Bush not to blame on WMD

[Tigermike 3,711]

It's so good when the truth comes out and it is not anything like the demoncrats have been spinning it!

Kay: Bush not to blame on WMD Former weapons chief cites faulty intelligence

By Richard Benedetto

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- Former top U.S. weapons investigator David Kay blames the intelligence community, not President Bush, for drawing a false conclusion that Iraq had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction prior to the U.S.-led invasion in March.

Kay, who resigned Friday as head of a U.S. inspection team that scoured Iraq looking for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, said Sunday on NPR's Weekend Edition that he believes Saddam Hussein had no such weapons before coalition forces invaded.

Kay said the challenge now is to figure out why intelligence indicated the Iraqi leader had them.

''It's not a political issue. It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information,'' he said.

However, the issue has major political implications for the 2004 presidential campaign. Bush has repeatedly staked his case for going to war in Iraq on the assertion that Saddam had banned weapons and might use them. Kay's failure to find them gives Democrats a strong argument that Bush went to war on a mistaken or exaggerated premise.

Since Kay began saying publicly Friday that his team found no weapons and concluded that they probably did not exist, Democratic presidential candidates have been quick to fire at Bush.

''We were misled . . . not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war,'' Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said on Fox News Sunday.

Asked by NPR if he feels Bush owes Americans an explanation for starting the war based on apparently flawed intelligence, Kay replied, ''I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people.''

CIA Director George Tenet replaced Kay on Friday with Charles Duelfer, who served for seven years as the United Nations' No. 2 weapons inspector. Four high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials said they still fear weapons could be in Iraq, and that a high priority for the search is making sure that if there are any, they have not fallen into the hands of Iraqi guerrillas or foreign Islamic militants.

The White House and Vice President Cheney also say Iraq had banned weapons and in time they will be found. But Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday appeared to be backing away, saying it was ''an open question'' whether Iraq had such weapons.

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20040126/5868772s.htm

[MDM4AU 338]

Bump

[SphericaL 0]

One has to admire an ongoing debate over red herring...

[Tiger Al 0]

One has to admire an ongoing debate over red herring...

But, what else do you do when all you have is a red herring?

[DKW 86 7,899]

Put it in a smoker and serve with garnish.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

But, what else do you do when all you have is a red herring?

Why, you silly second hand electric donkey-bottom biters - you use it to chop down the mightiest tree in the forest!!!!!!!!! Right, DWK?

[Tiger Al 0]

And that's about all you CAN do with it. Wait...it can also be used to bring a liar to justice.

[Tigermike 3,711]

And that's about all you CAN do with it. Wait...it can also be used to bring a liar to justice.

You should recognize a liar, you have been pumping up Howard Bad Back Dean for months.

[Tiger Al 0]

And that's about all you CAN do with it. Wait...it can also be used to bring a liar to justice.

You should recognize a liar, you have been pumping up Howard Bad Back Dean for months.

And, tell me again, just how many deaths is Dean responsible for?

[Tigermike 3,711]

And that's about all you CAN do with it. Wait...it can also be used to bring a liar to justice.

You should recognize a liar, you have been pumping up Howard Bad Back Dean for months.

And, tell me again, just how many deaths is Dean responsible for?

I don't know Al why don't you tell me. Surely not as many as Howard's most recent endorser!

[Jenny AU-92 0]

And that's about all you CAN do with it. Wait...it can also be used to bring a liar to justice.

It just AMAZES me that you guys actually believe that GWB is SO evil that he would deliberately, unreservedly and unashamedly LIE so he could go out and start a war just for the fun of it. That is utterly ridiculous. Do you REALIZE how ridiculous and ludicrous that sounds??? This was one of those cases in which you don't know anything for sure until you get in there to actually see for yourself, unhampered. NO WAY would Sadaam have really wanted to negotiate at the end - if there were no WMD, why the hell didn't he just say so and prove it instead of being beligerant and defying the UN?

