Re: Paull
OCCOM BILL wrote:Too many words, to say very little. I readily concede that the inspectors left voluntarily (that time, though they had been expelled previously), just before the initial bombing of Dessert Fox and just after reporting that the Saddam had never lived up to his end of the bargain and that further inspections would be a futile waste of time
since they had NEVER had the unfettered access they were entitled to. Semantics. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
Look, Bill you seem to be a nice guy, albeit with a wholly unhealthy affinity for wearing processesed dairy products, but saying as you have that 1+1 = 3 and having me call you on it is not a semantic argument, it is fundamental to any honest commitment to human communication we have to be real with the facts, and the easiest way out is to just stop lying about things when you first say them, then nobody has to point out your lies. But I can understand that if you really, really, really believe them and then say them, you can say that they weren't lies, because you believe them to be true. But that is how most right wing shills weasel out of their lies.
btw: 1+1 =2
Althought we are mightily slouching that way, we are not yet in Oceania
Please provide any evidence you have that "Americans were spying on Iraq
in direct violation of the settlement agreed upon by both sides" I submit there was neither a provision that restricted spying nor any provision that allowed Saddam such a remedy. Quite the contrary: Numerous resolutions were passed mandating unconditional cooperation and in 1998-->
[URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis_timeline_1997-2000]wikipedia[/URL] wrote:
February 23, 1998
Iraq signs a "Memorandum of Understanding" with the UN, which says that the country will accept all relevant Security Council resolutions, cooperate fully with UNSCOM and the IAEA, and will grant UNSCOM and the IAEA immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access for their inspections.
It was a good story, Kuvasz, and you tell it so well, but anyone interested in the truth instead of your history revision need only click the link above.
It really isn't a good story it is called "news," in case you haven't heard it by watching the Faux Network instead of the "news," and since you asked:
First a little background on UNSCOM
UNSCOM itself had neither the manpower nor the financing to carry out widespread inspections in a country of 23 million people. The vast majority of the 160 technical experts working for UNSCOM in New York City and Baghdad were supplied by governments which participated in the Gulf War against Iraq. Most of these experts are still on the payroll of their respective governments.
Although these individuals sign statements of loyalty to the UN, swearing not to divulge information to the governments which pay their salaries, "it is no secret that some of these experts report their findings not only to the commission but to their own governments as well," the newspaper reported.
"Sensitive information about Iraq does flow in and out of the commission's offices on the 30th and 31st floors of the United Nations tower in New York," said the Post account, not only through individual agents, but as part of the official workings of UNSCOM, which relies on "unpublicized assistance" from agencies like the US Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency.
American U-2 planes take detailed photographs of Iraqi sites for UNSCOM, with the film developed at NSA laboratories which routinely copy the information for American use. In addition, UNSCOM has turned over dozens of Russian-made engines, gyroscopes and other parts of ballistic missiles for analysis by the CIA, because "no other country knew as much about these missiles."
According to a report in the Washington Post (8 January 1999), 'The United States for nearly three years intermittently monitored the coded radio communications of President Saddam Hussein's innermost security forces using equipment secretly installed in Iraq by the UN weapons inspectors, according to US and UN officials. In 1996 and 1997, the Iraqi communications were captured by off-the-shelf commercial equipment carried by inspectors from the organisation known as Unscom, then hand-delivered to analysis centres in Britain, Israel and the United States for interpretation, officials said.' The US used this information to try and destabilise the Iraqi regime, and CIA operatives also provided assistance to elite guards who were plotting to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
One implication of these revelations was clear. As US officials demanded ever more intrusive searches of alleged weapons facilities--which they knew had already been effectively dismantled by the Persian Gulf war and eight years of inspections and sanctions--they had another purpose in mind. They were engaged in profiling the Iraqi security apparatus and monitoring Saddam Hussein's movements, to assist in efforts to kill the Iraqi leader, either through outright assassination, a coup attempt or as a consequence of US air strikes.
The front-page reports by the Washington Post's and Boston Globe on the spy role of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) cited advisers to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, US intelligence officials and former UNSCOM official Scott Ritter, the American ex-Marine who resigned from the agency last August. Both UN spokesmen and Clinton administration officials denied the reports, but provided no factual refutation.
The Post quoted a source close to Annan declaring, "The secretary-general has become aware of the fact that UNSCOM directly facilitated the creation of an intelligence collection system for the United States in violation of its mandate. The United Nations cannot be party to an operation to overthrow one of its member states. In the most fundamental way, that is what's wrong with the UNSCOM operation."
The Washington Post's Barton Gellman revealed in a front-page article, sourced to "advisors" and "confidants" of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, that Annan had "obtained what he regards as convincing evidence that United Nations arms inspectors helped collect eavesdropping intelligence used in American efforts to undermine the Iraqi regime." A similar story appeared in the same day's Boston Globe.
Gellman's article, along with the Globe story, was widely credited with "breaking" the UNSCOM-spying story--a story that touched on a highly contentious issue at the U.N.
