Iraqi WMDs Revisited - The Redux

[The Avon Lady]

I ask that the moderators control this thread by tossing out the completely OT posts, rather than by locking the thread like they did the last time (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=91656). :shifty:

Here we go:

Melanie Phillips: ‘I found Saddam’s WMD bunkers’ (http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=502).

[down and out]

Does he not have copies of his own reports filed ?

Onwards to Syria I guess :shifty:

[Skybird]

Worth to keep an eye on what this leads to.

However, nobody denies that Saddam has had WMD in the past. Question is, what past: one year ago, or ten years ago, or more. Gaubatz found sites - but when was it that they had been filled with something?

The most interesting part is about the centrifuges in Syria. Independent verification on that info? Goggle only showed plenty of accusations made by this or that people, but no evidence, photo, whatever.

It also does not excuse the war, which was launched on claims of already having solid information about Saddam having WMDs. But Gaubatz's conclusions obviously were not available back then, and thus were not considered.

[The Avon Lady]

Does he not have copies of his own reports filed ?

I'm sure there are standard regulations not allowing classified files to be copied anywhere else.

[UglyMowgli]

They were 5 other agents with him why none of them speaks and only this guy? why the media never look themfor interview?

[The Avon Lady]

They were 5 other agents with him why none of them speaks and only this guy? why the media never look themfor interview?
Good questions. Some more reading from Melanie Phillips (hot off the Internet):

The questions that need to be asked about those WMD (http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1503).

EDIT: She answers your 2nd question:

But when it comes to Iraq, the western media behave collectively out of character. There is no openness to any facts that challenge the ‘line’. There is a mindset, so powerful as to amount to a kind of collective brainwashing, that it is been ‘proved’ that there were no WMD in Saddam’s Iraq. Any claim to the contrary, however authoritative or persuasive, is therefore brushed aside. Even the brief public appearance on an official US website of the Saddam tape transcripts referred to in the memorandum above — in one of which Saddam could be heard talking in 2002-2003 about his ongoing nuclear programme — was referred to only in passing by the New York Times in a report whose incoherence managed to bury this explosive revelation altogether. The docile US media, dependent as it is on government sources and handouts, is all too easily intimidated or bought off by pressure from a myriad different sources which all have their own conflicting reasons to suppress such politically damaging revelations. Too many important reputations in the media now rest on the ruthless suppression of the faintest possibility that they might have been wrong.

[UglyMowgli]

So it is an another conspiracy, but him (Gaubatz) why he didn't aks his collegues to corroborate what he saw? He look like David Vincent who saw the invader but nobody trust him.

[Skybird]

Well, if the american policy which led to the war wouldn't have manipulated information so masisvely, told lies and sold all credibility thta was left, people today wouldn't be so aversive against trusting something said by America again. Things like the Uran-Niger-Deal, the Al Quaeda-Saddam-axis, mobile ultra-modern C- and B-weapon labs on trucks, "solid information of Saddam actually having WMDs", and Blair's missile-memo did not helpt to build trustworthiness. as a result nobody believes america anything anymore.

As for me, I will always criticise the war for having been launched as part of a longterm strategic agenda that had nothing to do with WMD and Saddam, and by maniuplating and teling lies to the public. however, I am no dogmatic. I am willing to keep listening to what comes of this story Gaubatz is telling, and on that part concerning Syria, and Iran's distracting role. That I attacked Bush and still do so does not mean that I am in love with the Un or the europeans.

All I demand is solid evidence and reasonable conclusions concernign why it is needed to go to war - and I want this BEFORE declaring war, not a roulette-type game of play: first bomb them, and then hope we find something. I can't move on the street and stab the first person I meet, and when the body is searched it is found it was an explosive belt under the coat - although I prevented a terror attack BY CHANCE, I still would be brought to trial for murder - because at the time of my attack I did not know that it was a terrorist.

War always means death, destruction, and suffering on incredible scale. The highest standards to judge if it is needed or not is just good enough. Let's not repeat the mistakes Bush has made and mess up all credibilitx and trustworthiness again. Longterm support of public opinion can only be secured if it is beyond any doubt that the target of that war effort is as guilty as can be. And only then we can claim the morally superior argument. before any war, we also need to clean pur credibility with regard to our choosen "allies". As long as we call Saudi Arabia and Pakistan "freinds", we are not talking serious, but babble only. We also need to strengthen what in martial arts would be called our "stand": standing on good, solid ground, still being able to move with flexibility. As long as we (and our war machine) depends on Muhameddan oil, we accept an unacceptable ammount of vulnerability. the many econoimical, private and plutocratic ties between western, especially American, oligarchs, and Arab representatoves of the rhich elite, also need to be stopped, for it corrupts parts of our leadership and make these persons act against our own interests.

So, that agent has found "sites". No weapons. He cannot say what was stored there, and when. He made conclusions from that and from resident's witnessing, but this do not replace solid information. I checked the first seven pages in google when entering that man'S name, he does not seem to be a cheater. That he is critical of Islam does not reduce his competence. So my conclusion: the issue is worth to be investigated, and with priority.

[The Avon Lady]

So it is an another conspiracy,
Well, you've got someone giving direct testimony as to the events he witnessesed that are relevant to his job position. So conspiracy doesn't sound like the right word.
but him (Gaubatz) why he didn't aks his collegues to corroborate what he saw?
It's too soon to tell. This has just come out. Fear, perhaps? Or possibly disagreement with Gaubatz's assessments and/or conclusions? Stay tuned................

[baggygreen]

I was nearly hung drawn and quartered at the ANU for suggesting that the different events in Iran and NK are most likely linked and part of an international push against the west for a bomb to be developed. I of course had no idea about centrifuges operating in Syria and would like it to be verified a touch more, personally. But i always suspected much (most?) of Iraqs technology went to Syria.

Huntington's clash of civilisations draws a step nearer.

[OddjobXL]

I think the first step to making sense of this story is getting a sense of the source, Melanie Phillips. I hadn't heard of her before so I did some research. She's another former lefty turned neoconservative though she followed her own path to get there. Also she's the author of a book called "Londinistan," from the sounds of it a raving screed against Muslims and a British government which is "transfixed by the artificial division it has erected between those who actively espouse violence and those who do not." This gets much praise from the Daniel Pipes end of the spectrum but not so much from elsewhere.

She's adopted the popular mantra in those circles that anyone who questions Likudnik Israeli policy or the neoconservative agenda is, by default, anti-semetic.

My assessment of Gaubatz is a bit more gentle. I think he really believes someone who told him something was right. But he didn't actually see anything - which is why he was lobbying so hard for people to go look. If I had to make the call, I'd say go do the digging and find out if anything's there. My instinct says that there are plenty of other professionals who were working the same beat and they may well have discovered other informers or evidence that discounted these sites as worthwhile. But if he's right, that's a big if, it's still too important to ignore.

And while my instincts are feeling chatty, I'd also tend to discount Ms. Phillip's suspicion that Bush's people are protecting him from embarrasement by not following up Gaubatz's claims. If I were them I'd be hot on the heels of any leads to prove Bush right. Even if the trail led to Syria it would be a great distraction for Americans from the other problems besetting the administration right now. "See, the Syrians are very bad people! Airstrikes all around!" And, in this instance, I might even agree with them. She also claims the "New York Times" article dismisses Gaubatz as a die-hard WMD nut but, frankly, it was that very article which got me thinking he genuinely believes what he's saying.

Judge for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/us/23believers.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=94e2aa34f9ef4caf&ex=1308715200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[SUBMAN1]

So it is an another conspiracy, Well, you've got someone giving direct testimony as to the events he witnessesed that are relevant to his job position. So conspiracy doesn't sound like the right word.
but him (Gaubatz) why he didn't aks his collegues to corroborate what he saw? It's too soon to tell. This has just come out. Fear, perhaps? Or possibly disagreement with Gaubatz's assessments and/or conclusions? Stay tuned................

There is also something to be said for the fact that his collegues don't discount what he says either. This guy is their boss, so maybe they think he is the person to put the facts on the line? Maybe if someone investigated, then they would be compelled to step forward. Right now, nothing looks like it is going anywhere.

-S

[Heibges]

The facts seem to be:

1. There were large well hidden storage areas in Irag.

2. There were gasmasks present at some of these locations.

3. There were atropine auto-injectors present at some of these locations.

4. There were missile imprints present at some of these locations.

The United States knew Saddam had Biological and Chemical weapons because we had the receipts from when we sold them to him.

[geetrue]

Humans have eyes and ears (CIA), satellites have eyes and ears (NSA) ...

What do you think God has? He knows all ... It's our simple trust in Him that
blesses the believer and the unbeliver in us all. WMD's have the ability to ruin someones day ...
I pray it's not the good ole USA's.

If this is OT ... I suspect the OP will tell me so ...

