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Quite.

I’m as bored as anyone with the “Russians are coming” hysteria used to explain every electoral development the establishment doesn’t like. But I don’t see why people are rushing to find conspiracy theories about this poisoning.

Sergei Skripal was a Russian agent who defected. Putin could not have been clearer about what will happen to such people and it’s not the first time there has been an assassination, or attempt at one, by Russian agents on British soil. The couple hospitalised this week appear simply to have touched an object which was contaminated. It’s horrible but seems pretty clear what happened.

I don't believe it. It's possibly a Russian agent gone rogue, but I'd stake a lot of money on the Russian government knowing nothing about it. However, we never will find out what happened. Fortunately the incredibly lethal Novichok isn't.

As the Russians keep pointing out - they are basically saying that if they did it there wouldn't be survivors.
 
When it was used to attack Moscow banker Ivan Kivelidi and his secretary, Novichok did prove fatal, but that was over 20 years ago and I dare say medical anti-toxicological techniques have improved significantly since then.

I wonder if Putin regrets vowing that those he deems traitors would "choke and die"? Especially when with the Skripals he didn't (quite) manage to fulfil that vow.
 
My scary hypothesis:
It's a Russian hit on random citizens, to muddy the water and increase plausible deniability.
Do I believe the Russians could be that callous? Yes I do.
 
Somebody was killed in nerve agent tests there as far back as 1953. Putting on a (tin foil) conspiracy hat for a moment, what if they are still doing secret tests of nerve agents, using the russians as a cover story?
Why would they do that? They know what it can do already.
 
My scary hypothesis:
It's a Russian hit on random citizens, to muddy the water and increase plausible deniability.
Do I believe the Russians could be that callous? Yes I do.
Yes, they take their cue from their leader, who doesn't mess about. He's quite prepared to personally kill people or do cruel acts.
 
The thing is, why would Russia want to do something so blatant as to poison the Skripals, and with a nerve agent that points directly towards them. I know Putin likes to stir it all up but surely he doesn't need half the world waving their fingers at him. Yes, maybe he did do it. But hence the call for proof that the attack came from them instead of all the obfuscation that came from our government. If someone kicked my wingmirror off there's probably cctv of it these days. No one saw nothing? Why not tell us? It's all so vague isn't it. Weirdly vague.

As for the latest incident, Quake42 for example thinks that it's explainable because (unfairly paraphrasing) these two were scratters who were poking about round the bins or something. If you were the person who smeared the novichok on the front door (or wherever it was) you'd have had to be super careful about how you did it, or you'd have been contaminated as well. You only need a tiny drop! There'd be no point in putting it in out-of-the-way places (where the two so-called riff raff went to do their underclass things) because the skripals wouldn't be going there. It'd be a small vial of the stuff. You wouldn't need to chuck it somewhere, surely. You're a trained assassin not a bloody litterbug.

I don't know. I am probably a massive cynic but this doesn't wash properly with me. It smacks of a deliberate follow-up to the first incident to make sure the masses get the message. And then we can all get cross at Russia and go along quietly with whatever the government's next political move is. You remember the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction, right. I thought it was bullshit at the time and so did a lot of other people. And it actually turned out to be so. The people in government aren't always doing what's right you know. It's "politics" isn't it, international politics.

Now I must get on with covering the house in foil.
 
Somebody was killed in nerve agent tests there as far back as 1953. Putting on a (tin foil) conspiracy hat for a moment, what if they are still doing secret tests of nerve agents, using the russians as a cover story?
Well it is a research facility into biological weapons!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/sep/03/freedomofinformation.politics
And today it's not a place filled with thought experiments is it. They would have samples of everything you can think of from Novichok to Ebola, surely. Got to keep up with what other dreadful foreign countries might be dreaming up. It seems strange it's so near Amesbury and Salisbury. But that must be coincidence, it's just the area where the Skripals chose to live. Mustn't read too much into coincidences.
 
