Blair's career is so fucking over. Thats what happens when the media actually asks hard questions of their leaders. Take a hint, CNN. Independent (London) - May 31, 2003 Angry Blair says: 'We are too busy to find weapons of mass destruction' INDEPENDENT (London) May 31 By Andy McSmith in Warsaw Tony Blair rounded angrily on his tormentors yesterday, telling them that the British authorities in Iraq had more urgent priorities than finding weapons of mass destruction. As question marks continued to hang over the evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons, which was used to justify the war, Mr Blair dismissed as "completely absurd" claims that politicians had added their spin to intelligence reports on the issue. An unnamed diplomatic source reveals to a national newspaper today that the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, also privately exchanged serious doubts about the chemical weapons capability of Iraq before the war. The source, who read a transcript of a 10-minute discussion between the two at the Waldorf Hotel in New York before a UN meeting on 5 February, said General Powell indicated that he was "apprehensive" about what he called at best circumstantial evidence. He said he hoped the facts would not "explode in their faces" when they came out. Mr Straw was also said to be concerned that claims made by President George Bush and Tony Blair could not be proved. In Warsaw yesterday Mr Blair was visibly annoyed that questions on the missing weapons had not gone away and that there were allegations that British politicians had added their spin to intelligence reports to justify a war. The Prime Minister said: "I have just caught up overnight with some of the allegations that have been made. Let me just say this: the evidence that we have of weapons of mass destruction was evidence drawn up and accepted by the joint intelligence community. That evidence of weapons of mass destruction is evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt at all. The idea that we authorised or made the intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd. "What is happening here is that people who have opposed this action throughout are trying to find fresh reasons why it was not the right thing to do." The Prime Minister claimed that the previous day's visit to Iraq, when he had seen "the freedom and the liberation that they have", demonstrated that removing the Baath regime was "emphatically the right thing to do". As proof that the regime had been harbouring weapons of mass destruction, he cited the 12-year history of United Nations resolutions instructing Iraq to disarm. He added: "There is no doubt about the chemical programme, the biological programme and indeed the nuclear weapons programme. All that is well documented by the United Nations. "Now our priority, having got rid of Saddam, is to rebuild the country, so the focus at the moment is on the humanitarian and political reconstruction of the country. The threat from weapons of mass destruction obviously, with Saddam out is not immediate any more. "We have only just begun ... investigating the various sites. We have already found two trailers, both of which we believe were used for the manufacture of biological weapons. "It is not the most urgent priority now for us, since Saddam is gone. So you are going to have to have a little bit of patience. I have absolutely no doubt at all that when we present the full evidence, after we have investigated all the sites, that evidence will be found, and I have absolutely no doubt that it exists. Saddam's history in relation to weapons of mass destruction is not some invention of the British intelligence services." The main target of the Prime Minister's anger seems to be the BBC's Today programme, for alleging that politicians had added their spin to intelligence reports. But he will also have been warned of the growing number of Labour MPs, including Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary who resigned over the war, who have been asking what happened to the weapons that Mr Blair claimed were ready for use at 45 minutes' notice. Mr Blair's future credibility will now depend, in part, on what Iraqi scientists tell the investigators who are questioning them. The Prime Minister emphasised yesterday that the interrogation could take "weeks and months". ________________________________________ meanwhile, slate.msn.com got a hold of the CIA report on those mobile labs. While it is entirely possible that they were for chem/bio stuff, and Bush is telling the world that they absolutely are, the CIA report infers that they could very well have been to produce hydrogen for artillery weather baloons...

Then theres this... albeit its from the Sunday Herald, who I dont like very much.... PM insists: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and I'll reveal the proof By Neil Mackay and David Pratt TONY Blair disregarded the advice of his own intelligence agencies and chose instead to believe 'selective and defective' information from a highly politicised Pentagon unit set up by US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to validate war against Saddam Hussein by proving that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Former CIA staff say Blair was heavily influenced by intelligence gathered by Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans (OSP) which 'cherry-picked' intelligence in order to provide the US administration with an excuse to attack Saddam. US intelligence officers claim the OSP ignored intelligence which might have cast doubt on Iraq's WMD programme. British intelligence sources have told the Sunday Herald that they were 'absolutely sceptical' about plans to invade Iraq over WMD. The same sources accept that France and Russia had the best intelligence on what was going on inside Saddam's regime and were telling both the UK and USA that 'there was effectively no real evidence of a WMD programme' in Iraq. LibDem foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell told the Sunday Herald: 'It has been one of Whitehall's least well-kept secrets that, throughout the Iraq crisis, the intelligence services have been uneasy about the use being made of the product of their labours.' With a growing rift within US intelligence over the issue, and evidence that neo-conservatives and hawks within the Pentagon and OSP are now concentrating their efforts to help bring about regime change in Iran, CIA director George Tenet released a rare statement which many see as an attempt to distance the agency from OSP and the increasing 'politicisation' of intelligence. 'Our role is to call it like we see it, to tell policy-makers what we know, what we don't know, what we think and what we base it on,' Tenet said. 'The integrity of our process was maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.' Blair, however, in an interview with Sky TV today, will say that even though no banned weapons have yet been found he was in 'no doubt at all' that Saddam possessed WMD and proof would be found. He also claimed that in the near future evidence will be assembled and given to the British people which will prove Iraq had WMD. His comments follow the revelation that a transcript of a conversation between UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and US Secretary of State Colin Powell showed the pair both feared that allied claims about Iraq's WMD programme could not be proved. This has since been denied by the Foreign Office. One of the key claims in the dossier which Blair presented to parliament to prove his case for war was that Iraq was able to use WMD in just 45 minutes. Last night a member of the Labour Party came forward to claim that he had taken part in a telephone conference with Labour Party chairman Dr John Reid, in which Reid said it would have taken 'more than 48 hours' for Saddam to get WMD operative. Alun Harford, who says he is now to quit the party, said: 'I can tell you, I'm absolutely confident that that is what Dr Reid said.' A spokesman for Reid said the party chairman was 'completely consistent with the Prime Minister in every briefing and interview he gave'. Rebel Labour MP and Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, said he had previously accused Margaret Thatcher of lying to the Commons over the Peruvian peace proposals and the Westland affair, adding: 'These untruths concern matters, however important at the time, which are minuscule in comparison as to whether there had been lies or not before the Commons was persuaded to enter a war against Iraq with global consequences. 'Before I or anyone else can pursue this matter further we must know the facts of what the Prime Minister knew or did not know in September 2002 when he recalled parliament to say Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction which could be used at 45 minutes notice.' A UK intelligence official earlier came forward to say they were told by Downing Street to make 'sexier' a dossier delivered to parliament stating the government's case for war.

From one of my favorite sites: The Hindsight Effect This article raises some DAMN good questions. This site is an excellent anti-alarmist site.

"The reasons wars begin do not always matter. What counts in the end are results." oh my. hindsight? hindsight my ass. Before the war we asked where the hell the weapons are. Now we still want to know where the damn weapons are. Maybe you've been turned to the "Lets all liberate Iraq and paint a rainbow of freedom over the earth" spin that they threw in half way, but i seem to recall a time when we were 12 hours away from being nuked, the weapons were all there and shiney and ready to go, and anyone doubting that for a second was a goddamn commie/hippy with no sense of national security. Don't you care about your family??!? Let's Roll! Oh but wait! Saddamn is the big liar! "Here's another possibility. Bush didn't lie; Saddam Hussein did. If he couldn't make Iraq a superpower, maybe he could fake it. Saddam scared the wits out of millions of people. His weapons gave him credibility through terror. If he puffed up his chest, casualty-spooked Americans might leave him alone. " wow. You'd think the combined intelligence of 5 fucking nations would have clued you in to that, sparing lives, saving cash...... unless we want to admit that national intelligence is apparently a very expensive joke, which was really the 'peaceniks' point all along. I hope that's what we learn from all this. That "intelligence" is usually anything but. Or, like Tony-boy is going to snap and point out soon, the intelligence said one thing, and the invading forces believed another. Would the war have happened if it was just about freeing the Iraqi people? Would the polls have been so high? That many armies going in, guns blazing, just to liberate the oppressed peoples of a tiny nation just because their leader is evil? I'd love to live in that kind of world. So now they'll put in weapons inspectors. They'll throw in as many damn weapons inspectors as they can and give them all the time in the world. Now. feel safe? anybody? feelin' good? great.

spunky, you just bit off way more than you can chew. first off let me say that I believe there was probably something, somewhere in Iraq to justifiably freak people out. Might still be stuff there. But like I kept going on about over and over again, if they had any real current intelligence, they never would have ever presented that plagiarized thesis from a 28 year old in Britain. Anyone with real current intelligence would have shot that down immediately, knowing it was bullshit and 10 years out of date... So now, after visiting a third of 900 suspected weapons sites, its clear that one of the following is true a) the US greatly overestimated how many weapons there were b) the US knew there were barely any weapons there and lied c) the US did such a terrible job going for these sites right away that if there were any real terrorists, they probably have the weapons by now and the US is actually in real danger. and the least likely d) "they destroyed them right before the war" d) is horseshit, and spunk, I know you know it too. Which is why its so amazing that you'd post this hindsight thing. I remember you saying directly that you dont care about the people, didnt care why we were going in there, you said "I JUST WANT SECURITY"... since Iraq didnt use its weapons, since none have been found, its more than safe to say now that aggressive inspections were the best option, and there was never a need for war. At the time the war started, the inspectors were able to get Iraq to destroy around 50-100 (i forget the exact number) AlSamoud2 missles. In "hindsight" (ha ha), you can't tell me now that that was NOT working. Billions of dollars spent, the world torn apart diplomatically, your very own reputation destroyed by your lack of patience, to liberate Iraqis? was it worth it? you know damn well that if liberating Iraqis had been the main selling point, the invasion would have never happened. Now, as we see the oil fields are already in place and people are excited as hundreds of thousands of barrels are readied each day, as we see conflicts of interests regarding rebuilding contracts, we see this war has been corrupt and more and more even though I didnt entirely agree at the time, the sole positive for the US has been access to oil. Blood for oil. it happened spunk. That, spunk, is a fact. you (and Dennis Miller, I recall) didnt care about liberating the people, you told us all that to question was unpatriotic, anti-American, that if we didnt go in there we'd all get nuked in our own backyard... The US had better hope for its own sake that this was all just a lie and that the weapons werent taken by real terrorists... but knowing the know-nothing ways of the current adminstration, it will do several things, pointing the blame at the UK to save its own ass, claiming that Iranians came in, took it all into Iran (where we know there are weapons), so you can attack there and get the elusive scapegoat. How many people will die to save face, spunk? The left has admitted it was wrong about how long the war would take, is it so hard for you to admit that war started based on lies and/or gross exaggerations of the truth? Is it so hard to admit that it is absolutely patriotic and right to question your leaders? is it so hard to admit that when Bush said "war was our last option", he flat out lied? come on, gimme some sugar.

Whatever. No sugar for anyone that has their mind made up. My mind is already made up. I'm glad the fucker is gone. What ever it takes to rid this world of one more dicator that killed thousands of his own in 24 hours. This man has been equated to Stalin, Pal Pot, Hitler, you name it. Look up Salman Pak and continue to tell me that there were no ties between Hussien and terrorists. Further more, he did work VERY hard to make it appear he had the weapons. All he ever had to do what open up all doors for the inspectors, and let them rome as they pleased. I am glad we did it, no matter what. You are mad we did it, no matter what.

"Further more, he did work VERY hard to make it appear he had the weapons." more recently, he worked very hard to make it appera he had no weapons "All he ever had to do what open up all doors for the inspectors, and let them rome as they pleased" which Iraq did. Whether or not theres a link to terrorists now is only relevent assuming there were weapons in the first place. I'm glad he's gone too, it doesnt mean Bush et al didnt lie. What do you think about the 'no weapons' thing? where do you think they are? because you're earlier post seems to be taking a safe position that there might not be much to be found... "whatever it takes" "whatever it takes" didnt have to include war, if you want to talk 'hindsight' lets go back a few more months from where mr. writer guy above left off, and you'll see that all of this could have been avoided if the US had the patience it now asks of the rest of the world.

