Sex is bad in politics - if you get caught. It's okay to lie about almost everything else.
Yeah, bad Intel, and even Saddam and his Generals thought there were WMD's. One hell of a lie, huh?
Can you cite that Brand X? I know of no support for the claim that Saddam was fooled into thinking there were WMDs.
There was an editorial speculating about that but it was pure speculation. I've yet to see any substantiation.
I'll try, eventhough I'm tired of treading this same old sand. Even if I find it, it isn't going to change the hate hysteria for Bush and this silly lie business.
Probably not. But it would substantiate a claim you made. I'm not interested in hating Bush and you won't find me talking about his "lie" either. But if you do have a source for that claim I would like to know what it is.
If you're tired of treading this same old sand, why even bring it up?
Damn good question, ci, damn good. Why do we even bother ourselves to follow this crap called poltics anyway.
(Wondering why one 'bothers' to cite Drudge then complains when asked for citation...)
The request for the citation pertaining to dead horse news, citing Drudge is new.
Craven de Kere wrote:Probably not. But it would substantiate a claim you made. I'm not interested in hating Bush and you won't find me talking about his "lie" either. But if you do have a source for that claim I would like to know what it is.
I was mistaken about the wording in statements by Kay where he surmised that Saddam was decieved, the Special Republican Guard was and were the only ones allowed in Baghdad.
Exerpt:
Quote:On weapons of mass destruction Dr Kay warned that the work of the Iraq Survey Group might never reach a final conclusion. "There's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity," he said.
The breakdown in law and order when the regime collapsed and the "unparalleled looting and destruction" destroyed so much evidence. Some of it was "directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD programme and other programmes".
Some of it was "what we simply called Ali Baba" looting: 'It had been the regime's. The regime is gone. I'm going to go take the gold toilet fixtures and everything else imaginable'. The result is document destruction ..."
He agreed that the ISG's hunt should continue, but added: "The effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely there were large stockpiles of deployed militarised chemical and biological weapons there.
"Is it theoretically possible in a country as vast as that that they've hidden? It's theoretically possible," Dr Kay conceded. But he said the group had investigated all the obvious places where the weapons might have been hidden and produced, as well as who would have produced them. "[About] 85% of the major elements of the Iraqi programme are probably known", he explained.
Asked by the Democrat senator Carl Levin whether there was any evidence that Iraq had any stockpiles, large or small, in 2002, Dr Kay replied: "We simply have no evidence ... We've not uncovered any small stockpiles."
Iraq was "in the early stages of renovating [its nuclear] programme, building new buildings. It was not a reconstituted full-blown nuclear programme".
The majority opinion in the intelligence community now was that the aluminium tubes seized by the UN before the war had not been for nuclear production but for conventional weapons.
One of the biggest puzzles, he admitted, was why Saddam Hussein had not demonstrated that he did not have WMD. "We wrestled hours with trying to get an explanation for ... Saddam's behaviour, when his rule was at stake and why he didn't do something else."
There were plausible reasons. "He did not want to appear to the rest of the Arab world as having caved in to the US and the UN, so the creative ambiguity of maintaining weapons was important to him and his view of Iraq. And the second is domestic politics. We often forget that he used chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Shia. That was a continuing threat to him and he thought that that gave him leverage against it."
After 1998, Dr Kay said, the regime became so corrupt that Saddam may even have been deceived into believing that certain advanced WMD programmes existed. "Interviewing the Republican Guard generals and Special Republican Guard generals [after the war] ... their assurance was, they didn't personally have them and hadn't seen them."
"But the units on their right or left had them. And as you worked your way around the circle, those defending Baghdad, you got this very strange phenomena of, 'No, I don't have them. I haven't seen them. But look to my right and left.' ... It was a powerful deception technology."
On the justification for going to war Dr Kay repeatedly told the committee that he believed Iraq had been in breach of UN resolutions and that the world was a safer place without Saddam Hussein.
"In my judgment ... Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of [UN] Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities ..."
Source
Thanks, I had not heard of that.
Who lied to whom about what, where, why, and when has been a matter of conjecture and reportage for quite some time, CdK. I'm too lazy to dig up my own posts mentioning a few varieties of the story which I posted on the Iraq Threads at the various times, but here are a couple articles from last year dealing with it. In fact, I think I quoted the CBS article there myself back when it was current, six months or so ago.