"the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction, right. I thought it was bullshit at the time"

So you believe that the Kurds and Marsh Arabs gassed themselves, instead of being killed by Saddam's WOMDs?
 
"the Iraq war and the weapons of mass destruction, right. I thought it was bullshit at the time"

So you believe that the Kurds and Marsh Arabs gassed themselves, instead of being killed by Saddam's WOMDs?

There were no WMOD present at the time of the invasion. That has been established by a very long running Tribunal. If you have any credible evidence which is capable of overturning the findings of the investigation then you really should produce it.

That argument has already taken place on this Thread.
 
No I don't mean he didn't do that, of course he did but that was much earlier. I mean that when they wanted to invade Iraq, people lied about there still being stockpiles of weapons, to justify going to war. Also all that stuff they frightened the British public with about long range missiles (that didn't actually exist). It was about influencing ordinary people in this country to get behind the government in fear.

[edit - and if you want another example of governmental conspiracy (that's true, not tinfoil brigade) then try Operation Northwoods. These things happen. It's not ridiculous to be incredulous.]
 
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There were no WMOD present at the time of the invasion.

In the years after the war, hundreds of projectiles containing WMD, plus yellowcake uranium etc., were discovered in Iraq.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira...estruction#Post-war_discoveries_and_incidents

It is widely assumed that these were just the odds & sods “lost behind the sofa” after Saddam shipped 99% of his toys over the border.

God knows what else lies hidden and/or lost in that benighted country. They even buried entire units of fighter planes for later recovery.

maximus otter
 
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The thing is, why would Russia want to do something so blatant as to poison the Skripals, and with a nerve agent that points directly towards them.

Well, they were happy to poison Alexander Litvenko with radioactive sushi which is even more baroque than this episode. So it seems quite typical of their MO.

As for the latest incident, Quake42 for example thinks that it's explainable because (unfairly paraphrasing) these two were scratters who were poking about round the bins or something. If you were the person who smeared the novichok on the front door (or wherever it was) you'd have had to be super careful about how you did it, or you'd have been contaminated as well. You only need a tiny drop! There'd be no point in putting it in out-of-the-way places (where the two so-called riff raff went to do their underclass things) because the skripals wouldn't be going there. It'd be a small vial of the stuff. You wouldn't need to chuck it somewhere, surely. You're a trained assassin not a bloody litterbug.

I said nothing of the kind about the character of the latest victims.
 
There were no WMOD present at the time of the invasion. That has been established by a very long running Tribunal. If you have any credible evidence which is capable of overturning the findings of the investigation then you really should produce it.

That argument has already taken place on this Thread.

We all know that Saddam committed mass-murder using his WOMDs against the Kurds, Marsh Arabs (and Iranians during the Iraq/Iran war) and made some use of his mustard gas, Sarin and other nerve agents during the first Gulf War:

https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/tucker43.pdf

What he subsequently did with those stockpiles is not clear, but the allies could not ignore the claims made by Iraqi refugees and dissidents. I wish we'd gone on and finished the job after the first Gulf war, where the justification was certainly stronger, but please don't reinvent history by painting the removal of Saddam's vile regime as being somehow unjustified.
 
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"why would Russia want to do something so blatant as to poison the Skripals"

Eh?

We're talking about a brutal totalitarian regime that thinks nothing of invading and annexing the sovereign state of Crimea. So making the occasional political enemy "choke and die" seems pretty trivial after that!
 
I said nothing of the kind about the character of the latest victims.
Sorry, I need my glasses, it was BMCS saying 'a reputation for picking up things that others had discarded' which was a few posts above yours.

"why would Russia want to do something so blatant as to poison the Skripals"
By which I mean to emphasise "so blatant" - sure, they wouldn't shrink from bumping a few traitors off. But to leave Novichok - basically a calling card signed From Russia With Love - why not be a bit more clandestine. Why put the cat among the pigeons. Especially when you're getting ready to woo the world with your world cup PR extravaganza. Just give the man something to give him a heart attack quietly if you want to bump him off.