"By trace on Monday, January 13, 2003 - 10:50 pm There is a smoking gun. I can't beleive all of these people demanding that it be shown. THERE IS A SMOKING GUN. It has been chosen to not reveal it. " So why now has it been chosen not to reveal it? By trace on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 02:14 pm "He never denied that we have proof, he accused bush of not releasing it. We will. Next week. Maybe at the State of the Union Address. I know what it is, and it will scare you. It is a direct threat to the United States, the actual continent itself. Anyone who thinks Hussein has been sitting on his arse doing nothing over the last four years is a fool. He's not a fool. It's underground. Underneath normal appearing buildings. Lost and lots of construction has been documented underground. Lost of excavation, lots of earth being removed, and concrete and steel moved in. " I dont need to say anything more about that quote except to cut/paste again something: "It is a direct threat to the United States, the actual continent itself." "It's underground. Underneath normal appearing buildings. Lost and lots of construction has been documented underground. Lost of excavation, lots of earth being removed, and concrete and steel moved in. The 120mm warheads were nothing. yes, they pointed towards intent, and yes, they do help make a point. They were in perfect condition. They are built to carry chemicals. They are nothing compared to what's underground." then this happens: By Antigone on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 03:27 pm: "They are nothing compared to what's underground." Do you have facts to back that up? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By trace on Friday, January 24, 2003 - 03:28 pm: not that I am willing to share, no. I've said too much already " You sure did spunk. Now spunk, cough it up, send Bush your dossier so we can get this over with. Obviously you know where they are, lets get these WMDs before the terrorists do. Because if theres an attack on American soil and you had information that could have prevented it, its all your fault right? Or are you with the terrorists now? Taliban Trace is in the hizzouze!

later in the thread eri goes on to stand up for spunky, saying that he has all this information, that the government doesnt even have access to it, they have different information.. come on spunk, show some responsibility... show me the weapons. or admit that you never had the information (or the info was lies) and you were putting on a show for us.

.....just like Blair will have to do.

I went off what I saw.

now what does that teach you?

i have seen photographs. Now, I cannot verify the long & lat of the photos, they of course are super-imposed. Maybe the AIA and SpaceCom are involved in this lie, right? If Bush was lying, then the CIA, NSA, DIA, and AIA had to be involved as well. And they went through very elaborate efforts, what with funneling fake pictures through my group, and all. After all, the fakes could have just been delivered via fed ex to the pres and Powell, without going through me (from the source) to intel analysis and then from intel analysis to post-analysis and finally to the NSA & CIA for their analysis before it even made it to the white house. Lots of work and deception involved in faking these pictures. You may never see them. I will certainly never show them to you, and I no longer have them. They are destroyed after transmission. As for the reason for non-disclosure, that is not something I have access or insight into.

Declassified DIA Presentation to the Pentagon Pic of Tuwaitha

"Maybe the AIA and SpaceCom are involved in this lie, right? If Bush was lying, then the CIA, NSA, DIA, and AIA had to be involved as well" and dont forget the media's involvement. Powell today doubled up on Bushs insistance that those trucks were mobile labs, saying "Nobody has come up with an alternate purpose that makes sense." nobody? alternate purpose that makes sense? ahem... CIA. Artillery weather balloons. I'm not saying that thats the truth, but when people are trying to quash this information, you have to question... _________________________________________________ today, from the Pakistan Daily Times: The Bush administration should have heeded Mark Twain’s advice: “When in doubt, speak the truth.” But it didn’t, and thought it could fool people into believing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, had links to Al Qaeda and was even involved in the 9/11 attacks on the US. This, of course, was rubbish, tripe of the highest order, as many of us had been saying for months. The truth, however, will out sooner or later. And the expletive deleted has finally hit the fan. On Friday the ranking Democrat on the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee warned that President Bush’s contention that America went to war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to rid the country of hidden biological and chemical weapons “could be the greatest intelligence hoax” of all time. And it’s not only Democrats that are saying this. So are Intelligence Committee members from Bush’s own Republican Party. Representative Jane Harman, Democrat-Ranco Palos Verdes (Los Angeles County), has sent a letter, along with Representative Porter Goss, Republican-Florida, the Intelligence Committee chairman, to CIA Director George Tenet asking him to explain what “intelligence” led spy agencies to believe Iraq had stocks of the banned weapons or that Al Qaeda operated on Iraqi territory. “US credibility is at stake,” Harman told reporters on Friday. “Especially if there is an interest in another military adventure, we need the facts.” The congresswoman said intelligence briefings about weapons of mass destruction she received in the committee were a major reason why she had voted for last October’s war resolution in the House of Representatives. The underlying implication was that had it not been for such briefings, Harman might well have voted against the resolution. The same could probably be said of other US lawmakers, many of whom must now be thinking they were conned into voting for the war resolution. To add to the Bush administration’s embarrassment, the top US Marine commander in Iraq said on Friday that US intelligence was “simply wrong” in its assessment that Saddam Hussein intended to unleash biological or chemical weapons against America forces during the war. “It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons,” Lt. General James Conway, commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said from Baghdad in a teleconference with reporters in Washington. “It’s not for want of trying,” he continued. “We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.” Conway said, “What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood, or we certainly had our best guess, our most dangerous, our most likely courses of action that the intelligence folks were giving us. We were simply wrong.” His comments are likely to further fuel concern in Washington that the prewar intelligence in Iraq was flawed at best and an outright lie at worst. Amid the mounting criticism, CIA Director George Tenet took the unusual step of issuing a statement on Friday denying that the agency’s assessments on Iraq were politicised. “Our role is to call it like we see it — to tell policymakers what we know, what we don’t know, what we think, and what we base it on,” Tenet said. His remarks were intriguingly reminiscent of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s comments at a Pentagon press briefing during the height of the war, when he observed, “There are things we know. There are things we don’t know. Then there are things we know we don’t know and things we don’t know we don’t know.” Even this example of Rumsfeldian doublespeak pales into insignificance, however, compared to the spin that Major General Keith Dayton, the director of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency’s human intelligence service, tried to put on the US’ failure to find any weapons of mass destruction. Dayton, who will head a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for proscribed weapons, said in a press briefing on Friday that it was possible that Iraq “deliberately misled” US intelligence agencies, making them think that weapons were being produced and deployed even as they were secretly being destroyed. So now we are being asked to believe that Iraq wasn’t secretly producing weapons of mass destruction but secretly destroying them, though why on earth it should have wanted to resort to such subterfuge Dayton was unable to say. In fact, the US’ failure to find even a shred of evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction only confirms what the Saddam Hussein regime had been saying all along in the months before the war — that it didn’t have any. Failure to find banned weapons is becoming an increasing embarrassment for the Bush administration, with several influential lawmakers saying on Friday that they believe the White House had hyped the Iraq threat or was misled by the intelligence community. No such doubts seemed to assail White House spokesman Ari Fleischer at a press briefing on May 29, when a reporter asked, “Is the President satisfied with the intelligence he got before the war? Because now one Cabinet officer is saying that they (the Iraqis) buried the weapons; another said they destroyed them; and another said they — what’s the President’s view on all this?” Fleischer replied, “The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that is borne out by the fact that just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the two trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That’s proof perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target.” Reporter: “We go to war for two trucks?” Fleischer: “I’m sorry?” Reporter: “You would go to war from the finding of two trucks?” Fleischer: “Well, I don’t think it’s anything to dismiss. Iraq had, contrary to their protestations to the United Nations, trucks for the purpose of producing biological weapons. They said they didn’t have them, they got caught — proof-perfect that they had them.” This whole exchange sounds like a scene from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. But if there is already “proof-perfect” evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, would Fleischer, aka Ari, the evasive, care to explain why the Bush administration has now decided to send in a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for evidence of such weapons?

"Declassified DIA Presentation to the Pentagon" oh my god, wars are started over 20pt flow charts and horrendous PowerPoint graphics. I know i sound sarcastic, but seriously, if that's what a Pentagon security presentation looks like, I'm officially scared as hell. Look at that thing!

All that money put into defense and they cant hire a graphic designer? Wtf?

I thought it looked pretty bad too. Like I said, that is not my department. Nor is analysis. All I do is encrypt and transmit.

"On March 30 on US television, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said of the prohibited weapons: "We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." thats from smh.com.au he said that... two... frigging... months ago.. whats the deal?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/919753.asp?cp1=1 big article here...

Faced with destruction, I have a choice to make. My goal is to negatively impact my enemies, those who wish to destroy me, to the greatest degree possible. One option would be to deploy my chemical and biological weapons against the troops that attack me. This will not prevent my destruction, but it will increase the casualties of enemy combatants above and beyond that which I could inflict with conventional weapons. Alternatively, I can destroy all evidence of my chemical and biological weapons programs. As actions against me have been justified on the basis of my possession of WMDs, this act will have a far greater impact by ruining the credibility of my enemies. Will this work? Most likely. After all, who amongst the European states and the American left will recall that much of the evidence against me came from two unimpeachable sources: Myself, in my use of chemical weapons in the 1980s, and the United Nations weapons inspectors, who uncovered incredible amounts of information about my weapons programs throughout the 1990s. Just prior to the start of this recent war UNMOVIC itself reported a "strong presumption" that 10,000 liters of anthrax existed within my arsenal. But this is of no concern. The left of the world will not recall this. When I am gone and my people are free of my tyranny, the squabble will continue between left and right. The validity and justice of this action against me will continue to be questioned for years. And I can only hope that it continues. I can only hope that the left continues to inhibit Bush's plans. That man, who I hate as much as the left does, is on track to make global strides for the American people akin to that of Nixon with China. Bush may ruin the Middle East for despots such as myself for ever, by giving the people a share and stake of the economy of our region. Bush, with his swift war against my country, may show the Palestinian people that violence will get them nowhere in their fight against the Jews. And by disolving my rule Bush may influence Israeli hawks such as Sharon to go against his own party and step to the table to discuss peace. A seperate country for the Palestinians may be formed and our last argument against the existance of Israel may forever be erased. The left keeps telling Bush what he plans is ridiculous, moronic, impossible: But that lucky bastard keeps succeeding. Peace and balance may come to the region. Again, ruining the whole party for despots like me. But, alas, I will likely be dead.

Hmmm. I choose not to read anything MSNBC puts out. Referring to the administration as the "Bushies" and a "cabal" kind of puts a tint on the whole "unbiased journalism" idea.

from Todays herald... Rumsfeld said they might never be found? Jeez, you know somethings wrong with the Republican machine when it starts splitting off into several different camps on whats going on. that almost never happens: Smoking gun on Iraq weapons may be pointing at Blair CATHERINE MacLEOD: Analysis TONY Blair's credibility is on the line over the war in Iraq. Bluntly put, he now has to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction, or leave his critics, not to mention political allies, convinced they have been duped. Faced with a barrage of media criticism, calls for an independent war inquiry from Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, and a swipe at his integrity from Clare Short, who resigned as international development secretary following the war, Mr Blair yesterday led the government's battle to claim the moral high ground. The prime minister knows the stakes are high. When he interrupted his schedule in St Petersburg on Saturday to record an interview to set the record straight, Downing Street implicitly conceded that they could not "shrug off" their critics wherever they were: on the backbenches, in the media, or the sources in security services who, government sources believe, have embarked on an astonishing political anti-government operation. During the interview, Mr Blair quite explicitly accepted the importance of evidence. Asked if it mattered if no more evidence was found, he said: "Of course it would matter, and that's why it's important that we carry out this task. The fact is now our focus has got to be on the immediate reconstruction of Iraq but I keep saying to people, be patient about this. "Those people who are sitting there saying 'oh it is all going to be proved to be a great big fib got out by the security services, there will be no weapons of mass destruction', just wait and have a little patience." Mr Blair's present difficulties began last Thursday when the BBC claimed that intelligence officers were told by Downing Street to hype up the 50-page dossier on weapons of mass destruction published last September. Downing Street emphatically denied these allegations, but were undermined by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, suggesting that weapons of mass destruction may never be found, and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, claiming that the weapons were merely "a bureaucratic reason" for going to war against Iraq. Senior government sources, annoyed at the comments from the security sources, said: "This is a real political operation against a Labour prime minister. If the civil service was spinning like the security services, there would be calls for an inquiry. Why are they able to make these allegations without any checks?" Mr Cook, who resigned as leader of the commons in the run-up to the war, was claiming that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction had blown "a gaping hole" in the prime minister's arguments. To make matters worse, by the time Mr Blair was visiting British troops in Iraq, Adam Ingram, the defence minister, had fuelled the furore by admitting on the BBC's Today programme that a claim in the September dossier, that Saddam could deploy chemical weapons in 45 minutes, came from a single source. Government ministers were said to be astonished at the fuss caused by Mr Ingram's remarks and claimed that the BBC had an agenda. On Friday, the prime minister, finding his speech to the troops in Iraq overshadowed by the controversy over weapons of mass destruction, decided to go on the offensive. He said: "The evidence that we had of weapons of mass destruction was evidence drawn up and accepted by the Joint Intelligence committee...The idea that we suggested or made our intelligence agencies invent some evidence is absolutely absurd." Ms Short and Mr Cook were not convinced. In yesterday's Sunday Telegraph, Ms Short, said: "There was political spin put on the intelligence information to create a sense of urgency. It was a political decision that came from the prime minister. We were misled: I think we were deceived in the way it was done." Ms Short's intervention was yesterday being dismissed as "Clare trying to salve her conscience" but Mr Cook's demand for "a thorough, independent inquiry" is likely to gain support. Mr Cook said: "It is beginning to look as if the government committed a monumental blunder. The government should admit that it was wrong."

wow, Saddam Hussein spelled his own name wrong. He is a madman! THE ACE OF SPADES! THE ACE OF SPADES!

