Mysterman- This section from Norman Podhoretz' essay- "Who is Lying in Iraq"( can be obtained by putting title in Search Web) clearly shows that you are correct. I am sure that Amigo and Advocate will not read it since it indicates they are quite mistaken.
You may note that Mr. Podhoretz is quite specific about the matter and QUOTES extensively. It would be an easy matter for anyone who believed as Amigo and Advocate do to try to show that the quotes given by Mr.Podhoretz are indeed incorrect.
THEY WONT BECAUSE THEY CANT!
QUOTE
Which brings us to Joseph C. Wilson, IV and what to my mind wins the palm for the most disgraceful instance of all.
The story begins with the notorious sixteen words inserted?-after, be it noted, much vetting by the CIA and the State Department?-into Bush's 2003 State of the Union address:
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
This is the "lie" Wilson bragged of having "debunked" after being sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to check out the intelligence it had received to that effect. Wilson would later angrily deny that his wife had recommended him for this mission, and would do his best to spread the impression that choosing him had been the Vice President's idea. But Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, through whom Wilson first planted this impression, was eventually forced to admit that "Cheney apparently didn't know that Wilson had been dispatched." (By the time Kristof grudgingly issued this retraction, Wilson himself, in characteristically shameless fashion, was denying that he had ever "said the Vice President sent me or ordered me sent.") And as for his wife's supposed non-role in his mission, here is what Valerie Plame Wilson wrote in a memo to her boss at the CIA:
My husband has good relations with the PM [the prime minister of Niger] and the former minister of mines . . . , both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.
More than a year after his return, with the help of Kristof, and also Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, and then through an op-ed piece in the Times under his own name, Wilson succeeded, probably beyond his wildest dreams, in setting off a political firestorm.
In response, the White House, no doubt hoping to prevent his allegation about the sixteen words from becoming a proxy for the charge that (in Wilson's latest iteration of it) "lies and disinformation [were] used to justify the invasion of Iraq," eventually acknowledged that the President's statement "did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address." As might have been expected, however, this panicky response served to make things worse rather than better. And yet it was totally unnecessary?-for the maddeningly simple reason that every single one of the sixteen words at issue was true.
That is, British intelligence had assured the CIA that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country of Niger. Furthermore?-and notwithstanding the endlessly repeated assertion that this assurance has now been discredited?-Britain's independent Butler commission concluded that it was "well-founded." The relevant passage is worth quoting at length:
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.
As if that were not enough to settle the matter, Wilson himself, far from challenging the British report when he was "debriefed" on his return from Niger (although challenging it is what he now never stops doing6), actually strengthened the CIA's belief in its accuracy. From the Senate Intelligence Committee report:
He [the CIA reports officer] said he judged that the most important fact in the report [by Wilson] was that Niger officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Niger prime minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium.
And again:
The report on [Wilson's] trip to Niger . . . 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 CIA reports on the uranium deal.
This passage goes on to note that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research?-which (as we have already seen) did not believe that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons?-found support in Wilson's report for its "assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq." But if so, this, as the Butler report quoted above points out, would not mean that Iraq had not tried to buy it?-which was the only claim made by British intelligence and then by Bush in the famous sixteen words.
The liar here, then, was not Bush but Wilson. And Wilson also lied when he told the Washington Post that he had unmasked as forgeries certain documents given to American intelligence (by whom it is not yet clear) that supposedly contained additional evidence of Saddam's efforts to buy uranium from Niger. The documents did indeed turn out to be forgeries; but, according to the Butler report,
[t]he 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 [that assessment].7
More damning yet to Wilson, the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered that he had never laid eyes on the documents in question:
[Wilson] 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.
To top all this off, just as Cheney had nothing to do with the choice of Wilson for the mission to Niger, neither was it true that, as Wilson "confirmed" for a credulous New Republic reporter, "the CIA circulated [his] report to the Vice President's office," thereby supposedly proving that Cheney and his staff "knew the Niger story was a flatout lie." Yet?-the mind reels?-if Cheney had actually been briefed on Wilson's oral report to the CIA (which he was not), he would, like the CIA itself, have been more inclined to believe that Saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger.
