XBOX 360 2654

How so? If you haven't found any evidence of use or destruction it only means that you haven't found any evidence thereof. It is equally valid for you (not) to find evidence of the items still existing... and that was-is the case.

I have a drawer full of floppy discs which I know contained certain data at one point in time. If I put them in the drive on a newer-different system, then I can't read the floppy. That's a lack of evidence of existence-destruction of the data previously known to be on the floppies.

I cannot buttume that the data is still on the floppies simply because I can't read them.

So you shoot them for lack of paperwork?

I make sure that it's in the mail; eventually. I have a "flawless" technique that ensures compliance. :-)

Let me guess: You guessed.

One could only genuinely say that if they don't actually know me.

The "information" wasn't done.

Lots of stuff happens by word of mouth only and NEVER goes down on paper (or recorded electronically) because of the consequences if another party outside of the immediate communication happens upon the content.

That happens all the time in business. It happens a lot of time in the military. Especially in smaller units where all the personnel are well known to each other and their commander.

In societies where the regime is oppressive and invasive, it happens with day to day stuff. If you have to take note of things that you don't want others to find, then do it through obfuscation.

The Security council provided neither the means not the powers for active investigation. Saddam knew that.

So? The regime knew the limitations of the inspectors. Hence; no surprise. It would have been a surprise to find everything that they thought should have been there.

Well obviously. Regimes that oppress need to keep records to facilitate oppression. If UN inspectors walk in and stumble across records ordering for the gbutting of villages, etc., then you're in deep doo-doo. There would have been records of thing OTHER than WMD projects.

Instead of tediously sifting out just the stuff that'd get you into poo above your head, it's much more efficient to "lose" the entire repository.

After the war?

Engines? You're talking about tank engines? Those are not WMD. Jet engines? Not WMD. Missile engine parts? No missiles with ranges over a few hundred km.

Guards? If there are any and they try to get in your way, you point a gun at them.

Cameras?

Thousands of "businesses" in terms of village "blacksmiths" and private "scrap dealers".

I'm sure that it was radioactive anyway. :-)

And there were at least 100 flats overlooking the site.

I don't believe it because I do understand just a smidgin about metalurgy and welding processes. It's more likely that rockets were buttembled from cannibalised components and "spares" held elsewhere.

You mean the Mongols? The Huns?

And where would be this "Western civilization" thing?

Wars never "decide" a damned thing. Wars kill and maim people, result in oppression and inequity, destroy livelihoods, consume valuable resources and make a few people very rich.

A war is clearly the wrong tool for the job if the perpetrators number 1000 out of a population of millions.

Law enforcement deals with situations where you have typically ninety-five out of a hundred being perpetrators and it can deal with 100's out of populations of millions being nasty people.

The difference between war and law enforcement is that in a war you (want to) kill people and bystanders for not doing their paperwork; whereas with law enfiorcement you identify the people who were responsible for the paperwork and you punish only them. -- "Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia ASCII ribbon campaign "Laws do not persuade just because X against HTML mail they threaten." and postings Lucius Annaeus Seneca, c. 4BC - 65AD.