Also, how does one explain the extreme toxicity of Novichok and the fact that it seems to take hours and hours after the administering of it before people get ill? That's not quite right is it? Do you have a rejoinder for that inconvenience?
 
But to leave Novichok - basically a calling card signed From Russia With Love - why not be a bit more clandestine.

They seem to have done both:
- in the Litvinenko case the signature of the polonium seems to point at a Russian factory, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko#Sources_and_production_of_polonium
- in another case they used gelsemium elegans which causes normal looking heart attacks see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelsemium#Alleged_poisoning_victims

Good book:
Harding, Luke (2016). A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia's War with the West.

And this is a nice theory that "plausible deniability" is dead:
We live in an era of implausible deniability and ambiguous warfare. Paradoxically, this does not spell the end of covert action. Instead, leaders are embracing implausible deniability and the ambiguity it creates.
https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/94/3/477/4992414
 
In the years after the war, hundreds of projectiles containing WMD, plus yellowcake uranium etc., were discovered in Iraq.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira...estruction#Post-war_discoveries_and_incidents

It is widely assumed that these were just the odds & sods “lost behind the sofa” after Saddam shipped 99% of his toys over the border.

God knows what else lies buried in that benighted country. They even buried entire units of fighter planes for later recovery.
We all know that Saddam committed mass-murder using his WOMDs against the Kurds, Marsh Arabs (and Iranians during the Iraq/Iran war) and made some use of his mustard gas, Sarin and other nerve agents during the first Gulf War:

https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/tucker43.pdf

What he subsequently did with those stockpiles is not clear, but the allies could not ignore the claims made by Iraqi refugees and dissidents. I wish we'd gone on and finished the job after the first Gulf war, where the justification was certainly stronger, but please don't reinvent history by painting the removal of Saddam's vile regime as being somehow unjustified.


maximus otter

Wiki is not a reliable source. I'll go with the Tribunal's findings. You know I'm not a Ba'athist/SADDAM supporter, very much a supporter of the Kurds.

I just think the invasion was a disaster which laid the grounds for the creation of IS & AQ.

There were no WMDs ready to be used at 45 minutes notice. You are the one who is reinventing history. The invasion was also supposed to be in response to 9/11, why not invade the Saudi Arabia for the removal of that vile regime?

Here is the reality, Wiki does not overturn these findings:

The Chilcot inquiry has delivered a damning verdict on the decision by former prime minister Tony Blair to commit British troops to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It says:

The UK chose to join the invasion before peaceful options had been exhausted
Chilcot is withering about Blair’s choice to join the US invasion. He says: “We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.”

Blair deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein
Chilcot finds that Blair deliberately exaggerated the threat posed by the Iraqi regime as he sought to make the case for military action to MPs and the public in the buildup to the invasion in 2002 and 2003. The then prime minister disregarded warnings about the potential consequences of military action, and relied too heavily on his own beliefs, rather than the more nuanced judgments of the intelligence services. “The judgments about Iraq’s capabilities ... were presented with a certainty that was not justified,” the report says.

Blair promised George Bush: ’I will be with you, whatever’
Tony Blair wrote to George W Bush eight months before the Iraq invasion to offer his unqualified backing for war well before UN weapons inspectors had complete their work, saying: “I will be with you, whatever.” In a six-page memo marked secret and personal, the then British prime minister told Bush, US president at the time, in July 2002 that the removal of Saddam Hussein would “free up the region” even if Iraqis may “feel ambivalent about being invaded”. It was one of 29 letters Blair sent to Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war, during the conflict and in its devastating aftermath, released on Wednesday as part of the Chilcot report.

