Iraq: The Missing Billions

Anon wrote:

1. Saddam has WOMD's. (A Bush Administration Lie!)
2. Saddam bought Nuclear Material from Niger. (A Bush Administration Lie!)
3. Saddam was buying aluminum tubing for Nuclear Uses. (A Bush Administration Lie!)
4. Saddam was a direct danger to the U.S. (A Bush Administration Lie!)
5. Saddam was a direct danger to it's neighbors. (A Bush Administration Lie!)
6. Saddam has involved in 9/11. (A Bush Administration Lie!)

1) I bet the Kurds he gassed would disagree with you.
The Kurds were gassed under Bush I's administration, with products purchased from the US. Products that may have been destroyed since.
2) Not a lie. The worst one could accuse him of is believing false info: British Intel, who by the way still claim that this is true.
But there are indications that this allegation was thought false long before it ended up in a speech.
3) Those weren't aluminum tubes that were dug up in the backyard of one his scientists? Maybe he thought by burying them he could grow aluminum plants? Why else were they there?
Centrifuge parts (parts (parts(parts))) that are buried for over a decade are not WMDs. No, they were not aluminium tubes, either. get your misinformation straight, please.
4) See point 6.
Bush and c. implied that
a) Hussein was capable of launching UAVs that were capable of reaching US soil. False.
b) Iraq was involved in international terrorism. False. Iraq had not been involved in international terror excercises since the early 1990s.
5) I bet Kuwait, the Kurds and the bodies in the mass grave disagree with you.
The gassing of the Kurds took place when we were friends with Iraq. The mass graves were filled with Iraqis, so technically this doesn't suppport your claim that he was a threat to his neighbors. In fact, it was only Iran that felt Hussein was a threat, and that has more to do with Persian/Arab animosity than with terrorism. As for Kuwait, Ambassador Glaspie pretty much goaded Hussein into attacking by guarunteeing the US would do nothing.
6) He never claimed Iraq was involved with 9/11. He said there was evidence to suggest that Iraq and Al Queada had a relationship. That is not the same as claiming he helped with 9/11. And such a relationship IS a threat to the US.
The strongest evidence was supposed to be evidence of a meeting between one of the hijackers and an Iraqi agent in Praugue. That meeting, per US intelligence, never happened. Al-Quaeda, a fundamentalist Islamic organization, had nothing but contempt for Hussein, a secular marxist dictator. Osama bin-Laden frequently called for the ouster of Hussein from power. Ironically, with the chaos in Iraq, al-Quaeda has likely moved in, and Bush made it possible.

(Powell says) "That's nonsense. I don't think I used the word 'imminent' in my presentation on the 5th of February. I presented, on the 5th of February not something I pulled out of the air. I presented the considered judgment of the intelligence community of the United States of America -- the coordinated judgment of the intelligence community of the United States of America," said Powell, according to a transcript of the interview released by the State Department.

"The investigation continues. There is an individual, I guess, who is going on a television show to say I misled the American people. I don't mislead the American people and I never would. I presented the best information that our intelligence community had to offer."

When the BBC interviewer pointed out that Thielmann was considered the leading expert for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in his department, Powell replied: "I have many experts in my department, and there are many differences of opinion, among any group of experts. And it's quite easy for a television program to get this individual and then they complain. But to try to turn it around and say that 'Secretary Powell made this all up and presented it, knowing it was false,' is simply inaccurate."

Powell again refuted the charges in an Oct. 16 interview with National Public Radio.

"It wasn't hyped. It wasn't overblown," said Powell, in a transcript released by the State Department. "I would not do that to the American people, nor would I do that before the Security Council, as a representative of the American people and of the President of the United States."