White House Lied About Iraq Nuclear Programs

An anonymous reader writes "This New York Times article reports that in 2002, the Bush Administration's assertions that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program were based on evidence that was doubted by the government's foremost nuclear security experts. Specifically, aluminum tubes most likely meant for small artillery rockets were interpreted by the administration as parts for uranium centrifuges." In a nutshell: while Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld were announcing to the American public that these tubes were slam-dunk evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions, they already knew that there was completely overwhelming evidence that the tubes were just for artillery rockets (as Iraq said) and that the tubes were totally unsuitable for use in centrifuges.

Comments

And we all know The New York Times

[adzoox]

... that the New York Times should be considered an unbiased and balanced source for all of our political news.

Funny, they haven't had a single anti-Kerry piece so far.

- no coverage of political campaign contributions being misappropriated and illegal

- little to no coverage of the backlash against Fahrenheit 9/11

- no coverage of George Bush interview with Bill O'Reilly

- next to zero coverage of CBS evidence mistake

And let me just say - slashdot - you are REALLY polarizing your users, I know this makes no difference and will be modded into flamebait oblivion. But how about a pro Bush post - like computers for education plans that he's signed - or an Anti Kerry story - about how the military is actually using the best technology and they needed more funds for it and Kerry voted against sending more money to fund it. (Yet says he's for removing Saddam and completing the job in iraq)

Re:Whaaaa?

[The boojum]

I am so sick of this kind of thing. Each time someone discovers a coinage like this they think themselves clever. But it's not clever, it's trite and juvenile, and it's been done a million times before.

Bushshit, BusHitler, Sheeple, Shrubya, Chimpy, etc. They've all been beaten into the ground.

Lay off the name calling, present your ideas calmly and without the rhetoric and hysteria and people might start to take your ideas seriously. Keep it up and you'll be instantly dismissed as just another radical lefty wacko.

Re:/. Bias

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Oh, it's absurd on so many levels.

First of all, "lied?" I'm so fucking sick of that word being thrown around. I know that there are some people out there who are just so consumed by hate that they refuse to think. I know this, you know this, everybody knows this. But do there have to be so many of them?

Did we invade Iraq over aluminum tubes? No, no we did not. People who fixate on aluminum tubes or yellowcake or bioweapons trailers or any other single aspect of the situation are like Johnny Cochrane pulling the ridiculous and phenomenally successful glove defense: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

Guys, we didn't go to war over one thing. We didn't go to war over a single breach of a treaty or a single act of terrorism or a single anything at all. We went to war because the sum of the available facts and inferences led to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat that we could no longer tolerate.

Is that too hard for you to wrap your heads around? Is that too complicated for you? Fine, let me put it in the simplest way I know. The very simplest. Ready? Here it is:

We invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had close ties to all sorts of international terrorist organizations and active weapons programs that either already had or would soon give him weapons that, if used in a terrorist attack, would result in devastation on a scale that has only ever been associated with total war.

I'm really sorry that it's not any simpler than that. I'll try to break it down for you.

1. Saddam Hussein was a terrorist. This is a partial list of terrorist acts that Saddam was personally involved with. It is not a complete list. Do not look at this list and go "is that all?" because it isn't.

a. Up until the very week before the invasion, Saddam was making large cash payments to the families of Hamas terrorists. He wasn't even trying to hide it. The presentations of the checks was shown on Iraqi state-run television like Saddam was fucking Ed McMahon.

b. Saddam used the Iraqi diplomatic corps to pass messages back and forth to Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist terror group that operates in and around the Philippines.

c. After Tunisia expelled terrorist Abu Abbas over the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, Saddam gave him safe haven in Iraq. Abu Abbas was captured outside Baghdad last year.

d. After the defeat of the Taliban and the destruction of al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, members of al-Qaida relocated to Iraq and set up shop in the mountains south of Kirkuk. One of these was Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was known to have spent a lot of time at al-Qaida camps in 2000 and 2001.

e. Sometime in the 1990s --we do not know precisely when--Saddam gave terrorist Abu Nidal permission to enter and leave Iraq at will, including setting him up with a Baghdad safehouse. Ironically, it was Saddam who ordered Abu Nidal's execution in 2002. Why? Because he refused to train the al-Qaida terrorists who set up shop inside Iraq in early 2002.

The list just goes on and fucking on. Saddam Hussein was a terrorist himself, a friend of terrorists, a supporter of terrorists. That alone is enough to make all non-head-up-asses Americans really fucking nervous, because of the whole thing with that chunk of real estate in lower Manhattan that's not there any more.

But that's not all there was, you see. What really took it from "we're nervous" to "this can't be allowed to continue" was Saddam's weapons programs. His chemical program is thoroughly documented. His nuclear program is thoroughly documented. His biological program is thoroughly documented. His ballistic missile program is thoroughly documented. His UAV and drone programs are thoroughly documented. These things aren't even in dispute. Nobody's suggesting that Saddam wasn't actively seeking weapons of mass destruction.

What people are saying is that he didn't actually have weapons of m

Come on

[bobbuck]

The aluminum tubes were just one element of the case against Saddam. He would have tried to get WMD's as soon as the international heat was off, maybe sooner.

