to suspect that you've commited a crime, he has every right to detain, question, and search you.  If his investigation turns up nothing, it doesn't mean that he had some evil ulterior motive, nor does it neccesarily mean that you're innocent.  All it means is that either his assumptions were wrong, or that you're good at hiding the evidence.  Neither situation would invalidate the investigation though.  Fact is, the majority of nations accepted as fact the assumption that Sadam still possesed biological and chemical weapons.  They knew for a fact that he was developing delivery systems with a range longer than one allowed under UN directives.  And they passed a resolution to take action if Sadam didn't come clean about his weapons program.  All those things put together more than add up to "probable cause".

 

[CivU]

"Do you REALLY beleive that the ammonunt of money they make will be even half of what they've spent?"

The amount of money that private contracts make in Iraq will certainly be more than half of what they'll ultimately spend.  It's the nature of the capitalist system - to generate a profit.

"Ever hear of probable cause?"

Your police analogy is weak at best.  After the police search you and turn up nothing they are not permitted to linger for almost two years...

And if they knew for a fact, as you state, that Saddam had these weapons...then where are they?  I suppose it's all really a moot point now with their having been an election in Iraq, the results of which will undoubtedly generate far more debate at present than the WMD's will...

 

[Torlyn]

"Do you REALLY beleive that the ammonunt of money they make will be even half of what they've spent?"

The amount of money that private contracts make in Iraq will certainly be more than half of what they'll ultimately spend.  It's the nature of the capitalist system - to generate a profit.

"Ever hear of probable cause?"

Your police analogy is weak at best.  After the police search you and turn up nothing they are not permitted to linger for almost two years...

And if they knew for a fact, as you state, that Saddam had these weapons...then where are they?  I suppose it's all really a moot point now with their having been an election in Iraq, the results of which will undoubtedly generate far more debate at present than the WMD's will...

I don't think you read his entire post...  Who do you think is paying for it?  As 48th said, the US GOVERNMENT will be paying for it...  Now, if they have to spend 10 billion dollars (random number) beefing up the infrastructure in Iraq, how much of that does the american government get back?  Hmm...  :

So what you are saying regarding the WMD is that the UN, with Hans Blix and a team of investigators, who repeatedly were denied access to places where they KNEW these weapons were (the same mustard gas that Saddam used on the Kurds, threatened the Americans with, or hey!  How about the hydrogen cyanide he used against (you guessed it!) the Kurds?  The nerve agents?

It must be wonderful being in a world so full of conspiracy theories, I guess.  The best part for you?  No proof just strengthens your "theory".  I mean, Saddam HAD WMD during the first gulf war...  Why were they not destroyed?  Where did they go?  Oh wait...  Probably off-lifted by the Americans to Area 51 in order to further the conspiracy. 

T

 

[48Highlander]

"Do you REALLY beleive that the ammonunt of money they make will be even half of what they've spent?"

The amount of money that private contracts make in Iraq will certainly be more than half of what they'll ultimately spend.   It's the nature of the capitalist system - to generate a profit.

In one word....."huh?"

So your argument goes something like this:
Nobody needs to prove that the US is going to make more money than they spend because they're an Evil Capitalist Empire.  Therefore it is inconcievable that they would start a war which would not generate profit.

Does that about sum it up?

Your police analogy is weak at best.   After the police search you and turn up nothing they are not permitted to linger for almost two years...

Uhuh.  And if they determine that you plan on slaughtering any of your neighbours who hold different political or religious beleifs, I suppose they'd just let you go.  You sure you're living in Canada?

And if they knew for a fact, as you state, that Saddam had these weapons...then where are they?

What part of the probable cause analogy did you have problems comprehending?  Or are you refering to my statement about the delivery systems?  Those are well documented, although for some reason nobody seems to remember them.  Allow me to refresh your memory:

from  http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/samoud.htm :
In February 2003, U.N. inspectors evaluated two versions of the Al Samoud 2 missile using four separate computer models. Both versions were found to exceed the range limit of 150 kilometers set by the U.N. Security Council. The lighter version of the Al Samoud 2 was estimated to have a range of 193 kilometers, while the heavier version would be capable of a 162 km range. Accordingly, it was requested that all Al Samoud 2 missiles and warheads be delivered to the inspectors for destruction.

A cache of 12 Al Samoud missiles was found south of Bayji at LD7154 and LD7644 on 21 July 2003 at 1700 hrs.

And then we have the missiles which we know were under development, but never actually manufactured:

from http://www.janes.com/aerospace/news/jmr/jmr041019_1_n.shtml :
Between 2000 and the arrival in Iraq of United Nations Monitoring, Inspection and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) inspectors in November 2002, Iraqi engineers worked on three clandestine programmes to develop long-range ballistic missiles. Details of all three missiles were revealed in the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD published on 30 September 2004.

Two of the missiles were based on liquid propellants, the third on solid propellants. All would have had ranges of 500km or more, exceeding the 150km range restriction set by UN Resolution 687.

As a result of UN sanctions, none of these projects left the drawing board despite three years of work by Iraq, while the arrival of UNMOVIC inspectors forced Iraq to attempt the destruction of all evidence that the projects had existed.

According to a senior Iraqi missile engineer interviewed by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the plan to develop missiles with a range of more than 150km dated back to 1997 or 1998. During a monthly ballistic-missile meeting at the Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), Minister of Military Industrialisation Abd-al-Tawab Abdallah al Mullah Huwaysh (who was to become deputy prime minister from 2001 to 2003), stated his desire for a 1,000km missile. In mid-1999, Huwaysh is reported to have told a meeting of Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard personnel that Iraq was developing a missile with a range of 500km and that development would take five years.

The formal go-ahead for the new missiles was given by Saddam Hussein in June 2000. Many sources stated that the project was regarded as highly secret, information being passed only in person at face-to-face meetings among a select few individuals. These arrangements may account for the discrepancies in dates provided by various individuals interviewed by the ISG.

The Al Karamah State Establishment, later known as Al Karamah General Company, started work on liquid-propellant concepts, while solid-propellant weapons were studied by the Al Rashid General Company. Both teams seem to have decided that the quickest way to develop long-range missiles would be to cluster existing hardware.

But I suppose that's just more Yankee Propaganda eh?  CIA must have planted the evidence.

 

[CivU]

"Therefore it is inconcievable that they would start a war which would not generate profit."

At least we agree here.  There is no way the US would enter into the Iraqi war without the ultimate objective of benefitting politically and economically...

As for the WMD's you seem so certain exist.  Where are they?  You expect me to prove everything...why cant you offer any evidence? Is it because the UN weapons inspectors found nothing?