Obama '08?

Once and for all: trying to buy is nothing close to buy.

If the leader of North Korea tries to buy our best fighter planes or nukes, they may have tried to buy, but there was no way they were going to be satisified with any sale.

Hey, moron, give it up.

Dear Sir--Mr.Imposter. Your last post reveals the depth of your Ignorance.

If you are able to do so( and I very much doubt it) search for Butler Report--Then go to P. 125 in that report and compare what is written in that report with the material in Podhoretz' essay( I hope you can accomplish what I am sure might be a difficult task for you).

And then. If you really believe that Honest is Integrity--tell us what you find!!

White House Backs Off Claim on Iraqi Buy
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post

Tuesday 08 July 2003

The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time yesterday that President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.

The statement was prompted by publication of a British parliamentary commission report, which raised serious questions about the reliability of British intelligence that was cited by Bush as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were a threat to U.S. security.

The British panel said it was unclear why the British government asserted as a "bald claim" that there was intelligence that Iraq had sought to buy significant amounts of uranium in Africa. It noted that the CIA had already debunked this intelligence, and questioned why an official British government intelligence dossier published four months before Bush's speech included the allegation as part of an effort to make the case for going to war against Iraq.

The findings by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee undercut one of the Bush administration's main defenses for including the allegation in the president's speech -- namely that despite the CIA's questions about the assertion, British intelligence was still maintaining that Iraq had indeed sought to buy uranium in Africa.

Asked about the British report, the administration released a statement that, after weeks of questions about the president's uranium-purchase assertion, effectively conceded that intelligence underlying the president's statement was wrong.

"Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said last night in a statement authorized by the White House.

The administration's statement capped months of turmoil over the uranium episode during which senior officials have been forced to defend the president's remarks in the face of growing reports that they were based on faulty intelligence.

As part of his case against Iraq, Bush said in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 28 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war against Iraq later that month.

It subsequently emerged that the CIA the previous year had dispatched a respected former senior diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson, to Niger to investigate the allegation and that Wilson had reported back that officials in Niger denied the story. The administration never made Wilson's mission public, and questions have been raised over the past month over how the CIA characterized his conclusion in its classified intelligence reports inside the administration.

The report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee followed weeks of hearings by the panel into two intelligence dossiers on Iraq's weapons programs -- one published in September and the other in January -- that the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair used to justify supporting the administration in going to war against Iraq.

Questions about the British government's handling of intelligence have mirrored many of the issues being raised in the United States. But they have created a far greater political uproar in London.

Parliament's response has been notably different than that of Congress. The House and Senate intelligence panels have moved cautiously, with Democrats and Republicans divided over the necessity of full-blown public hearings into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. The House of Commons moved quickly to investigate the matter, with the Blair government battling accusations that it misled Parliament and members of the Labor Party in persuading them to support an unpopular war.

The commission's report issued yesterday found that Blair and his other key ministers "did not mislead" Parliament in describing the threat from Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. But the panel did find that the Blair government mishandled intelligence material on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.

The panel said it is too soon to determine whether the government's assertions about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs will be borne out, but added that the government's actions "were justified by the information available at the time."

In a major political issue within Britain, the panel found that Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications chief, "did not exert or seek to exert improper influence" in drafting the September intelligence report or a key statement in the document that "the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes if ordered to do so."

The panel did find that this statement "did not warrant the prominence given to it" in the first pages of the dossier because it was based on "intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source." The panel asked the Blair government to explain why it was given such a prominent position in the report.

A senior administration official said yesterday that a classified version of a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs, completed last September, contains references to intelligence reports that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from three African countries, not just Niger. The other two countries are Namibia and Gabon, according to intelligence sources. The sources said the reports about other countries have not been confirmed and that some government analysts do not consider the information reliable.

A senior intelligence official said that there were reports of "possible attempts" by Iraqis or their agents to buy uranium, but that "they were all somewhat sketchy."

One Bush administration official said British and U.S. intelligence agencies got their Niger documents from the intelligence service of one country that he refused to name, but that others have identified as Italy.

"We both had one source reporting through some liaison service which said, 'Look what we found,' " this official said. "There were other [intelligence] reporting streams, but it may be that all streams are traced to the same source."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Transcript of Ari Fleischer?s Press Conference
Recorded and Transcribed By Joshua Micah Marshall

Monday 07 July 2003

Q: Can you give us the White House account of Ambassador Wilson's account of what happened when he went to Niger and investigated the suggestions that Niger was passing yellow cake to Iraq? I'm sure you saw the piece yesterday in The New York Times.

