The UN, US and Iraq IV

And Gel, if by "They" you mean the critics, I must agree. The record there is abuntantly clear as well.

Saddam ordered chemical attack, inspector to claim

Saddam 'ordered chemical attack'

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday August 12, 2003
The Guardian

The former UN inspector hired by the Bush administration to find evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction will claim in a report next month that Iraqi forces were ordered to fire chemical shells at invading coalition troops, according to US reports.

But David Kay, who heads the 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, has admitted he has found no trace of the weapons themselves, and cannot explain why they were never used.

One possibility is that the orders were part of an elaborate bluff, in the hope that they would be intercepted by the US and deter an attack.

According to US officials, all the Iraqi scientists now in custody have insisted that Saddam's arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons was destroyed years before the Iraqi invasion.

The Boston Globe reported that Mr Kay, who was hired by the CIA in June to direct the search, had made the claim in a classified briefing to two Senate committees.

The newspaper quoted officials who had seen a summary of his report as saying that Republican Guard commanders had been ordered to launch chemical-filled shells at troops.

"They have found evidence that an order was given," a senior intelligence official said, adding there was no explanation of why the weapons were not used.

After his congressional briefing, Mr Kay told journalists he was making "solid progress", but said he would not make it public until he completed his work and found "conclusive proof". He is under pressure from the White House to go public as soon as possible and administration officials say he is expected to publish a report within weeks.

Prewar claims by the Blair government that Iraqi forces were ready to fire chemical weapons at 45 minutes' notice, and US reports in March that chemical artillery shells had been sent to Republican Guard units ringing Baghdad, were ridiculed when no such ordnance was fired or found.

It is not clear what evidence Mr Kay will present to support his claims.

At the time he was hired by the CIA to direct the hunt for weapons, Mr Kay was working for a hi-tech engineering firm and appearing regularly on television to argue that the Iraqi dictator had a significant arsenal.

Some of his former UN colleagues have said he has a powerful personal incentive to show he was not entirely wrong.

After the war he suggested that the weapons had been dumped in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers but no evidence of this was found to back up the allegation.

Mr Kay believes that the Baghdad regime destroyed or hid its weapons, telling reporters: "The active deception programme is truly amazing once you get inside it."

The Bush administration is hoping that the Kay report will bolster its defences against an expected onslaught of Democratic party criticism over the Iraq war once as the 2004 presidential election campaign gathers pace next month.

The White House weathered two weeks of intense media scrutiny last month after it admitted including an unsubstantiated claim about the Iraqi nuclear programme in the president's state of the union address in January.

The intensity of the coverage has let up considerably while Congress is on holiday this month.

But the Washington Post on Sunday published a three-page investigation on how the administration exaggerated available intelligence on the Iraqi nuclear programme.

"On occasion, administration advocates withheld evidence that did not conform to their views," the investigation found.

"The White House seldom corrected misstatements or acknowledged loss of confidence in information upon which it had previously relied."

The report focused on administration claims that Iraq was trying to import aluminium tubes to build a gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment, despite persuasive evidence that the specification of the tubes made it much more likely they were intended for the construction of rockets, as the Baghdad regime had claimed.

Timber quote: "The greatest absurdity is that some refuse to recognize that the lot and prospects of The Iraqi People have been improved immeasureably by their liberation from the Ba'athists. I am bemused that the very factions which decry the tendency of The Right to be supportive of repressive totalitarian regimes object to the removal by The Right of just such a regime."


Then to say The Right makes strange bedfellows until the sex becomes boring and they kick the offender out of bed?

Except for the stand off with Stalin (The Right took over the Vietnam conflict for an "honorable withdrawal" ) has The Left fought wars which did get rid of repressive totalitarian regimes? Is The Right now trying to catch up?

Regardless who in the past supported or opposed repressive totalitarian regimes, The Left is discomfitted by the Right's current active opposition to examples of repressive totalitarian regimes. The future likely will provide The Left with continuing dismay in such regard. Repressive totalitarian regimes should expect further inconvenience.