"Referring to the administration as the "Bushies" and a "cabal" kind of puts a tint on the whole "unbiased journalism" idea" its somewhat editorial, but didnt you post a tinted editorial on this very same thread? I read it, but you wont read what you think is a biased editorial? and remember terror ships?

Actually, that was Newsweek, under the heading of News.... And The Hindsight Effect was published on TCS, who's goal is free market, and all they publish is biased (towards a global, free market) editorials. They back most of the editorials with facts.

What did you think of Salman Pak?

that specific article relies on a simple fact "Saddam was bad" and that excuses everything... not good enough

My name isn't written in these letters. It can be spelt any way I wish. (PS. By focusing on a slight detail instead of responding to the message itself you effectively dissolved the truth of my words! Strike the Gongs of Victory, comrade!)

My god do you guys yack a lot. Seriously, each entry is so goddamned LONG!!!!

Saddam, This book might make you and Osama feel better.

I didnt go after the Saddam thing because it addresses something I already posted about, that one of the possibilities (remember, option D?) is that Saddam destroyed everything beforehand... if Saddam did, how come noone saw it, if intelligence is so damn accurate? and the amount of time it takes, using the AlSamoud2 missles as an example... thats a lot of time to find this shit out, for some scientist or whomever to leak this info... how the hell do you think Saddam is so smart that he could take everything down without anyone knowing, yet think he's so stupid that he'd leave around documents that supposedly link him to Osama bin Laden, simply whiting out his name instead of destroying the documents? So if I dont go after one of your details it means I'm automatically wrong trace? How many questions (I know its over 100, maybe over 200) have I asked you that you have never answered? as for Salman Pak, an interview is an interview. Could mean something but doesnt really prove anything.. certainly nothing to make judgmets over. and those answers are like 1 sentence, 2 sentences long... If thats supposed to be your trump card thats pretty damn weak. If you want me to answer any further questions from you, you're going to have to address a lot of mine.

did you research salman pak? did I say you were wrong?

HA! They show him some photos and he believes it. Spunk, you havent learned anything have you. The US governement has been doctoring documents to propel their position for a fucking century. Be it photos, reports whatever. They can show you photos but damn if they can provide actual weapons. did anyone see the daily show last week? they showed clips of the Army Corp of Engineers dude with the glasses giving an Iraqi oil man some homemade cookies for the 50 million barrels they pumped that day yadda yadda yadda? see it. god damn thems some funnies. Spunk...Saddam, supposedly big and bad with his weapons, is now hiding, with weapons we are so sure he had yet can't find.Where are the weapons? Where is Saddam? Where is Osama? At least before we knew where Saddam was. At least he was a semi-visable leader of a sovereign nation. Now he's underground and arguably more dangerous. Its going to take another 9/11 to make you see what a crock of shit this war was. We are not safer. Saddam is just as deadly and the US is still lying. God damn. Its all so obvious. Its right there. Its right there was a bunch of shit this entire war was and what the so called "liberation" will pan out to be. The Bush administration is thankful that most Americans have short term memories.

Interesting commentary from the author of "Blackhawk Down"

And you wonder why I question wether you like the US or not. Your words are always lined with distrust and disgust. what else do I have to go on?

This article makes me wonder. 14 months of lead time. US & British military fought Al-Queda linked paramilitary forces in Iraq. Weapons that were in the country before are now gone, including nuclear material stolen from nuclear facility, and now this report. Connect the dots. You accuse the CIA, FBI and NSA of not connecting the dots before 911, well here you go. I know, look at the source. Hussien must have been telling the fucking truth...

because history begs we distrust spunk. Jesus christ man, keep up. you've got your head so wrapped by the flag you can't even possibly consider, based on history and current events that you've been had. You've been shammed by your employer before spunker. You're being shammed by your employer now. Where are the fucking weapons we were so sure they had spunk? WHERE ARE THEY? WHERE'S OSAMA? WHERE'S SADDAM? You can be oil is flowing like a motherfucker thats for god damn sure. So spunk, tell me, why have oil prices in Iraq skyrocketed and availability so scarce? Its their own product right? Why can't they access their own resources? Where's the oil going? Its bullshit. We're robbing them blind and there was never any other reason to go there. There are no weapons. The US lied. Bush capitalized on 9/11. Its all right there. Its right in front of you. This has nothing to do with "liking the US or not". Thats so....pedestrian. And to say that because I feel the US has and is lying that Hussein was telling the truth...is also pedestrian. He's a liar just like our leaders are. You're so black and white, as usual, its just ...just....silly man. If i dont like A, i must like B. If i don't eat chocolate, i must love vanilla.

well, you just hop right in your little vehicle and go find them yourself, if you know so god damn much

Well if history is to be remembered, do you beleive he had them in 1998?

From dimlu's washington post article: "Disclosure of the CIA report comes as the agency is under fire over its reports on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, none of which has been uncovered." Why is the CIA catching so much flack for WMD intelligence? It was Defense Intelligence Agency that was pushing the majority of the, possibly bogus, intelligence hyping WMD. In my opinion the CIA is being scapegoated. Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, USN, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency February 11, 2003, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: "Iran and Iraq have active nuclear programs and could have nuclear weapons within the decade." Vice Admiral Lowell E. Jacoby, USN, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency February 12, 2003, Senate Armed Services Committee: "We do not know Saddam Hussein's doctrine of WMD usage. We assess, however, based on his past patterns and availability of weapons in his inventory, that he will in fact employ them. And the assessment is that he will employ them when he makes the decision that the regime is in jeopardy." Follow-up question from Sen. Carl Levin: "Do you agree, Mr. Tenet, with what Admiral Jacoby just said?" Response from George Tenet: "Yes."

We could always look in space for Osama... Although I'm more concerned with the whereabouts of Waldo, I think he's part of the Basque Separatist Movement, what with that striped shirt and all.

That's cute. :)

"well, you just hop right in your little vehicle and go find them yourself, if you know so god damn much" im not the one who advocated an urgent need to find such weapons silly. the burden is on the Bush administration, not me trace. i've never said that the possibility of weapons didnt exist but in case you forgot, there was an aggressive inspections regime in place. considering the US was so critical of the "ineffective" UN inspections regime its lookin kinda stupid now wouldnt you say?

then you should be celebrating. The iraqi's certainly are better off under american control then they were under the baath party, and if Bush DID lie, then I will be the first to demand impeachment. Not only would it be a horrid breach of trust, but also it will harm the US's ability to protect itself aggressively against the terrorist groups.

"The iraqi's certainly are better off under american control then they were under the baath party" says who? from what i hear, life is pretty fucking miserable right now. few have work, gas prices are through the roof. security is in the pits. The entire Iraqi army was disbanded. Paychecks gone! We face a huge danger because the longer the chaos and uncertainly continue, the more you're going to have an entire population in revolt against US occupation.

torture chambers, chemical baths, electrodes on the old testies must have been awful sweet, then. here is a commentary from someone in Iraq. He was against the war in the begining. he is in Iraq now.

you guys should argue about which country's president has hairier balls. you would have the same ignorance of fact, you would have the same impossibility of verification, but it would be a whole hell of a lot more entertaining to read.

Let me say this much: IF Bush was lying, then he would have already had the WMD planted in Iraq.

further, ff Bush "Lied" on WMD, So Did the UN & Clinton in 1998.

I'm not sure why, maybe I'm an optimist, but I'm seeing this all as a rosy scenerio. We should have invaded Iraq. We now have a strategic foothold in the middle east. (Not as much need for Israel, so we can better pressure them into a peace settlement.) We now have a mainline oil source. (Ditch the Saudis, yo!) But we justified the invasion in a way that will come back to bite Bush, possibly leading him to not be reelected. I find that rosy. :) At the very least we've destroyed any credibility worldwide, so if there were any imperialist / Pax Americana types in the administration they won't be able to do anything much. (At least until a possible Bush reelection.) The American people probably would not swallow another pile of bullshit, (though wouldn't put it past them) but to push the world now would probably lead, eventually, to world war. The Iraqi people certainly aren't any worse off than under Saddam. The way I see it, it's about even at the moment. (Along the lines of the suffering, instead of being concentrated on enemies of Saddam, is spread evenly on everyone. War kinda does that. It's unavoidable.) It remains to be seen whether things will get better, though. There's too much work and too many unknowns to predict that.

"further, ff Bush "Lied" on WMD, So Did the UN & Clinton in 1998." You're trying to argue based on the integrity of Clinton and the UN? dimlu! Lay off the tussin, man!

"IF Bush was lying, then he would have already had the WMD planted in Iraq." We think he lied. We don't think he's a god. WMD evidence would be very hard to fabricate. Can you get ahold of an anthrax strain with the proper genetic footprint? Can you find sarin or mustard gas canisters with the proper amount and chemical composition of their corrosion, typical of the storage conditions and duration? Didn't think so. And, any "finds" that weren't independently verified would not be credible, so any fake would have to be convincing.

Personally, I think Castro has the most nut hair. This is based on the assumption that Putin shaves his balls. Anyone who has that much machismo must have some kind of girlie little secret. Ball shaving is probably safe enough for a former KGB'er, but saucey enough to satisfied his feminine needs. Mushariff (how do you spell his name?) probably has some significantly hairy balls. If you took him and Castro at equal age, I'd go with the Mooshter. We can't do that, however; so Castro's great grey wirey mass has to take the lead. Likewise, I would have gone with the leader of India (and he still might be a serious hole in my argument,) but I just can't imagine any man whose name I can only remember as Vagi-Pagie having a pair, much less a hairy pair. As you move east from there I don't see much luck in the way of hairy huevos until you reach the west coast of the americas. Again, throughout Latin America you are working with Machismo that likely yields a careful trimming of scrotal hair if not a complete shave. I certainly can see Vicente Fox with sissors in hand. And, as with east Asians, I imagine indigenous blood in the Americas corrupts the formation of big ball bush. Brazil, perhaps Brazil. I haven't a clue who runs Brazil. Maybe it is a woman? That would certainly help my cause. In North America you have Bush and, uh, who runs Canada? Let's call him Mr. Canada. Bush, I have on authority, is a plucker. He's been pulling out his ball hairs one at a time since his cocaine days. As for Mr. Canada, he's such a huge pussy that even if he had hugely hairy balls, which I doubt, we'd have to call it cunt hair. Now, it is pretty fucking obvious that Blair doesn't have huge pubes. I don't think anyone will argue that. Heading south, through Europe, I'm just not seeing it. Certainly, there are hairy balls in Europe. Especially as you move east and south, but, to compare with Castro? I don't know. Doesn't sound promising. And into Africa. Qaddaffi probably had hairy balls, but I don't think so any longer. The rest of the North Coast, probably. Perhaps a contender in Egypt. Perhaps not. I just don't want to go there. Sub-saharan, not a chance. Australia, you must be joking. Do they even have a government? Did I miss anyone?

"And you wonder why I question wether you like the US or not. " The American people and the American government are two entirely seperate things... "Hussien must have been telling the fucking truth..." I'm not one to pick on grammar all the time, but this is twice you've spelled Hussein wrong. Its starting to become your "Nucular" - please shape up there spunk. If you think we're saying Hussein is telling the truth, remember this one quote I've posted here over and over again. ALL GOVERNMENTS ARE LIARS AND MURDERERS. theres only two words that need to be said to justify distrust and disgust in government, from the bottom up: NORTHWOODS PROJECT "and if Bush DID lie, then I will be the first to demand impeachment" did you watch Nightline last night, about how the State Dept along with Bush went through 'tonnes' of sheets about what to present to the UN? How they thought a lot of it was in Powell's words "bullshit?". And he STILL ended up at the UN using false evidence as proof. "few have work, gas prices are through the roof. security is in the pits. " a school teachers pay for one month isnt enough to pay for the propane tanks that the US is providing to them.... "Let me say this much: IF Bush was lying, then he would have already had the WMD planted in Iraq" some say that is why the 1400 experts are being sent to Iraq. Bush had time to wait, because the polls still indicate people think they are there. Spunk do you realize you just admitted that its possible Bush might plant WMD? Remember how you said that if we said that we were just making excuses? you just gave us credibility... "further, ff Bush "Lied" on WMD, So Did the UN & Clinton in 1998." Clinton = liar and murderer, just like the rest of them. You think his hands are clean? he bombed Iraq to distract from the Lewinsky scandal. As for the UN, many inspectors have been saying the capability is not there, that there isnt much if anything there. The UN said all intelligence reports saying there were WMDS were "garbage garbage and more garbage" - they could not verify he was disarming because you have to find something to disarm first. You could say many at the UN believed because it made sense and because they are people and can be just as easily duped and bulled as the American people can be. two words spunk: Scott Ritter, he's always been saying that they're probably not there, however once wartime came around he was nowhere to be found on TV anymore.. he probably couldnt even BUY airtime if he wanted. So don't act like there arent' people who have been around for years who can dance and laugh and say "I told you so", because there are. "torture chambers, chemical baths, electrodes on the old testies must have been awful sweet, then. " not to sound like an apologist for those acts, but I'd seriously rather be tortured than starve to death. the lack of WMD proves that Bush's impatience was unjustified, that there was no immediate threat, that we could have waited, we could have given the inspectors more time, that 'war is our last option' was and is in fact, a flat out, 100% LIE. When you list your Bush lies, "War was our last option" is the biggest. Condeleeza went to Canadian newspapers last week saying the war was actually for 'moral reasons, to spread democracy' - blfugh? if thats true, it once again proves, war was not the last option. It was in fact, the only option all along, and whatever facts there were were exaggerated and twisted to suit their case, rather than the case being built around concrete facts.

here is quickly why the Bush and Blair administration are more responsible than the intelligence professionals. The Bush/Blair administrations wanted a war, so they sought out reports supporting their case, and dismissed all contrary evidence. That makes them more responsible, because its their job to weigh the evidence, rather than use whatever suits their purpose and throw the rest away...

