tbh claphamboy, I'm not really sure where you're going with this arguement, but by saying that you believed the bullshit about WMD, it really doesn't help your credibility when arguing about other conspiracy type stuff.
It was very obvious that Iraq was very very unlikely to actually possess anything even vaguely resembling a functioning WMD programme to anyone who could be bothered to do a few hours digging around beyond the mainstream press at the time. The reasons were comprehensively outlined at the time on the website of the University professor who'd been the first to spot that blairs dossier had been plagiarised from a years old university dissertation (I forget his name and the site name now), or read the words of the weapons inspectors... ie some basic research.
Well considering the people in the best position to know if Iraq had any WMDs were the UN Inspectors, who couldn’t confirm that all had been destroyed gave weight to what I described earlier as ‘perfectly reasonable to assume’ they still had some.
There were plenty of conflicting reports, which again destroy the idea that the media was involved in a conspiracy, on both sides of the argument, but it was the UN inspectors that were the key to acceptance IMO.
The fact that if they still had WMDs numbers/volumes would be small, the UN inspectors reckoned it would only take a few more months to complete their mission and declare Iraq WMD-free, it was blatantly clear this was no justification for war, and on reflection gave me, and many others, no reason to question the issue any deeper.
and in this case there absolutely was a conspiracy between those at the top of the US government, and those in the UK government to silence those in the intelligence community who disagreed, and push the thread of WMD in the public arena way beyond anything that was justified by the evidence they were being given in private.
This is one conspiracy theory (conspiracy fact) that you're welcome to attempt to debunk if you want, but you're on a sticky wicket from the off being as you've already admitted you were one of the gullible many who fell for it hook line and sinker.
I'm not saying that rumsfeld, cheney et al actually knew for a fact that he didn't have any wmd, and bullshitted entirely about it, as in that case you're probably right, they probably would have made some attempt to plant some. I actually think they were both so blinkered that they genuinely thought there'd have been no way that Saddam would have actually destroyed everything, and that they'd be bound to find something somewhere that they could use as justification.
Fact remains though that they actively conspired to suppress all the evidence that pointed to Iraq no longer possessing WMD's, and heavily promote any snippet of information no matter how flimsy it was that supported their WMD scare story to allow them to launch a war they'd been planning since well before Bush won the election, never mind 911. This is a conspiracy by any definition of the word, and one that led to an illegal war in which a million or so people may well have died or been seriously injured, millions more become refugees, and trillions of dollars worth of contracts have changed hands.
And I absolutely agree 100% with everything you say - there was a conspiracy at the top of the US & UK governments to push forward evidence for the war, including exaggerating the WDM threat, which at the time seemed minimal, but proved to be completely non-existence.
I haven’t denied a conspiracy within the governments, I only expressed surprise that they didn’t smuggle in at least a small amount of material to justify the war, but I reckon you are right they were so blinkered that they expected to find some materials anyway, which was not that unreasonable to assume in view of Saddam’s history.
What I do not accept is that the media was involved in the conspiracy – yes they were briefed, yes they were lied too, but they certainly weren’t part of the conspiracy as is evidence from the amount of coverage that was questioning of the governments and their evidence.
Perhaps faking evidence of WMD to save face was considered far too risky because if it went wrong and was exposed, well the last thing they needed was more damage to their credibility.
No, I am with free sprit on this, I think they genuinely assumed they would find something, no matter how small it was.
But, it’s an interesting idea that they couldn’t trust using a small team of highly trained and dedicated military personnel for such a conspiracy operation for fear of being found out, yet some seem to think they could trust hundreds, if not thousands, of media people to be in on the conspiracy.
