Slashdot Mirror
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.
If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People
... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998
by John Hawkins
Since we haven't found WMD in Iraq, a lot of the anti-war/anti-Bush crowd is saying that the Bush administration lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Well, if they're going to claim that the Bush administration lied, then there sure are a lot of other people, including quite a few prominent Democrats, who have told the same "lies" since the inspectors pulled out of Iraq in 1998. Here are just a few examples that prove that the Bush administration didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction...
"[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." -- From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998
"This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated 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 refine 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." -- From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others
"Whereas Iraq has consistently breached its cease-fire agreement between Iraq and the United States, entered into on March 3, 1991, by failing to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program, and refusing to permit monitoring and verification by United Nations inspections; Whereas Iraq has developed weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological capabilities, and has made positive progress toward developing nuclear weapons capabilities" -- From a joint resolution submitted by Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter on July 18, 2002
"Saddam's goal
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" -- National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998
"Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement." -- Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained 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 capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." -- Robert Byrd, October 2002
"There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we." -- Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002
"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may l
"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."
Not that I buy it, but the claim the Bush administration is going to be making (and this is covered in the article) is that the CIA didn't highlight or even mention the debate going on in the intelligence community over the use of these aluminum tubes. Condoleeza Rice appeared on a lot of Sunday shows today (I saw the CNN one) claiming that back when she claimed that the tubes could "only really be used for nuclear weapons", she knew of the debate but thought it was a marginalized dissent and that the overwhelming consensus in the intelligence community was that these tubes were to be used for nukes.
Of course, the response to these claims is: you couldn't have afford to have just based your information on the CIA briefings. If you're leading the nation to war, call in the advice of every relevant department and organization. The path to war shouldn't be a light one. And of course, since the nuclear issue was one of the major ones that drove us to war, supposedly, then the Energy Department clearly should have been consulted. And their overwhelming views were that the tubes were to be used for rockets.
Two points that are interesting in this article (that deserve a read)...
#1: The fact that the CIA endorsed the nuclear threat theory through the aluminum tube evidence, knowing the yellowcake evidence was bullshit. Meanwhile, the Energy Department endorsed the nuclear threat theory through the yellowcake evidence, knowing the aluminum tube evidence was bullshit. And yet, this was just read as a double endorsement.
#2: Dick Cheney's roll throughout all this (the fact that he was basically demanding evidence before any surfaced, or at least any that he was aware of).
Yes and no. The President is bound by all laws, but he cannot be tried while in office. He must either finish his position in office or be impeached and removed from office before he can be tried; however, it seems to be standing policy by each new president to pardon the previous president, as each wants the same from the following president. I wouldn't count on Bush being tried in a court of law unless he personally killed someone, in cold blood, with 10 witnesses, and was caught grinning into the camera.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Michael: When you rip off posts from Drudgereport.com, The New Scientist and other well-read sites, make sure you follow the thread through to the point where they explain that the story was nothing more than a political hit piece.
For instance, check out an earlier NY Times piece that actually reinforces the administration's position. Or you could review that this hit piece was to be joined by CBS News in another attempted effort to push fraudulant information and sucker all the sheep out there.
Or should we expect a post from you about "critical national guard documents damage Bush" and experience a deja vu Slashdot experience?
Slashdot readers - you too can read it before Michael (or some alleged anonymous reader, just like the CBS anonymous sources) reads it and makes up a libelous headline damaging Slashdot credibility and objectivity:
Drudge Report
The New Scientist
and other excellent critical reads include:
Power Line
Weekly Standard
Little Green Footballs
Oh... I should warn you - if you're determined to vote for Kerry in spite of everything, do NOT go to the any of the above sites. It'll destroy any opportunity for ignorance you might have.
as the NY Times article points out, similar quality aluminum is found in tin cans and other commercial products. And the same material (with similar specs) was used to make rockets for the US Military.
If you RTFA it's very clear that the tubes would be completely useless in a nuclear program. And that the specs were consistent with the Iraqi army's requirements for these rockets.
And, as the article shows, all this was known to the current administration months before the Iraq war began.
Great reporting by the Times. Very eye-opening.