End of quote
Bernard......... you are a pompous, bag of hot air.
Do you really expect everyone to stop and read those long say nothing piles of horse manure?
Iraq did not seek yellow cake. Considering that it had terminated its nuke program, it would have no need for yellow cake.
Advocate et el, No matter how much evidence is presented that Saddam never tried to purchase yellow cake from Niger just goes way over the heads of these neocons. The label they have earned, morons, is appropriate.
McGentrix, thanks for the excellent link. It seems fairly balanced.
Last night I read an article about Colin Powell in an AARP newsletter or magazine. Of course, the AARP interviewer was obviously biased and attempted to get Colin Powell to blame George Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and others. Powell did express his wish that he had not presented the famous slide show purportedly showing weapons of mass destruction evidence to the U.N. However, his statements clearly indicated he truly believed the information at the time, and that most people in government believed the information, for very good reasons, which are also well explained in your link McGentrix, until such time that the people on the ground in Iraq continued to fail to find any newer WMD. If I could talk to Powell, I would ask why he would feel like he should blame himself for this slide show, when he has no reason to do so, based on everything we know.
I personally think we should move on. Bush did not lie. He has been one of the most stable and steady influences in the world in my opinion. We still do not know about the WMD. We toppled Hussein. Let us unite in the commitment to help Iraq stabilize, and the Middle East, the citizens of Iraq, and the free world will be a whole lot better off. It was not a wasted effort. We have eliminated a scourge, a murderous dicatator, and a very real threat to the world. Obviously, the problems will not disappear. They never have. However, I think we are better off, and we should not abandon the efforts, and "go wobbly," synonomous with "Go Democrat."
okie must have his head buried in the sand. Ethnic and sectarian violence increases by the day, and they still talk about "success." Only blind fools stick with a course that isn't winnable, and conditions are getting worse for everybody. "Stay the course" is not a winnable goal; change is needed.
cicerone, it depends on who you listen to. An article about a local soldier that was in Iraq in 2003 and now recently. His report is Iraq is vastly improved, and improving. Problems abound, yes, but improving.
okie wrote:cicerone, it depends on who you listen to. An article about a local soldier that was in Iraq in 2003 and now recently. His report is Iraq is vastly improved, and improving. Problems abound, yes, but improving.
Far fewer people died at Pearl Harbor than in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks that triggered the War on Terror. The attack on Pearl Harbor triggered a four-year U.S. commitment to a massive war that cost more than four hundred thousand U.S. lives and many million lives world wide.
Was it worth it? I think it was.
The U.S. has never been in a prolonged conflict with as few lives as have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan nor have there ever been so few civilian casualties. And if we had chosen to use overwhelming force there, we would have cost more civilian lives but far fewer military lives.
Was the way we chose to fight this war wise? That will be sorted out by the military historians. Was it worth it at all? That too will be sorted out in objective histories still to be written.
For sure wanting a good outcome will be much more likely to produce one than the "I hate America" types who won't admit it, but who seem to obviously want Iraq et al to be a failure so they can justify their anger and hatred.
Foxfyre wrote:
For sure wanting a good outcome will be much more likely to produce one than the "I hate America" types who won't admit it, but who seem to obviously want Iraq et al to be a failure so they can justify their anger and hatred.
McG, your "good roundup" on WMD is all ancient history. Saddam ended his nuke phase in the late 1990s.
I just finished reading that...
What a long report.
It is missing some recent revelations.
Like "hundreds of WMD's found in Iraq"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html
Like ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda uncovered.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202277,00.html
It doesn't go into AK Khan's story much.
Saddam was offered deals by AK Khan but he thought they were being offered by America undercover when they were not. America didn't even know about AK Khan's deals till after or sometime around the Baghdad liberation.
Once Saddam had realized his neighbor Pakistan was really willing to deal in WMD for a price how long would Saddam have waited, seriously? Libya and Iran didn't hesitate to take Kahn up on his offer.