Some intel says Saddam has WMD - some says he does not. If you are GWB - do you err on the side of caution and stay out and run the risk of being wrong, or do you refuse to take that chance and go see for yourself, in the process toppling an evil dictator whose presence was nothing but a continued threat to the lives of his citizens and world security in general in his support of international terrorism. Sounds like a no-brainer decision to me.

And more importantly - just as Bush is being excoriated right now for what he knew about 9/11 and when he knew it and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE DO ANYTHING TO PREVENT IT... - you can't have it both ways. We supposedly had 9-11 intelligence before hand, and didn't use it - look what that is getting GWB now. And the CIA director is a CLINTON APPOINTEE - but Teflon Bill is not catching any heat - GWB is. So GWB errs on the side of caution, does NOT attack Iraq, and then some terror group uses a WMD they acquired from Saddam to blow up the Olympic games in Athens, killing a bunch of American athletes. Do you think GWB would be allowed to look at the UN and say "I told you so!!!!" Yeah, RIGHT. The libs would be the first to scream that GWB knew SH was in possession of WMD and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE DO ANYTHING TO PREVENT IT... :roll:

[MDM4AU 338]

It's that blind, liberal hate. It's eating AL up from the inside. He can't help it anymore. Then you couple that with his savior, Dean, imploding and fumbling around right now...it's scary to think what Al will say/do next.

[TitanTiger 21,238]

Jenny, the liberal airheads that keep propagating such nonsense are our best ally. They are the black helicopter crowd of the left. It's like the yahoos that thought Clinton had Vince Foster murdered. They bring shame and ridicule on whomever they associate themselves with. Frankly, I hope more and more of this kind of vapid thinking continues within their ranks. They'll be a 1000-lb. weight around the neck of whoever the Democrat nominee ends up being.

[Tiger Al 0]

And that's about all you CAN do with it. Wait...it can also be used to bring a liar to justice.

It just AMAZES me that you guys actually believe that GWB is SO evil that he would deliberately, unreservedly and unashamedly LIE so he could go out and start a war just for the fun of it. That is utterly ridiculous. Do you REALIZE how ridiculous and ludicrous that sounds??? This was one of those cases in which you don't know anything for sure until you get in there to actually see for yourself, unhampered. NO WAY would Sadaam have really wanted to negotiate at the end - if there were no WMD, why the hell didn't he just say so and prove it instead of being beligerant and defying the UN?

Some intel says Saddam has WMD - some says he does not. If you are GWB - do you err on the side of caution and stay out and run the risk of being wrong, or do you refuse to take that chance and go see for yourself, in the process toppling an evil dictator whose presence was nothing but a continued threat to the lives of his citizens and world security in general in his support of international terrorism. Sounds like a no-brainer decision to me.

And more importantly - just as Bush is being excoriated right now for what he knew about 9/11 and when he knew it and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE DO ANYTHING TO PREVENT IT... - you can't have it both ways. We supposedly had 9-11 intelligence before hand, and didn't use it - look what that is getting GWB now. And the CIA director is a CLINTON APPOINTEE - but Teflon Bill is not catching any heat - GWB is. So GWB errs on the side of caution, does NOT attack Iraq, and then some terror group uses a WMD they acquired from Saddam to blow up the Olympic games in Athens, killing a bunch of American athletes. Do you think GWB would be allowed to look at the UN and say "I told you so!!!!" Yeah, RIGHT. The libs would be the first to scream that GWB knew SH was in possession of WMD and WHY DIDN'T ANYONE DO ANYTHING TO PREVENT IT... :roll:

Jenny, your whole argument is predicated on the assumption that Saddam actually had the capabilities that Bush said he did. He did not. Yes, there was evidence on both sides of the argument before December 2002. But, from then until March, UNMOVIC weapons inspectors had free reign to go anywhere in Iraq they wanted to and they did so. They were given SPECIFIC places to look where weapons were presumed to be and they found nothing there. THAT'S what Bush is getting excoriated for, not for making a tough, unpopular decision. Prudence would dictate that if prior intelligence was this wrong then you don't continue to rely on it, especially when given the opportunity to gather more accurate information with which to base your decisions. Evidently, Bush doesn't know the definition of prudence nor does he have any concept of its application.