So the argument that Sadam was developing nuclear weapons was based on the discredited Yellowcake report from Niger. And on these aluminum tubes. Both of which were known to be suspect before the war began.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
What the hell are you talking about? They threatened to fire the Medicare auditor if he told anyone their actual estimated cost, because it exceeded Congressmembers' upper tolerance of $400B by at least 10%, now nearing 50%, before the program is even fully underway. This is the truth, and your tired denial with "liberal" as a smokescreen is sleazy. How do you like Representative Tom DeLay's criminal inducements to his fellow Republican, to vote for the bill in exchange for DeLay backing the reluctant Rep's son's campaign? Your own words apply only to the extent of not believing your Slashdot posts: they're part of the pack of lies destroying this country. Happy?
--
make install -not war
Considering the utter shit that Michael's been approving lately, I'd just about decided to kill the bookmark to the site and go my merry way.
/. Preferences
Then I remembered that you *can* exclude stories posted by any of the Slashdot supermods, or whatever the hell you call them. Just go to:
Click on the tab titled "Homepage," then under "Exclude Stories From the Homepage" locate the author you don't want to see again (in this case Michael) and check the box.
Now, the suggestion to Slashdot coders: Why not create a special section called "Ignore shitty articles by Michael?" After all, it's not that I want to exclude stories as much as I don't like my time wasted by a jackass like him.
I read this story Saturday evening and the tubes that Iraq was shopping for were of a much greater tolerance than needed for their small artilery rockets.
Wrong wrong wrong WRONG!!!!
From the story:
To sum up: a low-level analyst found an old centrifuge design that he thought the Iraqis were copying. He ignored the fact that the tubes were an exact match of rockets the Iraqis used earlier, and didn't even bother to ask the inventor of the original centrifuge whether or not the tubes could be used in that centrifuge.
End of story, WRT the "much greater tolerance" line.
-jdm
CHENEY ENERGY TASK FORCE DOCUMENTS FEATURE MAP OF IRAQI OILFIELDS (Their caps, not mine)
First three docs:
Iraq Oil Map.PDF
Iraq Oil Foreign Suitors.2.PDF
Iraq Oil Foreign Suitors.1.PDF
So, before the war, the Vice President, like, has this task force thing, and they won't tell anybody what they talked about. But they had a map of the Iraqi oilfields AND lists of people who would be intersted in those fields. Oh, and the VIP himself? He's still pulling down mad money from Halliburton, to the tune of about half-a-mill a year.
But "War for Oil"? Man, that's just CRAZY talk right there. CRAZY.
The brutal treatment of Germany by the Allies after WWI was beyond inhuman. It created an incubator for fascism. We are foolishly repeating history now in the Middle East, and children being born today will pay for it dearly. I guarantee it.
The Philosophy of Liberty | lewrockwell.com
Much of the evidence presented as "proof" had been discredited before the President's State of the Union address that presented the evidence as unequivocable. The yellow-cake evidence had already been determined to be a forgery, the British intelligence report that figured prominently had been shown to be a cribbed-together mishmash of outdated sources (a 5-year old thesis available off the 'net, and some stuff from one of the Jane's military references), the the "aluminum tubes" evidence had been widely discredited by experts in the nucular field. I read all of this after the UN presentation by Collin Powell, and before President Bush's State of the Union address.
The one piece of evidence that was kept rather quiet, mentioned obliquely as reports from defected Iraqi citizens, turned out to come from one or two con artists.
There was not one single piece of evidence that was valid, and anybody following the leadup to war could tell. Anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the evidence was labelled a "liberal," as if it were a dirty word. Hell, even Anne Coulter called those folks traitors.
To place so many citizens in harm's way (and to perform a national variety of vigilante justice) based on such questionable evidence took either an unbelievable amount of self-deception, or a desire to attack Iraq *in spite* of the evidence.
Considering there was *no link whatsoever* between bin Laden and Hussien, I can only interpret the evidence in one way: President Bush intentionally lied to the US citizens to follow a path to war with a beaten enemy. I don't know why. The "liberal" in me thinks it might be to benefit Halliburton and Bechtel. The realist in me realizes it might be nothing more than a distraction from the complete disaster in Afghanistan. Or there might have been a *real* reason to go after Iraq, one that had to be hidden from the world.
Considering the price tag in human life and our nation's honor and credibility, I'm not sure which would be worse.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You officially fail it.
Scott Ritter was a U.S. Marine who served in the Gulf war and acted as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). He resigned his role as chief inspector after the CIA was caught trying to into the inspection teams in 1998.