"NORTHWOODS PROJECT" You should have give a link, son!

However, neither Bush nor Blair are likely to have particularly hairy balls.

'Santas Little Helper' so reaks of nate. i think my potatoes are done

Let us suppose that the police are informed of this development by the man’s neighbors, family and friends. Some have even seen bomb-making equipment and heard this man’s threat to use the bomb. When the police ask the man to voluntarily agree to a search, the man refuses. When the police get a legal search warrant and the man refuses to accede to the court order, the police are justified in breaking down his door. If he violently resists, they can shoot him. If, hypothetically, the police were to do just that and ended up killing the man to conduct the search – and then found no bomb or evidence of the bomb in the house – are they at fault?

are you equating freedom with submission? somebody i pissed off tells the authorities i'm a terrorist. the authorities demand i prove otherwise. guilty until proven innocent? i'm so sick and tired of the authorities assuming the role of a natural force. cop a pulls over speeder a for speeding. speeder a is an off duty cop. cop a and speeder a engage in a little fraternal backslapping and speeder a drives off laughing. he's been invited to cop a's barbecue on saturday. good times. cop a pulls over speeder b. speeder b has an urgent appointment. cop a insists speeder b was speeding and rules are rules. speeder b pays a fine and his insurance rate goes up a few months later. cop a had a high school gpa of 1.92. cop a's dad held a rather high ranking position in local government. cop a can regularly be seen doing 35 in a 25 as he comes and goes in his neighborhood. there's a school a couple blocks away from his home. look, when cop a comes to my door, demanding i open up and let him search, i'm gonna resist. if cop a shoots me without me drawing a weapon on him, cop a's to blame. if i shove him away and he shoots and kills me, he's a killer.

"If, hypothetically, the police were to do just that and ended up killing the man to conduct the search – and then found no bomb or evidence of the bomb in the house – are they at fault?" considering that the US defied the UN in order to enforce it (remember that second part), your example is more like off duty cops performing a search warrant. If that cop were to shoot up the place (killing several innocents and losing many men of their own to get a few) and then not find anything... those cops would be vigilantes, and if they were to stop a bad man and prove they were right (like in movies), they'd look the hero. When they kill all the bad guys but have no proof he had what they set out to find, they're completely responsible. In what situation would you hold the US accountable? You're satisfied even if they dont have any weapons? You can think that if the American people are satisfied, everything is OK, but dont forget spunk, that the US was in their own words, in there to enforce the UN resolutions. The US is directly accountable to the entire world for whatever happens.

"The Bush/Blair administrations wanted a war, so they sought out reports supporting their case, and dismissed all contrary evidence. That makes them more responsible, because its their job to weigh the evidence, rather than use whatever suits their purpose and throw the rest away..." Pretty much the definition of "junk science" right? I think Hugo Chavez has some pretty hairy balls. Condoleeza Rice has a nice hairy set but they're in a jar on her desk.

I am tired of beating this dead horse. there is no use talking to you about it until you open some ports in your "I hate Bush" firewall.

And, as predicted, dimlu paints the opposition as irrational.

"Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was asked Friday why his Marines failed to encounter or uncover any of the weapons of mass destruction that U.S. intelligence had warned them about: 'We were simply wrong,' Conway said. 'It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered [nuclear, chemical or biological] weapons' in Iraq. And, he added, 'believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwait border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.'"

right. as if Johnny Knoxville were in the Oval Office we'd swallow this war/weapons nonsense wholesale. spunk, you don't make a no sense. the best part about trace's hypothetical but all too real scenario is determing how many rights were infringed and noting just how far we've strayed from the course. meanwhile.... http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-detain3jun03000423,1,3795437.story

IRAQI WEAPONS EXPERT INSISTS SEARCH IS FUTILE http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-chemwar4jun04,1,7448483.story?coll=la-home-todays-times

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past

I'd swallow all this nonsense if Carrot Top was in the white house. I'd pity him too much to impeach

Carrot Top? Seriously? Shit I pity that guy for birth.......but the White House? Well, I guess there could be worse.

worse presidents than Carrot Top, theres a challenge. David Arquette?

the last two or three, maybe four...

"IRAQI WEAPONS EXPERT INSISTS SEARCH IS FUTILE " "Moreover, Black said Saeed and his colleagues were grilled hundreds of times by U.N. inspectors. "I know he lied to us, and he may be lying to you," he said. "This isn't some bank robber who's been hauled in. These guys have gone through this time and time again. They are very comfortable with this line of questioning." Despite the ouster of Hussein's regime, Black said, senior Iraqis still have reasons to lie. "Some of these guys did really bad things in the past and they don't want to own up to it," he said. "Or they're not convinced that Saddam is gone, and they know that when the U.S. goes, whoever talked will get dipped in an acid bath." Like many Iraqis, Saeed is convinced Hussein is still alive. His hands still tremble when he describes how Hussein's security agents suddenly appeared at his office in late 1997. They ordered him into a car with shades drawn and took him to an unknown location. The dictator was waiting inside. "He thanked me for my work," he recalled. His voice dropped. "But I am still shaking."" read the whole thing, buddy.

"the best part about trace's hypothetical but all too real scenario is determing how many rights were infringed and noting just how far we've strayed from the course." That course bought us a scorched sky line in Manhattan. If the only thing we can go on is a "smoking gun", or burning building, or hospitals full of C & B W victims, then it is too god damn late.

One last thing. Ask yourself, why, if he had nothing to hide, did he threaten the lives of the scientists and their family if the scientist went out of country to talk to UN inspectors if he had nothing to hide? Why did we find thousands of chemical suits stashed in schools along with shells and amunition and vials of anti-toxins for sarin and vx gas? What happened to the weapons? I cannot answer that. Who knows? He had 14 months to figure something out.

He hid them in Kennebunkeport.

i did read the whole thing. try comprehending the point of the entire article instead of selectivlely isolating statements to make some point that is irrelavent. you can't continue to prove something with ancillary and anecdotal actions. we've invaded and taken over now. its time to stop using such circumstantial evidence as proof of weapons thar twe have yet to find and moreover, substance for invasion. having chemical suits is not reason enough. they could have had chemical suits because they feared chemical attack by us. we have developed and deployed such weapons you know. who cares. where's the weapons bitch! I want me some motherfuckin WMDs. Or an admission that they completely overstated and exagerrated the WMD issue and are now making us look like fools. I read something that had some sense to it...surprisingly from CNN and others, like Rowlf and tiggy have stated similar ideas....and well, maybe its time you got with the program as well. This "But because the Bush team never dared to spell out the real reason for the war, and (wrongly) felt that it could never win public or world support for the right reasons and the moral reasons, it opted for the stated reason: the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America. I argued before the war that Saddam posed no such threat to America, and had no links with Al Qaeda, and that we couldn't take the nation to war "on the wings of a lie." I argued that Mr. Bush should fight this war for the right reasons and the moral reasons. But he stuck with this W.M.D. argument for P.R. reasons."

Fantastic article. I agree with it 100%, and that rarely happens with me. :)

you know what surprised me.... that this idea: "The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world" was like....Ok with me. I mean, id like to think I can accept the realities of 9/11 and what it mean in terms of US reaction. After reading that article, I felt like...you know if the Bush people had just said so from the get go....just been upfront about it all....I wouldnt feel so cheated.

Mega dittoes. Though, I'm not "OK" with the need "to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world," per se, I can see why we went to war for that reason.

im OK with it, because i understand the need to signal, like the writer said, to certain regimes that it is NOT ok to sanction terrorist acts and make martrys out of murders. I understand that fundamental need as a world super power. its just, if we had taken the high road, i feel like world support and respect of our country and our ways wouldnt be at all time low.

Sometimes, in fact most of the time, you have to step back from one single piece and consider the entire puzzle in order to figure it out. It has been well documented that the facilities that were used to create these weapons in the past were destroyed in GW1. Since that time a lot of the facilities have been rebuilt. We have had several "defectors" including Hussien's son, get out of Iraq and tell us that he is continuing research and development of the cbw and nuclear as well. Sat images of the restored facilities back that claim up. The inspectors go in this last time, and sat images pick up things being taken out of the facilities sometimes as little as 30 minutes before the inspectors arrive. Hussien threating to kill scientist's families if they talked. Barrels are witnessed being burried, as well as what appears to be mobile labs being burried in the sand as well. Large amounts of VX and Sarin gas were detected in the Tigris river. Some key ingrediants (the insecticide and fertalizer drums) were discovered. 20 War heads loaded with the chemical weapons were discovered. Now, add to that the chem suits and anti-toxin vials next to shell & ammunition, you have a story that is painting a very clear picture. Even without the mass quantities of the gas being discovered, you have a very strong case here that something was going on. But, I have said before and will say this again: Bush was wrong to go the CBW route. Chemicals themselves are going to be very hard to find. He had Salman Pak and never even mentioned it. A group of islamic terrorists were trained on that site in 1998 and 2000. The training included taking over an aircraft with box knives and bare hands. I have been trying to find the sat pic of the camp, because you can clearly see the aircraft in the middle of the camp grounds. Further, Hussien was sending money to Palestine and Lebonnon so that they could continue thier assult on Isreal, and you have a problem that has been allowed to fester for 11 years that needed to be removed. If 911 did not teach us anything else, it should have taught us the danger of being reluctant to act in a pre-emptive manner versus being forced to act in a knee jerk reaction. A lot less innocent lives are lost that way, on both sides.

"20 War heads loaded with the chemical weapons were discovered." Could you supply a link for that? I remember that the warheads were discovered, but no chemical agent was in them.

David Arquette? Hehe. At least we would know that drugs would be legal!!!!! Worse than Carrot Top........ ME!!!!! (OK, maybe not worse, but I wouldn't have a clue what I was doing) That fucking dipshit who is the governor of Missouri....Holden? He's a total ass, and so are his fucking cronies. Dancing Queen (who still hasn't fucking moved out of upstairs) I need some more ideas here.

finally, I found it

that is dated April 9. If that is true, why would Bush, the leader of the nation, can go on TV whenever he wants, not push this? and spunk spelled Hussein wrong again. and spunk, you know damn well that Afghanistan and Iraq were both planned before 9/11.. using it as an excuse is a lie, a distraction, and poor tribute.

I was kind of wondering that myself. If they're hyping the biological "factory" trailers, which have no trace of weaponized material in them, why are they not playing up these warheads that contain chemical agents?

moreover, why was the story so hard to find?

Here's mr. Gore Vidal on what's been going on...

CIA & DIA report on some of what's been going on

spunky, do you get to see any counterintelligence reports?