Iraq had frequently accused UNSCOM arms inspectors of being conduits for American spying, and was often joined in its criticism of the disarmament agency by U.N. Security Council members like France and Russia.
Coming after December's bombing campaign against Iraq, the revelations in Gellman's article--along with corroborating information that came to light in the U.S. and British media over the next few days--gave further ammunition to UNSCOM's critics at the U.N., and were considered to be a final nail in UNSCOM's coffin.
But Gellman, who had produced some of the best and most enterprising coverage of UNSCOM during the past year, had known about the UNSCOM-spying story for months--all the way down to its "operational details," such as the brand names of surveillance equipment used in eavesdropping operations--and was in a position to publish what he knew by early October 1998. But at the behest of a senior U.S. government official, he and the Washington Post's top management chose not to reveal the extent of U.S. intelligence's links to (and possible abuse of) UNSCOM, for reasons of "national security."
The links finally came to light in January only because of aggressive leaking from Annan's staff--leaks which Gellman knew were being pursued by a competing reporter at the Boston Globe. Gellman's January 6 story included a paragraph disclosing that information had been withheld from readers:
[quote]The Post reported on October 12 that an UNSCOM operation code-named Shake the Tree involved synchronizing arms inspections with a new synthesis of intelligence techniques allowing Washington to look and listen as Iraq moved contraband. At the request of the U.S. government, the Post agreed to withhold from that report operational details on national security grounds.
Gellman he said his decision was based on a longstanding Post policy not to spoil ongoing U.S. intelligence operations by exposing them. Although Gellman and his editors were "well aware of the news value" of the story, he said, they believed that the potential drawbacks of publishing it--as explained to them by the official--outweighed the advantages.
The U.S. official had insisted that the nature of this particular operation in Iraq was such that any reference to the eavesdropping would have given the mission away, Gellman said. The official also told Gellman that the Iraqis might use evidence of U.S. spying to justify arresting and executing UNSCOM inspectors, who were expected to return to Iraq soon.
But Gellman reported in a January 8 article that "the Iraqis may have suspected that their communications were being monitored, and used Arabic code words to describe individuals and equipment." Moreover, Gellman had already referred obliquely to the operation in earlier reporting. Thus, it is unlikely that revealing "eavesdropping" would have given anything away.
As for the UNSCOM inspectors whose lives would supposedly be endangered by the story, they did not ultimately return to Iraq until November 17--and could have chosen not to return at all if they believed that their lives were at risk.
Moreover, the story was far more newsworthy in October, when Gellman and his editors decided to hold it, than in January when it finally ran. In January, few people believed the inspectors would ever return to Iraq. By contrast, in October, the U.N. was embroiled in a prolonged stand off between Iraq and the weapons inspectors in which Iraq's accusation of spying by UNSCOM was one of several issues being discussed.
In fact, during that standoff, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, demanding an investigation specifically into whether UNSCOM was being used by U.S. and other intelligence agencies "to carry out exposed espionage on Iraq." Had the Post run its story in October, it would have been a timely--and potentially explosive--contribution to the debate.
So it appears that the serious concern here was that the Washington Post's journalism might affect the real world--that the revelation of a questionable U.S. espionage operation would upset people, including some U.S. allies, and embarrass U.S. policymakers, thus exposing U.S. policy in Iraq to harsh questioning. Faced with this possibility, the newspaper chose to protect the operation from public scrutiny--until it mattered much less.
Even so, some at the Post were obviously displeased that the story came to light at all.
In an outraged editorial the day after Gellman broke the story ("Back-Stabbing at the U.N.," 1/7/99), the paper berated Annan's advisors for giving its own reporter the information, calling the act a "gutless ploy" whose "principal beneficiary" would be Saddam Hussein. If Annan "had reason to suspect the cooperation [between UNSCOM and the U.S.] had crossed some line of propriety," the editorial said, "they could have raised their concerns in private."
"We live in a dirty and dangerous world," the Post's then-publisher Katharine Graham said in 1988, addressing a group of CIA officials at the Agency's Langley headquarters (Regardie's, 1/90). "There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows." That spirit seems to be alive and well at Graham's paper.
The US was engaged in spying as a part of a UN weapons inspection program for the direct purpose of toppling a foreign govenment, which is against the UN Charter signed by both sides and is a priori to any agreement that flows from the actions of the charter or security council. If the Iraqi government, as a member nation of the UN expects any agreement on inspection actions to be carried out on its soil by the UN it has a right to expect such UN actions to be within the UN Charter and one of those rights is not to have UN actions that were negotiated and agreed upon by each party be used to topple one of the the governments.
and what is more amazing is that had this attempt at spying which was done by Clinton been done by Bush, you would have applauded the sneakiness in defense of THE U S A.
On the other hand, I think the actions mean more than who does them and am appalled if either man would do them. I condemn the actions of Clinton, while you get a hard-on attacking the personality of Clinton. It shows how blinded from reality you are by your hatred of Clinton, and Democrats in general, as John Dean writes about in discussing Right Wingnuts in his book.