The decision to invade was made in unsatisfactory circumstances
Chilcot finds that the decision made by Tony Blair’s cabinet’s to invade was made in circumstances that were “far from satisfactory”. The inquiry did not reach a view on the legality of the war, saying this could only be assessed by a “properly constituted and internationally recognised court”, but did make a damning assessment of how the decision was made. The process for deciding that the war was legal is described as “perfunctory” by the inquiry, while “no formal record was made of that decision, and the precise grounds on which it was made remains unclear”.

George Bush largely ignored UK advice on postwar planning
Advertisement
The inquiry found that the Bush administration repeatedly over-rode advice from the UK on how to oversee Iraq after the invasion, including the involvement of the United Nations, the control of Iraqi oil money and the extent to which better security should be put at the heart of the military operation. The inquiry specifically criticises the way in which the US dismantled the security apparatus of the Saddam Hussein army and describes the whole invasion as a strategic failure.
There was no imminent threat from Saddam
Iran, North Korea and Libya were considered greater threats in terms of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons proliferation, and the UK joint intelligence committee believed it would take Iraq five years, after the lifting of sanctions, to produce enough fissile material for a weapon, Chilcot finds. Britain’s previous strategy of containment could have been adopted and continued for some time.

Britain’s intelligence agencies produced ‘flawed information’
The Chilcot report identifies a series of major blunders by the British intelligence services that produced “flawed” information about Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, the basis for going to war. Chilcot says the intelligence community worked from the start on the misguided assumption that Saddam had WMDs and made no attempt to consider the possibility that he had got rid of them, which he had.

The UK military were ill-equipped for the task
The UK’s military involvement in Iraq ended with the “humiliating” decision to strike deals with enemy militias because British forces were seriously ill-equipped and there was “wholly inadequate” planning and preparation for life after Saddam Hussein, the Chilcot report finds. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) planned the invasion in a rush and was slow to react to the security threats on the ground, particularly the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that killed so many troops, the report says.



https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/iraq-inquiry-key-points-from-the-chilcot-report
 
Where to start?

OK. Here's a couple of errors from your "dodgy dossier"

"I just think the invasion was a disaster which laid the grounds for the creation of IS & AQ."

Al Qaeda was formed in 1988 and the Islamic State (aka Daesh) in 1999. The 2003 war against Saddam took place in guess which year?

"why not invade the (sic) Saudi Arabia for the removal of that vile regime"

Al Qaeda, several of whose members did indeed have Saudi citizenship, was a sworn enemy of the House of Saud and had called for it to be overthrown. Hence that put KSA nominally on the allied side (but no dispute from me that Islamic theocracies are vile regimes).

"45 minutes"

Ah that old chestnut!

The BBC analysis here is probably definitive and makes it clear that the figure of 20 to 45 minutes was for Saddam's battlefield chemical and biological weapons (such as those used against the Kurds, Marsh Arabs and during the Iran war). It was grossly irresponsible UK media reports that exaggerated that credible intelligence into "Britain 45 minutes from doom!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3466005.stm

As for elements of the dossier being "sexed up" and the allies being ill-prepared for the aftermath, you'll get no argument from me on that. The post-Saddam power vacuum did indeed allow islamic fundamentalist groups (which had already existed, see above) to thrive and the malign influence of Iran to spread in the region.
 
Where to start?

OK. Here's a couple of errors from your "dodgy dossier"

"I just think the invasion was a disaster which laid the grounds for the creation of IS & AQ."

Al Qaeda was formed in 1988 and the Islamic State (aka Daesh) in 1999. The 2003 war against Saddam took place in guess which year?

"why not invade the (sic) Saudi Arabia for the removal of that vile regime"

Al Qaeda, several of whose members did indeed have Saudi citizenship, was a sworn enemy of the House of Saud and had called for it to be overthrown. Hence that put KSA nominally on the allied side (but no dispute from me that Islamic theocracies are vile regimes).

"45 minutes"

Ah that old chestnut!