CBS - Did Saddam Dupe His Generals?
Quote:Many have waxed wroth at both the CIA's purported misestimates and the Bush administration's alleged deception regarding stockpiles of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But although security in Iraq is a vital concern, this WMD stockpile issue looks different in November than it did in October. The deck has been shuffled considerably by recent disclosures (in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal) that a number of sources now believe the Iraqi generals were themselves deceived by Saddam about units being equipped with WMD and that French and Russian advice may have substantially affected Saddam's behavior on the eve of the war. ...
Time Magazine/ClariNews - Saddam may have been duped by own scientists on WMD
Quote:"Sources tell Time that Western intelligence intercepted communications from Saddam that indicated he was taking a keen interest in the progress of ongoing WMD programs," the report out in the magazine's latest edition says.
"But a captain in Iraq's Special Security Organization, the agency that was responsible for, among other things, the security of weapons sites, says no such arms were available."
"'Trust me,' he says, his eyes narrowed, as he sits in a back alley tea house in Tikrit, 'if we had them we would have used them, especially in the battle for the airport. We wanted them but didn't have any,'" the report added.
Citing interviews with former regime officials over the past three months, the magazine said Saddam's ex-officials "all make essentially the same claim: "That Iraq's once-massive unconventional weapons program was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt."
Time also wrote that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove that the weapons were gone.
"The shell games Saddam played with UN inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems (missiles, air defenses, radar) not biological or chemical programs," the magazine reported.
However "Saddam himself ... may not have known what he actually had -- or more to the point, didn't have."
mdl/sg
US-Iraq-Time
Looks like the possibility of more excitement in this race.
Drudge is carrying a story about allegations that Kerry has been having an on-going affair with one of his interns and several press sources are digging into it. It seems they have a name and that Clark is somehow involved in the "spilling of the beans".
http://www.drudgereport.com/mattjk1.htm
Quote:
Clark to Endorse Democratic Front-Runner Kerry[/size][/b]
February 12, 2004 - Posted at 4:13 p.m. CDT
WASHINGTON, DC - Wesley Clark is expected to endorse Democratic presidential contender John Kerry tomorrow.
Officials say Clark plans to join Kerry, the front-runner for the party nomination on the campaign trail in Madison, Wisconsin; to formally give Kerry his support. ...
I imagine this just about dooms Edwards' Top Spot bid, relegating him to Veep-pick at best , and brings it down to Kerry vs Dean for certain. The focus narrows, and as the Kerry Affair affair demonstrates, the muck continues to be raked in the internecine struggle for the nomination. I've seen conjecture that Dean unleashed the Affair affair, and other conjecture that it was Clark's doing. Given this endorsement news, and Dean's decision to hang in regardless despite his earlier "Do or die" stance re Wisconsin, I'd have to arch an eybrow in Dean's direction.
Or could it be, ya know, Bush?
My own take is that it originates from the Bush camp, which will try to pin it on Dean or Clark and get a twofer.
Yuck.
Could be, Soz, but I doubt it. The Bush Camp is thoroughly wrapped up in the National Guard thing, and I just don't see them finding advantage in thew Affair affair. They'll take what they can get, for sure, but I don't see it originating there. Hard to really put a finger on, but it seems very "Deanish" to me, especially in light of his recent whinings about dirty tricks directed his way by his fraternal foes. I doubt too the source ever will be known for certain. That's the way these things work, apart from serving to take folks minds off real issues. That's the shame of sleaze campaining; it diverts attention from what should be discussed.
Soz, Clark brought it up first, supposedly off the record with 12 reporters.
"In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.] "
I read that too, BrandX, and I find it puzzling, given his apparent intention to now endorse Kerry. I suppose it could have come from anywhere, and I suppose we'll never know exactly from where. Hell, iy might not even go anywhere. All there is right now is allegation and investigation ... no documentation. It remains to be seen how it will play out. I don't really expect much of it one way or the other. As longs as all parties involved are consenting adults, it doesn't matter much to me who parties with whom how. I'd prefer, in fact that such tidbits remained private. That's why bedrooms and bathrooms have doors.
Yep it's still in conundrum territory, and none of the major networks are touching it.