Timber, how do you feel about this.



Key senator confirms 600 (m) million dollars slated for weapons hunt

Baghdad, Iraq-AP -- A key senator says he'd vote in favor of spending some 600 (m) million dollars to continue the so-far fruitless search for banned weapons in Iraq.
A secret, unpublished section of the package was reported last week to include that sum for the weapons search.

Senator Mitch McConnell, who chairs a key appropriations panel, says the amount is around what's been reported. But an aide said later the senator based his statement on news reports, not the legislation.

McConnell is leading a five-member delegation visiting Iraq to learn more about what the 20-point-three (b) billion dollars requested by the Bush administration would do to help rebuild the country.

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I do not see the hunt to have been fruitless. I see clear and compelling cause to pursue the investigation. I want answers, not conjecture and assumptions. I'm not much for spin, I want to see the facts ... all of them. What we know now is that there is much we do not know, and that much of what we do know indicates our original assumptions will be borne out.

Further inconvenience? I don't believe any wise statesman can ignore what bad things are going on in the world -- was Bush baiting these countries in the beginning of his regime?

That would depend, I suppose, on how one would characterize the intent of coining the phrase "Axis of evil". I feel The Bush Agenda has been spelled out clearly, and has been consistently pursued, most particularly post-9/11.

I don't mourn the passing of Saddam. What I mourn is that this has not yet been achieved. If it had, perhaps the rebuilding of Iraqs power infrastructure would now be complete.

Some on this thread query my opposition to this war. Let me restate where I stand. I have never had a problem with getting rid of Saddam. My major doubts are threefold

1. That people like Rumsfeld and the neo con cabal around Bush thought it could be done on the cheap. The Bush adminstration seemed to think the magic phrase "full spectrum dominance" was enough to wish away the nasty man with a moustache and usher in a new age of liberal clean shaven democracy. Rumsfeld is more than naive, he is criminally negligent in my opinion. If you are going to invade a country the size of France for **** sake do it properly. This operation needs more people on the ground urgently if its not going to get bogged down or worse. Bush needs to do a tour of Paris Berlin and Moscow in full penetential mode.

2. I object to being lied to about the real war aims. Bush never invaded to free Iraqis and set up trades Unions and day care centres. And he didn't invade to protect America either. There were no WMD and if there had been, intelligence reports shown to the Hutton inquiry here stated categorically that the likelyhood of WMD falling into the hands of Al Qaida or of being used against coalition forces would INCREASE as the result of an invasion. An invasion would make a terrorist attack on a US city with WMD MORE likely. [Obvious really]

But fortunately there were no strategic WMD as Bush and Blair knew. Robin Cook now says that Blair admitted even battlefield chemical shells if they existed at all were so far down Saddam's order of battle that it would be difficult if not impossible to use them against a rapidly advancing force.

3. And I object to the fact that Iraq was an excercise of the new American doctrine of pre emptive self defense. It must be unprecedented in modern times that one state can attack another and claim it legitimate because they thought they MIGHT BECOME a threat at some time in the future. There was nothing defensive about attacking Iraq. It was a demonstration that under Bush America can strike at will at any place at any time, topple any government, trample any sovereignty, and offer no just cause other than it suiting American interests, in this case oil.

You bet they should. Unfortunately, the US has zero history of operating on the world stage under such a notion of altruistic justice, other than the chickenshit skirmish in Africa and some bombing runs in Europe a few years ago. This is American myth - the notion of itself as the good guy. It's delusional, and it's bloody dangerous.
South America, Central America, Indonesia, the Middle East - everywhere, it is self interested support of US enterprise or it is in support of nutty moral conceits (eg the war on drugs while its own citizens are the main consumers).

George Bush and Dick Cheney are enjoying a lunch at the Capitol Grill
restaurant. A waitress approaches their table to take their order; she is
young and very attractive.