As for Clinton, nobody really cared if he was boning his interns. That was just a way to get at him. He was accepting millions of dollars from Chinese and other Asian donors and making any policy they saw fit. Another point is that he was being paid to look out for the United States and he was completely AWOL. Madeline Albright admitted she and the Clinton adm. knew the North Koreans were cheating on the nuclear deal and they didn't do anything about it! US foreign policy then was more about propping up Tyson Foods than anything, else.

Oh please!

[solarrhino]

The NYTimes (and its ilk) are a horde of lying liars who'll print (or broadcast) anything to win, baby. Here's what today's column by John Leo has to say about the "paper of record", among others:

In July, a Senate intelligence committee and an official British investigation both concluded that President Bush had been on firm ground when he spoke the famous 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union message (that the British had learned Saddam Hussein had sought to acquire uranium in Africa). When the 16 words appeared to be untrue, the press endlessly trumpeted them, often on the front page, but when Bush drew heavy support from the two investigations, you could hardly find the news with a magnifying glass. In the New York Times, the British report was carried way inside the paper and read like a muddled translation from classical Urdu. This seems to happen a lot when the Times is forced to report news it doesn't like. On July 25, the Washington Post press critic, Howard Kurtz, reported that his newspaper had carried 96 references to the issue when Bush appeared to be wrong and only two after the revelation that he looked to be right. The totals for the three major networks and three elite newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, were 302 before and nine after. According to Kurtz, CBS never did get around to mentioning that the investigations had supported the president.

This will turn out the same way. Over and over charges like this get flung at Bush, and each and every time he comes up smelling like a rose. When you people understand - he's not a scoundrel like Clinton, he's honestly doing the right things for the right reasons!

Re:If Bush Administration Lied About WMD,

[mrbrown1602]

When? Clinton never EVER testified before Congress, so right there you show you don't know what you're talking about. Sitting presidents don't.

Mr. Clinton sent his representatives to various forums (including the UN) in 1997 and 1998 during the height of the Iraq disarmament crisis in the 90s. In fact, the stated goal of Operation Desert Fox was to "degrade" Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction capabilities. Secretary Albright actually stated several times that Iraq had WMDs and that Hussein should be taken out - see Albright's March 1997 speech to Georgetown University on the subject

When? When did John Kerry know that aluminum tubes were not capable of being used in nuclear weaponsmaking, but claimed they were so capable anyway, and did so in front of Congress? Do tell.

Typical liberal, spinning what I said. The "lies" I was referring to was that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Senator Kerry actually helped author and signed a letter to Clinton in 1998 which state [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.". Hmm... 1998? Yeah, that's right, I'm pretty sure Bush wasn't given any intelligence on Iraq in '98, seeing as how he wasn't President and all... There are more quotes where that came from.

They were stating what they believed. When the Bush admin officials testified in front of Congress, they were intentionally LYING. Big difference. They had information beforehand that contradicted what they were saying, and can be proven to have known it.

The article doesn't really state anything new. It just says the administration embraced a disputed theory, and there's really nothing wrong with that. Saying that the 9/11 Terrorists were arabs and followers of Osama bin Laden is a disputed theory, as there are some out there that are silly enough to believe that the MOSAD did it. Bush Sr, Clinton, and Dubya all believed there were WMDs in Iraq, and unlike his father and BJ Boy, he took action after we were attacked on 9/11. Yes, I know, Iraq was not involved in 9/11. However, the policy of this administration is that if you support ANY form of terrorism, expect your ass to be taken out. The case can be argued that Hussein supported Palestinian suicide bombers by paying their families, and actually on occasion trained terrorists. In addition, some members of al-Qaeda received medical treatment in Baghdad. And oh yes, did you know there was a camp outside of Baghdad that contained a Boeing 707 that Iraqi Special Forces used to practice hijacking planes?

I'm not even going to go into the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, passed by President Clinton, which actually made the policy of the United States that of regime change in Iraq. I'm not going to go into the 16 UN Resolutions that the United States pushed since 1991 which stated Hussein was a threat.

Shyah? Conservatives alwas find it so easy to find a hole to crawl into when the rhetoric fails to be convincing.

I'm not going to go into the rest of the evidence out there, because you're just a blind ideologue. It was obvious that you are one when you made the Halliburton comment. At least I can see the other side, and I've proven that by campaigning for Democrats in the past (and currently in the Baton Rouge Mayor-President race). Stop being an ideologue with spun arguments and maybe people will listen to you.

The lies are extremely extensive.

[Futurepower(R)]

As you said, the lies are extremely extensive. The Bush administration corruption is the worst in U.S. history. Read the reviews of 3 movies and 35 recently published books that say the corruption is extremely intense: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

It is not possible to develop an accurate opinion by listening to the carefully crafted phrases from media employees who would lose their jobs if they seemed to indicate a preference for one candidate over another. Remember, the media exists to make money. Unfortunately, we don't have directly supported media, only ad supported media, and advertisers, understandably, are careful not to alienate anyone.

--
Bush: Borrowing money to try to make his administration look good.

Re:Whaaaa?

[maxpublic]

I'd have to say there may be at least a grain of truth to the rumours circulating about George's mental health.

Although it certainly isn't PC to say it about a sitting president, his observed behavior sure fits the bill for clinical sociopathy. I'd love to get that guy alone for day-long interview to see if my armchair analysis is correct.

Max