Saddam's intent to buy off the security council so sanctions were lifted were apparent.
Why? So he could continue his process of procuring WMD.
Also Saddam acted all secular until he was captured then he suddenly became jihadist.
Now after the liberation of Iraq.
http://www.metimes.com/print.php?StoryID=20060706-043245-3390r
I didn't realize you had your own website, MK.
Liberation of Iraq? 63 more dead today......yep, they are liberated! They will never again have to worry about a bomb attack on their homes or seeing their children starve. Never again will they have to suffer through this desert heat with little or no relief. They have died in worse conditions than anthing Saddam ever did to them. But by God they are liberated.
500 WMDs found in Iraq?? Yep those would be the ones that got Rick Santorum laughed out of town. You don't hear ole Chicken george crowing about any weapons do you? LMAO! To quote Faux Spews and Gay Duck Santorum is really the pits! Same for the Cheney invented ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Never mind that Al Qaeda was a figament of Tricky Dick's imagination..... literally invented by Chicken George and Thugs Inc.
Advocate wrote:
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McG, your "good roundup" on WMD is all ancient history. Saddam ended his nuke phase in the late 1990s.
____________________________________________________________
I would really advise Advocate to apply for a job as a counselor to the leading Democrats in the Senate and House. Since Mr. Advocate KNEW that Saddam ending his nuke phrase in the late 1990's, it is clear that he fooled a great many Democrats who. according to the quotes below, believed that Saddam had WMD's as recently as 2002.
quote
This Democratic drumbeat continued and even intensified when Bush succeeded Clinton in 2001, and it featured many who would later pretend to have been deceived by the Bush White House. In a letter to the new President, a number of Senators led by Bob Graham declared:
There is no doubt that . . . Saddam Hussein has invigorated 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 redefine 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.
Senator Carl Levin also reaffirmed for Bush's benefit what he had told Clinton some years earlier:
Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed, speaking in October 2002:
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.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, agreed as well:
There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . . We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.
Even more striking were the sentiments of Bush's opponents in his two campaigns for the presidency. Thus Al Gore in September 2002:
We know that [Saddam] has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.
And here is Gore again, in that same year:
Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.
Now to John Kerry, also speaking in 2002:
I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force?-if necessary?-to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.
Perhaps most startling of all, given the rhetoric that they would later employ against Bush after the invasion of Iraq, are statements made by Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, also in 2002:
Kennedy: We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.
Byrd: The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains 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 capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons.2
Liberal politicians like these were seconded by the mainstream media, in whose columns a very different tune would later be sung. For example, throughout the last two years of the Clinton administration, editorials in the New York Times repeatedly insisted that
without further outside intervention, Iraq should be able to rebuild weapons and missile plants within a year [and] future military attacks may be required to diminish the arsenal again.
The Times was also skeptical of negotiations, pointing out that it was
hard to negotiate with a tyrant who has no intention of honoring his commitments and who sees nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as his country's salvation.
So, too, the Washington Post, which greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001 with the admonition that
[o]f all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous?-or more urgent?-than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade's efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf [where] intelligence photos . . . show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons.3
end of quote.
I am sure that Advocate will not attempt to rebut the above which clearly shows how ridiculous his statement about Saddam ending his nuke phase in 1990 really is.
Advocate must not be able to understand a basic fact. When he makes a ridiculous statement, he must give evidence to back it up.
He did not do so.
I did show that Leading Democrats thought that Saddam had WMD's ever as recently as 2002.
Magginkat wrote:
Liberation of Iraq? 63 more dead today......yep, they are liberated! They will never again have to worry about a bomb attack on their homes or seeing their children starve. Never again will they have to suffer through this desert heat with little or no relief. They have died in worse conditions than anthing Saddam ever did to them. But by God they are liberated.