FLEISCHER: Well, there is zero, nada, nothing new here. Ambassador Wilson, other than the fact that now people know his name, has said all this before. But the fact of the matter is in his statements about the Vice President -- the Vice President's office did not request the mission to Niger. The Vice President's office was not informed of his mission and he was not aware of Mr. Wilson's mission until recent press accounts -- press reports accounted for it.

So this was something that the CIA undertook as part of their regular review of events, where they sent him. But they sent him on their own volition, and the Vice President's office did not request it. Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.

[Here there were questions unrelated to the Niger-uranium issue]

Q: I just want to take you back to your answer before, when you said you have long acknowledged that the information on yellow cake turned out to be incorrect. If I remember right, you only acknowledged the Niger part of it as being incorrect -- I think what the --

FLEISCHER: That's correct.

Q: I think what the President said during his State of the Union was he --

FLEISCHER: When I refer to yellow cake I refer to Niger. The question was on the context of Ambassador Wilson's mission.

Q: So are you saying the President's broader reference to Africa, which included other countries that were named in the NIE, were those also incorrect?

FLEISCHER: Well, I think the President's statement in the State of the Union was much broader than the Niger question.

Q: Is the President's statement correct?

FLEISCHER: I'm referring specifically to the Niger piece when I say that.

Q: Do you hold that the President -- when you look at the totality of the sentence that the President uttered that day on the subject, are you confident that he was correct?

FLEISCHER: Yes, I see nothing that goes broader that would indicate that there was no basis to the President's broader statement. But specifically on the yellow cake, the yellow cake for Niger, we've acknowledged that that information did turn out to be a forgery.

Q: The President's statement was accurate?

FLEISCHER: We see nothing that would dissuade us from the President's broader statement.

Q: Ari, that means that, indeed, you all believe that Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain uranium from an African nation; is that correct?

FLEISCHER: What the President said in his statement was that according to a British report they were trying to obtain uranium. When I answered the question it was, again, specifically about the Niger piece involving yellow cake.

Q: So you believe the British report that he was trying to obtain uranium from an African nation is true?

FLEISCHER: I'm sorry?

Q: If you're hanging on the British report, you believe that that British report was true, you have no reason to believe --

FLEISCHER: I'm sorry, I see what David is asking. Let me back up on that and explain the President's statement again, or the answer to it.

The President's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake from Niger. The President made a broad statement. So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the President's broader statement, David. So, yes, the President' broader statement was based and predicated on the yellow cake from Niger.

Q: So it was wrong?

FLEISCHER: That's what we've acknowledged with the information on --

Q: The President's statement at the State of the Union was incorrect?

FLEISCHER: Because it was based on the yellow cake from Niger.

Q: Well, wait a minute, but the explanation we've gotten before was it was based on Niger and the other African nations that have been named in the national intelligence --

FLEISCHER: But, again, the information on -- the President did not have that information prior to his giving the State of the Union.

Q: Which gets to the crux of what Ambassador Wilson is now alleging -- that he provided this information to the State Department and the CIA 11 months before the State of the Union and he is amazed that it, nonetheless, made it into the State of the Union address. He believes that that information was deliberately ignored by the White House. Your response to that?

FLEISCHER: And that's way, again, he's making the statement that -- he is saying that surely the Vice President must have known, or the White House must have known. And that's not the case, prior to the State of the Union.

Q: He's saying that surely people at the decision-making level within the NSC would have known the information which he -- passed on to both the State Department and the CIA.

FLEISCHER: And the information about the yellow cake and Niger was not specifically known prior to the State of the Union by the White House.

Q: What does that say about communications?

FLEISCHER: We've acknowledged that the information turned out to be bogus involving the report on the yellow cake. That is not new. You can go back. You can look it up. Dr. Rice has said it repeatedly. I've said it repeatedly. It's been said from this podium on the record, in several instances. It's been said to many of you in this room, specifically.

Q: But, Ari, even if you said that the Niger thing was wrong, the next line has usually been that the President's statement was deliberately broader than Niger, it referred to all of Africa. The national intelligence estimate discusses other countries in Africa that there were attempts to purchase yellow cake from, or other sources of uranium --

FLEISCHER: Let me do this, David. On your specific question I'm going to come back and post the specific answer on the broader statement on the speech.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Well, chew on this, Mr. Imposter- FROM THE BUTLER REPORT--

My post to Mr. Hinteler on the Fitzgerald Thread!