In an interview with Paula Zahn, one of the United States' leading experts on Iraqi weapons programs left no question as to his feelings on the justification for war:
Scott Ritter was bashed by the media, who painted him as a traitor to the United States for failing to accept the White House's justifications. It's interesting how the media, often accused of being quite liberal, went out of their way to discredit Ritter and show loyalty to the White House in late 2002, yet reported of just which mouths had engulfed Clinton's penis could hardly be avoided during Monicagate.
The real story here isn't that the White House lied -- if you pay attention, White House officials "flip-flop" so much over the supposed motivations for war that even their caricature of Kerry looks rock solid. The real story here is that the media fell for the Iraq justification (or lack thereof) hook, line, and sinker, while doing the dirty work of discrediting Scott Ritter and ignoring or discrediting any other voices asking for more investigation for military action against Iraq.
You want links? Try these:
Documentation of "flip-flops" by the "liberal" media -- reporting the truth (that UN inspectors voluntarily left in December 1998), then
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
A Secret background investigation involves financials and court records. They don't go through your past contacts and they only ask about drug use after the age of 18.
You can explain away a _lot_ of things on a Secret investigation. A TS or above is much, much harder. I'm aware of a person with a felony conviction who got through a Secret investigation with a bunch of testimonials from govt employees to his upstanding character. Admittedly, he was rejected once before.
There is a Judge Advocate who makes decisions on such things.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
He let precious minutes fly by while the nation was under attack. There were several actions he could have taken to defend the country that he didn't because he sat motionless in a classroom.
2. He doesn't waffle on the issues
Bush said war was a last resort, but rushed to war, pulling out the UN inspectors when they wanted more time and had seen increasing cooperation.
Bush said he'd go after any country that helped the terrorists, but he's covered up involvement by the Saudi government in 9/11.
Bush attacked Saddam for phony nukes, while North Korea has an assembly line. Bush knew about the NK nukes weeks before the Iraq vote but decided not to disclose it.
Bush was against Homeland Security Department until it started hurting him in the polls.
Bush was against a Senate 9/11 investigation until it started hurting him in the polls.
Bush was against the 9/11 commission until it started hurting him in the polls.
Bush was against Condi testifying to the commission until it started hurting him in the polls.
Bush imposed steel tariffs until it started hurting him in the polls, he quickly repealed them.
We attacked Iraq to disarm a dicator. Bush told Saddam if he disarmed we wouldn't attack.
We attacked Iraq because "of 9/11".
We attacked Iraq to bring Democracy to the mid-east.
Bush couldn't handle France's input on Iraq, but apparntly from Thursday's debate, he won't bat an eye lash towards North Korea without Chinese approval.
3. George is unpolished
George is a product of Yale, Andover, Harvard, and the state of Connecticut. Look at any private video of him before his first gubernatorial run.
4. George is a personally moral man
Q: when your not talking politics, what do you and [your father] talk about?"
BUSH: "pussy"
-to david fink of the hartford courant, at the 1998 republican convention, salon, 9 april 2000
Bush famously does not go to church.
5. He tells us we can succeed, not that we will fail
George Bush believes that what we are doing in Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Sudan is the best that we can do. That it's Hard Work. We all know that we can do better. That we could have donebetter.
Play Command HQ online
We stepped in, overthrew their government, and deposed their leader. In doing so, we were able to put our own (US-chosen) leader, the "Shah of Iran" (yes, THAT shah) into power, with a very specific set of rules and policies that were to be followed by his people, dictated by... you guessed it.. the United States Government.
We've been screwing around with the Middle East for several decades, even long before radicals like Osama and Al Zawahiri were even born.
Also, lets not forget that the same Afghanistan rebels that the United States helped and funded with money and military arms to beat the Russians out of Afghanistan... were the the same Afghanistani rebels that became Al Queda, and attacked us on 9/11. Yes, the very same group.
There's a lot more to this than people are seeing at the surface.
Poland is in the "bribed" part of the coalition. Their foreign minister flat out admitted last summer they were in Iraq to get a piece of the oil field action. Gotta give the guy kudos for honesty though I should think it would be a career limiting trait for a diplomat.
Its unfortunate Kerry didn't know about this statement and didn't throw it back in George's face when George was losing it on "Don't forget Poland".