[Ishmael]

I rerefer you to my reply of 6/26 on the revisited thread & Dave DeBatto finding chem shells supplied to Iraq by the US government & the Carlyle group:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=91656&page=7&highlight=Iraqi+WMDs

[tycho102]

1. Don't pass resolutions you are not prepared to enforce.

2. Don't pass resolutions on resolutions which you are not prepared to enforce.

3. If you just happen to come across a mobile trailer, and that mobile trailer has continuous mixing pipes (i.e. pipes filled with static mixers (http://www.staticmixers.com/?gclid=CPqSvez50YsCFQstWAoduXSyHg)) leading out of it, find out what the chemicals make when they are mixed.

4. If they make blistering agents or caustic agents, please turn off the valves. They may have some other use (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dual+purpose+chemicals+weapon&btnG=Search) and you don't want to waste the chemicals.

5. If the pipes lead to hollow artillery shells, please do not "take the next step" of actually filling one of the shells and firing it into the nearest town.

6. Area denial weapons. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_denial_weapons) When used on civilian populations without CBR protective equipment, they become mass-murder weapons. Weapons causing the death of multiple non-combatants by exposure. They do not destroy concrete buildings, steel bridges, storage tanks, silicon breast implants, or the Thanksgiving turkey.

7. Weapon causing mass destruction of infrastructure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons), such as concrete buildings, steel bridges, telephone poles, water storage tanks, Thanksgiving turkey, and fake boobs.



8. If your international country-club passes a resolution they are not prepared to enforce, there may be a disruption in the cheese supply. Find some snails or something else to eat. Freedom fries. Whatever.

9. Atropine, 2-pam chloride. Atropine, 2-pam chloride. Atropine.
In that order.

[SUBMAN1]

Humans have eyes and ears (CIA), satellites have eyes and ears (NSA) ...

What do you think God has? He knows all ... It's our simple trust in Him that
blesses the believer and the unbeliver in us all. WMD's have the ability to ruin someones day ...
I pray it's not the good ole USA's.

If this is OT ... I suspect the OP will tell me so ...

Never test the man upstairs either since he does not like to be tested.

-S

[Hitman]

I will always criticise the war for having been launched as part of a longterm strategic agenda that had nothing to do with WMD and Saddam

May I ask you opinion on the real reasons behind the Irak campaign?

[SUBMAN1]

I will always criticise the war for having been launched as part of a longterm strategic agenda that had nothing to do with WMD and Saddam
May I ask you opinion on the real reasons behind the Irak campaign?

That might be an interesting thing to know - so yes, please do!

[Heibges]

9. Atropine, 2-pam chloride. Atropine, 2-pam chloride. Atropine.
In that order.

LOL:up:

[Skybird]

I will always criticise the war for having been launched as part of a longterm strategic agenda that had nothing to do with WMD and Saddam

May I ask you opinion on the real reasons behind the Irak campaign?
AGAIN...??? :huh:

Search button, roughly 3-4 years back. Neocon strategy and Wolfowitz doctrine as being put on paper years before Bush even was elected has been discussed and debated on this board ad nauseum, and things were pretty much... hm, let's say the discussions were very much alive... I'm not going to repeat myself for probably dozens of pages again.

[geetrue]

I will always criticise the war for having been launched as part of a longterm strategic agenda that had nothing to do with WMD and Saddam

May I ask you opinion on the real reasons behind the Irak campaign?


Okay, I'll give it a try ... Just for a moment consider yourself as the most powerful nation on the planet earth, measured by your armed forces of course. :yep:

Now consider this ... that a sub serveant little country that has a self elected president with a big ego problem is defeated in it's take over atempt of another neighboring country.

This defeated dictator has not only made threats against the father of said president of the most powerful country on earth, but has also tried to carry out those threats by giving money to foreign agents to carry out said threats. :yep:

Several years go by and the son of the man that almost got his lights punched out becomes the president of the most powerful country on planet earth.

The son loves his father and the father loves his son, they go on a fishing trip together and the father mentions to his son about his displeasure of having become a target by said defeated dictator general, resulting in son saying, "Don't worry about a thing dad" "I'll take care of this problem for you and finish the job that you started"

Said father says, "Make it look like an accident son" Son says, "I'll try my best dad"

End of story: Problem has been taken care of, but making it look like an accident didn't work ... :know:

[OddjobXL]

Not exactly. In fact most of Bush 41's people seem to have been both quietly and outspokenly against this war. There were editorials trying to warn George W. off of it by people still close to his dad and most suspect this was his way of trying to get the whole thing called off. In the more recent Iraq Study Group as well you see folks like James Baker and others who are associated with 41, political realists as they call themselves as opposed to the neoconservatives, who came out with a report that cut the legs out from under the White House's spin. After essentially ignoring the ISG Report you see them backing reluctantly into elements of it these days.

What happened, in reality, was a perfect storm of diverse and potent influences coalescing in the aftermath of 9/11 combined with a uniquely incurious and isolated President. Was an element of what drove us to war Bush's desire to avenge the attempt on his father? Possibly. No way any of us can know that for sure though he did make off-handed comments along those lines once before. Or did a more Oedipal rivalry cause him to want to "one up" the old man? You've got observers who see that too. I don't think we can know yet.

What I see are three major elements at play. The big one was a legitimate national security argument which said we have to hit the Arab world hard in such a way they'll know we mean business. It's similiar to the Israeli attitude where the belief is that if you hit your enemies hard enough they won't even want to start a fight. Now if you think this is pretty naive and is likely to blow right up in our faces, well, I'm with ya. And we've seen plenty of studies since that show this was a seriously flawed idea.

The second was the neoconservative's influence in the DoD and through Rumsfeld and Cheney. This served to amplify the thinking of folks interested in the first element and has an easily researched doctrinal past and geopolitical biases which General Zinni described as one of the worst kept secrets in Washington. Look up Team B, OSP and PNAC for more.

The third element was political. Bush's numbers had been sinking steadily until 9/11 and in order to keep him in the catbird's seat and keep the flagwaving going for the 2002 mid-term elections a war was ideal. It'd even been described by Rove as a tool to attack the Democrats on at the time. Another member of the White House when asked why the vote hadn't happened yet was told that you don't roll out a new product before the fall. Product. Hmm.

Of course, as it turned out, the Democrats were a bit too cowed by events and fears for their own political mortality to examine very closely what they were authorizing the President to do. Maybe they thought if it went poorly they could just blame Bush. It's cynical but no more so than Bush now evidently trying to extend the war until the next President is elected just so he can say he wasn't the one to lose the war. His other plan, bringing on a "war czar" to put in charge of Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be going nowhere. His mouth says "war czar" but his eyes say "scapegoat." Last count I think four generals told him no.

And there were other factors besides. If you look at why we did so badly with the occupation you also have to look at cronyism and profiteering. Incompetant party loyalists were flown into The Green Zone to carve up the pie and had no idea where they were or what they were doing. The investigations into civilian contractors haven't even started scratching the surface yet. And we still don't know who military contractors/mercenaries are accountable to for sure if anyone, how many have died or how many they've killed.

It was just a perfect storm.

[STEED]

What about Pakistan which is a smoking tinder pot? Things are not well there between the government and the Muller's. And as we all know Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

While I am on this subject next week on UK TV Channel 4 (I think, maybe CH5) there is a programme on about what's going on in Pakistan.

As for the WMD's in Iraq I am not convince about nuclear weapons but I do except they had chemical weapons which were most likely crude. As for biological well possible. I think Iraq's WMD's programme was second rate and the whole truth will never come out. This is now a academical issue as times have moved on, unless any new hard evidence sees the cold light of day.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

omg pple are still talking about this?? its been YEARS and nada... and hes dead.. who cares!!!:shifty:

[Hitman]

Search button, roughly 3-4 years back

I was not active in the general topics forum by then, so I do not remember that. And it is now in the archives, much more difficult to find.

I'm not going to repeat myself for probably dozens of pages again.

I was obviously expecting a shorter reply. My main strength is in extracting and condensing concepts in as few words as possible, so I have the -probably bad- habit of expecting people to be able to do the same. In fact, to express the reasons behind the Irak campaign according to many people I have read so far, just one word could be enough. F.e. "Oil".

I forgot that you don't seem to be satisfied with an explanation unless it is some 50+ pages long, a habit sadly also common in lawyers :roll:. Accept my apologizes for pretending that you would narrow your POW as much as to make a long story....short :dead:

Cheers

[Skybird]

Search button, roughly 3-4 years back

I was not active in the general topics forum by then, so I do not remember that. And it is now in the archives, much more difficult to find.

I'm not going to repeat myself for probably dozens of pages again.

I was obviously expecting a shorter reply. My main strength is in extracting and condensing concepts in as few words as possible, so I have the -probably bad- habit of expecting people to be able to do the same. In fact, to express the reasons behind the Irak campaign according to many people I have read so far, just one word could be enough. F.e. "Oil".

I forgot that you don't seem to be satisfied with an explanation unless it is some 50+ pages long, a habit sadly also common in lawyers :roll:. Accept my apologizes for pretending that you would narrow your POW as much as to make a long story....short :dead:

Cheers

:nope: Sonst noch was?

[Iceman]

as a result nobody believes america anything anymore.


