An estimated 655,000 Iraqis have died since 2003

[tabac]

Originally Posted by Rashid Saddam was put into power by America in a coup, the anthrax, the weapons, the tanks etc were all given to him by America to fight Iran with. As for all these weapons, do you honestly think if he still had them America would not have "found" them? Saddam Hussein is a knob, and evil BUT the War is Illegal irrespective, he never attacked UK or America, he didn't have the weapons we said he had, and we went to war without a UN mandate.

I understand that it developed from a situation that we created by assisting him to power, but the problem arises when he abuses the power, invades peaceful Countries and wipes out communities and opposition just to increase his own personal wealth. Sometimes you have to accept you made a mistake and put right the wrong.

[Cardie]

Originally Posted by Rashid What does 9/11 have to do with Iraq? There is no link whatsoever...

Who said that dumb fuck?

What exactly were you expecting from a report into the loss of life during War?

The idea that the report was a suprise and shocking is bollocks, War kills people, that's what happens. Of course pre and post war figures are going to differ greatly.

As for the figures putting 9/11 into perspective, it doesn't, it's virtualy impossible to put 9/11 into any kind of perspective just like the Holocaust and any other mass loss of life, it can't quantified.

PS: You love me really.

[BatChainPuller]

Originally Posted by drewy How many died at the hands of Saddam (fellow muslims) from his inception as a dictator till the allies ousted him in 2003? How many Iraqi's and Iranian's died due to the war instigated and started by Saddam? That report is a fuckin joke! Edit, Lets not forget his raping of Kuwait an innocent and peaceful fellow muslim nation. How many died in this case?

Why do you think its a joke ?

[cochcaer]

Originally Posted by Cardie Who said that dumb fuck?

Dick Cheney

[Cardie]

Originally Posted by cochcaer Dick Cheney

Yeah well...err.....


Can I just point out the bare faced fucking cheek of Rash, in the first instance he completely fails to understand what i said. Then he blames me for it. Then he gives advice on being the forum star pupil.

[Anny Road]

How many have the troops killed and how many have been killed by fellow citizens.

It seems to me, that as a know nothing outsider, that the country was previously run by a tyrant. He killed as he saw fit and the nutters in the country were kept under control by fear.
Now the gloves are off and all the loonies now feel free to do what they want and us and the US will take the blame.
Sadam for all his faults contolled a huge mix of people by killing anyone who stepped out off line.
The place is not ready for democracy, it is a new concept to most.
Add the fact that as a fundamentalist this is the place to be to kill Americans, it is a mess.
If we want to use the oil we have to get out and pour money into the place and make it the best place to be in the middle east.
If the population are determined to turn the place into hell lets get the fuck out and let them get on with it.

I speak as someone who has family living in Iraq and also as someone who has family members in the army guarding the airport in Bagdad

[tabac]

Originally Posted by Anny Road How many have the troops killed and how many have been killed by fellow citizens. It seems to me, that as a know nothing outsider, that the country was previously run by a tyrant. He killed as he saw fit and the nutters in the country were kept under control by fear. Now the gloves are off and all the loonies now feel free to do what they want and us and the US will take the blame. Sadam for all his faults contolled a huge mix of people by killing anyone who stepped out off line. The place is not ready for democracy, it is a new concept to most. Add the fact that as a fundamentalist this is the place to be to kill Americans, it is a mess. If we want to use the oil we have to get out and pour money into the place and make it the best place to be in the middle east. If the population are determined to turn the place into hell lets get the fuck out and let them get on with it. I speak as someone who has family living in Iraq and also as someone who has family members in the army guarding the airport in Bagdad

A very good post from "a know nothing outsider".

[molbyscorchio]

Originally Posted by tabac I understand that it developed from a situation that we created by assisting him to power, but the problem arises when he abuses the power, invades peaceful Countries and wipes out communities and opposition just to increase his own personal wealth. Sometimes you have to accept you made a mistake and put right the wrong.

and why Iraq as opposed to the many other countries in the same position? let me guess..... Black Gold, Texas Tea... if you think we went in there to put a wrong right, then you my friend are deluded. No disrespect intended.

[molbyscorchio]

Originally Posted by Cardie Who said that dumb fuck? What exactly were you expecting from a report into the loss of life during War? The idea that the report was a suprise and shocking is bollocks, War kills people, that's what happens. Of course pre and post war figures are going to differ greatly. As for the figures putting 9/11 into perspective, it doesn't, it's virtualy impossible to put 9/11 into any kind of perspective just like the Holocaust and any other mass loss of life, it can't quantified. PS: You love me really.

It's easy to put it into numerical perspective. That's what Rashid was doing. He doesn't half talk some shite, but not on this subject he doesn't.

[molbyscorchio]

Originally Posted by Cardie Yeah well...err..... Can I just point out the bare faced fucking cheek of Rash, in the first instance he completely fails to understand what i said. Then he blames me for it. Then he gives advice on being the forum star pupil.

[biggit]

Originally Posted by tabac Try telling that to the tens of thousands of Kurds he poisoned with Anthrax following the 1990/'91 war. Two whole villages wiped out. He certainly did have the bio/chem capability, the only thing missing was any long range delivery system, and that was only a matter of time if we stood by and watched.