One thing I'll give the British over the U.S. they make their Prime Minister stand up in front of the opposition and take a grilling. Its pretty obvious George is living in a cocoon, no one ever challenges him, and the first time he had to face some from Kerry he pretty much lost it. I also wager he simply can't deal with the issues unless its regurgitating his "message" or Cheney is whispering in his ear what to say. The debate seemed to prove that.
I'd have to say there may be at least a grain of truth to the rumours circulating about George's mental health. You don't come out of years of acute alcoholism and drug use, untreated, and not carry deep mental scaring, especially when you are under major pressure. The guy simply doesn't have what it takes to hold any position with any power.
@de_machina
If you care so much about global opinion why are you trashing this fine international coalition that our heroic president has formed. What do you say to Tony Blair? What do you say to Poland? Poland! Why does everybody forget that we were supported by Poland!
I know you're being sarcastic here but it should be noted that the governments of American allies pretty much went to war against the public opinion of their population (and some of them are paying for it now), that includes both Britain and Poland. In many cases (including Estonia, my own native country), "official" approval for US policy was achieved by simple bribery and threats. There was probably no country in the world but the US (where it took a lot of brainwashing and spineless media parroting everything the administration said) where the people would actually have believed the story of Bush administration.
When men used to be men
What do you say to Poland? Poland! Why does everybody forget that we were supported by Poland!
The real question is what does Poland say to us. Here's what the President of Poland says about the Bush administration's justification to going into Iraq:
"That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."
-President Aleksander Kwasniewski
(March 18, 2004)
Great way to build a coalition.
Full Story
"No, he let the weapons inspectors in and let them search anywhere."
Uh, I'm not sure if you were watching the news at all before then, but he most certainly did NOT allow inspectors to go wherever they pleased. That statement is just plain false. In the years after the first Iraq war, he continually kicked out and restricted access to inspectors. This was in contradiction to the agreement we had with him at that time.
I suggest you read up on the Project for the New American Century and some of its publications. Most members of the bush administration have ties to this organization.
Specificly, see this website's analysis of PNAC, and PNAC's open letter to Clinton in 1998 urging military action in Iraq, signed by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, among others.
Actually, no he can't. His relationship with Monica had nothing to do with the deposition that day, which was about some bimbomissle shot at the court system by the Richard Mellon Scaife elves.
The lawyers deposing Clinton lied to the judge about the relevance of the Lewinsky questions. The questions were indeed irrelevant, and designed soley to humiliate and ruin Clinton. The lawyers should have been disciplined, but the judge would have been ruined by the powers that were after Clinton. The victim was punished instead. Much easier.
And Clinton DID NOT LIE UNDER OATH. A bloody, fat lie. He had the judge define sex; what he did did not qualify under the judge's definition; he did not lie. He outsmarted the bastards.
And it wasn't a trial. It was a deposition. There was no case. It melted into the sewer lines along with all the other Scaife-driven crap during those years.
Of these others, South Korea depends heavily on the US for their own national defense, Berlusconi and Bush are actually buddies, Poland has already stated they were duped by the US on the WMD issue, and were offered financial incentives, and I'm betting Ukraine and Netherlands have similar stories.
In the total breakdown, the US represents about 85% of the troops currently deployed, the British about 7%, and a bunch of other countries have contributed a token amount of troops to show their 'support' for the country that their economies depend on. As you can see, it's not just about the breadth of the coalition as it is about its depth, and the types of countries that are 'members' and their reasons for being there.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.p
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2
Of a simple six-question quiz on stances that the candidates hold on major issues, the average person got less than three questions right.
'Who wants to privatize Social Security?'
'Which one doesn't like assault weapons?'
'What is the cutoff income for Kerry's tax increases?' (50k, 100k, 200k, or 500k)
'Who is a former prosecutor?'
'Who favors making the recent tax cuts permanent?'
'Who wants to make it easier for labor unions to organize?'
People who didn't watch any 'late-night comedy show' scored 2.6 out of 6 right. 2.6. Now, even being charitable and assuming that people can't remember numbers (200k, hint hint) and that people don't remember that before becoming President, GWB's only political experience AT ALL was as Governor of Texas, that's still totally utterly pathetic. Do you realize that it means that MORE THAN HALF of those surveyed scored between 0 and 2 out of 6? And that only one of the questions had more than two possible choices?
