What if they find nothing at all?

Just a hypothetical, since so far no banned weapons have been used or discovered in the war.

What if they find nothing at all? What will be the response of those who pushed us into war?

This isn't a thread to say "Oh, don't worry, they'll find something". This is a thread to explore what people will say or do if they don't.

Will the people who were so gung-ho on war back down? Why am I so sure that they will dissemble and waffle and NEVER say "we were wrong"?

Now, if they DO find them, don't say "Told you so, Sundog". I don't know if they will or won't. This is strictly hypothetical.

[Hypocolius]

Originally posted by sundog
Just a hypothetical, since so far no banned weapons have been used or discovered in the war.

What if they find nothing at all? What will be the response of those who pushed us into war?


Good question. I'm betting that Bush & Blair know something, or think they do, which is why they've managed to get people like Clare Short etc to back them. If their intel is faulty, and we've gone to war because of duff gen.... wow. War crimes time I'm afraid.

[Aoidoi]

Oh, I suspect if nothing is found then Bush & Co. will quietly backpedal a bit and try to sweep that motivation under the rug war while pushing the humanitarian/Saddam was evil angle.

edited to add a missing word. I suspect Iraqi irregulars kidnapped it.

[Pyrrho]

If nothing is found, Bush will find himself out of office next election. Then some other idiot will take the nation into some other entanglement.

If they can't find anything they will attempt to plant fake evidence. But they will probably bungle it like the 'dodgy dossier'.

[shanek]

Originally posted by Aoidoi
Oh, I suspect if nothing is found then Bush & Co. will quietly backpedal a bit and try to sweep that motivation under the war while pushing the humanitarian/Saddam was evil angle.

They're already doing that. And remember that the initial excuse was that Saddam was tied to the 9/11 attacks.

[hammegk]

Hypothetically, don't you mean, "When will the weaponized strain of anthrax used in the Daschle et al mailings be presented to the world as found in an Iraqi weapons lab"? ;)

Or do we think CIA-DIA-spec ops can't even get that right?

Originally posted by hammegk
Hypothetically, don't you mean, "When will the weaponized strain of anthrax used in the Daschle et al mailings be presented to the world as found in an Iraqi weapons lab"? ;)

I think you're saying "Don't worry, they will". If not, please share your thoughts with us.

[hammegk]

Which is more "real"? The actual facts, or the propaganda used in the presentation?

I will certainly never "know" one way or the other. Do men who comprise governments knowing lie to stay in power? Yup.

Your only meaningful choices are armed rebellion, or vote the scoundrels out (replacing them of course with a new set of scoundrels-in-training).

RealPolitic/Reality just ain't no fun a lot of the time. Meanwhile, do you have a roof over your head, a chicken in the pot, medical care available, etcetc? What is important to you, now, as well as in the near future? Did you think political power is no longer dependent on the gun?

Originally posted by hammegk
Which is more "real"? The actual facts, or the propaganda used in the presentation?

I will certainly never "know" one way or the other. Do men who comprise governments knowing lie to stay in power? Yup.

Your only meaningful choices are armed rebellion, or vote the scoundrels out (replacing them of course with a new set of scoundrels-in-training).



I suspect you're largely right.

I'm interested in what you might call the PR part of the process; how would they deal with the backlash? Short-circuit it entirely by lying, as you suggest, or what?

If they don't simply cover it up, there will be a lot of people wanting answers. I'm wondering what those answers will be.

Ironically I'm not as cynical about our troops as you seem to be. Call me naive but I think our present-day military would balk at taking part in a coverup.

[clk]

Seeing as how Bush can't speak English or answer questions, I'm willing to bet that his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, will handle most of the PR, as usual. And Fleischer is pretty good, too....you should see how well he can spin!
I forget which person said that surpluses are BAD, and deficits are GOOD, but that was the most spin I have ever seen put on anything. They stopped just short of saying that Clinton was evil for having surpluses.
Anyways, if Bush is asked a question, he'll usually answer another question that has nothing to do with the original question......as always.

[Morwen]

What if they find nothing at all... mmmhh...