[Tigermike 3,711]

This says it pretty well Al.

Weapons of Mass Distraction: Tyranny is the Real Threat

By Claudia Rosett 

The Wall Street Journal 

January 28, 2004 

Web site: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/c...t/?id=110004614 

We've reached an intriguing moment in the saga of evil regimes and weapons of mass destruction--their presence or absence, and the uncertainty zone between.

In Iraq, the U.S. and the United Nations had reason to believe that Saddam Hussein--having invaded his neighbors, harbored terrorists, tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of his fellow Iraqis, gassed the Kurds, plundered his country, and set a standard in the Middle East of fascist brutality to rival Hitler--was still pursuing weapons of mass destruction. A U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam's regime. Now the recent U.S. point man for the weapons search in Iraq, David Kay, is saying it looks as if maybe Saddam didn't have any WMDs. At least not significant stocks, at least not that we've found. Mr. Kay's best guess is that Saddam only thought he had a WMD program.

This is now taken in some quarters to mean we should have left Saddam alone, because even if maybe he thought he was pursuing WMDs, he wasn't, except maybe in his own imagination, at least not at the moment we deposed him.

Meanwhile in North Korea, officials of Kim Jong Il's regime earlier this month ushered an unofficial U.S. delegation into their nuclear reactor complex at Yongbyon, and invited a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sigfried Hecker, to examine what was apparently a sample of plutonium--that's nuclear bomb fuel--contained in a jelly jar.

This is taken, usually by the same crowd critical of the U.S. war to remove Saddam, as supporting evidence in the argument that we cannot remove Kim because, among other things, he does have weapons of mass destruction.

One might be tempted to conclude, then, that our only window for intervening in the quest of a threatening, terrorist-linked regime dabbling in WMDs is in that precise time window when there is irrefutable evidence that the rulers are developing WMD capability, but before the wares are ready to be handed out to terrorists or brandished in jelly jars as a "deterrent" to extort concessions from the free world. Except that this seems to be precisely the turf occupied at the moment by Iran, with its nuclear program, and while the clerics there are obviously rushing to get their bombs into production, no one genuinely seems to be preparing to stop that, either.

Meanwhile, to round out a little more of this picture, in Libya, our new pal Moammar Gadhafi, who has now renounced weapons of mass destruction, just treated visiting Rep. Curt Weldon to a tour of a Libyan nuclear reactor. In response, Mr. Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, effused that if Libya continues to cooperate, diplomatic normalization may be just ahead, and then--he was addressing the Libyan dictator who for the past 35 years has ruled Libya as a virtual prison camp, and still does--"there is no limit to what we can accomplish together."

I am left with the odd thought that of all the many evil things done by this roster of truly brutal, murderous, internationally aggressive regimes, the only one to actually use weapons of mass destruction was the now-designated-as-WMD-less Saddam.

Meanwhile, not so long ago, it was Afghanistan, a place lacking in almost every amenity, including weapons of mass destruction, that served as the launching base for the world's worst terrorist attack. The real WMDs, one might say, were the Al Qaeda planners, and their Taliban hosts.

Which brings me back to the current U.S. debate, in which the agreed trigger for action seems somehow restricted to weapons of mass destruction--and the sure knowledge and certain existence thereof. This is peculiar in itself. While WMDs certainly matter, they are by no means the sum total of an evil regime's capacity to do damage. In the case of the Soviet Union, which possessed thousands of nuclear warheads and conducted hundreds of detectable nuclear tests, none of those bombs ever actually went off in a war. Yet the harm done by that corrosive empire was vast beyond imagining, and in very tangible ways--including such legacies as Kim's North Korea--still haunts us today.

According to "The Black Book of Communism," the death toll from communism was some 100 million people. That same system supplied to a host of nations worldwide, including in the Middle East, blueprints for the one thing that Soviet communism developed with greater efficiency than any other system ever devised--techniques for the repression of human beings. And it is political repression, not weapons of mass destruction per se, that has turned the Middle East into the danger it now constitutes for the democratic world.