If you answer that quiz randomly, you get 2.75 right, on average. Let me say that again. If you don't speak English, and just randomly pick an answer for each question, you get a 2.75.
People who watched Jay Leno got 2.95, David Letterman viewers got 2.91, and viewers of The Daily Show, astoundingly enough, got 3.59. Frequent (more than 3 days a week) network news viewers got 40% right, frequent cable news viewers got 48% (they didn't differentiate out Fox viewers, which might have told a different story), and newspaper readers got 46%. Less than half! The only group of people who averaged more than half were viewers of The Daily Show, who were what, 14% more informed than newspaper readers? (Wow, not to digress or anything, but that's kind of neat.)
Anyone who was paying any attention at all got six, and could have done so while drunk and standing on his or her head. The amount of illegal substances that would have been required to make me score 2 would have incapacitated a small midwestern town.
The American public doesn't even know what the two candidates stand for, and you think they're seriously giving weighted averages of all of the different stances and coming up with a decision?
The extent of your optimism awes me.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Bin Laden would beef up the approval numbers, but wouldn't Saddam do just as much? Bin Laden seems to have completely escaped into that northern Pakistan region, that even Pakistani soldiers won't go into, much less American troops. Maybe American forces cant get Bin Laden without rock hard intelligence, good enough for special forces to go in and pick him up same day.
On the issue of timing, maybe the planning phase for Iraq was terrible. Perhaps they were overly optimistic in thinking that the Iraqi people would be happy beyond belief. It doesn't seem they counted on a guerrilla war at all. Also, Bush's approval numbers were slowly dwindling with time. The longer he waited to start the war, likely, the less support he would have. His approval only jumped up at certain times during major events, but afterwards it always steadily declined (From his election to 9/11, from 9/11 to Iraq major combat operations ending, to now).
Why make up a reason to go to war? This goes back to the planning stage. Completely overly optimistic, perhaps the planners suffered from Groupthink and putting down dissenting views. Being blind to other ideas and doubts, they did not account for much. This also allows for more secrecy, only those trusted similar views are allowed in the group, so you have less to worry about.
As for the oil, its not just oil. All the reconstruction contracts, like the no-bid contracts to Haliburton. Those same Corps. overcharging the government. Again, back to bad planning. They probably thought they could easily get the oil; however, they didn't count on guerrilla warriors taking out oil pipelines and facilities constantly.
I don't know they certain reason Bush decided to go to war with Iraq, but its evidently clear; Iraq was a poorly planned situation that allowed for the initial support of regular Iraqi citizens to be squandered, also foreign militant organizations were not only allowed to enter the country, but setup shop there. The plan only looked at Saddam's Army, not the possibility of Guerrilla warfare. For the reason that this was not planned for, Americans soldiers will die in Iraq for many years to come, regardless of Kerry or Bush being elected.
Yes, we were. By whom? This is the important question you're missing. The main problem with your line of reasoning is that you're conflating Al-Qaida with Iraq or perhaps the entire Middle East. If you cannot distinguish between enemies and neutral parties, or even between different enemies, or even keep track of which enemy was responsible for which offense, then you cannot know how to react. The enemy who attacked us on 9/11 was Al-Qaida, an international terrorist network based in Afghanistan but with operatives in several different countries worldwide. Al Qaida was not in league with Saddam Hussein, because Al Qaida saw him as a "secular infidel." And "Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army." (9/11 Commission Report, page 61). They were two quite separate enemies. (In fact, America wasn't an object of Hussein's aggression; his problem with the U.S. was that we stopped his aggression against his neighbors.) Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to George HW Bush, laid the situation out pretty well here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h
Top U.S. military commanders argued against invading Iraq because it was at best tangential and at worst entirely counter-productive to the war on terror. These include General Anthony Zinni, http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/zinni.html, General Joseph Hoar, http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/s803482.htm, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. forces in the first Gulf War http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2705275.stm.
Yes, we absolutely need to get the guys who attacked us. But to do that, we need to get the guys who attacked us. This "hit 'em where they ain't" strategy is just bloody stupid. Afghanistan is a justifiable war. Iraq is not.
Heh, well, at least you didn't forget Poland. But you did neglect to note something about Poland: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1069242.ht
"[Polish President] ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI (translated): They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."
Eh?
