Why does the Right post facts and the Left post innuendo and fallacies

[SheetWise]

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Regarding most of the material that Iraq had presented evidence for destruction of without verification, the inspectors were broadly happy.

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I just can't find any evidence to support that statement from the UN reports -- I've attached another summary from PBS.

[nicky g]

The article you linked to is extremely old and I'm not quite sure of its relevance to my point. But a few thoughts on it:

In the article he refers to the defection of Saddam's soninlaw, and says that he revealed all sorts of programmes that UNSCOM hadn't known about. That's true, but he neglects to mention that the son-inlaw also revealed that all these programmes had since been shut down.

He also talks in depth abour the extensive degree to which western intelligence agencies used UNSCOM as a cover to spy on Iraq's military (and possibly even launch a coup!). This was the reason IRaq gave for refusing to allow it back in the late 1990s, for which it was widely denounced, and was poopooed at the time and sincem with people continuing to use the incident as evidence of its bad faith. But it was right, and clearly it's ridiculous to expect any country to let a body that its enemies are using to spy on it have unfettered access to any sensitive site it wants.

[nicky g]

OK I am wrong that the inspectors were happy that Iraq had provided satisfactory evidence of the unilateral destruction of some programmes just after the war. From Hans Blix's report to the Security Council prior to the war: "While Iraq claims, with little evidence, that it destroyed all biological weapons unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological weapons production facilities in 1996".
I remembered reading about the evidence Iraq supplied for this and there was quite a lot of it so I don't agree with his reference to "little evidence"; but clearly what evidence there was was not regarded as satisfactory.

Blix Report

[SheetWise]

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The article you linked to is extremely old and I'm not quite sure of its relevance to my point.

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It's old because it was written at the time, and reflects the feeling of the inspectors at the time they were withdrawn (which was also the position of the left both at that time, through the vote, and decision to go to war). The statement "UNSCOM was broadly happy with the evidence presented to it", I can still find no evidence to support. I will agree with you that many people have changed their opinion since -- but that's Monday morning quarterbacking, and doesn't change the historical record.