Where are the WMD? (long)

“the liberals today are fanning the paranoia fire as hard as they can. scare them into voting for us.....how sweet.....”

“Interesting world you live in...what color is your sky??? :)”

“He is a just man and prone to err,,,, BR
Which history you talking about?

"So dubya will be the Pretender of the U.S.

He is nothing but a scumbag anyway.

He was arrested for theft in 1968 and lied about it.

DUI in 1972 and lied about it.

DUI in 1976 and lied about it.

History of drug and alcohol abuse and lied about it.

Refused to take a drug test in the National Guard (fear of failure?) and lied about it.

Was AWOL for 18 months and lied about it.

Entered into business deals with known organized crime figures.


That's three strikes and you are out. In 42 states dubya would be classified as career criminal.

This loser is nothing more than a clinton clone who happens to be a republican."
gordon
03:35:54 PM
12/08/00

RE: The Fat Lady is Clearing her throat”

“Saddam is/ was a cancer to the well being of the world and Iraq. You folks need to look at the bigger picture here. He may not have been the keystone in the arc of terror but he was for sure a major block in its foundation. How are we to achieve world peace, that so many of you liberals cry for, with guys like Saddam and Kim still around? I hope you don't wait for your cancer to just disappear. Because it won't without a little help. Try not to revel in your hatred of Bush and think about future and hope for peace in the M.E..”

“WMD's seem to be as hard to find Saddam. I am beginning to wonder whether Saddam was in Iraq.

I say we keep looking.”

“Its kinda funny that bush is in trouble for almost the opposite reasons clinton got into trouble. Clinton failed to hide the blue dress and its evidance while bush cant seem to find the evidance he needs to stay out of trouble...

What bigger picture are you refering to? You mean the one where there are a hundred more osamas and saddams lined up to replace them as soon as we can rid the world of thier evil? You tend to forget that these people are just toadies doing thier masters bidding. All we have done is changed the faces. Bush may have done the right thing but he did it for the wrong reasons and in the end his work will become corrupted. All Bush has accomplished is a deepening of the mistrust we have in our own goverment which may lead to the distruction of our nation from within. You speak of bigger pictures but from the view I have the terrorists are winning since they have achieved thier goals, we have not.”

“Your article deals at large with the process of information delivery to the white house, which is fine, but says nothing about the interpretation of said information by the white house, which is the crux of the issue (see the article I posted).

The only time this is remotely addressed is in the last paragraph:

The absence of evidence is
not evidence of absence. The politicization and Leftmedia hype
of this issue will not change the fact that Saddam Hussein was
evil, his regime needed to be destroyed, and WMD -- like the two
mobile biological-weapons labs discovered in recent weeks -- will
be found. The $64,000 question is, will Iraq's WMD stores be found
prior to their use by Jihadi terrorists? UN and European obstructionists to the war with Iraq
provided a significant window for those weapons -- particularly
biological and nuclear -- to be transported out of Iraq to Iran
or Syria.

1. The absence of evidence is not evidence PERIOD. We supposedly had evidence before invading Iraq. Now we have absence of evidence.

2. Saddam was evil. I agree. Perhaps he needed to be destroyed, but why? Was it humanitarian reasons? Then why all the talk of WMD? What made invasion so much more preferable to ramped up inspections?

3. The idea that the UN - by not immediately capitulating to US demands for invasion - is responsible for the disappearance of the WMD is circular: The UN wanted evidence of the WMD in the first place, which was the major reason for the resistance! Also, we used that time to build our forces in the region up. A willing UN seemingly would not have reduced this "window" by much.

I would hope, strat, that you, as a thinking, rational, responsible citizen on the US, would demand a little more evidence from our leadership than: "Take our word for it".”

“The forces are looking for money not WMD.”

“para noia will destroya”

“Speaking of which, we're back down to Condition Yellow... just in case you missed the announcement.”

“i like elevated.....it's one of my favorite terror alerts.....”

“I am paraphrasing this, but I'm sure as more comes out, you cut and past folks will to the story justice.

It seems that they have talked to low level scientists and people in the Iraq weapons program that are telling our people...

We were meeting and discussing how to make weapons, we used scientists that were not known to the UN and we meet in safe houses and other places that would not be inspected. We never made any weapons, but were set up to begin operations at a moments notice incase they were needed.

The reason the original numbers of agents and biological's reported to the UN were so high, is they were inflated by the scientists to begin with. One scientist said that Sadamn had a "thick mind" and knew nothing about science, so he believed anything he was told. He was given inflated numbers by the scientists so they would look good...they could not correct the numbers later to the UN because it would make Iraq "look bad", and the scientists that inflated the numbers in the first place would "lose their heads".