Don't think we're not pissed off, we are. We just don't blame you, we blame Blair for being such a slimy bastard and ignoring the largest protest ever held in the UK. Oh, and your media for skewing things to the point where a large part of the US has gone from opposing the war to supporting it (insert Goebels quote about patriotism here).
These tubes were made of the wrong kind of aluminum for uranium enrichment. They were too long and too narrow to be suitable. This was in the IAEA report the Bush administration, and the entire UN Security Council, had seen. It was not speculation, it was based on real tubes seized in Jordan. The administration, with Bush as its mouthpiece, lied.
In his speech to the Security Council which underscored the need for war, Colin Powell told the Council that the tolerances for the tubes were better than for any rocket even the US uses. He had, actually, been informed that the tubes were manufactured to comparable tolerances as US rocket tubes. The administration, with Colin Powell as its mouthpiece, lied.
Seems like much ado about nothing, right? But this is the cornerstone of the Administration's belief that Saddam was trying to acquire nuclear weapons. These tubes were the only hard evidence they had going for them.
They weren't just willfully gullible in taking biased reports from a no-name in the CIA which contradicted evidence from DoE experts (a crime of which Kerry and Edwards are also guilty), but they willfully lied. This is now clear.
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
Seems like much ado about nothing, right? But this is the cornerstone of the Administration's belief that Saddam was trying to acquire nuclear weapons. These tubes were the only hard evidence they had going for them.
Bush also claimed that Sadam was trying to buy uranium from Africa, even though the administration knew there was no evidence of that. And the scandal goes even deeper than that. When the man they assigned to investigate the uranium rumors (retired ambassador Joseph Wilson) revealed the truth (that the evidence was forged), the administration retaliated against him by revealing to the world that his wife was a CIA agent (thus placing her life in danger and risking American security).
And before you discount this as liberal spin, the reported who outed Wilson's wife is Robert Novak, a well known conservative reporter, and he has confirmed that his sources were a pair of senior whitehouse staff member. This assertion is backed up by additional investigation from the Washington Post. A special investigator has been appointed, and even the President has been questioned. The rumors abound now that the two staff member have already been identified (the names have even been leaked), but the Bush administration has put pressure on the FBI to hold off on the arrests until after the election.
Of course there is no proof that Bush himself ordered the retaliation against Wilson, or that he even knew about it, and in fact I believe it very possible that he did not. The evidence so far indicates a couple of staffers reporting directly to Vice President Cheney. It is entirely possible that Cheney took this action upon himself without consulting with the President. Either way, a couple of alarming things remain: The administration used the uranium evidence to support their case for the Iraq war even though they had been told the evidence was bunk. Furthermore, senior staffmembers in the whitehouse broke the cover of an undercover CIA agent (an agent involved in the hunt for weapons of mass distruction no less)... a treasonous act by any measure.
The Bolachek Journals
Does that mean you support US invasion of Israel to remove Sharon and throw Israel out of the illegally occupied areas? If not, why, as they have been systematically ignoring UN resolutions since before Saddam got to power in Iraq in the first plae.
Just a comment to the 'Let Europe' buy their oil: I live in Germany, and there are a lot of activities to find alternative energy resources. Wind already produces more than 10% of our local energy, because alternative power plants are pushed. I don't pay taxes for my current car, because it consumes less than 5 litres per 100km. Just another example how energy efficiency is supported.
Apprdoximately 50% of the eligible voters actually bothered in 2000. This means only 25% of the eligible voters wanted either one. Actually, a bit less than that. Nadar and other third party candidates drew off some votes.
A "none of the above" choice would draw more voters.
(a) Israel is building a big fuckoff wall *way outside* those borders, conveniently annexing large swathes of territory that do not belong to Israel with NO JUSTIFICATION
The first part I can't argue much with, but there IS justification. Namely that the wall between Israel and Gaza has worked quite well, and the parts of the wall between Israel and West Bank thus far completed have cut down on attacks.
If you want to get into the mindset of many Israelis, not just the right wingers, they consider taking extra land as the lesser of two evils than deaths of terror attacks and Israeli reprisals. Do you actually consider land more important than life?
At this point people claim "just end the occupation and the terror will stop", but before there was any occupation, the terror existed. The Palestinian LIBERATION Organization formed before Israel captured Gaza and West Bank, those parts were OCCUPIED by Egypt and Jordan respectively. What part of Palestine was Arafat and company trying to liberate?