Mr. Hinteler: You may have discovered that the following is found on P. 125 of the Butler Report and also found in the essay by Podhoretz- Who is Lying About Iraq-

quote

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium, and the British government did not claim this.


end of quote.

If you do not disagree, and I am certain that you will if I am incorrect, I must then credit Mr> Podhoretz in being COMPLETELY ACCURATE CONCERNING THE OFFICIAL REPORT FROM THE 'OFFICIAL' BUTLER REPORT. This,of course, detracts greatly from any claims that Mr. Podhoretz' reporting is in question.

Thank you, Mr.Hinteler!

And here is what your source says,Mr. Imposter and IT IS WRONG AND I WILL PROVE IT.

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council in March that the uranium story -- which centered on documents alleging Iraqi efforts to buy the material from Niger -- was based on forged documents. Although the administration did not dispute the IAEA's conclusion, it launched the war against Iraq later that month.


But

www.worldwidestandard.com

gives a different story about the forged documents. The Butler Report DID NOT base its claim on Forged Documents since the FORGED DOCUMENTS WERE NOT AVAILABLE TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT AT THE TIME THE ASSESSMENT WAS MADE. YOUR SOURCE IS BOGUS!

Hey, moron. The administration already admitted they were forgeries.

Hey dopey, read the following. The State Department was mistaken:

Joe Wilson's Forgetfulness
You've got to hand it to Joe Wilson. He has certainly cashed in on his celebrity as he tours college campuses making ludicrous statements. Wilson is also someone who is curiously forgetful about facts that involve his behavior and those surrounding his trip to Niger.

''It seems to me that first and foremost, the White House needs to come clean on this matter,'' Wilson told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's ''This Week.'' ''My own view of this is that the White House owes the American people and particularly our service people who have been sent into war, an apology for having misrepresented the facts.''

In case you forgot, Joe Wilson once claimed a role in exposing the Iraq-Niger documents as forgeries. But that wasn't true, as the Senate's 2004 bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq pointed out:

Page 45


The former ambassador also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article…which said, "among the Envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'" Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports.

And media reports to the contrary, Wilson did not "debunk" the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium. In fact, most intelligence analysts believed his trip "lent more credibility" to reports that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, and the CIA continued to approve the use of the Iraq-Niger-Uranium language "in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union."
The same Senate report states:

Conclusion 13 (page 73)


The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be wiling or able to sell uranium to Iraq.

Conclusion 12 (page 72)


Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.

Conclusion 19 (page 77)


Even after obtaining the forged documents and being alerted by a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst about problems with them, analysts at both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not examine them carefully enough to see the obvious problems with the documents. Both agencies continued to publish assessments that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa. In addition, CIA continued to approve the use of similar language in Administration publications and speeches, including the State of the Union.

And, for the record, the British have stood firm in their intelligence on the matter. In fact, the July 2004 Butler report states that the president's uranium reference in his 2003 State of the Union address was "well-founded" and based on intelligence having nothing to do with the forged documents.

Here are the "relevant" bits, on pages 123 and 125:

We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government's dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:
'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa'

was well-founded.


And,

From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

Fair enough. But, despite my usual disagreement with Nimh about his politics, he remains among the most informed persons on A2K (IMO) in terms of crunching election data... and proclamations that he "knows nothing about American Politics" will remain idiotic, utterly regardless of who claims otherwise. Do you really disagree with this assessment?

Sure, Occom Bill, Mr.Nimh does know how to "crunch" election data, but if you read these posts carefully, you would know that the "cruncher" made an egregious error when he posted a list of Senators which gave percentages of pros and cons for them. Mr. Nimh( in his post) claimed that the poll( taken by Survey USA) on Barack Obama was indeed significant since, as he said, the poll took in 30,000 people. That was his error. The poll took in 30,000 people but there were only 600 people polled for EACH SENATOR> 600 X 50 is indeed 30,000. As I pointed out, 600 individuals in Illinois, out of a rough 4,000,000 voters in the last Senatorial election, is very insufficient.

I am sure,however, that Mr. Nimh will continue his accurate prognostications and number crunching in the future. I will be observing as I am sure you will, Occom Bill!!