The troops in Iraq will send word to the high brass about not finding any WMD or somesuch. The brass will thoroughly double-check the discoveries and back them up with intelligence work, requesting all kinds of advice from the topmost experts in the field. Then they will send their conclusions to the US Government, who will examine them lucidly and objectively. There will be a special session of Congress and an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, where all the findings will be revealed and questions will be asked. After a sensible amount of time to allow for international independent UN-sanctioned assessment of the findings, the Coalition will make a public statement saying that Iraq had, after all, no WMD and offering to stop the war on the sole condition of Sadam being handed over to the UN. They will also offer all their help to minimize further loss of life and stop all offensive actions, recognizing clearly that they were in the wrong and offering to make it right, at least as much as they can, sparing no effort.

Meanwhile, the war has been going on and all but Baghdad has fallen to the coalition. When the announcement about WMD is made, what's left of the Iraqi government will issue a communique saying something like "See? We told you so!" and be nasty about it, but by then the UN will have voted, unanimously, to step in with peace forces and ensure a change of government, gradually pulling out all troops and substituting them for humanitarian UN troops. Sadam will not agree to leave Iraq and will be captured by his own troops and handed over to the UN. The military presence will be required to deal with isolated foci of violence which will go on for months or even years, while talks go on about how to best help the Iraqis with a change of government, humanitarian help to the civil population being paramount and starting almost immediately.

Meanwhile, Bush will publicly recognize that he had been wrong all time long, and he and his main advisors will offer their resignation. It will be accepted and new elections will take place shortly, while a huge outcry goes on about the coalition being war criminals; this will be considered in the Le Hague court, but the process will go on for years and will never end up in any clear results. Blair will not resign, but will lose the next elections. Aznar, as he announced years ago, will not run for president the next elections, and his party will lose big time.

The situation in Middle East will be awfully unstable for a long while. Sadam will be held as a war criminal, and tried as such by an international court.

How's that for fiction?

[chulbert]

I imagine they will just re-re-spin the war motives. They're already using the vague "fighting evil" angle.

[hammegk]

Originally posted by sundog

Ironically I'm not as cynical about our troops as you seem to be. Call me naive but I think our present-day military would balk at taking part in a coverup.

Er, yeah, the military boys tend to be straight-arrows.

But, for example, CIA? Do you think they clear their ops with the "military"? I don't, and I suspect there may be some actually secret ops groups available to the executive branch.

Originally posted by hammegk


Er, yeah, the military boys tend to be straight-arrows.

But, for example, CIA? Do you think they clear their ops with the "military"? I don't, and I suspect there may be some actually secret ops groups available to the executive branch.

Great point. They don't seem to be able to function with restraint.

I'm curious. Let's say exactly this scenario really played out, and was discovered. Would you personally be outraged, or would you shrug your shoulders and accept it as "business as usual"? Would you consider it an unpardonable deception, or would you take the Machiavellian view that the prince has a right to do what he has to do to stay in power, or something else entirely?

[hammegk]

Machiavelli is "da man"! :D

Originally posted by hammegk
Machiavelli is "da man"! :D

LOL, that's cool. I can deal with anyone who's straightforward about where they're coming from. ;)

It's the crypto-Machiavellians that bug me.

[kourama]

They've concocted evidence so far, there's no reason to see why they can't cook up some more.

semi-related: when I see cheney or rumsfeld answering questions they look determined, somewhat angry, in control and moderately intelligent.

When duh-bya speaks, he looks like a scared child alone in the middle of a stage, reciting his lines, scanning the audience for his parents, and occasionally glancing at the edge of the stage for encouragement from his 2nd grade teacher.

Originally posted by kourama
They've concocted evidence so far, there's no reason to see why they can't cook up some more.

semi-related: when I see cheney or rumsfeld answering questions they look determined, somewhat angry, in control and moderately intelligent.

When duh-bya speaks, he looks like a scared child alone in the middle of a stage, reciting his lines, scanning the audience for his parents, and occasionally glancing at the edge of the stage for encouragement from his 2nd grade teacher.