[/quote][/color]
US Used UN to Spy on Iraq, Aides Say By Colum Lynch, The Boston Globe, January 6, 1999
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/scomspy5.htm
Annan Suspicious Of UNSCOM Role, By Barton Gellman, Washington Post, January 6, 1999
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/scomspy1.htm
Reports of U.S. Spying Dim Outlook for Iraq Inspections. By Barbara Crossette, New York Times, January 8, 1999
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/scomspy5.htm
Now Butler Admits UN May Have Fed Iraqi Secrets to US, By Mark Riley, Sydney Morning Herald, January 9, 1999
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/scomspy6.htm
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj99wright
OCCOM BILL wrote:kuvasz wrote:the debate on A2K on North Korea over a year ago should have settled the tripe on whether or not what Clinton\Carter did in the mid 90's was useful. and in reflection all that the six years of that idiot from Texas did with North Korea was push them to build more bombs and now ballistic missiles.
Yet another revision. Here again you simply ignore the FACT that had Clinton gone ahead and taken out the reactor at Yongbyon, INSTEAD of letting Kim build nukes by way of the idiotic "Agreed Framework" we likely wouldn't be looking at a nuclear North Korea today.
First, you should know that for normal people things that do not happen or are proposed by someone, especially yourself as "likely to happen" are not in of themselves "FACTS," instead they are imaginary, just like your opinion is here. I suspect that if you truely saw the face of the war you call for you would piss in your pants and vomit on your shoes, but do bray on as a member of 101st Fighting Keyboard Battalion about a military strike upon which you lust but for which you have no earthly actual idea how it would end.
Would the North Koreans launch everything that have at Japan, the world's second largest ecomomic power in an orgasmic death throe and lead to world-wide Depression? Would they attack South Korea with everything thay have and wipe on the 37,000 American service men there before the US could muster the strength to repel them from attacking Soul with its multi-million-man army? Would the US have to use nukes on North Korean soil, would one stray and wipe out a Nothern Chinese city?
Would you bet the world on it?
None of these potential things are even on your mind, You are talking like some TV cowboy you watched on Saturday morning as a kid. Shoot first and Fukk the world?
George Bush (the Lesser), the hobby-horse Napoleon is your Great Leader.
One cold hard fact of war is that once the shooting starts no one knows what happens next, or how it will end, except for idiots who think they can read the future.
The debacle in Iraq with a $500,000,000,000 price tag, and 25,000 dead, wounded and damaged Americans has taught you nothing.
Why don't you go back and re-read the extended encounter and series of posts we exchanged last year and remember that the CIA stated North Korea was likely to have had 1-2 nuclear weapons back in the early 1990's, and that the feed and oil program bribed them from building more and that when Bush took over he stopped the program and the North Koreans started back up both their nuclear program as well as accelerate the ballistic misile program in response..
OCCOM BILL wrote:This would have pre-empted even his secret Uranium Enrichment program by at least 3 years. Instead we paid bribe money for Kim to build his arsenal to new heights of destructive power while turning the blind eye as he hideously oppressed his people, starving untold millions to death. I'll grant you Bush has done nothing to improve it, but your denial that Clinton allowed Kim's conventional threat to morph into a nuclear one is just straight BS. Bush inherited a much worse nightmare (nuclear) than the one that developed while Clinton slept at the wheel.
North Korea had 1-2 nuclear weapons because of the program George Bush (the Greater) allowed the North Koreans to have under his own administration, so your declaration that it was primary Clinton's fault is pure political hackery. The 10-12 they probably have now are predominantly the result of th acceleration of the armament program that was reconsitituted after Bush (the Lesser) sabre rattled and the North Koreans went on to build them post a Bush (the Lesser) inaugural.
If you are so damned sensitive about oppressed people, how come you are not advocating attacking China, which oppresses a billion-three when North Korea oppresses a pitiful fraction less?
Or is your morality based upon good old American business accounting pratices?
Your "selective" call for freedom of North Korea because you think it helps your argument here is abominable crap.
OCCOM BILL wrote:How you could even look at the North Korean Crisis today and declare a job well done is beyond me. That story, you don't even tell well.
Well, thank you for making an argument I did not make. and the only "story" being told is one by you.
Again, just as John Dean said about conservatives, they cannot debate the arguments of their political adversaries so they make up ones to defeat and dance about claiming that they vanquished those of their opponents'.
You might note that my claim was about what Clinton and Carter did in the mid-1990's not as you write: [quote]How you could even look at the North Korean Crisis today and declare a job well done is beyond me.
This current crisis was instigated by the Bush administration with the rhetotical attacks he and his minions made on the North Koreans during the Fall 2000 campaign, even before Bush (the lesser) was sworn in. No one who understands the situation believes his actions have helped prevent this crisis. Those knowledgable in the field believe and the think the Lesser Bush has screwed the pouch on this dangerous affair.[/color]
[/quote]
Not opinions, mind you
FACTs.
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