Bush better beware. The UK intelligence agencies are admitting their mistakes, the newspapers are going full force with digging up more information, they aren't rationalizing the war by the positives of its outcome. I imagine that even Blair might eventually cave in to the pressure... From the guardian, more on how Bush's statement that re. the mobile labs - "we found them" might not even be true... Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett Sunday June 8, 2003 The Observer Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort. The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are germ labs. The British review comes amid widespread doubts expressed by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have been used to make biological weapons. Instead The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987. The British review follows access by UK officials to the vehicles which were discovered by US troops in April and May. 'We are being very careful now not to jump to any conclusions about these vehicles,' said one source familiar with the investigation. 'On the basis of intelligence we do believe that mobile labs do exist. What is not certain is that these vehicles are actually them so we are being careful not to jump the gun.' The claim, however, that the two vehicles are mobile germ labs has been repeated frequently by both Blair and President George Bush in recent days in support of claims that they prove the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. During his whistle stop tour of the Gulf, Europe and Russia, Blair repeatedly briefed journalists that the trailers were germ production labs which proved that Iraq had WMD. But chemical weapons experts, engineers, chemists and military systems experts contacted by The Observer over the past week, say the layout and equipment found on the trailers is entirely inconsistent with the vehicles being mobile labs. Both US Secretary of State Colin Powell, when he addressed the UN Security Council prior to the war, and the British Government alleged that Saddam had such labs. A separate investigation published by the New York Times yesterday discloses that the trailers have now been investigated by three different teams of Western experts, with the third and most senior group of analysts apparently divided sharply over their function. 'I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter,' a senior analyst said of a tank supposed to be capable of multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he said, 'was a rushed job and looks political'. The analyst had not seen the trailers, but reviewed evidence from them. Another intelligence expert who has seen the trailers told the US paper: 'Everyone has wanted to find the "smoking gun" so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion. I am very upset with the process.' Questions over the claimed purpose of trailer for making biological weapons include: · The lack of any trace of pathogens found in the fermentation tanks. According to experts, when weapons inspectors checked tanks in the mid-Nineties that had been scoured to disguise their real use, traces of pathogens were still detectable. · The use of canvas sides on vehicles where technicians would be working with dangerous germ cultures. · A shortage of pumps required to create vacuum conditions required for working with germ cultures and other processes usually associated with making biological weapons. · The lack of an autoclave for steam sterilisation, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons. · The lack of any easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank. One of those expressing severe doubts about the alleged mobile germ labs is Professor Harry Smith, who chairs the Royal Society's working party on biological weapons. He told The Observer 'I am concerned about the canvas sides. Ideally, you would want airtight facilities for making something like anthrax. Not only that, it is a very resistant organism and even if the Iraqis cleaned the equipment, I would still expect to find some trace of it.' His view is shared by the working group of the Federation of American Scientists and by the CIA, which states: 'Senior Iraqi officials of the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul were shown pictures of the mobile production trailers, and they claimed that the trailers were used to chemically produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.' Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed allowing more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be mobile. The Observer has discovered that not only did the Iraq military have such a system at one time, but that it was actually sold to them by the British. In 1987 Marconi, now known as AMS, sold the Iraqi army an Artillery Meteorological System or Amets for short.

notice they mentioned how the canvas sides make no sense, and the link spunky provided has 'proof' pictures of trucks with.... CANVAS SIDES!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/08/sprj.irq.main/ Powell bit off more than he could chew... "What other purpose could there be?" he says, ignoring all the reports saying they are likely for artillery balloons... saying its all 'nonsense' that he spent 4 days researching everything to make sure it was tight.. CNN now even acknowledges that the UK dossier was plagiarized and 12 years out of date... For Powell to stand up so much for his information when so much of it is proven to be untrue is flat out lying. And now if he continues the media, who worked so much to push the administrations position, and compared to the UK and Canada are being very kind about the US' failure to find WMDs (pushing the upside of liberation as a spin, etc), that doublecross will surely backfire.

"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons." -Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, (at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14) ahem... "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." -Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16 "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." - George W. Bush, Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003 Josef Goebbel lives.

Oh, Rowlf, that's harsh........ Forgive me if I laugh at that one, in my warped little cave!!!!

how bout this set of quotes then... "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our Number One priority and we will not rest until we find him!" - Bush, Sept 13, 2001 "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." - Bush, March 13, 2002

Well as far as Bush goes, a hell of a lot of things were said by quite a few people, including some on this very board, who have discovered the need to re-organize priorities. Personally, it would be fool hardy to make this about one person. He has said, quite correctly, that this is about terrorism period. I am not sure where Rummy was coming from

if its foolhardy to make this about one person, why did he do it in the first place?

You know, Bush is human. he was affected like any other human being would be. it was two days after the wtc, for pete's sake! First thing he needed to do was calm everyone down, and reassure the american public that he was going to do something. I still beleive that UBL is DEAD. Tora Bora most likely. We have not seen any new pictures, and all video tapes are in doubt as well as any audio tape or letter. Al Queda will loose a lot of followers if they find out he's dead, so they will continue to make him appear alive. They also know that america's attention span is short, as well as the collective memory. How many people are bitching about daily coverage of a war (and I mean a five minute report)? How many complain about being over whelmed? Instead of turning of the TV, they will call for a change in US Policy change so Friends is never again interupted.

"it was two days after the wtc, for pete's sake!" see, i dont buy this, for two quick and dirty reasons right here 1) he's the leader, its his duty to keep a cool head... if he bombed other countries immediately, would that have been excusable then? 2) if Bush was so goddamn emotional and shocked, why the hell did he read about goats for 20 more minutes when Andy Card told him the US was under attack? I'll keep the WMD reports to a minimum from now on. As much as I know Bush lied and deceived and exaggerated, if the press now goes overboard, the controversy will evaporate over the smallest of finds, like a flask of mustard gas.

"Well as far as Bush goes, a hell of a lot of things were said by quite a few people, including some on this very board, who have discovered the need to re-organize priorities." Oh, so the standards for the President of the United States is the same, or less, as those of a sorabji poster? Wow. Bill Clinton really did damage the office, didn't he?

What's this about goats, now?

"if Bush was so goddamn emotional and shocked, why the hell did he read about goats for 20 more minutes when Andy Card told him the US was under attack?" Rowlf, you're stretching. Don't undermine your position with assertions you can't possibly prove. You can't know how how someone will act in a stressful, shocking situation like that.

Oh, right, he was reading to children in a school.

actually, he was helping this little girl read a book in front of the class, card came in and wispered in his ear, and he kept going. I had a copy of the footage somewhere, I need to dig it out again. Objectives change. IF we were to prove beyond a doubt that bin laden was dead, then that could lead to the country demanding we stand down, leaving us vulnerable to the others out there.

". As much as I know Bush lied and deceived and exaggerated" Your turn, pony up the proof.

"You can't know how how someone will act in a stressful, shocking situation like that. " maybe, but reading about GOATS? Why wasnt he dragged out of there? He didnt even ask Card any questions! And dont forget his lie about having watched the first plane hit on TV before going into the classroom, when the plane hitting was not even broadcast. Listen to President Bush in December 2001 explaining publicly how he learned about the terrorist attacks three months before: "I was in Florida. And ... I was sitting outside [an elementary school] classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on, and I used to fly myself, and I said, 'There's one terrible pilot.'" "Your turn, pony up the proof" We've been over all the phony evidence over and over again, and Bush continues to do so, pushing the two tractor trailers as definitely mobile labs. He has actualy said that these labs in and of themselves, are WMD. And he, Powell and others, like they said about nuclear weapons, are saying there is "no doubt" - theres a hell of a lot of doubt, and a hell of a lot of ignored counterintelligence which officials in the US and UK have clearly said they IGNORED in putting together their case. This is why I asked if you get to see counterintelligence several posts ago... and you havent answered that question...

you know the answer to that question.

..some bush statements for peoples' reference during the coming weeks/months... "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons." "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." (that one is particulary damaging, as since Saddam didnt use WMD during war, it proves that at least this piece of intelligence was wrong) "We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States." "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

the answer to your question is no, but not for the nasty reasons I am sure patrick has.

"the answer to your question is no, but not for the nasty reasons I am sure patrick has" do you wish you could see counterintelligence? do you think that would perhaps change what you think you know?

define counterintelligence. When you say that I think back to the old days and the KGB. So, to me counterintelligence would refer to Iraqi intelligence on the US.

no... by counterintelligence I mean an American agency whose job it is to poke holes in intelligence collected by CIA, DIA, OSP, etc, etc, etc

I was thinking the same thing as Spunky when I saw counterintelligence above. Sorry. Your definition of this might be interesting Rowlf, but I wonder how much faith do you put into it....I mean, we know not to put too much faith in CIA, DIA, OSP, or to be cynical of it and question it, so would you do the same with this "counterintelligence"? Just a thought.

that crap is exactly why there was no communication between agencey pre 9/11. These agencies question it themselves. They go through a pattern like this: does it look like shit? does it look like shit again? does it still look like shit? does it smell like shit? does it smell like shit again? does it still look like shit? does it taste like shit? does it bounce like shit? does it melt like shit? If the answer is yes to all of the above, there is a 20-25% probability that it is shit. the US is so into tearing itself apart, we are a sitting duck for outside agressors.

if it asked so many questions of itself, how did Powell end up at the UN with a proven 12 year old plagiarized college student thesis as an intelligence dossier? I know thats a tough question, and that needs to be looked into. If its an intelligence failure, then the "US is tearing itself apart" - if intelligence is gathering all sorts of valid things, and the administration is picking and choosing whats marketable, then you have an even bigger problem. The worry is that it could very well be the latter, because I have a hard time trying to figure out how the intelligence agencies could do such a shitty job.

Copy of his address 07 Mar 2003

well spunk, what we're looking to find now is whether or not Bush had valid proof when he activated the congressional authorization for force. If it turns out he didn't, he's toast. To me, what I'm seeing is "No, he didn't" If it turns out these reports of suppressed information during the making of his case is true, then anything found in the coming weeks/months may become irrelevant, and he could and should still end up in a heap of trouble.

maybe that is why you guys sat on your hands this time around? Afraid to stand up for what is right without 100% tangible evidence.

There's a very fine line between "standing up for what's right" and "acting like an imperial power."

and that line is usually moved in one direction or the other, depending on your opinion of the power/gov/mil before hand.

does saddam look like shit? does saddam look like shit again? does saddam still look like shit? does saddam smell like shit? does saddam smell like shit again? does saddam still look like shit? does saddam taste like shit? does saddam bounce like shit? does saddam melt like shit? PS, have you ever personally seen VX, Mustard, Sarin gas? How about Anthrax? or Small Pox? You ever actaully see an active, in service Nuke? No? Ever see a tornado, personally? Hurricane? How do you know for a fact (100% probability) that such things exist, and are not just based on someone's opinion, or second hand (TV, Mag, Paper, leaflet, song) information? How many people that fought in WW2 actaully saw Pearl Harbor get bombed? How many people actually saw Jews being gassed in concentration camps? Do you know for a fact that we landed on the moon? Then what makes you beleive these things happened?

Total skepticism is not a viable worldview. No one here is a total skeptic here, anyway, so you're attackinga straw man. Comparing the proof for the holocaust to proof of Iraqi WMD is silly. Where are the hundreds of thousands of recorded, corroborated firsthand accounts of Iraqi WMD? "How many people that fought in WW2 actaully saw Pearl Harbor get bombed?" There's a battleship at the bottom of the harbor with thousands of dead soldiers in it that refutes your argument. How dare you sully their memory?

thousands died in Iraq as a result of being gassed by their own government, after the first gulf war, how dare you sully their memory?

"thousands died in Iraq as a result of being gassed by their own government, after the first gulf war" because we promised support but never delivered. this is a moot point trace, because, as you are constantly reminded,(and yet so quickly forget), there are leaders world over who brutally kill their own and we do nothing. If we are going to discuss they why's of this latest war, can we stick to the real reasons we went there? Because, you and I both know it was never about liberation or protecting a populus. We've endangered and left high dry many a populus across the globe. if anything, we share the blame in the Kurd massacre after GW1

its amusing... when the subject of weapons, the highly touted reason we invaded to begin with (according to those in charge), ends up a dead end the conversation automatically jumps to liberation and how horrible dictator that saddam was and how much tyrrany we have brought to end so on and so forth. its like....wait just a god damn minute.... the Bush administation has been trying to employee one big Jedi Mind Trick....and they got poor trace doing it like clockwork.

"thousands died in Iraq as a result of being gassed by their own government, after the first gulf war, how dare you sully their memory?" I haven't. I never mentioned them. Saddam gassing his own people is an established fact. The current existence of WMD in Iraq, or the existence between 1998 and the present, is not. We went to war over WMD, and the Bush administration made definitive statements that they did exist and that it had proof. If that proof does not exist, then those statements were lies. I thought, given your attitudes about Bill Clinton, that you didn't like presidents lying to the American people. Has your attitude changed?

sorry if you fell an opinion that differs from yours must be product of brainwashing, especially if that opinion appears to support the current administration. Stop insulting my intelligence for once, would you? "if anything, we share the blame in the Kurd massacre after GW1" Yes and HELL NO. Yes, we made a promise and broke it. No, we did not force hussien to use gas against them. No one is to blame for that but hussien.

"I thought, given your attitudes about Bill Clinton, that you didn't like presidents lying to the American people." He has been ACCUSED of lying, by *gasp* the same people that opposed a new war in Iraq to begin with. I saw this coming a long time ago. The accusors has better buck up, because they are there. Not in mass quantities like before, but the cultures and the research equipment and the documents are all there. That was what we were waiting for him to declare and lead the inspectors to. That WAS the charge. How many times did Bush say "Unnaccounted for"? Why did this happen? Because of WMD or NON-DISCLOSURE of status of WMD, as required by 17 resolutions. They said account for what you had and what you did with them. That is what Bush said, dammit. far far less serious, HE WAS CAUGHT.

spunky, you know damn well for you the war wasnt 'doing the right thing' (liberation, food, medicine, democracy) like I pointed out earlier in this thread through your own words, and there are many more where that came from, you (and Dennis Miller) wanted us in there for your own security. I remember when you claimed it was a threat against your children, and that the proof would be a mushroom cloud if we waited any minute longer.... so are you being an apologist now to save yourself from embarrassment or what?

