Friend or foe? (Economist)

Posted Apr 12, 2003 19:50 UTC (Sat) by tjc (guest, #137)
In reply to: Friend or foe? (Economist) by dcarrera
Parent article: Friend or foe? (Economist)

The US and UK forces have not found any WMDs whatsoever, and most of the country has been searched already.

One might come to that (mistaken) conclusion from watching the tube, but in truth probably less than 10% of country has been searched. And they haven't even really started with the Syrian border, not to mention Syria itself.

Friend or foe? (Economist)

Posted Apr 13, 2003 23:47 UTC (Sun) by dcarrera (guest, #9087) [Link] (1 responses)

What basis do you have for saying that? I admit that I don't know for sure how much has been searched, but I have been following the war fairly closely. I don't mean just "watching the tube", but I research many different sources of information (I follow several papers from from the US, Brittain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabian and the UN and I read them daily) to get a good picture.

What I can conclude is that most of the country has been searched, but there is debate over the small fraction remaining is the one most likely to contain WMDs.

Before entering Baghdad, the US claimed that this was, by far, the most likely place to find WMDs, and they didn't. Therefore, I find it doubtful that the remainder of the country yet to be searched has any.

Friend or foe? (Economist)

Posted Apr 14, 2003 19:40 UTC (Mon) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

What basis do you have for saying that?

Just a conservative estimate based on the observation that allied forces have occupied less than 10% of the country. It directly follows that they have searched less than 10% of the country.

Before entering Baghdad, the US claimed that this was, by far, the most likely place to find WMDs, and they didn't.

Baghdad has not yet been thoroughly searched. This could take weeks.

Therefore, I find it doubtful that the remainder of the country yet to be searched has any.

It seems reasonable that they would be hidden in the least likely spots; there again it could take weeks or even months to find them.