The BBC analysis here is probably definitive and makes it clear that the figure of 20 to 45 minutes was for Saddam's battlefield chemical and biological weapons (such as those used against the Kurds, Marsh Arabs and during the Iran war). It was grossly irresponsible UK media reports that exaggerated that credible intelligence into "Britain 45 minutes from doom!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3466005.stm

As for elements of the dossier being "sexed up" and the allies being ill-prepared for the aftermath, you'll get no argument from me on that. The post-Saddam power vacuum did indeed allow islamic fundamentalist groups (which had already existed, see above) to thrive and the malign influence of Iran to spread in the region.

Not at all convincing.

I don't think a Report which analysed thousands of documents and interviewed hundreds of people is trumped by your couple of sentences above.



The families of some of the 179 servicemen and women who died in the Iraq War, and politicians who took key decisions at the time, have been reacting to its findings.

Roger Bacon, whose 34-year-old son Major Matthew Bacon was killed in Iraq in 2005

In a press conference immediately after Sir John Chilcot delivered his report, Mr Bacon said bereaved families could "call specific parties to answer for their actions in the courts".

"Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end," he said.

He said he was "really pleased" with the report but it would never take away the pain of losing a son. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36722172





 
Salisbury is close to Porton Down, which had Novichok, right? Couldn't both of these have been accidental exposures?


I don't believe every conspiracy story I read but neither do I like coincidences.
Porton Down being between the two towns about 5 miles from each is a bit of
a interesting coincidence as far as I am concerned.
 
I don't believe every conspiracy story I read but neither do I like coincidences.
Porton Down being between the two towns about 5 miles from each is a bit of
a interesting coincidence as far as I am concerned.
Yep. It does 'raise flags'.
 
Not at all convincing.

I don't think a Report which analysed thousands of documents and interviewed hundreds of people is trumped by your couple of sentences above.



The families of some of the 179 servicemen and women who died in the Iraq War, and politicians who took key decisions at the time, have been reacting to its findings.

Roger Bacon, whose 34-year-old son Major Matthew Bacon was killed in Iraq in 2005

In a press conference immediately after Sir John Chilcot delivered his report, Mr Bacon said bereaved families could "call specific parties to answer for their actions in the courts".

"Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end," he said.

He said he was "really pleased" with the report but it would never take away the pain of losing a son. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36722172






But Ramon. That has nothing to do with the factual errors you posted.

Al Qaeda and Islamic State both PREDATE the 2003 war against Saddam.

And as for suggesting we should invade KSA because of IS, that's about as daft as suggesting we should have invaded Germany because of Baader Meinhof.

You been reading fake news on those dodgy socialist web sites again?

Where we are in complete agreement is that the aftermath was very poorly handled. Maybe the allies expected things to settle down comparatively quickly after the defeat of Saddam? 4 years earlier, Clinton just couldn't wait to bomb the shit out of and play Top Gun in Yugoslavia, but the aftermath of that war was very different and the emerging states from that conflict seem to exist in comparative peace now. I guess the difference is there was no malign regional superpower lurking in the wings to profit from the situation, as Iran did in post 2003 Iraq.

Gotta go now - loads of beer to drink before the footie starts!
 
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But Ramon. That has nothing to do with the factual errors you posted.

Al Qaeda and Islamic State both PREDATE the 2003 war against Saddam.

And as for suggesting we should invade KSA because of IS, that's about as daft as suggesting we should have invaded Germany because of Baader Meinhof.

You been reading fake news on those dodgy socialist web sites again?

Where we are in complete agreement is that the aftermath was very poorly handled. Maybe the allies expected things to settle down comparatively quickly after the defeat of Saddam? 4 years earlier, Clinton just couldn't wait to bomb the shit out of and play Top Gun in Yugoslavia, but the aftermath of that war was very different and the emerging states from that conflict seem to exist in comparative peace now. I guess the difference is there was no malign regional superpower lurking in the wings to profit from the situation, as Iran did in post 2003 Iraq.