"And these resolutions are clear. In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the Oil For Food program. It must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot, whose fate is still unknown. By taking these steps, and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict. Taking these steps would also change the nature of the Iraqi regime itself. America hopes the regime will make that choice. Unfortunately, at least so far, we have little reason to expect it. And that's why two administrations -- mine and President Clinton's -- have stated that regime change in Iraq is the only certain means of removing a great danger to our nation." GW Bush, Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union Terminal Cincinnati, Ohio 7 Oct 2003

No. Where have I said it was a mistake to go in? ALl I have said it that it was a mistake for the President to take the WMD route verus the Terrorist Training & Support route, to make it crystal clear that this was indeed an extension of the W.O.T. Look at a map. We are hoping that Iran will fold under pressure before we have to do a thing.

didnt the Intelligence community come out today and say that the two top al Qaida operatives in custody have been insistant that bin Laden wanted no ties to Hussein and that there was no working relationship between them whatsoever?

patrick patrick patrick dont you know anything? if Iraqi or al Qaida operatives "admit" what we "know", then everything they say is true and valuable intelligence. If they deny what we "know", then they've got to be terrorists, and don't pay attention to what they say. Kinda like Powell trying to keep bin Ladens messages off TV, but when bin Laden says something that Powell thinks proves a link between him and Iraq, the public needs to see it.

the Colin Powell Experience?

and along that line..... Dick Cheney Overdrive? that'd be a good band name for some 18 year old crusties to use.

Hmmmm Yes, we need to take the word of a few known terrorists over the information gathered in the field.

One more thing. Giving money to Hamas is not supporting terrorists? Or do you substitute in your mind the word Al Queda everytime the government mentions "Terrorists"?

"gathered in the field" such strong, compelling "evidence" it is at that! oh wait....so on somedays...we raise threat levels based on information from those captured, but if a terrorists dare counter what the Administation "knows" then it MUST be false right? Those senior level operatives captured know they will never see the light of day without shackles and heavily armed guards up their ass, so while they admit their allegiance to ObL, they strictly conceal connections to Hussein? Right? What purpose or motive would they have to conceal association with Hussein? Spunk, you dont make any sense. What will it take for you to admit that weapons issue is bunk, the terrorist connection weak and that the humanitarian issue is a load of shit? How many months do they have to go without finding shit for weapons? How many captured senior level al Qaida operatives need to deny allegience with Saddam for you to believe them? How many torturous dictatorships do we need to support or at the very least ignore for you to realize that we had little interest in free Iraqi people?

"Giving money to Hamas is not supporting terrorists?" Hamas' sole purpose is to free Palestine you dope. Since when did we overrun sovereign nations on Israel's behalf? thats weak. you can do better.

"Hamas' sole purpose is to free Palestine you dope." You ready to eat those ignorant words?

The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) 18 August 1988 In The Name Of The Most Merciful Allah "Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is just, and ye forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in Allah. And if they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors. They shall not hurt you, unless with a slight hurt; and if they fight against you, they shall turn their backs to you, and they shall not be helped. They are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found; unless they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah, and a treaty with men; and they draw on themselves indignation from Allah, and they are afflicted with poverty. This they suffer, because they disbelieved the signs of Allah, and slew the prophets unjustly; this, because they were rebellious, and transgressed." (Al-Imran - verses 109-111). Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory). "The Islamic world is on fire. Each of us should pour some water, no matter how little, to extinguish whatever one can without waiting for the others." (Sheikh Amjad al-Zahawi, of blessed memory).

There are a terrorist organization, this is a war on terror. Not a war on al queda, not a war on the taliban, not a war on bin laden, but a war on terror.

you're just eating it up wholesale. if we were face to face id put my arms above my head to make a circle and say "SUCKER" cause thats exactly what you're being.

One could say the same to you. You eat up Anti-Bush propaganda spew it out and beg for more.

"Hmmmm Yes, we need to take the word of a few known terrorists over the information gathered in the field. " its not about taking their word over yours, or theirs, or whoeverthefuck we're talking about. its about how stupid it is to selectively take their word to suit your own purpose. taking the words of some terrorists but not others, based only on who is telling you want you want to hear. You do it all the time spunk, linking to accounts of people who lived under Saddams regime. You give credit an opinion/statement that supports your view because they knew the terrorists or they were terrorists or whatever and they would know whats going on, but then ignore the other opinion/statement for the exact same reason. and Hamas' sole purpose isnt to free Palestine. Its one purpose, but not the sole purpose. You'd think the administration would have made a bigger deal out of Saddams links to Hamas, but no, they had to go after the big al Qaeda link so they could exploit 9/11 in making their case, whether or not it was true.

"You eat up Anti-Bush propaganda spew it out and beg for more." gee spunk, you're right. Its only about Bush, and not what he's done. He butt in line in front of me on Space Mountain once, and everything I say is to get back at him. I have no objections to any politician lying to start a war, of course I don't. I'm just mad a liberal didnt blow those little brown people up first. Thats gotta be it, right? As Powell says, "What other explanation could there be?"

" I'm just mad a liberal didnt blow those little brown people up first." Firstly, I have never made such a racial remark. Secondly, Where we not talking about Bush in this thread? Has he not dominated the conversation?

after all this discussion and thats all he retains rowlf. Bush-haters. Hate everything Bush. If its Bush-sponsored, its bad. You'd think after all this time spunk you'd draw a bit more from our statements, but you don't which is really absurd. You dont have to agree with anything we believe in, but you'd think by now you'd at least understand us.

and you know, Hamas, the something something Martyrs Brigade and Hezbollah.....none of those terrorist groups were really a priority of ours before 9/11 and they havent since. They aren't going out of their way to directly attack American interests. So while it would have made since for Bush to link Saddam and Hamas....he would have left most of the American public scratching their heads as to who the fuck Hamas is.

The UN inspection regime found nothing in 4 months. Military experts have found nothing in the last two months, so now The "Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency" will come in to the fray. Somebody find me some god damn weapons to justify this fucking war

"He has been ACCUSED of lying, by *gasp* the same people that opposed a new war in Iraq to begin with. I saw this coming a long time ago." You saw that coming? My god, you are sooooooo insightful? Who do you think is going to point out inconsistencies in the Bush Administration's statements? Donald Rumsfeld? How about John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon?

spunk, its not the same people asking where the weapons are... here in Toronto, the Toronto Sun was about as hawkish as Fox News, and they have since switched gears, and they want answers now too... "Where we not talking about Bush in this thread? Has he not dominated the conversation? " saying "bush" is basically short form for saying the "Bush Administration", which I dont think anyone here wants to type over and over again. it isnt entirely centered around one person... I could from now on call it "BA" but theres enough people saying BAAAAAAAA in this world as it is... I also will say "the US" instead of "Bush" from time to time. And of course you will simplify everything down to being anti-Bush or anti-American because of it... "Who do you think is going to point out inconsistencies in the Bush Administration's statements? Donald Rumsfeld? " perhaps Tony Blair, John Howard, or Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar's been after Rumsfeld for a couple months now.

"spunk, its not the same people asking where the weapons are... " meant to say: "its not only the same people..."

damn, is this the only thread anyone is posting on?

yup. 'cause it's like. . .so interesting.

about the trailers possibly being a mobile hydrogen plant for weather balloons... 1) Uh Huh, that's what they blamed Roswell on 2) Bying a few tanks of Hydrogen is surely cheaper then building two mobile plants and hiding them???? 3) Where are the balloons? 4) Surely there is some hydrogen left in the tanks? 5) Do you really need a trailer for this?

no, and you don't really need knee pads to suck cock after cock after cock. but it's not necessarily a bad idea.

"Where are the balloons?" Where are the weapons? The balloon idea is practically as absurd as the weapon idea and right now both have neither more or less credibility.

Bill Kristol jumps on the doubter's bandwagon. "...the leading neoconservative writer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle added, 'I hope [the WMDs] are found but I'm very skeptical. 'We have interrogated a lot of people and we haven't found a single person who said he participated in disposing, destroying the stock of weapons of mass destruction. Or in hiding them.'"

'We have interrogated a lot of people and we haven't found a single person who said he participated in disposing, destroying the stock of weapons of mass destruction. Or in hiding them.' Yeah, I would confess to that one!!! Sure!!

you arent even making sense eri. the gig is up. there's no incentive to hide anymore. the US is flat offering cash money yo to peeps who provide info.

That doesn't mean I would confess to something that big. Money is not an incentive to betray trust. If I had done something like that and my enemy had captured me and offered me money to offer up info, I wouldn't do it. Not that I have been involved in something like that, but still, I wouldn't talk.

I think she was saying we have not found anyone who will talk about having anything to do with the crap, either creating them or destroying them. You know, there are only a very few (crackpots) that beleive there were never any weapons. The Dems themselves not more then 9 weeks ago said the question was not wether or not he has illegal weapons. It was a known fact before the US actually got into Iraq and started looking ourselves. Rather the question was did the US had to right to go into Iraq without UN approval, and was Congressional approval back in October of 2002 still valid or was a second vote in the Congress needed.

of course its not about whether they have ever had any weapons. Everyone knows they have had them. And everyone knows that many, if not all had been destroyed or dismantled. "It was a known fact before the US actually got into Iraq" no. It wasn't fact. The UN didnt find anything of significance and we havent yet. Where are the weapons that supposedly were such a grave threat to the US that warranted our invasion and occupation trace? Thats the question. While is possible some scientists are holding out, not sharing information, there's little incentive for them to keep up the fight when 90% of Saddam's regime folded like a house of cards. We have had unfettered access, more so than the UN and still...nothing has turned up.

we have been actively looking for what, 5 weeks now? Lets see, warriors, protectors, water works, bankers, employers, oilmen, policemen, relief workers, electrical plant engineers, inrastructure (roads and bridges) engineers, doctors, construction workers, and inspectors. That's what is expected of the US Military today, but we must do all this WITHOUT a large presence so we do not appear to be an occupying force. Funny how you don't follow the democrat's lead, but you always appear to bark up the same tree at the same time.

5 weeks? yeah. I have higher expectations. we have unfettered access. we control the country. we have 100s of thousands of troops on hand. we supposedly have "intelligence" at hand. we are an occupying force. how you can say we arent is baffling. democrats are pussies, and have been for several years now in particular. i have nothing do with democrats and have little interest in their doings. so any coincidence in what they say and what i say is just that....

we gave most of that intelligence away over the 14 months of answering the "I want proof" requests. Most aired on CSpan, CNN, FoxNews and MSNBC. You think there might be a slight chance that hussein or someone else was watching one of those stations, heard what was being reported, and moved the shit?

You actually think I believe US officials would share real intelligence with the general public? C'mon. That so called intelligence has be deemed flawed ever since it was released.

So, dimlu, the government should be able to do whatever it pleases and never tell the public? When did you become such a big fan of big brother?

i am most likely wrong about this, patrick. Most likely all hussein possesed over the past 5 years was the knowledge, ability, research efforts, maybe limited production, and samples. All he had to do when GWB gave him 48 hours to "get out of town" was freeze dry the samples, take any documents and get out of there. The mobile labs make perfect sense in that scenerio. I am sorry, I know how you all feel about Bush, but I still believe him to be an honest man. It depends on what, exactly, the CIA briefed Powell, Cheny and Bush on. I am tyring to remember exactly what was said. I thought the president said, in his many addresses to the UN and indeed the country, that there were large amounts of this crap that was UNACCOUNTED for. I will need to double check that.

"I am sorry, I know how you all feel about Bush" Would you get it through your head, we're not Bush haters here. Maybe you don't understand because you hate Clinton so much, and think that any opposition to a president means you hate them with a burning passion, but that's just not the case with most posters here. (Well, there is dave. :P) It's his actions and words, not "who he is" or "how we feel about him" that make the difference. And, if you want to know the contradictory things Bush has said, read John Dean's commentary I linked to before. Here it is again.

tiggy, you should just speak for yourself. But then again, my standards are a little different. I think if you call someone an asshole mother fucker, that tends to project a rather strong dislike for that individual. In my world, anyway. One more thing, I read that last time you posted it. I did not then, nor do I see now examples of contradiction. The only way you can see a contradiction is if you have already decided that there is nothing to be found. Are your following the Nuclear part of the story at all?

he's safe in speaking for me on that matter because im almost 99% positive ive never said i 'hated bush'.

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." -President Bush, Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003 "Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program," Bush said at the end of a Cabinet meeting at the White House. "I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program." -June 10, 2003 So, on March 17th there was "no doubt." Now, "with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program." You see no contradiction there?

No, not really

Explain.

I can see it. Bush never specified quantity, so even one vial of anthrax or whatever makes teh first statement true. These are politicians after all. And I agree with Spunky about Hamas. They are a Terrorist organization. Of course, the Israeli army isn't really behaving in a non-terrorist manner either... But since Hamas is a terrorist organization, what does that mean in terms of our policy? Do we go in and take them out? How would that affect the "Road Map"? I don't think I hate Bush, but he makes me pretty angry and I don't think he's as honest a person as Spunky believes. If he is, then he's a total puppet of the neo-cons. I happen to disagree strongly with Bush on pretty much every issue. I think he sucks on the environment, schools, taxes, the budget, foreign policy, you name it. so don't be surprised when I am critical of him.

i pretty much hate the guy. not in a consuming way, but when i think about him or see his image, there's quite a bit of hate for him and what he represents. i can imagine i'd be pretty stoked if he and cheney and rumsfeld and ashcroft and wolfowitz and those types all turned up dead. the world is better off without their "guidance".

on somedays im with dave. but the teachings of my mother to never say im "better" than anyone and to never "hate" anyone prevailed yesterday. i do think the world would be a bit safer without those fuckwads in control.