(b) Israel is pursuing a systematic policy of colonising a foreign territory with 'native' Israelis
Well, if you know what happened at the end of the Six Day War, Israel offered to return ALL occupied territories back to their owners. The Arabs collectively refused with the famous Three No's (No Recognition, No Talks, No Peace). What the hell was Israel supposed to do at that point? Say "Well, take your strategic land back then and by all means keep attacking us."?
Now I do agree with you that during Oslo Israel didn't fulfill it's requirement to remove settlements, but neither did the Palestinians meet their requirements to end the incitement and arrest known terrorist leaders. Some minor terrorists were arrested, but usually released (as the saying goes, put into Palestinian jails with revolving doors).
(c) Israelis forces are performing violent operations against civilian, terrorist and militia forces alike with no real concern as to which is which, outside its own territory, with no international sanction and indeed against international law and consensus
Well, if you look at the past few decades, they kept trying to get Arafat and the PA to do these on their own. They refused. Even just days after the most recent intifada broke out, Arafat released hundreds of known terrorists out of jail. This was long before Israel started destroying Palestinian jails and other infrastructure.
The PA refuses to do anything. Many attacks, both before and after the intifada, were carried out by Palestinian policemen, many were trained and/or armed by Israel as part of Oslo.
PA does nothing to stop this, except issue mild rebukes IN ENGLISH to the media.
(d) the Israeli government actually talks about maintaining the genetic purity of Israel (ah the irony) in the sense of making sure that at least 50% of Israelis are Jewish so that there can never be a 'democratic coup' inside Israel at election time
You're misleading people here, whether intentionally or not. Firstly, of course Israel wants to be a Jewish nation, that was the point of its creation. Remember the UN partition plan also called for no Jews to be allowed in Jordan, and in fact Jews are specifically barred from becoming citizens there. Same thing with other Arab countries, Jews are inferior or forbidden from becoming citizens. So if you criticize Israel, at least criticize the rest of the Arab Leage too.
And as far as being a Jewish nation, given treatment of Jews through history (Obviously Holocaust, but also pograms in Russia, Inquisition in Spain, being inferior dhimmis in Arab lands, etc) the point of Israel is to create an outl
make world, not war
Newsflash to you - Arabs can vote in Israel. There are even several Arab officials elected to the Knesset (ie, the Israeli parliament).
make world, not war
By March 2003, Iraq was destroying its Al-Samoud II missiles, the ones that if you stripped of all payloads somehow went slightly further than the UN sanctions allowed. Everybody knew it wasnt a big deal, a technicality really, as empty missiles would not be a threat and they'd never launch them empty anyway, but Iraq was getting rid of them anyway, they saw the threat of invasion looming.
Quickly skimming the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspections reports, I don't see any UN assertions that there were WMDs. In fact, the conclusion states" "we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s."
To quote from a nice paragraph at factcheck.org:
The "Gift Trust Agreement" the Cheney's signed two days before he took office turns over power of attorney to a trust administrator to sell the options at some future time and to give the after-tax profits to three charities. The agreement specifies that 40% will go to the University of Wyoming (Cheney's home state), 40% will go to George Washington University's medical faculty to be used for tax-exempt charitable purposes, and 20% will go to Capital Partners for Education , a charity that provides financial aid for low-income students in Washington, DC to attend private and religious schools.
The agreement states that it is "irrevocable and may not be terminated, waived or amended," so the Cheney's can't take back their options later.
The actual PDF of the agreement can be found here.
That's what you're talking about, right?
--LP
If ignoring UN resolutions is all it takes, can we please invade the US now?
Get a clue.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
You mean like this:
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."
- Bill Clinton, 1998
"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, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. 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. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security."
Hillary Clinton, 2002
If you honestly look at what members of both parties were saying in '02, including Kerry, this latest "revelation" is a blind attempt to destroy the Bush administration.
More info here
former US Marine Officer, a Chiropractor by training and CEO of a technology company by trade. Let me tell you what I've seen in Iraq.
I remember (I believe it was 1988 or '89 or so) I was in the Middle East and saw much of the misery ascribed to Saddam myself.
As an XO of a Weapons company in the 3rd Marines, my company was dispatched initially to Bahrain. From there we dispersed to other points.