So far, nimh's poll = 600. Bernie's poll = zero. So, Bernie argues from a base of zero; he still doesn't see how his argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I dont think I'm doing anything exceptional - no particularly high marks for something that's, IMO, just common decency. Lots of posters here manage to be pretty honest in this kind of thing.

Those who do filter whether they express their opinion about someone's post through partisan loyalties (oh, he's on my side, not gonna say anything about that then) - well yes, that does say something about them <shrugs>. At the very best, it's childish.



You're talking about this spreading of criticism like its some kind of redistributive task that you're just not up to. But I'm hardly talking about going out and looking for things to criticise.

What I'm talking about is really much simpler than what you try to make it out to be, Finn. If you come across some kind of posting behaviour (yes, style of posting is "behaviour" too), which you find disagreeable enough to say something about when it's a liberal doing it, dont suddenly keep mum when you see a conservative doing the same kind of thing.

Not some big act of "spreading rebukes fairly among the masses" - simply not picking and choosing whom to criticize for the same behavior depending on whether their partisan affiliation match with yours or not.

Basically just common fairness, and honesty. Because, c.i., I really dont see the difference here.

When - say - Finn loves to rebuke someone from his political persuasion, but looks the other way when someone from the others' persuasion does the same thing, he's just not being honest. He's being hypocritical.

No surprise or anything - just, parsing about honesty vs fairness on this is kinda neither here nor there <shrugs>

I believe Bernard is mistaken in both of these claims, but have responded to both here, in the appropriate thread.

Bernie made the following claim:
As I pointed out, 600 individuals in Illinois, out of a rough 4,000,000 voters in the last Senatorial election, is very insufficient.

Prove it through statistical analysis and documentation by polling agencies.

Guess what nimh, I don't think you're doing anything exceptional either.

I suppose I should be flattered that you've decided to comment on my post a second time now.

We don't see this issue of so-called integrity the same way. What a surprise.

What is Obama going to do about the 500,000+ illegals that have now made Illinois their "hometown"?

This, obviously, was supposed to read the other way round - "when he loves to rebuke someone from the others' political persuasion, but looks the other way when someone from his own persuasion does the same thing".

Dizzy Delicious- Obama will do nothing about the illegals. He is an illegal himself in many ways. First of all, he is from Hawaii, the son of a Keyan father who deserted him when he was a child and a Caucasian mother originally from Kansas. He must have a real empathy for illegals since he attended a Muslim school for two years.

Many admire Obama since he attended Harvard Law School. They do not know that Harvard Law School not only seeks minority students but they actively look for people who are from states which usually send few students to Harvard. In short, Dizzy Delicious, it is clear that Obama is really ovedtouted. As you pointed out, he has written off Jesse Jackson and Jesse's Organization. Obama is so non-discrimatory, as you pointed out, that he uses a Hispanic Nanny for his children instead of African-Americans. If you know Chicago, and you seem to know it well, Hyde Park is loaded with very well qualified African-American nannies.


Could it be, Dizzy Delicious, that Obama is trying to pass?

Obama is sort of an illegal? How?

Trying to pass? For what? White?

Integrity? As Finn commented, that is a matter of opinion. I am respecfully asking Mr. Nimh whether he really thinks that 600 respondents in a poll taken of Illinois residents is at all meaningful when

l. There is a disclaimer that the "non-respondent" problem is one that can skew the results. AS I HAVE COMMENTED REPEATEDLY, AND I WILL FIND THE PEW ORGANIZATION'S REPORT ON IT, AFRICAN AMERICANS POLL MUCH HIGHER THAN THE ACTUAL VOTES THEY GET IN THE VOTING BOOTH.

2. I have been asked to get the actual electoral results. As usual, I am ready with facts.

Electoral Results for Nov.7th 2004 Senatorial Race in Illinois


Obama--3,597,456

Keyes---1.390,690

Franzen 81,164

Kohl 69,353

Totals 5,138,563


I used the number 4,000,000 since I did not wish in anyway to OVERSTATE the numbers but it is clear that 600 respondents to a poll about Obama is so miniscule when compared to 5,138.563 that it can be disregarded.

When I obtain evidence that African-Americans' poll numbers are almost always higher than their eventual electoral numbers, I respectfully ask Mr. Nimh to respond. Of course, he may not wish to do so, but then my demurrer STANDS!

He did respond, you insipid slug. He stipulated that the poll numbers would be higher than the actual voting numbers - you were too busy drooling over yourself because you thought you made some earth-shattering point to notice.