Knock Knock!

oh my god, i hadnt seen page 24 either. " 'Mission Accomplished'. Do they keep a banner on board just in case?" fucking perfect. those most recent pages rule

Fuck all! Time to click on that guy's paypal link again. :)

This is for Rowlf: http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/06/10_wmd.html

I just really hope he did not intentionally deceive everyone (the UN, Congress, the Military, but mostly us), and has disregarded what the intel sources were telling him. For what? No, I don't think it was for oil. Just take Kuwait's instead of taking the nation to war. To get his war on? It was already on, it is called the war on terror. There are plenty of other thug nations out there. If he did lie, that's it. I will never speak in support of the man again.

And forget the roadmap, it's the roadmap to nowhere.

More like those maps of cemetaries you buy on Hollywood corners showing you the location of celebrity graves! More like the Triple-A map found in the glove box of SATAN'S FUNNY CAR! More like directions to the house of the fine girl you met in the bar, which really just leads to the seedy 7-11 on the edge of town! More like that treasure map your older brother gave you as a kid, with the "X" marked right in the center of Mean Mr. McGreevy's back yard, can I get an AMEN!?!?!

And, in other news, check it

The first few paragraphs of that article: Five days before the war began in Iraq, as President Bush prepared to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, a top White House counterterrorism adviser unlocked the steel door to his office, an intelligence vault secured by an electronic keypad, a combination lock and an alarm. He sat down and turned to his inbox. "Things were dicey," said Rand Beers, recalling the stack of classified reports about plots to shoot, bomb, burn and poison Americans. He stared at the color-coded threats for five minutes. Then he called his wife: I'm quitting. Beers's resignation surprised Washington, but what he did next was even more astounding. Eight weeks after leaving the Bush White House, he volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a Democratic candidate for president, in a campaign to oust his former boss. All of which points to a question: What does this intelligence insider know?

"Hey, ma! Get the chickens inside! Them clouds look like we gots some Character Assassination on the way!" Seriously, that took guts. What's interesting is that he seems like he was the recipient of the same types of info that Spunky says he sees and transmits, unless I totally missed what Spunky actually does. This is a weird time. I am at the same time, filled with dread about what the Bush Admin will do next, yet starting to get a little excited about the prospect of throwing the bum out, either by impeachment or election. Still, "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" -Johnny Rotten

Hmmmm. A 1998 article linking Al Queda to Iraq. I am trying to locate the Newsweek article this mentions I bet Bush wrote it!!

Gee, dimlu. Not even a "that guy's a moron!" or "steenking liberal pigdog!" Nah. I guess you can't refute the guy, so you'll just ignore him, right?

"I am trying to locate the Newsweek article this mentions" Why don't you tell the CIA about it while you're at it...

Refute what? That he resigned to work for Kerry? He made a BAD career move. There is no way Kerry is going to be President in 2004. If he was truely worried about National Security, and Administration Policy in regards to it, then he would not have made the choice he did.

"If he was truely worried about National Security, and Administration Policy in regards to it, then he would not have made the choice he did." I love this. It speaks: 'Shut up and go along.' In case you werent paying attention dimlu, and a lesson on the future will confirm, the guy thinks the Bush administration is making the world more dangerous, rather than more safe. He, as FREE-THINKING individual could not work for what he viewed as the problem anymore. You see? it sounds like he did what he did not as a "career move" but rather what he felt was best in terms of public service.Yes its his career, but the way its being spun is that he did what he did in the best interest of his country and his sanity. If he felt like he was doing the right thing in terms of national security, wouldnt he stay in the position? Being "truly worried about national security" means you do what you think is best for your country dimlu. And further...on the speculation tip....a lot of Bush administration people have been stepping down in the last two years. Seemingly more than other administrations. Funny, they all cite "wanting to spend more time with the family" or "personal reasons" or an approximation thereof as reason for leaving. Just as this guy did, only to say he simply said that to keep his leave quiet. How many other people that have left the administration, at odds with it, only to lie and say it was to be with their family? Fleischer? The mouthpiece of it all? Whitman? The moderate repub who was, publically at times, at odds with the pro-business adminstration Now Victoria Clark? Mouthpiece for the Pentagon. and there have been others too....udnersecretaries and cabinet level administrators too.

This guy, who is the former Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, says that bush has not been tough enough on the war on terrorism with in and outside the US, and that the democrats do not have any idea what to in these regards, so he has decided to go teach them. Which I agree with. We should be out there kicking the shit out of Hamas, and we should be out there in full force in Afganistan, whicb, incedently he also says. So, he is not saying bush is wrong, but that Bush is not doing ENOUGH.

we need to stop playing games with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia while we are at it. We need to stop worrying about offending ethnic groups, we need to stop hand searching old women in wheel chairs at air port secuirty check points, and we need to go with the known profile of the active terrorists. The time for walking on egg shells ended on September 11th. They have made us vulnerable and week, and from what I can see, Beers feels the same way.

On the main topic of this thread, I really like the article in TCS today. Specifically these paragraphs: "Indeed, many of Bush's critics now accuse him of intentionally fabricating the excuse that Iraq had an active WMD program solely for the purpose of invading that unhappy country. To believe this is true, however, one must believe a large number of improbable things. First, one must believe that, in addition to duping the American people, President Bush also duped the intelligence services of Russia, China, France, The United Kingdom, among others, into believing that Iraq had a WMD program as well. Over the past eight months, the leaders of each of these nations, presumably informed by their own intelligence services, indicated their belief that Iraq did have an ongoing WMD program. Moreover, by their unanimous approval of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, these nations stated that Iraq had failed to meet its obligation to disarm itself of WMDs that it was known to possess in the past." And: "Next, one must also believe contradictory things about George W. Bush. One must believe him to be, on one hand, a calculating, Machiavellian conspirator who managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people in order to justify starting a war. On the other hand, he must be enough of an amiable dunce to forget to arrange for WMDs to be "found" in Iraq after the war. In fact, our inability to find such weapons so far is the best evidence that Bush did not fabricate the administration's fears of Iraqi WMD. Why would he jeopardize his credibility over an issue he knew to be fabricated, knowing a) that he would not find a WMD arsenal in post-war Iraq, and b) the lack of such an arsenal would invite closer scrutiny of the administration's pre-war arguments? If Bush were smart enough to create the extraordinary conspiracy with which his critics have charged, you'd think he'd be smart enough to address that question before committing himself to pursuing it. Additionally, the large number of people who would have to be involved in such a conspiracy makes its very existence highly unlikely. In addition to requiring the silence of most senior administration officials, a large number of career intelligence and defense officials, diplomats, and civil service workers would have to be silenced. In the past, such large secret actions, such as the Nixon administration's military actions in Cambodia, or even Watergate itself - with a far smaller number of conspirators - have proven remarkably immune to secrecy for any length of time. To argue otherwise, one must believe that a legion of both political and career officials, many of whom are presumably not Republicans, have willingly signed on to such a conspiracy, rather than leak it to, say, The New York Times."

Full force on Hamas and Afghanistan? So, do you support reinstating the draft to do this? You know we have about 5% per capita the amount of troops in Afghanistan then we did in Kosovo? Where are we going to get the troops to do this? And if we do, how vulnerable does that leave us, to be spread so thin across the globe? We should have taken care of our mess in Afghanistan before letting bush play soldier in Iraq. But I guess two countries in chaos and ruin is better than one! This admin has a definate track record of deciding what they want to do and coming up with justifications later. Bush said it in 2001, "fuck saddam, we're taking him out." They wanted to prove a point by taking out a major player in the Middle East, and the Taliban didn't cut it. So they chose Iraq, because they were vulnerable and beatable and had an extremely awful regime, so they could look like the good guys, then they concocted this huge WMD threat, which seems to now be totally inflated. What's next? When will America wake up and stop feeding its sons and daughters to the neo-con's quest for world hegemony? and as far as conspiracies go, you should check out PNAC.

if we 'go after' Hamas, should we 'go after' Israel too? Where do you draw the line spunky boy? The only people we should be 'going after' right now are those who committed the heinous crimes on 9/11 because they, unlike Saddam, pose the biggest threat. The threat Hamas poses to the US is miniscule comparitively.

"Where do you draw the line spunky boy? " I can distinguish between those who chose to blow themselves up on PUBLICS BUSSES and those who target individuals who finance and plan those operations, can you?

"The threat Hamas poses to the US is miniscule comparitively." You really do you have your head in the sand, don't you?

you, you, you, you!

give me back my blood.

Let me rephrase my earlier statement. Hamas (read Hamas, NOT PALESTINIANS) needs to go. Now. I draw the line between a group of individuals who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up on Campuses, on public busses, in Pizza Parlors, etc and the armed security forces who target the leaders of that group.

As far as "inflated WMD", funny how NO ONE, not the UN, not Russia, not France, not Germany, etc NO ONE but democrat senators, Tony Blair's opposition and your usual group of conspiracy theorists and terrrorist appoligists are claiming that Bush had no proof. Oh, and for the record, even Little Dick (gephardt) is saying he has no doubt that Iraq HAD the WMD. Daschell said himself last year, as well as Sen Clinton, that they saw enough convincing evidence that Iraq still had a WMD program, and what they were looking for was a UNILATERAL, multi-national, UN sanctioned resolution of war. Only now have jumped on (with the exception of little dick) the "Where is the proof" bandwagon, because if you couldn't already tell, the road to '04 started about 2 weeks ago.

"I draw the line between a group of individuals who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up on Campuses, on public busses, in Pizza Parlors, etc and the armed security forces who target the leaders of that group." Even if those armed security forces "accidentally" kill scores of civilians in the process of "targeting"?

"funny how NO ONE, not the UN, not Russia, not France, not Germany, etc NO ONE but democrat senators, Tony Blair's opposition and your usual group of conspiracy theorists and terrrorist appoligists are claiming that Bush had no proof." Actually, NO ONE is claiming that. Whipping that straw man again, dimlu? You'll go blind doing that, ya know. Wait. I guess you already are blind. Anyway, most people are claiming that Bush may have inflated the evidence, or given it more weight than was warranted, or more urgency. And, I guess you forgot to read the links to John Dean's and Bill Kristol's comments above. They don't fit into your neat little categories. I'm not surprised that you ignore them. Maybe you just don't understand what they say.

"Even if those armed security forces "accidentally" kill scores of civilians in the process of "targeting"?" Your quote marks are making you appear to be a bit of a conspiricy theorist yourself. You suggesting ISF intenionally targets civilians? DO you think LESS civilians will die if they continue to allow hamas to commit these acts, or do you think they should give into terrorists demands? Further, do you think that the terrorist groups back off when they get what they want, or maybe they are encouraged to ask for more? "appease an agressor, and they become more agressive" JFK

ack.

"Your quote marks are making you appear to be a bit of a conspiricy theorist yourself." It only appears that way to "Dimlu, Master of ASSumption!"

I am not assuming anything, rather expressing how your choice of punctuation makes you appear to me to be.

which is why the self-appointed name dimlu makes me fucking snicker. Spunk...at the risk of sucking the entire life out of ole dave over there, id like to ask you to define the threat Hamas poses to the US. Id like actual Hamas doctrine in which they threaten the US, directly. al Qaida has attacked the US in force and has repeatedly stated they will continue to do so. They call us by name, not by vague reference, but by name. Israel's documented use of human shields in refugee camps, civilian homes as military stations and excessive force within civilian populations are all war crimes and no better nor worse than the actions of Hamas. Targeting militants without regard or simply targeting a populus are equally as evil. Further, you arent occupied people trace. Im not saying Hamas is justified, but you are no where near as hopeless as the occupied people of Palestine. You have no idea where their mind is. Remember, with each suicide bomb, a Palestinian, so desperate and hopeless is giving his life. Can you ever imagine what that must feel like? To be so hopeless?

" a Palestinian, so desperate and hopeless is giving his life. Can you ever imagine what that must feel like? To be so hopeless? " Of course not. Are all palestinians blowing themselves up, or just a certain group? Others have found alternatives to blowing themselves up and taking a few Isreali's with them. As far as "no direct threat to the US", I have to disagree with you. DO you honestly beleive there are no Hamas or Hamas sympathisors here in the US? What about the US's obligation? In November, 1947 the UN Mandated that the US and Britain have the responsibility of protecting Israel. I again ask you to look at this PPT presentation. Yes, it came from the VICTIMS, but I think their voices are relevant, and so is history. And are we not in a war on terrorism? You appear to have chosen to focus on Al Queda, and direct threats to the US, but I have to tell you that this is NOT Al Queda Versus the US. This is a GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM. Get comfy, we are no where near the end. All the Al Queda could be turned to salt, and we would still be fighting it. I am genuinely suprised you appear to only give a crap about the US, because we were not the only victims on 9/11.