She asks Cheney what he wants, and he replies, "I'll have the heart-healthy
salad."

"Very good, sir," she replies, and turning to Bush she asks, "And what do
you want, Mr. President?"

Bush answers, "How about a quickie?"

Taken aback, the waitress slaps him and says, "I'm shocked and disappointed
in you! I thought you were bringing in a new administration that was
committed to high principles and morality. I'm sorry I voted for you." With
that, the waitress departed in a huff.

Cheney leans over to Bush and says, "Mr. President, I believe that's
pronounced 'quiche'."

Bush was establishing a quite different foreign policy before 9/11 -- of course, that sucker punch woke him up as well as the other foreign policy and national security sleeping dogs. I don't believe the Axis of Evil was his invention and it truly is a Reaganesque concoction, being it was ripped off of The Evil Empire.

Somebody with their political antennae up better remind President Numbnuts that acting stupid (or pretending to act stupid) in the face of a Justice Department investigation is no way to get re-elected.

OTOH, nobody tell these assholes nothing.

Let's allow them to continue to screw it up.

acting stupid worked pretty well for Reagan with his Iran/Contra defense of "I don't remember" and the public bought it. (while Nancy bought new dishes for the White House).

To answer your respectful question again:

today's source is the Turkish Parliament website (link to Turkish Parliament),
and the result is reported by various websites, like this one:

The Turkish parliament has voted to send troops to help US-led forces in neighbouring Iraq - but the US-appointed Governing Council in Baghdad has said it does not want them.
Turkey to send troops to reluctant Iraq

Reagan didn't have soldiers dying daily overseas in a war he lied to undertake; and neither did he have a felonious leak in the White House.

Reagan also had a higher balance in the public-goodwill bank account.

Mr. Hinteler:

How lucky you are. I guess your news sources in Europe are much better than ours since I rely on my morning paper- The Chicago Tribune- for some of my information.

The Tribune( THIS MORNING-TUESDAY OCTOBER 7TH) ran a story entitled "Turkey revisits troops for Iraq" on P. 4.

In that story they say:

quote

"Turkey's government voted Monday to ASK parliament to send soldeiers to Iraq. IF Parliament agrees, Tu rkey would become the first predominantly Muslim nation to contribute troops to the coalition.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip was to address members of his party Tuesday, HOPING TO WIN OVER CRITICS.

So, you see, Mr. Hinteler, according to my newspaper today, the Parliament STILL HAS TO VOTE TO APPROVE THE TROOP ALLOCATION( This vote may be, at this time, over).

Now, Mr. Hinteler, you may ask why I am so pessimistic about the Parliament approving the vote.

I am pessimistic because the Parliament in Turkey DISAPPROVED- DISAPPROVED - DISAPPROVED- the Executive's request to allow American Troops to go into Iraq from bases in Turkey. This FAILURE OF THE TURKISH PARLIAMENT TO APPROVE THE TURKISH EXECUTIVE'S REQUEST TOOK PLACE ON MARCH 1, 2003.

Since that time, I have learned not to place stock in ANY initiative from the Turkish executive UNTIL it has been approved by the Parliament.

I do hope you understand.

I do, of course, hope that the request is approved but I simply do not trust the Turkish Parliament since they turned down the request to allow US troops to invade Iraq from Turkish bases on March, 1st,. 2003.

If there is any part of this I am not communicating clearly enough to you, please let me know.

Cheers- Mr. Hinteler and thank you for the information.

After years of watching his monotonous introductions to "Death Valley Days," the Great Communicator was able to drone on through eight years of the White House. People like this grandfatherly, homespun drek -- it gives them security. It's like a warm blanket for all the Linuses in our society (who now find solace in hanging Kincaids on their wall and installing their spinning wheels in the corner with philadendron hanging out of them to the floor). If Kincaid could paint people, he'd put Dubya in one of those lighted windows in a rocking chair.

Dreck.

Bush has that in abundance.

Wonder why no one finds his comforting...