You really believe your own BS don't you.You always AMAZE me.You really think America was the Sole source of information and act like they were the only ones doing the math..you insult all other intelligence sources by doing this. Like Europe,Israel ,Australia or whoever else ,does not have any intell of they're own and wait on Emails sent directly from CIA/FBI/NSA to tell them what is going on in the world.Nothing is sercet..it is no secret the evils that men do....wake up and smell the burning flesh and see the worms.

Please refrain from such narrow perspectives and realize it is a BIG Flipping planet with thousands of plots within plots within plots and realize no one is piloting this ship though many try.To "Blame" America is such an easy way out is'nt it Skybird.

Hey Germany...take some responsability....hey world take some ownership...good grief.

This is appropriate huh..us Americans are such war mongers...
http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/MyWebFilms/Oorlog/ApocalypseKilgore1.jpg

[baggygreen]

Steady on iceman.

I think i've seen skybird post elsewhere he is fully aware that there was more than 1 intelligence source regarding the war. Hemay be speaking in general terms - i know an extremely large number of people here DO think precisely the way skybird mentions - that its all the US's fault, they're the real root of world evil, blah blah.

Unfortunately too many people have been brainwashed and are ignorant. When the muslim caliphate comes knockin and head loppin, im sure it'll still be americas fault to most people. But i digress OT.

The official premise for the war was the removal of WMDs from Iraq. This is a very interesting piece that AL posted because most opposition parties in various govt's have come out and said that there were never any there. This information proves our governments were, to an as yet undetermined extent, right!





please dont shoot me for statin a fact!

[Tchocky]

Unfortunately too many people have been brainwashed and are ignorant. When the muslim caliphate comes knockin and head loppin, im sure it'll still be americas fault to most people. But i digress OT.
Yeah, things are tough all over. America does it too :-?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0314/p02s01-woiq.html

proper reponse to the topic when I'm not sleep-deprived

[baggygreen]

its true tchocky.

Simple fact of the matter is that people dont bother to use their minds and look critically at things. what DO they teach in schools these days??

[micky1up]

I will always criticise the war for having been launched as part of a longterm strategic agenda that had nothing to do with WMD and Saddam

May I ask you opinion on the real reasons behind the Irak campaign?


Okay, I'll give it a try ... Just for a moment consider yourself as the most powerful nation on the planet earth, measured by your armed forces of course. :yep:

Now consider this ... that a sub serveant little country that has a self elected president with a big ego problem is defeated in it's take over atempt of another neighboring country.

This defeated dictator has not only made threats against the father of said president of the most powerful country on earth, but has also tried to carry out those threats by giving money to foreign agents to carry out said threats. :yep:

Several years go by and the son of the man that almost got his lights punched out becomes the president of the most powerful country on planet earth.

The son loves his father and the father loves his son, they go on a fishing trip together and the father mentions to his son about his displeasure of having become a target by said defeated dictator general, resulting in son saying, "Don't worry about a thing dad" "I'll take care of this problem for you and finish the job that you started"

Said father says, "Make it look like an accident son" Son says, "I'll try my best dad"

End of story: Problem has been taken care of, but making it look like an accident didn't work ... :know:


all good but your not the most powerful nation on earth you cannot go to war without the senate backing and the president can be overruled china has the largest armed forces in the world that is a fact

[OddjobXL]

There is a popular fiction that the intelligence services of the world were convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to such an extent, and with such certainty, that it justified an invasion.

Those of us not watching Fox news exclusively during to the run up to war seem to recall acute skepticism on the part of most of the world's leaders. We remember Hans Blix asking for more time for inspections because he couldn't conclusively prove the existence of proscribed weapons. And since the war we've learned a good deal about international intelligence services warning the CIA about the shoddy quality on which the Administration was basing its most outlandish and inflammatory claims. Germany was warning us off Curveball, a Chalabi asset, who provided the OSP with the verbiage employed about wild-eyed weapons programs. French and Italian services were warning us off forged documents that claimed Saddam was pursuing uranium from Niger.

Britain's intelligence seemed to not only back up our claims but expand on them. They were just about unique in that role and, notably, also reliant in good part on the quality of intelligence we were providing them. But look at what was going on behind the scenes there, we've got more than our fair share of Brits on this board who know the story I'll bet, and you see huge heaps of disagreement and controversy about the quality of the claims. Hell, one "damning report" turned out to be cribbed from some Californian kid's graduate thesis.

While it can be honestly said people had reason to believe Saddam may have hidden stocks of chemical weapons he couldn't account for that's a far cry from claiming suspicion as a fact, warning that he planed to use them against America via drone aircraft or give them to al Qaida. It's worlds away from scaring people with mushroom cloud images on the horizon. That's propaganda. The only damned al Qaida in Iraq were in Kurdish territory that was verboten to Saddam and when our intelligence services asked permission to launch a pre-war strike against them they were told, no, because having them there helped make the case for war.

The Bush administration for whatever reason wanted war with Iraq and nothing was going to stop that. They lied about being sincere in the desire for a diplomatic solution, they lied about their level of knowlege of Iraq's WMD capabilities and intentions, they deliberately blurred the lines between Saddam and bin Ladin.

The cornerstone of this effort was the Office of Special Plans out of the Pentagon and it has in recent months been severely repremanded by the Pentagon Inspector General's Office for its activities. They had one goal and that was undermining the professional intelligence services that were skeptical of the administration's claims. Yes, there were individuals in the CIA that also played ball but that was more as a consequence of the pressure being put on it via the Vice-President's office. The OSP bears a huge amount of further scruitiny and it will be scoured sooner or later.

[geetrue]

There is a popular fiction that the intelligence services of the world were convinced that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to such an extent, and with such certainty, that it justified an invasion.

Those of us not watching Fox news exclusively during to the run up to war seem to recall acute skepticism on the part of most of the world's leaders. We remember Hans Blix asking for more time for inspections because he couldn't conclusively prove the existence of proscribed weapons. And since the war we've learned a good deal about international intelligence services warning the CIA about the shoddy quality on which the Administration was basing its most outlandish and inflammatory claims. Germany was warning us off Curveball, a Chalabi asset, who provided the OSP with the verbiage employed about wild-eyed weapons programs. French and Italian services were warning us off forged documents that claimed Saddam was pursuing uranium from Niger.

Britain's intelligence seemed to not only back up our claims but expand on them. They were just about unique in that role and, notably, also reliant in good part on the quality of intelligence we were providing them. But look at what was going on behind the scenes there, we've got more than our fair share of Brits on this board who know the story I'll bet, and you see huge heaps of disagreement and controversy about the quality of the claims. Hell, one "damning report" turned out to be cribbed from some Californian kid's graduate thesis.

While it can be honestly said people had reason to believe Saddam may have hidden stocks of chemical weapons he couldn't account for that's a far cry from claiming suspicion as a fact, warning that he planed to use them against America via drone aircraft or give them to al Qaida. It's worlds away from scaring people with mushroom cloud images on the horizon. That's propaganda. The only damned al Qaida in Iraq were in Kurdish territory that was verboten to Saddam and when our intelligence services asked permission to launch a pre-war strike against them they were told, no, because having them there helped make the case for war.

The Bush administration for whatever reason wanted war with Iraq and nothing was going to stop that. They lied about being sincere in the desire for a diplomatic solution, they lied about their level of knowlege of Iraq's WMD capabilities and intentions, they deliberately blurred the lines between Saddam and bin Ladin.

The cornerstone of this effort was the Office of Special Plans out of the Pentagon and it has in recent months been severely repremanded by the Pentagon Inspector General's Office for its activities. They had one goal and that was undermining the professional intelligence services that were skeptical of the administration's claims. Yes, there were individuals in the CIA that also played ball but that was more as a consequence of the pressure being put on it via the Vice-President's office. The OSP bears a huge amount of further scruitiny and it will be scoured sooner or later.

I tried to edit just what I liked out of what you said, OddjobXL ... but I couldn't.

Why, because it is a well thought out truth that you have posted ... I don't know where the OP is ... she started all of this ... sabbath day is over Lady Avon ... where are you?

My post was in humor, but the one seed I would like to leave is America is not to be blamed for anything ... instead the free world should be saying thank you President Bush for expending human lives at cost of billions to protect us from bullies with the ability to do what they threatened like Saddam Hussein ...

Someone else said it on these very same forums,
"Can you imagine what Iraq would be like if Saddams son's were in power"?

[Skybird]

There is a popular fiction that...
(...)
... a huge amount of further scruitiny and it will be scoured sooner or later.
Great post! :up: Couldn't have expressed it any better myself.

[Skybird]

because most opposition parties in various govt's have come out and said that there were never any there.

Name a single government or opposition having said that. Nobody I ever heared of ever said something like that. It is proven fact that Iraq once had chemical weapons, in the late 80s and early 90s. If they still had these in 2003 - this is the question. If you find a storing site, you still need to proove that once it was filled with something. And when that was the case.

If Bush really knew beyond doubt, on basis of solid evidence - AS HE AND MEMBERS OF HIS GOVERNMENT HAVE CLAIMED! - that Iraq still had weapons left from the stocks during the 80s and early 90s, and even was producing new ones, then it should have been possible to just go to these well-proven, well-known sites and show them to all the world. The Americans claimed to have solid evidence, or have you forgotten that?