Did Hussein use anthrax (or even gas) against his own people though?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=24960

From a Pentagon report cited from that article [emphasis mine]

In September 1988, however – a month after the war had ended – the State Department abruptly, and in what many viewed as a sensational manner, condemned Iraq for allegedly using chemicals against its Kurdish population. The incident cannot be understood without some background of Iraq's relations with the Kurds. It is beyond the scope of this study to go deeply into this matter; suffice it to say that throughout the war Iraq effectively faced two enemies – Iran and the elements of its own Kurdish minority. Significant numbers of the Kurds had launched a revolt against Baghdad and in the process teamed up with Tehran. As soon as the war with Iran ended, Iraq announced its determination to crush the Kurdish insurrection. It sent Republican Guards to the Kurdish area, and in the course of this operation – according to the U.S. State Department – gas was used, with the result that numerous Kurdish civilians were killed. The Iraqi government denied that any such gassing had occurred. Nonetheless, Secretary of State Schultz stood by U.S. accusations, and the U.S. Congress, acting on its own, sought to impose economic sanctions on Baghdad as a violator of the Kurds' human rights. Having looked at all of the evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the State Department's claim that gas was used in this instance. To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds – in Turkey where they had gone for asylum – failed to discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We would have expected, in a matter as serious as this, that the Congress would have exercised some care. However, passage of the sanctions measure through the Congress was unusually swift – at least in the Senate where a unanimous vote was secured within 24 hours. Further, the proposed sanctions were quite draconian (and will be discussed in detail below). Fortunately for the future of Iraqi-U.S. ties, the sanctions measure failed to pass on a bureaucratic technicality (it was attached as a rider to a bill that died before adjournment). It appears that in seeking to punish Iraq, the Congress was influenced by another incident that occurred five months earlier in another Iraqi-Kurdish city, Halabjah. In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of them, Kurdish victims, were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds. Thus, in our view, the Congress acted more on the basis of emotionalism than factual information, and without sufficient thought for the adverse diplomatic effects of its action. As a result of the outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq is now the most powerful state in the Persian Gulf, an area in which we have vital interests. To maintain an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Gulf to the West, we need to develop good working relations with all of the Gulf states, and particularly with Iraq, the strongest.

And from the body of the article

Editors: There is no evidence Saddam used anthrax or any other chemical weapons against the Iraqi Kurds. There have been allegations, but Iraq has always insisted it did not use such weapons in the two 1989 incidents alleged. There were estimates that 1,400 to 4,000 Kurds died of chemical weapons in an Iraqi offensive. The Iraq Defense Minister insisted it did not use gas and that it was neither logical nor feasible to use gas against small groups of Kurds in areas through which government forces had to pass. The sole "evidence" seems to be the finding of a British laboratory that soil samples in the Kurdish region contained mustard gas (not anthrax). Edward Peck, our ambassador to Iraq in 1977-79, who today teaches at the government war colleges, recalls a Department of Defense statement at the time that the gas used in that region was not of the type we had supplied Iraq for its use in the war with Iran. Nizar Hamdoon, today the deputy foreign minister of Iraq, told me the army had used gas, but only against the human waves of suicide soldiers in the Iranian army. He did not know what kind was used. At the time, I think he was ambassador to the U.S. in Washington.

[Strontium Dog]

Originally Posted by cochcaer Think Saddam had Russian supplied tanks and French fighters. He had no decent American hardware.

Yeah, he used all the American stuff up already

[Cardie]

Originally Posted by cochcaer Think Saddam had Russian supplied tanks and French fighters. He had no decent American hardware.

French Fighters, an oxymoron surely?

[tabac]

Originally Posted by molbyscorchio and why Iraq as opposed to the many other countries in the same position? let me guess..... Black Gold, Texas Tea... if you think we went in there to put a wrong right, then you my friend are deluded. No disrespect intended.

I understand our Governments motives for the invasion and agree with you that it is overwhelmingly motivated by oil,however, I am more than happy that, as a result of the invasion, we have managed to remove him from power and put an end to his regime. I still haven't noticed a drop in petrol prices though.

[molbyscorchio]

Originally Posted by tabac I understand our Governments motives for the invasion and agree with you that it is overwhelmingly motivated by oil,however, I am more than happy that, as a result of the invasion, we have managed to remove him from power and put an end to his regime. I still haven't noticed a drop in petrol prices though.

I suspect a drop in oil proces wasn't on the agenda. Though I see Sainsburys have tied up a deal with Chavez and are selling (or dealing) a mixture of Cocaine and Venezualan oil. Works very well, your car goes really quickly, though you have great difficulty switching the fucker off.

[Neil G]

Originally Posted by biggit Did Hussein use anthrax (or even gas) against his own people though? http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=24960

I've checked out that website it came from, and suffice it to say it's not a place I'd give the benefit of the doubt to. Not when it has big banner ads for books by the likes of Ann Coulter, Tom Tancredo and Judge Roy Moore.

This part of the report is more telling for me:

To maintain an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Gulf to the West, we need to develop good working relations with all of the Gulf states, and particularly with Iraq, the strongest.

Bear in mind it's a Pentagon report from 1990, before the first Gulf War and, from the pro-Iraq language used, before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August that year. In other words, while Iraq was still friends with the US. Looks like a US government-backed apology for Iraq's behaviour to me.

Human Rights Watch carried out extensive research a few years after that report which concluded that Saddam had used chemical weapons against the Kurds.

Human Rights Watch: Genocide in Iraq