Apparently he said, you can search all you want, you will not find weapons, only oil.

I am looking for the link to the story, I will post it as soon as I find it.”

“This is not the same story, but it's something to think about.....
story”

“That's all you have to say, Strat? No refuting my argument?

Mtnsteve, I'd love to see these reports. What's the source?”

“The story I read was originally in a local paper it seems to be pieced from different sources...most of it seems to have come from the link above(the La Times).”

“Today the Bush team is out talking about all the evidence for Iraq having WMD. They present enough evidence to make a very strong case for inspections and sanctions.”

“now there's a thought.......”

“That's very much reminiscent of the conspiracy cases the DEA has going on all the time. You don't have to get anywhere near actual narcotics; you only have to form a conspiracy to get them.

I wonder if there's any analog to our conspiracy statutes in International Law? Was there a framework for such prosecutions in the proposed International Criminal Court?


Still... if Colin Powell had made the case before the Security Council that Iraq didn't have WMD per se but was instead only planning to get them...


Hmm....

A horse of a different color altogether.”

“what was tha tmovie with tome cruise where he was a cop in the future and he aressted people before they commited a crime?


CRAP! I CAN'T THINK OF IT!


MINORITY REEPORT! yeah yeah....



that was cool....







anyways, phaeddy, blah blah blah- yadda yadda yadda, shut yer dam piehole....”

“It is interesting you bring up minority report, like the movie I guess we are going to see the fallacy of convicting iraq before the crime...”

“it is also interesting that you post at 3:00 in the morning....”

“In Ca it's now 7:07 am.....”

“Now thats odd, I expected the hour to be off, but not the min....”

“anyways, phaeddy, blah blah blah- yadda yadda yadda, shut yer dam piehole...."
stratdewd
10:35:30 PM
06/08/03


So you bow out of the argument, implicitly agreeing with my point. Glad we agree, strat.”

“if that makes you feel better, phaeddy......”

“Phagrus are you still talking more BS?”

“John Dean (yep the John Dean), writing for a scholarly legal journal addresses this issue ("Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?"). In it, he urges people to give Bush the benefit (at least for now), he also lays out some of the things Bush said when he was selling the war:

in chronological order, were:

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

United Nations Address
September 12, 2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."

"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

Radio Address
October 5, 2002

"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."

"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."

Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003

It's a great article, and I reserve the right to post it or quote more from it - but this talk of thousands of tons of bio and chem weapons and hundreds of tons of Sarin makes it clear that he wasn't talking about hard to find quantities that could be hidden in the trunk of a car.

The article is at:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html”

“Great article, Ped!”

“Jeeez. It's almost like I posted that entire article earlier in the thread...

:\”

“Well.... I gotta admit that I often numb out to entitre articles posted to threads - (and this was proof)... funny we both messed up the font closing.”

“Bush is a scumbag. Period. Cheney too.”

“Would this forum be better served if Americans, cut and pasted, every John Birch editorial?

What a waste of space!”

“Wow! Time warp!”

“Check it out, I haven't posted the article yet. cool. I have a destiny. :)”

“Published on Friday, June 27, 2003 by the Hartford Courant
Cheney And The CIA: Not Business As Usual
by Ray McGovern

As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit.

During the '80s, it was my privilege to brief Vice President George H.W. Bush and other very senior policy-makers every other morning. I went either to the vice president's office or (on weekends) to his home. I am sure it never occurred to him to come to CIA headquarters.

The morning briefings gave us an excellent window on what was uppermost in the minds of those senior officials and helped us refine our tasks of collection and analysis. Thus, there was never any need for policy-makers to visit us. And the very thought of a vice president dropping by to help us with our analysis is extraordinary. We preferred to do that work without the pressure that inevitably comes from policy-makers at the table.

Cheney got into the operational side of intelligence as well. Reports in late 2001 that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium from Niger stirred such intense interest that his office let it be known he wanted them checked out. So, with the CIA as facilitator, a retired U.S. ambassador was dispatched to Niger in February 2002 to investigate. He found nothing to substantiate the report and lots to call it into question. There the matter rested - until last summer, after the Bush administration made the decision for war in Iraq.

Cheney, in a speech on Aug. 26, 2002, claimed that Saddam Hussein had "resumed his effort to acquire nuclear weapons."

At the time, CIA analysts were involved in a knock-down, drag-out argument with the Pentagon on this very point. Most of the nuclear engineers at the CIA, and virtually all scientists at U.S. government laboratories and the International Atomic Energy Agency, found no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program.

But the vice president had spoken. Sad to say, those in charge of the draft National Intelligence Estimate took their cue and stated, falsely, that "most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."