But somehow, in the hurly-burly of election-year politics, the focus is all on those elusive weapons. By all means, beef up our intelligence and double-check information--and wish everyone good luck in penetrating with perfect clarity the secrecy and layers of lies that are precisely the specialty of the world's most dangerous states. But let's not pretend that this is the chief standard by which we will ensure the safety of our children's children.

We seem to be heading for the surreal conclusion that it is all right to be a murderous tyrant who only thinks he is pursuing weapons of mass destruction--even if he apparently believes it himself strongly enough to take the risk of kicking out U.N. arms inspectors for four years. Somehow, I am not comforted by the vision of a Saddam presiding over a country where he is allocating resources for WMD, terrorists are traipsing through, and whatever is really going on is anyone's guess, including Saddam's.

What needs to start sinking in, somehow, is that while arsenals matter, what matters even more is the set of rules and values that a regime defends and its leaders live by. This, more than anything signed on paper or offered as totalitarian propaganda, tells us where the worst dangers lie. We have heard by now too many discussions in which mass graves, mass starvation, conventional mass murder and terrorist trafficking are all somehow hived off from the high and nuanced talk of geostrategy, of bomb estimates and inspections, so scientific but imprecise.

It is necessary in this war to ask where we can best spend our scarce resources. But in judging the priorities, it would be a good idea to be less focused right now on a near-religious calling to base policy on WMD bean counters, and more concerned with creating incentives for dictators to be running so scared that they will not only foreswear weapons of mass murder, but take on the burden themselves of proving to us that they have no such programs or intentions. We are far from that point, and whatever delights the current squabble over Saddam's WMDs may afford, it does nothing to serve the real security needs of the democratic world. Ms. Rosett is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/in_the_medi...m?doc_id=204552

[Tiger Al 0]

Ms. Rosett makes a compelling case for why we wasted time and resources on our quest for Saddam.

[Tigermike 3,711]

Ms. Rosett makes a compelling case for why we wasted time and resources on our quest for Saddam.

And I think as usual you missed the entire point of her article.

[rexbo 104]

Jenny, your whole argument is predicated on the assumption that Saddam actually had the capabilities that Bush said he did. He did not.

No, her argument is not predicated on the assumption that Saddam had WMDs. Her argument was that even if there were NOT WMD, with the intelligence that we did have, AND the 12+ years experience of Saddam, Bush was acting on the best information possible, and with the safety of the American people in mind. He did not give Saddam the benefit of the doubt, Saddam did NOT deserve it, regardless of how many UN inspectors were crawling around a country the size of California.

[Tiger Al 0]

Jenny, your whole argument is predicated on the assumption that Saddam actually had the capabilities that Bush said he did. He did not.

No, her argument is not predicated on the assumption that Saddam had WMDs. Her argument was that even if there were NOT WMD, with the intelligence that we did have, AND the 12+ years experience of Saddam, Bush was acting on the best information possible, and with the safety of the American people in mind. He did not give Saddam the benefit of the doubt, Saddam did NOT deserve it, regardless of how many UN inspectors were crawling around a country the size of California.

You really don't give this much thought, do you?

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Jenny, your whole argument is predicated on the assumption that Saddam actually had the capabilities that Bush said he did. He did not.

YES HE DID - HE USED THEM. What more proof did one need? If he used them all up against the Kurds, then fine. But since no one could confirm that he used them all up and never made more to replace them, how can we sit back and take that chance? We KNEW he was supporting terrorism - by giving aid and comfort and safe harbor if not more overt types of support. We KNEW he had used them before and therefor must assume he would have no qualms about either using them again himself or giving them to someone who would.

Bottom line - we did what we thought at the time to be the right thing for the right reasons - and I still stand by that and agree with it. I repeat from my earlier post - if GWB had not gone in, and some terrorist had used a weapon Saddam gave him against Americans, GWB would have been CRUCIFIED for not doing anyting when he had intell that told him there was a chance Saddam had WMD. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't once again. So GWB decided that if he is going to be dammed either way, he was at least going to do some good inthe process - and he has. NO MORE SADDAM. And I respect and applaud him for doing it, instead of kowtowing to France and Germany and kissing the UN's ass like most of the Dem candidates would do if they had been in his shoes.