500 WMDs found in Iraq?? Yep those would be the ones that got Rick Santorum laughed out of town. You don't hear ole Chicken george crowing about any weapons do you? LMAO! To quote Faux Spews and Gay Duck Santorum is really the pits! Same for the Cheney invented ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Never mind that Al Qaeda was a figament of Tricky Dick's imagination..... literally invented by Chicken George and Thugs Inc.
Mag,
Are you a bigot?
You can use the word gay whatever way but then you are just as 'gay' too in the same sense and you are also wrong about almost everything you say. It must suck being so wrong so much of the time?
ARE YOU SAYING THE IRAQIS WERE BETTER OFF IN A TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP RATHER THAN A DEMOCRACY?
I might add... the the people killing the Iraqis daily are NOT AMERICANS!!!
They are other Arabs.
Mag, should we just dump these darn freedom loving Iraqis? They have TRUSTED us this far to help them reshape their government? Push 'em off the hay ride Mag and say, "Nice knowing ya!" Hahahahaha... (sarcasm).
IS THIS WHAT YOU REALLY THINK WE SHOULD DO MAG?
Are you dems too good to fight in this little middle east war for democracy? Of course! The dems are too busy making money in special interest ventures to care about 'charity' work. This is why the left wing creates charities but the right wind supports them. Should we tell Iraq Mag, well it was a nice dream but we think the money would be better spent AT HOME (like gay duckie Hillary suggests) rather than helping the Iraqis reach a position where they can defend themselves.
Meg, should we abandon the Iraqis in the desert with no water and food? Leave them to fight Al Qaeda alone? Should we leave a blight in history saying we came and tried and just before the job was finished good ol' Mag had our soldiers come home... So, the terrorists rushed in and massacred the new Iraqi government! Then Iraq goes back to a dictatorship Mag and you will be SOOOOOoooo happy again! YEAAAAAaaaa says Meg! (sarcasm) That would mean the George Bush failed and Meg got that damn pound of flesh so desired! You never wanted the troops home! You never cared about the Iraqi people or WMD! You only wanted Georgie to fail. You are a pin head Mag. Nearly nothing you say is factual at all. You are the liar and your nut case friends on extreme far left are too...
Why hate Georgie? So the terrorists will have the oil to build bombs so then they can start killing the Saudis (our friends) and any other infidels who will not bow down to their God at gunpoint! Will you bow down to their God Mag? I bet you would... you are a sell out, even to your own kind...
When they come knocking on your door you can tell them how you helped aid and comfort the enemy! Maybe they will make you one of them and you can murder people at gun point too? (sarcasm)
You expect the Iraqis to bow down though Mag?
So again, are you a bigot Mag?
You will be proven wrong on every single point as this war unfolds.
Soon we here on the right, the middle and many on the left will be rubbing it in your face that George Bush HAS won this war against your hate and when you blow your top we will post a message for you... "mission IS accomplished" and you will be eating sour grapes and granola with your beloved Al Gore. All the the gay tree hugging in the world will not make you feel better about this one.
Grammar school is tough isn't it Mag?
RexRed wrote:
I just finished reading that...
What a long report.
It is missing some recent revelations.....
Agreed it missed some things, and thanks for mentioning the things missed. The report did bring out a couple of important points, one being the burden of proof was on Hussein to prove he had no WMD, and he failed to do that, and secondly the evidence of things being moved to Syria persists and this has not been dismissed by the so-called experts. It also says that Hussein likely had no intention of permanently giving up his WMD programs, even if they were indeed suspended or limited for a while, which we do not know exactly how limited or suspended the programs actually were for sure.
Magginkat and other Bush haters can continue to sling their mindless drivel onto this forum, but it makes no difference, as the facts and honest debate should win with the people that matter, the people that can honestly have the courage to face the facts and history as it actually occurred.
Bush is buttressing is position as the most hated man on the globe. The funny thing is that he deserves his position.
Bernie, I think you know quite well that Bush knew there were no WMD, 9/11 connection, etc., but lied about this to congress, the American public, and the world. How can you guys on the right defend this creep?
Advocate, It's called "denial." It's obvious they will not stop apologizing for incompetent, liar, Bush.
