[honkhonkpants]

My source is I saw it on live TV.

"We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon. And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device. The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

[oldmanjay]

When I started reading the quote, I thought it was going to back your argument up. It was a surprising disappointment when it did not.

[refurb]

You realize that that quote doesn't actually support your claim?

[kobeya]

You do know that quote is factually accurate?

[oneloop]

There's this website where you type in things and it searches those things for you. The url is google.com, you should check it out.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/01/10/wbr.smoking.gun/

[kobeya]

Claims made in the quote:

* Iraq has the infrastructure [for a nuclear program]

* Iraq has the nuclear scientists with the know-how

* Iraq was "far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought" after the 1st gulf war

* Specifically, maybe six months from a crude device

* There is uncertainty about how quickly Iraq could acquire nuclear weapons

Sorry, but these are all facts. Saddam DID have a nuclear weapons program at the time of the 1st gulf war, and to the surprise of inspectors he was in fact very, very close to building a 1st-generation bomb. That's why there was an ongoing international inspection regime thereafter.

Although the specific uranium enrichment plant was destroyed after the 1st gulf war, a lot of dual use equipment was kept around. Those nuclear scientists didn't go anywhere. And for reasons that to this day seem bizarre, given what played out, Iraq was playing "cat and mouse games" with the nuclear inspectors (quote from Hans Blix) and there was a great deal of uncertainty about the current status.

Those are facts. Google them yourself.

Did Iraq actually have weapons of mass destruction? No. Did the US and UK oversell the case for war? Yes. Did a great humanitarian tragedy happen as a result? Yes. But that didn't make Ms. Rice a lier when she said what specifically what was quoted above. We must pay careful attention to factual accuracy.

[Tycho]

I think Saddam wanted to actually create the suspicion that he had WMDs, to scare off potential invaders (and he was probably right).

[kobeya]

I believe he is on record for saying this, after he was captured. He was probably right, given that both Iran and Israel wanted to wipe him off the map. Iraq uber Saddam was a pariah state. But he underestimated the willingness of the US and UK to actually go to war.

[oneloop]

I didn't say they weren't facts, I was just pointing out that if you have a quote and want to know it's correct, you just google it. Don't you agree with that?

[kobeya]

No, there is wrong information on he Internet. Factual provenance is a trickier issue than just "Google it."