All what was foudn so far was a little dirt under the fingernail, deriving from more than one and a half decade ago - when Iraq was confirmed to have had chemical weapons.

Arguments before one goes to war - may be reasons to go to war. Aeguments that are given not before, but after a war, and that has been chnaged, and altered, and replaced or complemented by others - or no reasons, but foul excuses.

So, it is beyond doubt that Iraq has had chemical weapons, and nobody ever said anything different as to my best knowledge. If it still had them during the last couple of years before the war - this is the decisive question.

And maybe next time you can spare your personal ranting, it makes it easier to communicate, you know.

[Tchocky]

Interesting piece from Salon

biased as hell, but that fits the thread nicely :P

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/21/wmd_conspiracy/index.html

[The Avon Lady]

If Bush really knew beyond doubt, on basis of solid evidence - AS HE AND MEMBERS OF HIS GOVERNMENT HAVE CLAIMED! - snip................
Who let the Dems out? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePb6H-j51xE)

Parroting the same nonsense as the rest of the Bu****ler crowd, Skybird? :down: When will you catch on?

[August]

We ought to define what constituted "solid evidence" PRE-invasion as some people here seem to confuse that with a post invasion standard where you have a press conference putting captured wmd on display and backed up with test results from independant labs confirming the substances in them.

Pre invasion "solid evidence" on the other hand would be reports from defectors, known prior posession and use, the logistic capability and techical expertise to make more, UN inspectors getting 10 years of the run around as well as periodic expulsions, NBC equipment and training for the Iraqi army and lets not forget Saddams own threats to use wmd if attacked.

All of that together would consititute pretty "solid evidence" imo and the opposition party apparently agreed with the administration, at least until it became politically expedient to pretend otherwise.

[Iceman]

If Bush really knew beyond doubt, on basis of solid evidence - AS HE AND MEMBERS OF HIS GOVERNMENT HAVE CLAIMED! - snip................
Who let the Dems out? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePb6H-j51xE)

Parroting the same nonsense as the rest of the Bu****ler crowd, Skybird? :down: When will you catch on?

Great link. :up:

A decision was made and now more must be made as well...

like a dog that returns to the vomit ....again...to be or not to be, isn't that the question really, not did he have em or not...that can be haggled over by historians.I know the topic thread is to be or not to be, but is is hard for me to dwell in the past like that and not try to find some solution to the current situation. America future is definatly uncertain when our own leaders cannot agree to disagree and at least still be productive somehow...

I thought this was appropriate for my post at least...


The Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

God Bless the troops and see them thru.

[OddjobXL]

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. I wonder how many of my fellow American voters even remember what the Gulf of Tonkin incident really was.

I do agree we need to try to figure a way out of the situation we're in but I don't know how we can have a reasoned debate about it with the people responsible for it still in charge. They control information, or try to, and it's impossible to know the real intentions here. Are they just covering their asses after launching a floundering war or do they have genuinely good points to make about what the consequences of our action in Iraq will be? There's no way we can know and this administration has been caught red-handed in so many lies and manipulations, even beyond the Iraq war, you have to wonder how much you can trust them or whether too even bother. And before people start running for the nooses and the shotguns, no, I don't favor impeachment as a practical matter.

Right now I'm of the opinion Petraeus, our new leader in Iraq, is a pretty brilliant guy and after reading his manual on how to conduct counter-insurgency operations I'm convinced he knows what he's about. What I'm not sure of is whether brilliant tactics will ultimately counter a deepseated desire between the Sunni and the Shiites for score-settling or if they can ever get over their animosities enough to resolve political differences. Tamping down on militias in Baghdad does make for some breathing room but you see violence exploding anew elsewhere in Iraq that more than makes up for it. And, it's also true, that the Petraeus doctrine calls for many, many, more troops than he actually has even with the surge. But we just can't sustain that as a practical matter. I have heard from a buddy of mine in Ramadi that things are looking up there a little right now - that's a good thing. But long term, nothing will keep Iran from manipulating the Shiites and Saudi Arabia, land of the wahabbis and bin Ladins, from sending jihadis to help the Sunnis.

The best we can do, I believe, is contain the situation. The ISG has a good policy though even that's a longshot at this point. It's also a bipartisan report that sets up cover for both political parties to do the right thing. We see Bush slowly, and reluctantly, backing into elements of it under the influence of Condi Rice - the same administration official who okayed the report's panel forming. Tugging against her is Cheney and the remaining neocon element in the White House who still, according to one general that turned down the "war czar" post, do call most of the shots. On the other hand you see several Democratic presidential candidates also embracing the ISG including Obama.

It could yet show us a way out.

[The Avon Lady]

Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. I wonder how many of my fellow American voters even remember what the Gulf of Tonkin incident really was.
The only problem is there's no analogy between the 2.
I do agree we need to try to figure a way out of the situation we're in but I don't know how we can have a reasoned debate about it with the people responsible for it still in charge. They control information, or try to, and it's impossible to know the real intentions here. Are they just covering their asses after launching a floundering war or do they have genuinely good points to make about what the consequences of our action in Iraq will be?
A combination of both, I would think.
There's no way we can know and this administration has been caught red-handed in so many lies and manipulations,
This is a lie that's repeated over and over again but it doesn't make it any truer, unless you hold by the philosophy of "false but accurate".
But long term, nothing will keep Iran from manipulating the Shiites and Saudi Arabia, land of the wahabbis and bin Ladins, from sending jihadis to help the Sunnis.
Yep. Which is why the US should shuffle out as smoothly as possible.
The best we can do, I believe, is contain the situation. The ISG has a good policy though even that's a longshot at this point. It's also a bipartisan report that sets up cover for both political parties to do the right thing. We see Bush slowly, and reluctantly, backing into elements of it under the influence of Condi Rice - the same administration official who okayed the report's panel forming. Tugging against her is Cheney and the remaining neocon element in the White House who still, according to one general that turned down the "war czar" post, do call most of the shots. On the other hand you see several Democratic presidential candidates also embracing the ISG including Obama.

It could yet show us a way out.
Right.

Talk to Iran and Syria. See where that gets you.

ISG - talk about certain people and their greed for oil dollars!

What was it someone here once said, quoting Santayana? "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Oh................... that was you. :yep:

[OddjobXL]

The only problem is there's no analogy between the 2.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incidient was manipulated by the Johnson administration to give us causus belli against North Vietnam. People bought into the claim uncritically and so we ended up rooked into a war the American people didn't really understand, it was fundamentally about nationalism on the local level, and ultimately didn't have the will to sustain. Not that it should have ever been engaged in in the first place.

This is a lie that's repeated over and over again but it doesn't make it any truer, unless you hold by the philosophy of "false but accurate".
I really don't know where to start here. How much time do you have?

But long term, nothing will keep Iran from manipulating the Shiites and Saudi Arabia, land of the wahabbis and bin Ladins, from sending jihadis to help the Sunnis.
Yep. Which is why the US should shuffle out as smoothly as possible.
I think so, with caveats. Look, I'm as big a fan of those old French Foreign Legion films as the next guy but I don't think we need to retrace those steps. The caveats are that we need to engage the people with a stake in Iraq, which most definitely includes every nation in a position to cause trouble, and cobble together a consensus that minimizes the chance of this blowing up into a full blown regional war. To lower temperatures it's pretty clear moving our guys out is the answer. However, doing that too quickly or without a framework in place would, I agree with what I think is your intent here, lead to just such a situation.

There are no easy or good answers but staying there forever and crossing our fingers and hoping that magical unicorns and pixies show up to save the day isn't going to help at all. We simply can't sustain this pace of operations until kingdom come so it's best to figure out how to extract ourselves on our own terms but in a responsible way.

Right.

Talk to Iran and Syria. See where that gets you.

Iran was cooperating with us in Afghanistan and Syria was accepting rendition suspects for "interrogation" on our behalf. At least they were before the "Axis of Evil" speech. I don't mistake either nation for swell guys but I'm getting really annoyed with the demonization that's going on. The neocons want to push an agenda against Iran and Syria, I get that, but they can do that on their own dime. I think the American taxpayer is getting fed up with the crap they've gotten us into already. Even polls in Israel since the Lebanon action, perceived as a proxy war between Washington and Tehran, show increasing dissatisfaction with Bush's policies in the middle east and rightly so. They're in the worst strategic position they've been in a long time thanks to the good intentions of their champions in the neoconservative movement.

ISG - talk about certain people and their greed for oil dollars!

What was it someone here once said, quoting Santayana? "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Oh................... that was you. :yep:
Care to expand on this line of thought?