Now, now. I think semi-related is stretching it, whether I personally agree or not. ;)

Did I miss something? What concocted evidence? With sources please, naturally.

[kourama]

Originally posted by sundog


Now, now. I think semi-related is stretching it, whether I personally agree or not. ;)

Did I miss something? What concocted evidence? With sources please, naturally.


Here's a mainstream media source:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/2020/GMA030310Iraq_weapons_evidence.html

If you search hard enough, I'm sure you'll be able to find some interesting tidbits about the non-existant satellite photos that the U.S. used to justify putting troops in Saudi Arabia in 1990. (they supposedly show 100,000 Iraq troops along the Saudi border, but no-one ever got to see them, and other troops on the ground saw no evidence of any troop buildup were the U.S. government said they were...hmmmmm)

[schplurg]

To answer the question:
I guess if the Bush administration finds no WMD's, they will claim that Saddam was able to move them somewhere else. Then they will simply remind everyone of the other dozen or so reasons why Saddam should be taken out.

As you suggested, I did a search on troop movements and the satellite images. As for the satellite images, Soviet, I say Soviet, satellite images, supposedly taken on the same day (or approximately) as the U.S. images, were used as "proof" that there was no troop movement.

This Article (http://www.iraqwar.org/bush.htm)

The former DIN specialist agreed: "I simply did not see what I expected to see. There should be revetments - three sided berms with vehicles inside facing the anticipated direction of attack. There should be trenches. But they are not there". Both analysts say there are several possible explanations for the inability to spot Iraqi forces. The troops could have been so well camouflaged that they were hidden from the Soviet cameras. However, Zimmerman said that would be a departure from Iraq's strategy during its war with Iran in the 1980s when virtually no effort was made to hide military positions. Both analysts recall seeing Iraqi troops deployments during that war on poorer images from the French SPOT satellite. It's also possible that the troops were so widely dispersed that the satellite could not "See" them because its cameras could not resolve images smaller than five meters, or about 16 feet, across. Or it might be that glare from the sun on the Kuwaiti sand smudged out troops images, although images taken over Saudi Arabia appear unaffected by glare.

Another possibility is that the Soviets deliberately or accidentally produced a photo taken before August 2, that is before Iraqi troops entering Kuwait. "We have to take on faith that the image is what the Soviet say it is," Zimmerman said. "I think that is reasonable assumption, because they would not have a motive to misrepresent it, and if they did misrepresent it and the word got out, they would never sell another picture to anybody.

This article suggests you follow a link for more evidence, which will lead you to (as the article admits) a very leftist website.

These people admit that the images may not have been clear enough and were low resolution, or that the Soviets MAY have lied about the date they were taken. A private company supplied the images, but whether or not the Soviet Gov. could have oversaw this...well who knows? Who owns the satellites? Would the Soviets have reason to lie back then? Weren't they still doing business with Iraq? Hmmmm...

"We have to take on faith that the image is what the Soviet say it is," Zimmerman said. "I think that is reasonable assumption
I don't!

There is no evidence that the US concocted this evidence. I guess there is no proof either way.

P.S. It's my understanding that the Saudi's were shown a detailed image and saw the troop movements for themselves, but I have no links or proof of this at all.

[Rose]

IF we do not find any WMDs(allowing a reasonable amount of time to secure the country and investigate suspected sites, the biggest effect will be in the 2004 elections. Saddam will still be out, and we're still going to establish a government that will not cause us problems, in the short term at least.

With the loss of US credibility, the democrats should be able to run a competitve campaign against Bush. The US may end up paying reparations, especially to civlians who were injured or suffered loss of property. If the international reaction is virulent enough, the US will go much more isolationist, licking our wounds and letting France deal with any other agrressive/repressive regimes.

What I think is more likely to happen though, is that the evidence be there, but ambigous enough to allow both sides to make any claims they dare. It's possible that the weapons have not actually been assembled; we will find componants spread around and claim they are proof. Those who are inclined to distrust the government will explain away each piece of the puzzle. Net result, neither side changes their views, and life goes on.

The counter question to this is what happens if and when we DO discover these weapons? Will any of the anti-war activists change their views on the rightness of the war?