I remember both in the initial runs and the subsequent runs we made after the Gulf War had started seeing Women, Children and young boys in prisons in the REGSAT photos.
I then dispatched our TOW, 81's (mortars/observers) and STA (Scout/Snipers) to a region in the north not too far away form that village on orders from my superiors (albeit for different reasons)
We were too late.
I will never forget seeing the sightless eyes of dead children on the streets, looking like broken dolls. Their Skin blistered from the gas.
You as an American citizen can vote for whomever you feel to be the most appropriate representative of your values.
Just remember, the choices you make affect numerous generations to follow.
Those of us who are now parents and have children that are or almost the age of service know this all to well.
It's a choice we don't make lightly.
Think for yourself. Don't listen to the pundits or your buddies. Investigate for yourself. Don't give in to irrational hate or loyalty to any party.
Semper Fi,
Nick
Nick Donovan - CEO
Ioni Corporation
Frisco, TX USA
If you read the N.Y. Times regularly you would know that they had already done an interview with an Iraqi nuclear scientist who said they were ready to reconstitute their nuclear program when the sanctions were lifted. The tubes are dual use and the administration wasn't ready to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt. Now a Iraqi nuclear scientist has a new book about the the bomb in his backyard. Here's more from the Australian.
_ page/0,5744,10863824%255E31477,00.html
An Iraqi scientist-turned-author says the most significant pieces of his country's dormant nuclear program were buried under a lotus tree in his backyard, untouched for more than a decade before the US-led invasion in 2003.
But their existence, Mahdi Obeidi writes in a new book, is evidence that the international community should remain vigilant as other countries try to replicate Iraq's successes before the 1991 Gulf war to develop components necessary for a nuclear weapon.
In The Bomb in my Garden, Obeidi details fallen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's furious, and then abandoned, quest for a nuclear bomb.
"Although Saddam never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the story of how close Iraq came to developing them should serve as a red flag to the international community," Obeidi writes with his co-author Kurt Pitzer.
The Associated Press obtained an advance copy of the book, to be released Sunday.
[...]
While only the former president knows fully why he didn't restart his nuclear program, Obeidi believes Saddam may have realised the scope of the massive undertaking.
United Nations inspectors had dismantled the program, removed the enriched uranium stockpiles and exposed Iraq's international network of suppliers. And Saddam was making a mint off the UN's oil-for-food program, while increasing his control over a population reliant on him for basics such as flour, Obeidi says. To get caught importing components needed to produce a nuclear weapon, the scientist says, would have ended the program.
Yet Saddam kept his Iraq Atomic Energy Commission running, apparently without weapons programs, as late as 2003.
[...]
Obeidi, 60, was the creator of Iraq's centrifuge, a key component in one method of enriching bomb-grade uranium. He considers it the most dangerous piece of nuclear technology because related advances make it possible to conceal uranium enrichment programs inside one warehouse.
[...]
By the late 1980s, Iraq was making breakthroughs. However, the international help dried up as Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The UN arrived after Saddam's 1991 defeat, intent on taking apart his weapons programs.
To hide signs of uranium enrichment then, Obeidi describes a massive demolition and reconstruction program he led to remove everything from the top soil to the coffee makers at his former centrifuge lab.
After the 2003 invasion, Obeidi attempted to take the nuclear secrets buried in his garden to US authorities. He describes disorganisation as the CIA and military intelligence wound up fighting over him.
Only after extensive negotiations involving former UN weapons inspector David Albright, who was in Washington, did Obeidi turn over all of his information.
[...]
Looking back, Obeidi struggles to find words to describe how he could arm Saddam, whose government at one point kept him from his family for six months so he could work and left them fearing the walls had ears.
He says it was a matter of national pride and scientific pursuit, but more than anything, it was fear: "The idea of dozens of nuclear bombs in Saddam's hands is horrifying in retrospect."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story
Or the other option--he's part of an ideological movement which believes that attaining American "global leadership" should be our mission in the future, and that Iraq is a good first step to gaining a foothold in the Middle East. Check out:
c iples.htm
e r.htm
http://www.newamericancentury.org
Here's their statement of principles(note the signatures):
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprin
Look, here's a letter to President Clinton from 1998 advocating a regime change in Iraq, for the same ridiculous reasons(again, note the signatures):
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonlett
Visit the