[The Avon Lady]

The only problem is there's no analogy between the 2.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incidient was manipulated by the Johnson administration to give us causus belli against North Vietnam. People bought into the claim uncritically and so we ended up rooked into a war the American people didn't really understand, it was fundamentally about nationalism on the local level, and ultimately didn't have the will to sustain. Not that it should have ever been engaged in in the first place.
As I said, these 2 are not like one another.
This is a lie that's repeated over and over again but it doesn't make it any truer, unless you hold by the philosophy of "false but accurate".
I really don't know where to start here. How much time do you have?
Spend it as you please. However, most go home and get dinner on the table.
But long term, nothing will keep Iran from manipulating the Shiites and Saudi Arabia, land of the wahabbis and bin Ladins, from sending jihadis to help the Sunnis.
Yep. Which is why the US should shuffle out as smoothly as possible.
I think so, with caveats. Look, I'm as big a fan of those old French Foreign Legion films as the next guy but I don't think we need to retrace those steps. The caveats are that we need to engage the people with a stake in Iraq, which most definitely includes every nation in a position to cause trouble, and cobble together a consensus that minimizes the chance of this blowing up into a full blown regional war.
That might actually be a good thing.
To lower temperatures it's pretty clear moving our guys out is the answer. However, doing that too quickly or without a framework in place would, I agree with what I think is your intent here, lead to just such a situation.
Temperatures will not be lowered either way. My concern is solely for the well-being of coalition forces taking a step back, so as not to get singed by the fireworks that will ensue.
There are no easy or good answers but staying there forever and crossing our fingers and hoping that magical unicorns and pixies show up to save the day isn't going to help at all. We simply can't sustain this pace of operations until kingdom come so it's best to figure out how to extract ourselves on our own terms but in a responsible way.
That much we agree on.
Right.

Talk to Iran and Syria. See where that gets you.

Iran was cooperating with us in Afghanistan and Syria was accepting rendition suspects for "interrogation" on our behalf.
LOL!
My enemy's enemy is my friend.

One Al Qaeda suspect thrown at Syria, as if the US was doing Syria a favor. Big cooperation there! Syria - gotta love 'em!

Anything else you care to blwo out of context and proportion?
At least they were before the "Axis of Evil" speech. I don't mistake either nation for swell guys but I'm getting really annoyed with the demonization that's going on.
Ah, the truth hurts.
The neocons
There's that magic hookie-pookie word again.
want to push an agenda
Do moonbats have an agenda, too?

Fun with words. :roll:
against Iran and Syria, I get that, but they can do that on their own dime. I think the American taxpayer is getting fed up with the crap they've gotten us into already.
There are ways to do things on the cheap.
Even polls in Israel since the Lebanon action, perceived as a proxy war between Washington and Tehran,
Yada, yada. Proxy shmoxy. Hizballah attacks inside Israel, triggering a war. Israel blew the oportunity to fight the war the way it should have been fought. Now the idiots at the helm here are in major damage/spin control to keep their tushes on their power cushions.
show increasing dissatisfaction with Bush's policies in the middle east and rightly so. They're in the worst strategic position they've been in a long time thanks to the good intentions of their champions in the neoconservative movement.
Even I mostly agree with that, being a so-imagined little neocon meself. That's why the term is worthless.
ISG - talk about certain people and their greed for oil dollars!

What was it someone here once said, quoting Santayana? "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Oh................... that was you. :yep:
Care to expand on this line of thought?
I thought it was self-explanatory.

Israel's 59th Independence Day here, beginning tonight. Don't know how much of a chance to go online I'll have until Wednesday.

[geetrue]

Wow, Avon Lady found someone she can parry with, standing toe to toe with ...

Good job oddjob ... you too Lady Avon :up:

Personally I don't think we should leave Iraq as long as one camafloged bible is being carried by our troops over there.

After WWII General McAuthur said, "What Japan needs now is 10,000 missionaries"

As for WMD's let them stay hidden ... I don't care if I ever hear the entire story (from the grave), as long as we don't have to start another thread on mass destruction, it's okay with me.

[OddjobXL]

The only problem is there's no analogy between the 2.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incidient was manipulated by the Johnson administration to give us causus belli against North Vietnam. People bought into the claim uncritically and so we ended up rooked into a war the American people didn't really understand, it was fundamentally about nationalism on the local level, and ultimately didn't have the will to sustain. Not that it should have ever been engaged in in the first place.
As I said, these 2 are not like one another.
Are you kidding me? The American public thought it was going after the people who attacked us on 9/11 when we invaded Iraq. Polls showed that well into 2004 over 50% of the American public believed Saddam was directly responsible for the attacks. How could this possibly be, you ask? Because the administration pushed like crazy to make that connection if in a mostly round-a-bout way.

Now, look at the polls today and the vast majority of the public believes the administration lied to them, that the war wasn't worth it and the troops should start coming home. You don't see the similiarities between the way both administrations manipulated evidence and sold the public a bill of goods?

This is a lie that's repeated over and over again but it doesn't make it any truer, unless you hold by the philosophy of "false but accurate".
I really don't know where to start here. How much time do you have?Spend it as you please. However, most go home and get dinner on the table.

Let's look at the big claims the administration made to sell the congress and the public on the war. Aluminum tubes to be used in uranium purification process. Disputed internally by the Energy Department and the State Department. Additionally by the International Atomic Energy Agency of the UN. Claims that Iraqi agents met with one of the hijackers. Disputed by the FBI, CIA and the country that originally documented the supposed event. Purchasing uranium from Niger. Disputed internally and the source documents determined to be forgeries by several allied intelligence services. The person sent to double check the reports disputed their basis in fact as well. A wave of single-sourced intelligence from Curveball, a known disreputable source and a cohort of Ahmed Chalabi, which included claims of mobile weapons labs, WMD research and long range drone aircraft capable of bearing WMD.

Now, did President Bush know whether he was lying or not, personally? I don't know. What I suspect is that the epicenter of the misinformation that went on runs along a corridor from Feith and the OSP in the Pentagon, through an unofficial neocon network, and right into Cheney's office. Any internal warnings that disputed the claims tended to get shot down by Cheney's office, folks like Libby and Addington. These guys, along with Feith and likely his boss Wolfowitz, had to know they were using shakey intelligence. It was weilded like a club too beat dissenters into line or to ridicule them into obscurity. A fine case study, of course, is what happened to Joe Wilson and his wife but a much more important, and bloodier, example was what happened to the CIA when the administration appointed Porter Goss.

Does it matter whether these guys believed the conclusion so much that they felt compelled to only gather evidence to support it or whether they deliberately lied and distorted facts to suit their agenda? I think it doesn't. I think it doesn't when it gets the point our leaders are telling us things are facts which are at best speculation based on unreliable intelligence. That's a lie. Somebody knew it.

*snipped where we seem to agree - though I'm tempted to keep it as a souvenier. :)*

To lower temperatures it's pretty clear moving our guys out is the answer. However, doing that too quickly or without a framework in place would, I agree with what I think is your intent here, lead to just such a situation.
Temperatures will not be lowered either way. My concern is solely for the well-being of coalition forces taking a step back, so as not to get singed by the fireworks that will ensue.
Agreed for the most part, though I'd also like to see the Iraqis in a more stable situation. I suspect the forces chomping at the bit to go at each other are a minority of the population - of course they're not a very motivated element and more likely to gravitate to extremists that offer them protection. If we play things right we might be able to minimize the fallout they have to endure as well. If this area explodes into a holy war along the Shiite Cresent we'll have even bigger problems to worry about too.

*snipped - more agreement*

Right.

Talk to Iran and Syria. See where that gets you.

Iran was cooperating with us in Afghanistan and Syria was accepting rendition suspects for "interrogation" on our behalf.
LOL!
My enemy's enemy is my friend.

One Al Qaeda suspect thrown at Syria, as if the US was doing Syria a favor. Big cooperation there! Syria - gotta love 'em!

Anything else you care to blwo out of context and proportion?
Just because there's only one we know about doesn't mean there weren't more. These things were ostensibly black operations. I've also read of security cooperation in Syria too at the time - the Shiite ruling class turns out, surprise surprise, to be no huge fan of Sunni jihadis (at least of the al Qaeda wahabbi school).

Now, I don't love these guys but I'm really tired of all the hair rending and teeth gnashing over Syria and Iran. We could talk to the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war, and if I recall correctly, we had a hotline installed so the leaders could resolve issues before they got out of control. I don't say we should go to that extreme with Syria and Iran but we damned well need to be talking to them if only to get results we want in Iraq. We don't have to trust them but we do have to deal.

At least they were before the "Axis of Evil" speech. I don't mistake either nation for swell guys but I'm getting really annoyed with the demonization that's going on.
Ah, the truth hurts.
No, counterproductive rhetoric and bullheadedness hurts.

The neocons
There's that magic hookie-pookie word again.
If the word is good enough for them to describe themselves it works for me too. Now I don't believe all neocons are cut from the same cloth but there is an underlaying movement there.

want to push an agenda
Do moonbats have an agenda, too?

Fun with words. :roll:
The neoconservatives want to defend Israel against all comers by leveraging America's strength against her enemies. Now I believe most of them support this because they conflate Israel's interests, at least as seen through a Likudnik lense, with America's. This isn't treason I'm talking about but honest ideology. They're not the only ones - the Christian conservatives of the religious right make the same calculation but for very different reasons. I tend to sympathise more with the reasoning of Israeli moderates myself and I do believe America has a commitment to protect Israel that's important to honor. However, I think helping Israel sometimes may mean making compromises, and persuading Israel's leaders to make compromises, that will help the security situation.

against Iran and Syria, I get that, but they can do that on their own dime. I think the American taxpayer is getting fed up with the crap they've gotten us into already.
There are ways to do things on the cheap.
I think they tried that. It was called Rumsfeld's new military. Worked great in Afghanistan. Got us into Baghdad. And now we're seeing why a lite force ain't gonna do it for long term occupations and reconstructions.