[Tiger Al 0]

We were getting FRESH intel all the time before Bush pulled the plug on it. Good God, Jenny, you're a smart woman but when it comes to Dubya and Iraq you put your intelligence in your purse! Look at this objectively. If we thought, based on information that was in most cases 4-5 years old, that Saddam had WMD's then wouldn't it be wise to get more up to date info if possible before sending troops into harms way and surely killing civilians? UNMOVIC was providing that info! Everywhere we thought weapons were, they looked and proved that they weren't. Time after time. So, if Bush's concern was for the disarmament of Saddam (which was his primary concern) then why proceed with war when there is an alternative (which he said he would exhaust all options before choosing war) that is less costly to human lives and provides the desired results?

I've pointed this out before, but I'll do it again. Any chemical weapons Saddam possessed prior to Desert Storm were useless. Period. The question for UNMOVIC was did he have any programs that had been restarted and they clearly, before the invasion, said no. So, unaccounted for chemicals really are a moot point.

It's funny how you applaud Bush for not kowtowing to the UN, France and Germany and you treat the Democrats with condescencion when, in reality, all of those people were right and Bush was wrong. Sugarcoat that with Bush's "good intentions" if you like, but the fact of the matter is that too many people knew his WMD claim was a farce from the beginning.

BTW, why are you posting anonymously?

[channonc 466]

Al, this is one issue where I disagree with you.

In my opinion, Saddam was the one with the burden of proof, not the UN, not the US. Resolution 687, made by the UN, clearly states:

8.  Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision of:

a. All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all

related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and

manufacturing facilities;

B. All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres and

related major parts, and repair and production facilities;

9. Decides, for the implementation of paragraph 8 above, the following:

a. Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General, within fifteen days of

the adoption of the present resolution, a declaration of the locations, amounts

and types of all items specified in paragraph 8 and agree to urgent, on-site

inspection as specified below;

B. The Secretary-General, in consultation with the appropriate

Governments and, where appropriate, with the Director-General of the World

Health Organization, within forty-five days of the passage of the present

resolution, shall develop, and submit to the Council for approval, a plan

calling for the completion of the following acts within forty-five days of such

approval:

(i) The forming of a Special Commission, which shall carry out immediate

on-site inspection of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile

capabilities, based on Iraq's declarations and the designation of any

additional locations by the Special Commission itself;

(ii) The yielding by Iraq of possession to the Special Commission for

destruction, removal or rendering harmless, taking into account the

requirements of public safety, of all items specified under paragraph

8 a. above, including items at the additional locations designated

by the Special Commission under paragraph 9 B. ( i) above and the

destruction by Iraq, under the supervision of the Special Commission,

of all its missile capabilities, including launchers, as specified

under paragraph 8 B. above;

(iii) The provision by the Special Commission of the assistance and

cooperation to the Director-General of the International Atomic

Energy Agency required in paragraphs 12 and 13 below;

10. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally undertake not to use,

develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified in paragraphs 8 and 9

above and requests the Secretary-General, in consultation with the Special

Commission, to develop a plan for the future ongoing monitoring and

verification of Iraq's compliance with this paragraph, to be submitted to the

Security Council for approval within one hundred and twenty days of the passage

of this resolution;

Not to bore you with the rest of the resolution... here's the link if you want to read more...

http://www.unog.ch/uncc/resolutio/res0687.pdf

Anyway, my point is, as a member of the UN we have a right to defend these resolutions that have been voted on by other countries. In my opinion, its not about weapons its about a principle. Every other nasty world leader is watching this, and if the US and for that matter the UN doesn't enforce these things, well then what's the point.

I know you will come back with "the UN should have enforced it and not the US" well my opinion is the UN had 12 years to step up and do its duty, it didn't. We ended up having to do the dirty work and look bad in the process. Its unfortunate that the UN doesn't have a back bone.