Smoke was blown about aluminum tubes sought by Iraq that, it turns out, were for conventional weapons programs. The rest amounted to things like Hussein's frequent meetings with nuclear scientists and Iraq's foot-dragging in providing information to U.N. inspectors.

Not much heed was paid to the fact that Hussein's son-in-law, who supervised Iraq's nuclear program before he defected in 1995, had told interrogators that Iraq's nuclear capability - save the blueprints - had been destroyed in 1991 at his order. (Documents given to the United States this week confirm that. The Iraqi scientists who provided them added that, even though the blueprints would have given Iraq a head start, no order was given to restart the program; and even had such an order been given, Iraq would still have been years away from producing a nuclear weapon.)

In sum, the evidence presented in last September's intelligence estimate fell far short of what was required to support Cheney's claim that Iraq was on the road to a nuclear weapon. Something scarier had to be produced, and quickly, if Congress was to be persuaded to authorize war. And so the decision was made to dust off the uranium-from-Niger canard.

The White House calculated - correctly - that before anyone would make an issue of the fact that this key piece of "intelligence" was based on a forgery, Congress would vote yes. The war could then be waged and won. In recent weeks, administration officials have begun spreading the word that Cheney was never told the Iraq-Niger story was based on a forgery. I asked a senior official who recently served at the National Security Council if he thought that was possible. He pointed out that rigorous NSC procedures call for a very specific response to all vice presidential questions and added that "the fact that Cheney's office had originally asked that the Iraq-Niger report be checked out makes it inconceivable that his office would not have been informed of the results."

Did the president himself know that the information used to secure congressional approval for war was based on a forgery? We don't know. But which would be worse - that he knew or that he didn't?

Ray McGovern (rmcgovern@slschool.org), a CIA analyst from 1964 to 1990, regularly reported to the vice president and senior policy-makers on the President's Daily Brief from 1981 to 1985. He now is co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an inner-city outreach ministry in Washington”

“I agree you are warped.”

“LOL!

The article is from a former CIA analyst. He seems to believe cheney is a liar.”

“It must be a conspiracy.”

“yawn......”

“Conservative agenda. Ignore the obvious!”

“http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030707-461781,00.html?cnn=yes

Sunday, Jun. 29, 2003
Meeting last month at a sweltering U.S. base outside Doha, Qatar, with his top Iraq commanders, President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked.

It seems as if just about everyone has questions these days about the missing WMD. Did U.S. intelligence officials—or their civilian bosses—overstate the evidence of weapons before the war? And if some intelligence officials expressed skepticism about WMD, who ignored them? For the past several weeks, the usually lockstep Bush Administration has done its best to maintain a unified front in the face of these queries. Whenever asked, Administration officials have replied that the weapons will turn up eventually. But as the search drags on through its third largely futile month, the blame game in Washington has gone into high gear. And as Bush's allies and enemies alike on Capitol Hill begin to pick apart some 19 volumes of prewar intelligence and examine them one document at a time, the cohesive Bush team is starting to come apart. "This is a cloud hanging over their credibility, their word," Republican Senate Intelligence Committee member Chuck Hagel told abc News. Here are key questions Congress wants answered:

What Was Cheney's Role?
Lawmakers who once saluted every Bush claim and command are beginning to express doubts. Two congressional panels are opening new rounds of investigations into the Administration's prewar claims about WMD. One of their immediate inquiries, sources tell Time, involves Vice President Dick Cheney's role in reviewing the intelligence before the bombing started. Cheney made repeated visits to the CIA in the prelude to the war, going over intelligence assessments with the analysts who produced them. Some Democrats say Cheney's visits may have amounted to pressure on the normally cautious agency. Cheney's defenders insist that his visits merely showed the importance of the issue and that an honest analyst wouldn't feel pressure to twist intelligence. The House intelligence committee (and possibly its Senate counterpart, sources say) plans to question the CIA analysts who briefed Cheney, and that could lead to calling Cheney's hard-line aides and perhaps the Veep himself to testify.

Is Powell Trying To Have It Both Ways?
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who staked his reputation on his February declaration at the U.N. about Saddam Hussein's arms program, is also feeling the heat. Powell's aides fanned out after that performance to say the Secretary had gone to the CIA and scrubbed every piece of intelligence to make certain it was solid. But since then, little of Powell's presentation has been proved by evidence on the ground, and last week his aides were on the defensive over a memo from the State Department's intelligence bureau that questioned whether two Iraqi trailers discovered in April were mobile bioweapons labs, as Powell has asserted. Questionable intelligence that made it into Powell's February speech leaves him particularly vulnerable. Expect a push by Democrats, and perhaps some Republicans, to seek Powell's testimony too.