Even polls in Israel since the Lebanon action, perceived as a proxy war between Washington and Tehran,
Yada, yada. Proxy shmoxy. Hizballah attacks inside Israel, triggering a war. Israel blew the oportunity to fight the war the way it should have been fought. Now the idiots at the helm here are in major damage/spin control to keep their tushes on their power cushions.
Israel couldn't win that war. Hezbollah had dug in with the sole purpose of surviving just such an invasion and making it last until international reaction forced Israel's troops to retreat. Ya'll walked into it. You actually had to win, to take and hold ground, to reduce enemy forces. All they had to do was lay low and take an occasional potshot to look like heroes to themselves and the Arab world. It wasn't remotely a fair fight. The people who ended up really screwed were the secular/moderate Lebanese hoping their new democratic government would have a chance and the Israelis who now look out upon an emboldened host of potential enemies.

Hezbollah snatched a couple troops. I'm given to understand this is a fairly tit-for-tat situation that goes on back and forth all the time. Sure, they started it. They were hoping to trade for Lebanese people Israel was holding who'd been grabbed at some point. In fact, in the tit-for-tat department does Lebanon tend to hold more Israeli hostages or does Israel hold more Lebanese?

If you can't tell, I'm not really amused with either side at this point.

show increasing dissatisfaction with Bush's policies in the middle east and rightly so. They're in the worst strategic position they've been in a long time thanks to the good intentions of their champions in the neoconservative movement.
Even I mostly agree with that, being a so-imagined little neocon meself. That's why the term is worthless.
Or maybe there are just different kinds of people who think of themselves as neocons? I know that for a fact. I used to believe, at least until this World Bank fiasco, that Wolfowitz as a true-blue idealist who believed in the higher goals he espoused. I certainly never got that feeling from Richard Pearle who comes off as a profiteering opportunist.

ISG - talk about certain people and their greed for oil dollars!

What was it someone here once said, quoting Santayana? "Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Oh................... that was you. :yep:
Care to expand on this line of thought?
I thought it was self-explanatory.

Israel's 59th Independence Day here, beginning tonight. Don't know how much of a chance to go online I'll have until Wednesday.

Not so much, lay it out for me. And have a good independence day.

[The Avon Lady]

No one else could reply to this over the last 2 days? Very well....
The only problem is there's no analogy between the 2.
The Gulf of Tonkin Incidient was manipulated by the Johnson administration to give us causus belli against North Vietnam. People bought into the claim uncritically and so we ended up rooked into a war the American people didn't really understand, it was fundamentally about nationalism on the local level, and ultimately didn't have the will to sustain. Not that it should have ever been engaged in in the first place.
As I said, these 2 are not like one another.
Are you kidding me? The American public thought it was going after the people who attacked us on 9/11 when we invaded Iraq. Polls showed that well into 2004 over 50% of the American public believed Saddam was directly responsible for the attacks. How could this possibly be, you ask? Because the administration pushed like crazy to make that connection if in a mostly round-a-bout way.
Let's go down the memory hole (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/016745.php) again.

People still don't get it. US intelligence services stank. They have for years and I'm afraid they still do. This goes way back and is not necessarily the fault of this or that president. People believe(d) what they were told by an administration that themselves believed it, after having it reported as such for years. That includes the Clinton admin's own 1998 claims of cooperation between Saddam and Al Qaeda. What? You've never read the indictment (http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/11/98110602_nlt.html)? So can we safely say Clinton lied, people died? <set sarcasm off>

These 2 things are not the same. :nope:
Now, look at the polls today and the vast majority of the public believes the administration lied to them,
Yep. The media's lies worked just as easy on the populace.
that the war wasn't worth it
This is an opinion based on viewing actual circumstances. This could have occurred whether US intel data was right on the money or not.
and the troops should start coming home.
As above.
You don't see the similiarities between the way both administrations manipulated evidence and sold the public a bill of goods?
As I pointed out, try not to mix up cause and effect.
This is a lie that's repeated over and over again but it doesn't make it any truer, unless you hold by the philosophy of "false but accurate".
I really don't know where to start here. How much time do you have?Spend it as you please. However, most go home and get dinner on the table.
Let's look at the big claims the administration made to sell the congress and the public on the war. Aluminum tubes to be used in uranium purification process. Disputed internally by the Energy Department and the State Department. Additionally by the International Atomic Energy Agency of the UN.
Well that settles it. Anyone relying on the IAEA has got to be off their rocker. But obviously you haven't read or are ignoring David Kay's letter to the editor (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49199-2003Oct31?language=printer) of the Washington Post.
Claims that Iraqi agents met with one of the hijackers. Disputed by the FBI, CIA and the country that originally documented the supposed event.
Once again, this or that detail may have been disputed but the overall picture of cooperation as presented to both Clinton and Bush adminstrations by US intel told them both otherwise.
Purchasing uranium from Niger. Disputed internally and the source documents determined to be forgeries by several allied intelligence services. The person sent to double check the reports disputed their basis in fact as well. A wave of single-sourced intelligence from Curveball, a known disreputable source and a cohort of Ahmed Chalabi, which included claims of mobile weapons labs, WMD research and long range drone aircraft capable of bearing WMD.
Tons and tons of bad intel, again and again. BTW, on this worn down story, what's your opinion of Mr. al-Zawahie? I'll let you google yourself, if the name's not familar.
Now, did President Bush know whether he was lying or not, personally? I don't know.
No you don't. So how does anyone insist otherwise?

BTW, did President Johnson knowingly lie? Neither one of us knows, either. Time to accurately set history straight there, too.
What I suspect is that the epicenter of the misinformation that went on runs along a corridor from Feith and the OSP in the Pentagon, through an unofficial neocon network, and right into Cheney's office.
z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z

Wake me up when you remove your aluminum foil hat.

z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z
Any internal warnings that disputed the claims tended to get shot down by Cheney's office, folks like Libby and Addington. These guys, along with Feith and likely his boss Wolfowitz, had to know they were using shakey intelligence. It was weilded like a club too beat dissenters into line or to ridicule them into obscurity. A fine case study, of course, is what happened to Joe Wilson
You mean Joe Wilson, the liar (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html?referrer=emailarticle)? Enough already of this garbage. Really.
and his wife but a much more important, and bloodier, example was what happened to the CIA when the administration appointed Porter Goss.
Again z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z. US intel's problems go way back at least to the Clinton 90's, as I've shown above.

I'm getting awfully bored at this point. I'll end off simply quoting you, since your attitude in writing sums you up quite nicely:

"Just because there's only one we know about doesn't mean there weren't more."

Call me when you decide to stick to facts and not to fantasies you wish were true.

http://nbeaujon.com/images/tinfoil-hat.jpg

[OddjobXL]

I just got a nice new shiny copy of Middle Earth Online so I'll have to cut this short. It has been fun.

For anyone wondering about the quality of the responses here I'll just leave you with a fun mix-tape of good links:


Bush's intent to invade superceded any issue of WMD:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?ex=1301115600&en=be186887fe0c83a2&ei=5088&partner

Here's Colin Powell's former chief of staff discussing the Rumsfeld-Cheney corridor:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4480638.stm

Here's another interesting take on the OSP and why one former member is probably going to jail:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/politics/06spy.html?ex=1252123200&en=f69ed749a90b9f88&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
Conviction here:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/01/20/analyst.sentence/

General Zinni on the neoconservatives in the Pentagon:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml

So much for the tinfoil hat theory. It does tend to be an argument of last resort. A for effort.

Here's David Kay one year later than that letter was published:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3778987.stm

Drumheller, former CIA Station Chief Europe, Speaks Out on WMD Distortions:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml

Lord, if I only had more time. But I don't. And there are better articles I've lost links to I'm sure. Anybody out there who wants to learn more, there's more to learn.

Edit: Almost forgot, recent article on the forged Niger letter:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201777.html?hpid=topnews

[NEON DEON]

There are two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

:yep: :yep: :yep:

[geetrue]

If I had to read all of those links Oddjob I'd go crazy ...
your suppose to read them for me and then I read your post and discern if your right or not. :lol:

How can ya'll find time to do the same things everyone else does, go to bed, go to the bathroom, go to work or school, go to lunch, go back to work or school, come home, go to the bathroom, fix dinner, read the news, surf the web, play a game and care about National Security all at the same time?

This amazes me ... we need more team work just to thrive in a world full of mis-information, which I feel Avon Lady and Oddjob are giving us a better slant on than the national news.