AQ and IS massively grew after the invasion. It provided the fertile ground for them to grow exponentially.

But you're trying to rubbish the Chilcot Report.

The belief that the Iraq invasion was done for the stated reasons or to remove a brutal dictator is very much a fringe/conspiracy theory belief.

But the KSA is a dictatorship even more brutal than Iraq was under Saddam. Going on your logic it should have been invaded.

I haven't been reading fake news on dodgy sites, I 've been reading the truth about Iraq.

Sir John Chilcot has outlined his findings on the UK's involvement in the 2003 Iraq War and the lessons to be learned from it.

The report spans almost a decade of UK government policy decisions between 2001 and 2009.

It covers the background to the decision to go to war, whether troops were properly prepared, how the conflict was conducted and what planning there was for its aftermath, a period in which there was intense sectarian violence.

The main points are:

Military action
The UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before all peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort
  • Military action might have been necessary later, but in March 2003, it said, there was no imminent threat from the then Iraq leader Saddam Hussein, the strategy of containment could have been adapted and continued for some time and the majority of the Security Council supported continuing UN inspections and monitoring
  • On 28 July 2002, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair assured US President George W Bush he would be with him "whatever". But in the letter, he pointed out that a US coalition for military action would need: Progress on the Middle East peace process, UN authority and a shift in public opinion in the UK, Europe, and among Arab leaders
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Judgements about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - or WMD - were presented with a certainty that was not justified
  • Intelligence had "not established beyond doubt" that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons
  • The Joint Intelligence Committee said Iraq has "continued to produce chemical and biological agents" and there had been "recent production". It said Iraq had the means to deliver chemical and biological weapons. But it did not say that Iraq had continued to produce weapons
  • Policy on the Iraq invasion was made on the basis of flawed intelligence assessments. It was not challenged, and should have been
The legal case
The circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were "far from satisfactory"
  • The invasion began on 20 March 2003 but not until 13 March did then Attorney General Lord Goldsmith advise there was, on balance, a secure legal basis for military action. Apart from No 10's response to his letter on 14 March, no formal record was made of that decision and the precise grounds on which it was made remain unclear
  • The UK's actions undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council: The UN's Charter puts responsibility for the maintenance of peace and security in the Security Council. The UK government was claiming to act on behalf of the international community "to uphold the authority of the Security Council". But it knew it did not have a majority supporting its actions
  • In Cabinet, there was little questioning of Lord Goldsmith about his advice and no substantive discussion of the legal issues recorded
Military preparedness
Image copyrightAFP
  • There was "little time" to properly prepare three military brigades for deployment in Iraq. The risks were neither "properly identified nor fully exposed" to ministers, resulting in "equipment shortfalls"
  • Between 2003 and 2009, UK forces in Iraq faced gaps in some key capability areas - including armoured vehicles, reconnaissance and intelligence assets and helicopter support
  • It was not sufficiently clear which person in the department within the Ministry of Defence had responsibility for identifying and articulating such gaps
  • Delays in providing adequate medium weight protected patrol vehicles and the failure to meet the needs of UK forces for reconnaissance and intelligence equipment and helicopters should not have been tolerated
Iraq's aftermath
Image copyrightAFP
  • Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam Hussein were "wholly inadequate"
  • The government failed to achieve the stated objectives it had set itself in Iraq. More than 200 British citizens died as a result of the conflict. Iraqi people suffered greatly. By July 2009, at least 150,000 Iraqis had died, probably many more. More than one million were displaced

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36721645
 
can't survive a baby wipe
I saw that on Wiltshire Police's site! And then you throw away the baby wipe. Perhaps that's what happened to the latest couple. They picked up a contaminated baby wipe that the assassin had left behind.
 
You would think that stuff like that would be in something special even if it was disguised as a everyday item, after all you have to be able to transport and apply it without topping yourself.
 
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