[Jenny AU-92 0]

We were getting FRESH intel all the time before Bush pulled the plug on it. Good God, Jenny, you're a smart woman but when it comes to Dubya and Iraq you put your intelligence in your purse! Look at this objectively. If we thought, based on information that was in most cases 4-5 years old, that Saddam had WMD's then wouldn't it be wise to get more up to date info if possible before sending troops into harms way and surely killing civilians? UNMOVIC was providing that info! Everywhere we thought weapons were, they looked and proved that they weren't. Time after time. So, if Bush's concern was for the disarmament of Saddam (which was his primary concern) then why proceed with war when there is an alternative (which he said he would exhaust all options before choosing war) that is less costly to human lives and provides the desired results?

I've pointed this out before, but I'll do it again. Any chemical weapons Saddam possessed prior to Desert Storm were useless. Period. The question for UNMOVIC was did he have any programs that had been restarted and they clearly, before the invasion, said no. So, unaccounted for chemicals really are a moot point.

It's funny how you applaud Bush for not kowtowing to the UN, France and Germany and you treat the Democrats with condescencion when, in reality, all of those people were right and Bush was wrong. Sugarcoat that with Bush's "good intentions" if you like, but the fact of the matter is that too many people knew his WMD claim was a farce from the beginning.

BTW, why are you posting anonymously?

Fresh intel from the inspectors? Sure, fresh as potted meat in a hunting camp. Yeah, those inspectors really had Sadaam's unqualified open door policy in place, right? That is crap - the whole inspections process was a farce from the beginning! The only way to find out for sure was to make sure he could not interfere with inspections - by taking him out. We did not have very good HUMINT on the ground in Iraq - or, for that matter, in almost any part of the Middle East - and so fresh intel is very hard to come by. Why do you think it took so long to get Sadaam? We had no network of human resources in country prior to the attack, and no reliable sources once the attack was over. That is a glaring weakness in our Middle East intelligence, and always has been. If I had it to do over, I would get a degree in Middle East Studies, become fluent in Arabic, and write my own ticket to Washington. Thanks to eight years of intel cutbacks and inept management of the intel we KNEW to be reliable, we were WAY behind the eight ball in the Middle East and we paid the price for that.

The UN and France and Germany were not "Right" and Bush was "wrong" - they never said he didn't have WMD - they were just opposed to the US doing anything without their offical stamp of approval, which we could care less about. And now what we have long suspected has been shown to be true - France was getting kickback on oil sales from Iraq. Gee, I guess Chirac's reluctance to invade Iraq had NOTHING to do with any dirty little secrets he was trying to hide.

Al, you cannot change my position on this. I still think we did the right thing by taking this guy out, and I don't give a flip if the reason was that GWB did not like the way Sadaam brushed his teeth. Finding the Abul Abas guy who had been hiding in Iraq was enough for me to support anything GWB did, does or will do that in his opinion is necessary for the security of this country! Iraq was a safe harbor for terrorists, and is not one any longer. Period.

I am not posting anonymously because I want to - I can't fix it, and I think DKW set my profile up like this for some reason. You'd have to ask him.

[rexbo 104]

You really don't give this much thought, do you?

I am not your child, I have heard this for the last time. You have tried this as a so called 'response' many times before, when I have laid out the facts and my opinions very clearly. When you are ready to rebut in an adult way, I will be happy to continue discussions, until then, Good Day!

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Al, this is one issue where I disagree with you.

In my opinion, Saddam was the one with the burden of proof, not the UN, not the US. Resolution 687, made by the UN, clearly states:

Anyway, my point is, as a member of the UN we have a right to defend these resolutions that have been voted on by other countries. In my opinion, its not about weapons its about a principle. Every other nasty world leader is watching this, and if the US and for that matter the UN doesn't enforce these things, well then what's the point.

I know you will come back with "the UN should have enforced it and not the US" well my opinion is the UN had 12 years to step up and do its duty, it didn't. We ended up having to do the dirty work and look bad in the process. Its unfortunate that the UN doesn't have a back bone.

Wow - I am so impresed!! Thanks, channon, for providing such a rational explanation - you are right on the money. The US has to stand up for what's right even when the UN and the rest of the world prefers to hide its head in the sand. We can't afford to twiddle our thumbs anymore.