Keep up the good work gang ... I have to go to the bathroom now :yep:

[OddjobXL]

To make a long story short, I work for a company where sometimes things are crazy busy and sometimes things are real slow. When they're slow I've got time to surf the web and keep up on things. I've been debating politics and tracing stories on another gaming site for some time in their politics forums. Most of the above are pulled from things I looked at ages ago. After 9/11 I went a bit nuts reading up on Afghanistan and al Qaida trying to sort out what was going on. When the President made it clear he was going after Iraq, well, in light of what I understood about the nature of the threat this made no sense to me. So I kept on reading.

I didn't know what I know now back then. As for why I post on gaming sites and not political ones, well, most people on political sites just go back and forth with talking points and the discussion never goes anywhere. On gaming sites people are here for games not to score points in debates. We all at least have that much in common. Avon Lady's a really smart character and it's fun talking to her so I kept it in play. But I do have to bail for now.

[The Avon Lady]

Let's see how you let your imagination run wild.
I just got a nice new shiny copy of Middle Earth Online so I'll have to cut this short. It has been fun.

For anyone wondering about the quality of the responses here I'll just leave you with a fun mix-tape of good links:


Bush's intent to invade superceded any issue of WMD:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?ex=1301115600&en=be186887fe0c83a2&ei=5088&partner
The issue of WMD's went way back into prior administrations, as I already pointed out. This article - assuming the memo is authentic in the first place - says at the most:

"The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq."

So, what else is new? The whole argument was that the UN inspectors were useless, with Hussein playing cat & mouse. So how does this show that the intent to invade superceded any issue of WMDs, when WMDs was the concern pronounced by Bush and all prior admistrations as well, bi-partisan down the line?

Next........................................
Here's Colin Powell's former chief of staff discussing the Rumsfeld-Cheney corridor:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html
Magic bean words like "corridor" and "cabal", uttered by yourself and an immensly disgruntled (verbatim quote: "Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly during President Bush's first term") former staffer make for a "cabal"?

Dictionary, please!

ca·bal /kəˈbæl/ [kuh-bal] verb, -balled, -bal·ling.
–noun 1. a small group of secret plotters, as against a government or person in authority.

And this one man's cabal conspiracy is brought to you by Democratic party mouthpiece WP columnist Dana Milbank? Why am I not surprised!

BTW, if you insist on relying on Larry Wilkerson, then you have to take it all. In this BBC interview (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4481092.stm), regading the ineptitude of "post invasion planning", Wilkerson states:

"It consisted of largely sending Jay Garner and his organisation to sit in Kuwait until the military forces had moved into Baghdad, and then going to Baghdad and other places in Iraq with no other purpose than to deliver a little humanitarian assistance, perhaps deal with some oil-field fires, put Ahmed Chalabi or some other similar Iraqi in charge and leave."

So, then, if Iraq wasn't invaded for oil after all, and if the administration's ultimate wishful thinking was to decisively defeat Saddam, install a civilian government and leave, then what was Bush lying about and whatever for? :hmm:

Once again, I'll claim that every bungle we've seen, both pre and post war, both in analysis and in military strategy, is symtomatic of an extremly sick intel system. And our enemies know it.

Sorry. I am bored beyond boredom to go on having to point out the details you smudge over.

So if we're not playing "false but accurate", we'll play "inaccurate but true" instead? I don't want to play.

The bottom line is none of this shows WMDs to be a false excuse. Well, surprise, surprise. Again, that's a separate issue from whether the WMDs do or don't exist. Intel Inside - NOT. :nope:

[cobalt]

Iraq and "WMD" don't even belong in the same sentence anymore.

mein gott.

[OddjobXL]

Quick post-script. When did I say it was about oil? It didn't even make my list of reason we attacked Iraq in reality, nor did WMD of course. That's not to diminish the obvious fact that at least indirectly everything we do in the middle east ultimately has to do with domestic energy security on some level but it doesn't explain why we went after Iraq rather than some other place. Iraq was low-laying fruit. Some people believed we had to make a violent statement to the "Muslim world" to prove we were serious and not to mess with us. Neocons were among them and also provided the philosophical rationalizations so they sounded much higher-minded than they really were on TV. Neither group would have gotten very far without the other.

Here's Wolfowitz on WMD:

The decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for "bureaucratic reasons", according to the US deputy defence secretary.


But in an interview with the American magazine Vanity Fair, Paul Wolfowitz said there were many other important factors as well. The famously hawkish Mr Wolfowitz has been a long-time proponent of military action against Iraq.
Picking weapons of mass destruction was "the one reason everyone could agree on", he says in the interview.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2945750.stm

He goes on to cite the opportunity to pull American troops out of Saudi Arabia as a big reason for the war, so we could lower tensions with the wahabbis over the presence of foreign pariahs from the holy land. Of course, given all the other reasons we've seen tossed at the wall hoping they'd stick this strikes me as just another one. You don't see anyone else really mentioning that claim much elsewhere. It also strikes me as very naive, to the point of disingenuous, to think an American invasion and overt occupation of a Muslim power would be less disruptive, somehow, than a peaceful security force somewhere else - it's not as if we actually had troops in Mecca and Medina no matter how al Qaida was trying to spin it. Iraq's been infinitely better for recruiting for them in the long run.

If you don't like the word cabal you should be more careful about tossing out phrases like tin-foil helmet or mouthpiece. Makes ya look a bit desperate.

Also check this out from that very useful Wilkerson interview you linked to:

I have basically been supportive of the administration's point that it was simply fooled - that the intelligence community, including the UK, Germany, France, Jordan - other countries that confirmed what we had in our intelligence package, yet we were all just fooled.


Lately, I'm growing increasingly concerned because two things have just happened here that really make me wonder.

And the one is the questioning of Sheikh al-Libby where his confessions were obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorised by Geneva.
It led Colin Powell to say at the UN on 5 February 2003 that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad. And we now know that al-Libby's forced confession has been recanted and we know - we're pretty sure that it was invalid.

But more important than that, we know that there was a defence intelligence agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation. We never heard about that.
Follow that up with Curveball, and the fact that the Germans now say they told our CIA well before Colin Powell gave his presentation that Curveball - the source to the biological mobile laboratories - was lying and was not a trustworthy source. And then you begin to speculate, you begin to wonder was this intelligence spun; was it politicised; was it cherry-picked; did in fact the American people get fooled - I am beginning to have my concerns.

[The Avon Lady]

Why don't you read past the interview (http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2676) to understand how the crackpots at Vanity Fair twisted and corrupted what Wolfowitz said?

Go running around the Internet to see what a hatchet job Vanity Fair has been consistantly doing when it comes to scalping anything not leftist at any price.

Well, what other way was there to save the dying magazine from Chapter 11!

UPDATE: See What Wolfowitz Really Said (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/757wzfan.asp).

[OddjobXL]

My first reaction, of course, is that you link to a DoD press release, where Wolfowitz worked, rather than the real article? And then you claim Vanity Fair is hopelessly biased? Alright, let's have a look.

Priceless.
Wolfowitz: Well, there've been disputes within the intelligence community on the exact nature of that one. There's been very little dispute about the WMD, except for some of the borderline issues.

Oh, boy.
Wolfowitz: Well, but they hadn't had 12 years to build mobile production facilities

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy:

DeYoung: Okay, let me just... But do you think that you might have oversold the whole WMD thing last fall? With the sort of, not only do they have production facilities, they actually have weapons that are ready to be used?

Wolfowitz: I don't think so. I mean, I think we were working from, as I told you, one of the most widely shared intelligence assessments I kn
ow of.

DeYoung: And even if we end up not finding...?

Wolfowitz: We're a long way from...

Kellems: We can't go there. Karen, come on! [Laughter] That was a trick question.

Ahahaha...cough, cough.

Look, I can't read that transcript the same way you do. It's impossible. I've seen too much evidence about Wolfowitz's hard shoving behind this war. When someone in the administration questioned it, it was always Wolfowitz pushing back. When someone changed their mind the saying was "Wolfowitz got to him." He was Douglas Feith's boss - the guy who ran the Office of Special Plans, he signed off on PNAC's main report and the In Defense of the Realm (sic - not sure that's the exact title) study done for Israel.

If there was anyone who knew how shaky the case for war based on WMDs was, and how unlikely Saddam's implied ties to al Qaida were, and did more to promote all of it than Wolfowitz then it could only be Dick Cheney. Was there anyone else pulling nearly the used car salesmen act with Congress than Wolfowitz? "It will pay for itself." "We don't need many troops." "They'll welcome us as liberators."

They had to know better. They were in the goddamn Pentagon. They had serious career, military, analysts around. Either they ignored them all without even looking at the homework or they deliberately lied.

So if you're capable of believing a word out of Wolfowitz's mouth, more's the power to you, but I can't. I see him as inherently deceitful. He may have believed he was merely achieving a means to a good end but I personally don't much like being played. If they had an argument they should have come out and made it instead of scaring people with boogeymen so they, and the politicians who depend on their votes, were forced into compliance.

[The Avon Lady]

See my additional link to the Weekly Standard article.

