[thechat] Scott Ritter on Iraq

[Judah McAuley]

Hugh Blair wrote:

> Just one opinion among many. And there are many that disagree
> with him. Just because he wrote a book doesn't make his facts
> and opinions correct.
>
> Hugh

It's trivially true that he has an opinion and his opinion is, of
course, not automatically correct.

However, his personal familiarity with the situation and his knowledge
in the field makes his opinions the most likely to be correct.  I do not
know of anyone more likely to be correct about the situation.  And a
good deal of his statements were analyses based off of facts. Example:
Sarin has a shelf life of 3 years.  We believe we have destroyed all
facilities capable of producing Sarin.  We should be able to detect the
creation of new facilities capable of producing Sarin.  We have not
detected any such facilities.  It has been longer than 3 years since we
destroyed the existing facilities.  Therefore there is a low likelyhood
of Iraq having any usable Sarin.

I will redily accept the fact that other people may disagree with him,
however it is unconcionable that his expert analysis is not being
brought into the debate in much of the media.  It's sad that there is
very little debate going on in much of the media.

My country appears to be wandering blindly into a war with little or no
debate.  That scares me.

Judah