Will Tenet Be Left Holding the Bag?
CIA Director George Tenet is faring a bit better. The House committee's top Democrat, Jane Harman, noted last week that "caveats and qualifiers" Tenet raised in prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons were "rarely included" in Administration arguments for war. After the awkward Q&A in Doha, Bush put Tenet in charge of the WMD hunt. Tenet in turn hired a former U.N. weapons inspector, David Kay, to run the search, but Tenet and Kay have a lot of ground to make up fast. Tenet, sources say, recently conceded to the House panel that the CIA should have done more to warn that finding WMD could be a drawn-out process. Tenet got a reprieve last week when an Iraqi scientist who had hidden parts and documents for nuclear-weapons production in his backyard for 12 years came forward. Tenet's usually behind-the-scenes CIA suddenly became very public in trumpeting the importance of the discovery, if only to remind people how hard illicit weapons would be to find. But Tenet's hot zone isn't Baghdad; it's Capitol Hill. He canceled testimony before the Senate committee last week, citing a schedule conflict. If he doesn't find any weapons, he needs to find a way not to be blamed.

Bush officials believe that time and history are on their side. They argue that now that Saddam is gone, Americans don't care very much about finding WMD. They also say it is only a matter of time before more evidence of weapons materials and programs emerges. And when that occurs, they contend, all their opponents will look as silly as they did when they argued that the war was going badly in its second week. "The Dems are looking for an issue, but I think they're making a mistake," says a senior Administration official.

Democrats do sense a possibly potent campaign theme, but they run the risk of appearing to politicize a sensitive national-security issue as they try to prove the Administration has a credibility gap. But Democrats are not alone in feeling as though they may have been sandbagged on the evidence before the war began. Sources say g.o.p. Senate Intelligence Committee members Olympia Snowe and Hagel have privately questioned the Administration's handling of prewar intelligence. The Republican-held House voted last week to order the CIA to report back on "lessons learned" from the buildup to war in Iraq. The House and Senate intelligence-committee leaders have agreed to coordinate their probes loosely to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. In a rare move, the House panel quietly voted on June 12 to grant all 435 Representatives access to the Iraq intelligence, although a Capitol Hill source said fewer than 10 members outside the committee had reviewed the material.

Administration officials have a further concern about where all these questions are leading. They fear that any problem with the prewar intelligence could undermine Bush's ability to continue his muscular campaign against terrorism overseas. The Administration has argued that to counter new kinds of threats posed by terrorists, rogue states and WMD, it has to be able to act pre-emptively. But pre-emption requires excellent intelligence, and the whole doctrine is undermined if the intelligence is wrong—or confected. "Intelligence takes on an even more important role than in the past because you can't wait until you see an enemy army massing anymore," says former Clinton Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg. But if WMD don't turn up and the Administration wants to act elsewhere, it may find that the enemy massing against it is public opinion at home.

From the Jul. 07, 2003 issue of TIME magazine”

“if they were up your a$$ you'd know where they were.....”

“The pressure is on - look for something to be phonied up.”

“yea, bush will plant the evidence and then you all will be eatin crow...HAAAAAAAHAAHHAHAHHAHAHAAAA!”

“Can you say 'whitewash'?


Report: Iraq weapons search update late

LONDON, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- A scheduled update on any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is being delayed and the entire report may not be published, The Sunday Times of London reported.

There was no immediate response from U.S. officials, but the report that originated with British officials said the Anglo-American team of 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts has very little to report.

Their progress report on any biological, chemical and nuclear devices expected Monday will be delayed, the newspaper said, and the final report to be given the Central Intelligence Agency may not be made public.

The subject of Iraq's weapons capability has become very sensitive in London and Washington as critics have charged Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush exaggerated the capabilities to help justify the war.

The investigation in Iraq is headed by David Kay, a long-time arms inspector.

Washington Times”

“David Kay is in charge of our effort now, with some 1,500 inspectors and analysts and experts. He will provide an interim report later this month, and I am confident when people see what David Kay puts forward they will see that there was no question that such weapons exist, existed, and so did the programs to develop one.
- Colin Powell
Meet The Press
September 7th, 2003



David Kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be interim reports. I don't know when those will be, and I don't know what the public nature of them will be.
- Condi Rice
Press Briefing
September 22nd, 2003


Forget the WMDs. Now the question is "Where is the interim report?"”

“I for one am impressed with the care and caution being used in the planting and fabrication of evidence. It was done far too carelessly the first time around.

(note satirical intent)”

“Someone will slip up or blow the whistle. Then the #&%!$ will really hit the fan!”

“It's quite interesting to me how smoothly the claims have been shifting from 'tons' of this and that to 'evidence of programs'.”