[OddjobXL]

Weekly Standard? Wait, that sounds oddly familiar. Now why would that be? Oh, right - William Kristol's magazine. Now why would I be any more at ease trusting material this guy gave a thumbs up to (correction actually wrote!)? Isn't there a link to the original article anywhere? I'm guessing not, or at least not easily found. Seems these two links, when you google, are precisely the first two that come up defending Wolfowitz. Hey, I do that too sometimes. It's part of why I get into these debates. You always learn something new and sometimes that means hitting the old google to defend a point you might have stepped too far out on.

...reading...reading...reading...

Alright, seems to me that once you wade through the defensiveness and rhetoric, and if you trust a secret tape recording the Pentagon made of the interview and only entrusted William Kristol with, Kristol has something of a point. He claims the interviewer made Wolfowitz sound like a nut because he conflated the answer about Saudi Arabia with that about WMD. I'm even willing to grant that this tape is probably legitimate because this is such a minor point if you were really going to distort evidence you'd do something much more useful than this.

Ultimately, the statement that deciding to make the focus on WMD because it was convenient stands. Now I don't doubt that many intelligence services, including our own and even the CIA, suspected there were probably chemical weapons in Iraq. But that never was the whole WMD case. The stuff people actually remember has to do with mushroom clouds and Saddam's association with al Qaida. Hell, Kristol even sings that song when he talks about the al Qaida people killed in Northern Iraq without bothering to mention that is Kurdish controlled Iraq which even back then was known. What wasn't common knowledge at the time was that our intelligence services asked permission to take them out before the invasion, before they could scatter, and they were told no because it would undermine the case for war.

You starting to see where I'm coming from? I'm not some freak wearing a papermache Uncle Sam head and prancing around in protest marches to pick up hairy chicks. I'm no actual expert on these issues either. But I am a guy who has been reading waaaay too much for too long to believe alot of stuff some people still insist on seeing as the gospel truth.

[Heibges]

If Iraq was a credible threat regarding WMD's, Israel would have taken care of it long before the the United States got around to invading. Afterall, Israel has always taken care of it's own dirty laundry.

As they did when they bombed the Osiraq Nuclear Reactor in 1981.

As they did when they assassinated Dr. Gerald Bull in Brussel's outside his apartment with 5 shots to the back of the head in 1990.

[Ishmael]

I found this little strip amusing four years later. But then "This Modern World" is one of my favorites. It's called,"What They Really Said"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-tomorrow/what-they-said_b_46907.html

Regarding intelligence failures:

Look at this BBC Documentary called "The Power Of Nightmares" for more info:

http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmaresDVD

We know that PNAC called for a US invasion of Iraq in 1994. We know that most of the PNAC members obtained positions in the White House & Defense Dept. policymaking branches , including the Pentagon Office of Special Plans.

We know from Richard Clarke that the Bush transition team didn't want to hear briefings about Al Qaeda, only Iraq in late 2000.

We know from one of the few records released from Cheney's secret Energy Task Force meetings was a map of Iraqi oil fields.

We know from the Downing Street Memos that the intelligence on Iraq was being fixed around the policy.

We know that the intelligence services determined the Niger memo was a fake as did Joe Wilson who was sent there as a result of a direct request from the Vice-President's office not, as widely propogated in the Right Wing press & blogosphere, by his wife.

We know that, as a result of Joe Wilson's report and later op-ed, his wife, a covert intelligence operative was compromised by the Bush Admin. to marginalize him befroe the war.

We know that Valerie Wilson's front company, Brewster-Jennings which had spent 15 years constructing a human intelligence network in the Mideast to track WMDs & various governments & groups efforts to obtain them including Al-Qaeda, Iraq & Iran, was neutralized in a matter of hours and putting who knows how many lives in jeopardy.

An interesting side note in the Niger memos. Wayne Madsen has found links between the forgery, a burglary of the Niger Embassy where the only things taken were official stationary and a government seal, SISME the Italian Itelligence Service & Michael Ledeen of the aforementioned Office of Special Plans.

So my question to my conservative friends still stands. After all of the demonstrable lies, falsehoods, misjudgements & incompetence of these guys, how can you believe anything they say?

[MadMike]

Ishmarel wrote-

"So my question to my conservative friends still stands. After all of the demonstrable lies, falsehoods, misjudgements & incompetence of these guys, how can you believe anything they say?"

Quote-

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security
threat we face."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has . chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of St ate, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept.. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam H ussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence
reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated
the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" Rep.
- Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime .... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003





Yours, Mike

[geetrue]

;)

That would make a super advertisment for someone's campaign MadMike ...

Thanks

[OddjobXL]

Just a brief aside, during a live-chat at the Post with the author of the article and book, linked above, on the Niger forgery I did get in a question about Ledeen and he seemed to think those connections couldn't be proven. Though he did say he quoted Ledeen at length about it in his book. I haven't read it yet but could be worth checking out for those interested in this angle of the story.

In every other respect what he has to say is pretty damning so if he thinks the charges against Ledeen don't hold up I tend to believe him.

[bradclark1]

Ishmarel wrote-

"So my question to my conservative friends still stands. After all of the demonstrable lies, falsehoods, misjudgements & incompetence of these guys, how can you believe anything they say?"

Quote-

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security
threat we face."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has . chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of St ate, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
- Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, December 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept.. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam H ussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence
reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
- Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated
the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" Rep.
- Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime .... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his
continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003





Yours, Mike
But who moved on a f#@k up? Being stupid doesn't make you right. Feeding the houses made up intel will get you what you want.

[OddjobXL]

Also, Tenet is now having his say in a new book. I have trouble imagining who on any side of this debate will see the guy in a sympathetic light though.

Relevant snippet from the story in the NYT today:

Despite such sweeping indictments, Mr. Bush, who in 2004 awarded Mr. Tenet a Presidential Medal of Freedom, is portrayed personally in a largely positive light, with particular praise for the his leadership after the 2001 attacks. “He was absolutely in charge, determined, and directed,” Mr. Tenet writes of the president, whom he describes as a blunt-spoken kindred spirit.

But Mr. Tenet largely endorses the view of administration critics that Mr. Cheney and a handful of Pentagon officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/paul_d_wolfowitz/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq as a threat in late 2001 and 2002 even as Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. concentrated mostly on Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org).

Mr. Tenet describes helping to kill a planned speech by Mr. Cheney on the eve of the invasion because its claims of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq went “way beyond what the intelligence shows.”

“Mr. President, we cannot support the speech and it should not be given,” Mr. Tenet wrote that he told Mr. Bush. Mr. Cheney never delivered the remarks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

[Ishmael]

Here's a pretty devastating analysis from the Armed Forces Journal on the failure of the General officer corps vis-a-vis Iraq with recommendations for corrections.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

[Heibges]

It's never a good idea to get the CIA against you.

Basically the White House has implied the CIA was incompetent.

Don't mess with the bureaucrats.

[SUBMAN1]

No wonder they can't go after this guy. The more I read up on him, the more I realize my government is either lying, or ignoring the problem.

http://www.davegaubatz.com/index.html
http://www.davegaubatz.com/sitebuilder/images/childrens_hospital-775x487.jpg


davegaubatz@gmail.com
The Children are the ones who suffer in wartime

[MadMike]

After reviewing his bio, awards, and whatnot, don't see anything above and beyond what any intel or specops troop does.

Yours, Mike

[The Avon Lady]

Also, Tenet is now having his say in a new book. I have trouble imagining who on any side of this debate will see the guy in a sympathetic light though.

Relevant snippet from the story in the NYT today:

Despite such sweeping indictments, Mr. Bush, who in 2004 awarded Mr. Tenet a Presidential Medal of Freedom, is portrayed personally in a largely positive light, with particular praise for the his leadership after the 2001 attacks. “He was absolutely in charge, determined, and directed,” Mr. Tenet writes of the president, whom he describes as a blunt-spoken kindred spirit.

But Mr. Tenet largely endorses the view of administration critics that Mr. Cheney and a handful of Pentagon officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/paul_d_wolfowitz/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq as a threat in late 2001 and 2002 even as Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. concentrated mostly on Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org).

Mr. Tenet describes helping to kill a planned speech by Mr. Cheney on the eve of the invasion because its claims of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq went “way beyond what the intelligence shows.”

“Mr. President, we cannot support the speech and it should not be given,” Mr. Tenet wrote that he told Mr. Bush. Mr. Cheney never delivered the remarks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp
Down the memory hole alert: Tenet of yesteryear (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/04/28/tenet-takedown/).
Here's a pretty devastating analysis from the Armed Forces Journal on the failure of the General officer corps vis-a-vis Iraq with recommendations for corrections.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198
What does this have to do with the issue of WMDs, which is the topic of this thread?

[Skybird]

Here's a pretty devastating analysis from the Armed Forces Journal on the failure of the General officer corps vis-a-vis Iraq with recommendations for corrections.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

Good reading! Add to the internal failure of the military to change old, no-longer valid paradigms the massive incompetent influencing from outside, namely Rumfsfeld, and you have what you got today.

[The Avon Lady]

A good summary of what is and isn't know, what's been said and what hasn't, can be found in this article:

Don't Be So Sure There Were No WMD in Iraq (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/07/dont_be_so_sure_there_were_no.html).