For some fucking reason, I can't create new threads here anymore. So Dave, Agatha, Sarah, and other: You guys have made references to online Scrabble games you play. I want to play Scrabble with you. How can I do this? Hook me up.

way to...uhm....say nothing. as someone who has placed utmost priority on US security as reason to attack Iraq, its absurd you suddenly give a rats ass about the rest of the world. You still havent substantiated the threat Hamas poses to the US. Hamas will not attack the US because they know it would result in their immediate and total annihilation. Their goal is liberation of Palestine. Other than arms, the US is doing little, to stand in their way. We could do more, but not much less. It is impossible to blanket the world in a 'war on terror' (god you've even bought the doublespeak wholesale too). We have to make priorities simply due to resources. So....again, you want to justify why we should 'go after' Hamas before terrorists groups in South America? Personally spunk, Im not interested in a US playing cop to the world

"way to...uhm....say nothing. " way to...uhm....disregard what I said. As far as the US playing Global Cop, get used to it. I had to. We are in the end protecting ourselves, wether you see that or not makes little difference on reality. Further, do you beleive that Hamas is acting alone? Do you think there is no support? Some of the groups that threaten the US ARE helping Hamas. And Israel IS our responsibility, and regardless of wether you like it or not, attacking Israel is akin to attacking the US. We may have done, as far as you are aware, little to stand in their way, but that is going to change.

spunk, i read what you wrote. it didnt amount to much. stop being a whiner and post something of substance.

Fuck off with the whiner horse shit and respond to what I posted, dammit boy!

spunk, what you posted is mostly irrelavent. i dont have the patience to respond to most of your nonsense anymore. if i see a rare gem of logic i'll respond.

Israeli history, and Hamas history is irrelevant to the discussion of violence between israel and hamas? My trying to explain how hamas IS a threat to the US is irrelevent to how hamas is a threat to the us? The United States' responsibillity to the security of Israel is irrelevent to why the US should step in to protect Israel? Or are you saying anything that I say that you disagree with is irrelevent, because that is what I am seeing in your posts.

"Israeli history, and Hamas history is irrelevant to the discussion of violence between israel and hamas?" No. Thats just it. Israel. Hamas. "My trying to explain how hamas IS a threat to the US is irrelevent to how hamas is a threat to the us?" What? Wanna try that again? "The United States' responsibillity to the security of Israel is irrelevent to why the US should step in to protect Israel?" As a self-proclaimed leader of human rights and diplomacy, the US has a responsibility to both sides. Bush has made this case outright, to his credit. Our obligation to Israel's defense is severely limited trace when Israel is actually on the offense. They've been on the offense for nearly 3 years now. "Or are you saying anything that I say that you disagree with is irrelevent, because that is what I am seeing in your posts." Yes. Being a whiny bitch...this is what you see.

I love it when conservatives play the victim card.

I disagree with Bush's Israeli Policy right now. I prefer to stick with the old "no negotiations with terrrorist/s organizations" rule.

i am not whining, i am frustrated at patrick's and your continuous head cocking (like a confused puppy's) at most of the arguments I have put a lot of thought and work into, and you follow up with calling it irrelevant or say I have said nothing or whatever. frustrated and pissed, but not whining. that would mean my feelings are hurt or that i am in some way sad.

"I prefer to stick with the old 'no negotiations with terrrorist/s organizations' rule." Kewl. That way, you get to keep being John Wayne, the terrorists get to keep being terrorists, and everybody's happy, right? Except for the people getting blown to bits. But we don't give a shit about that, do we?

no, that way terrorists do not get the idea that threatening to blow up innocents will allow them to have their way, so they blow up more innocents. Instead, we eliminate the terrorists.

i relent. what the fuck. Israel has existed since 1247 BCE, and Palestine was carved out of Israel in 1922 by the British, but what ever

"I prefer to stick with the old 'no negotiations with terrrorist/s organizations' rule." Spunk, what makes Hamas "terrorists" and IDF justified? How many civilians has the IDF killed? The IDF has TERRORIZED and occupied Palestine population long enough. the idea of 'no negotiating with terrorists' is irrelavent. You realize that what set this latest round of blood-letting in the last 10 days, starting right after Bush left was a targeted assination by Israel right? The tit for tat will continue. Im saying your points are irrelavent because you arent dealing with the issue at hand. You refuse to acknowledge that while Hamas is blowing up innocents, IDF are killing and imprisoning innocents as well. Its not so cut and dry....like the reference tiggy made, its not just a matter of appeasing "terrorists". these "terrorists" have a legitimate claim. Im not saying one side is any more justified than the other either. So don't read that into my statements. The current path of not appeasing "terrorists" will only result in more dead people on both sides.

"Instead, we eliminate the terrorists." Right. And you do this how, exactly? Kill them all? Kill them and their children, maybe? All of their immediate family, too? How about their friends?

Yes tiggy. the IDF has implimented the policy of killing them all. family, children and whom ever is driving the fucking car na dthe 20 cars that might be parked or in traffic in and around said target.

Hamas has a kill them all policy. "Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel... " Zuheir Muhsin, late Military Department head of the PLO and member of its Executive Council, March 1977

i dont live there, i do not know anything other then what I have read and studied. What i do know is this. the stated goal of the PLO is the elimination of Israel. Israel has attempted to make concessions by giving up lands, most recently with this "roadmap to peace" which included Israel outlawing any settlements within the Gaza strip and the West Bank. the PLO has $10 billion US dollars, and they are not using it to take care of the people they have. While the PA and Israel were in peace talks, Hamas started up the crap again. Here is what it called for: Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel. Israeli leadership issues unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel, as expressed by President Bush, and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere. All official Israeli institutions end incitement against Palestinians. That is what Bush was pushing. In response, we all saw what happened.

i dont live there, i do not know anything other then what I have read and studied. What i do know is this. the stated goal of the PLO is the elimination of Israel. Israel has attempted to make concessions by giving up lands, most recently with this "roadmap to peace" which included Israel outlawing any settlements within the Gaza strip and the West Bank. the PLO has $10 billion US dollars, and they are not using it to take care of the people they have. While the PA and Israel were in peace talks, Hamas started up the crap again. Here is what it called for: Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel. Israeli leadership issues unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel, as expressed by President Bush, and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere. All official Israeli institutions end incitement against Palestinians. That is what Bush was pushing. In response, we all saw what happened.

damn, how did get posted twice? Here is the Road Map. I think the US really made some attempts to end this. Hamas has rejected it.

"Hamas has a kill them all policy." And that means we should as well?

anyone see today another CIA guy came out saying Bush exaggerated and lied about WMDs? and reminded us that back in October 2002 the CIA publicly stated that Saddam posed little to no threat? of course you didnt, because the media has started burying this scandal.. it had its couple days as the top story, now its just accepted... Yes Virginia, there are government conspiracies. I've been visiting the yahoo messages boards to see what the apologists are saying... they have now all gone from "you cant prove he lied!" to "well he lied, but it was a good lie!"

i've been visiting the yahoo groups porn pages.

I'm a member of several teen pregnancy groups they. are. awesome. they talk about how much it sucks, and the pain they are in, and occasionally someone posts about how stupid they are to get knocked up at 15, and all the teen mommies go apeshit saying that the person complaining is just 'jelouse' because they dont have a little baby of their own... ... and then they put on their smock, hand the baby over to mom, and work at the grocery store for 5.25 an hour. What a life. Now THATS a reality show I'll watch!

The hyping of Saddam's WMD By Jake Tapper June 18, 2003 | After touring the Andrea Foods pasta factory Monday in Orange, N.J., President Bush spoke to Garden State business owners at the Wyndham Newark Airport Hotel, where he decried the "revisionist historians" who seemed to be questioning whether "Hussein was a threat to America and the free world in '91, in '98, in 2003," the president said. "He continually ignored the demands of the free world, so the United States and friends and allies acted." One thing was certain, Bush said to applause, "Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States and our friends and allies." A nonpartisan analysis of who, exactly, has been a "revisionist" on the subject of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, however, reveals that politicians from both parties have revised their positions -- and often more than once. Both Democrats and Republicans have displayed a constantly shifting rhetorical pattern that makes it impossible to figure out what, if anything, either side ever concretely knew about Saddam's weapons programs. The one consistency: Their statements, miraculously, always seemed to fit their political agenda. Though a minority in the United States seems to care if WMD are ever actually discovered -- regardless of the White House's assurance, as spokesman Ari Fleischer declared in April, that WMD were "what this war was about" -- it has greater resonance in the world at large. Most Americans seem pleased enough that a brutal tyrant like Saddam has been toppled, despite much confusion among the public as to what role Saddam played in 9/11, with 44 percent of those polled by Knight Ridder in January stating that "most" or "some" of the 9/11 terrorists were Iraqi. The international community is not of the same opinion, and Bush allies and opponents alike have criticized the administration for overstating the urgency of the threat. Congressional hearings will soon be underway in Washington to examine this question, because there was certainly an escalation in terms of what the administration said that it knew, month by month, throughout 2002. Whether that escalation was based on new and possibly shoddy intelligence data, or the political needs at the time, is a matter for the committees to resolve. Before the war, though, it wasn't just the Bush administration flogging the WMD menace. "We know that [Saddam] has chemical and biological weapons today, that he's used them in the past, and that he's doing everything he can to build more," presidential aspirant Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., told the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Oct. 7, 2002. "Every day he gets closer to his long-term goal of nuclear capability. We cannot allow Saddam Hussein to have nuclear weapons." There was an urgency to Edwards' call; on the Senate floor on Sept. 12, Edwards said that Saddam's nuclear capability "could be less than a year away." Edwards at the time was trying to shore up some bona fides, his good looks and Southern demographic appeal already a given. Edwards is always quick to remind listeners of his membership in the Senate Intelligence Committee. But since the fall of Baghdad -- particularly when campaigning for the would-be Iowa primary voters, many of whom opposed the war -- Edwards has been more discreet. Speaking to lefty Democratic activists in Iowa at the end of May, Edwards said, according to the Des Moines Register, that when it comes to the missing WMD, he believes "people in this country are entitled to an explanation. Do we have intelligence information that is inaccurate? Was there a distortion of information?" In an interview with the newspaper he sounded like a rube fresh from the used-car lot, upset about the Pinto he was hoodwinked into buying. "I listened to our intelligence operatives tell us over a long period of time about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," he said. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., has also found himself questioning the Bush administration for taking the same position he himself has long held. In October 1998, Lieberman reported on the "chilling news from Baghdad." With the inspections program "disintegrating," Lieberman said, it would only be three months after inspections ended that Saddam would "begin building missiles to carry the weapons of mass destruction we know he still has, and he will surely restart or finish his nuclear weapons program." Introducing the Iraq War Resolution on Oct. 2, 2002, Lieberman declared that Saddam "has continued, without question, to develop weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them on distant targets." But a few months later, Lieberman sounded as though he did have a question or two. Campaigning in Iowa earlier this month, Lieberman asked whether intelligence agencies "had it right or whether the administration was overstating the case" about Iraqi WMD. "Those questions ought to be answered, because America's credibility is on the line," he said. Down the street, at the White House, the shift in rhetoric has been a mirror image of Lieberman and Edwards' journey from conviction to circumspection. Indeed, the Bush administration's evolution of rhetoric from the beginning to the end of 2002 is nothing short of remarkable. First, there was a shift from carefully describing what the administration thought Saddam might have, to firm declarations that Saddam had WMD. Then came an arms buildup: The claims of what Saddam allegedly had started with chemical, then went to biological, and then nuclear, weapons. Ending the regime of Saddam Hussein had been a dream for various hawks in the Bush administration long before Inauguration Day 2001, of course. Indeed, many in the administration of the president's father, George H.W. Bush, thought it a mistake to have refrained from doing so at the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991. But it wasn't until the horrors of 9/11 that the idea really began to gain serious traction within the administration of George W. Bush, more than a decade later. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon sites were still smoldering when, the day after the attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested attacking Iraq. "Why shouldn't we go against Iraq, not just al-Qaida?" Rumsfeld asked, according to Bob Woodward's "Bush at War." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, meanwhile, told the president that there was anywhere from a 10 percent to 50 percent chance that Iraq was involved in 9/11. After much internal debate on the matter, Bush decided that the focus needed to be on al-Qaida and Afghanistan. Bush declared, according to Woodward, "I believe Iraq was involved, but I'm not going to strike them now. I don't have the evidence at this point." In his well-received Sept. 20, 2001, address to the joint session of Congress, Bush's only mention of Iraq was to contrast the pending war on terror and its ambiguities with the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan came and went, and by the time of his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush was laying out a case against Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the "axis of evil." But the case against Saddam that the president laid out that evening was relatively modest. The charges against Iraq were that it flaunted its hostility toward the United States, "support[ed] terror," and had used poison gas against the Kurds more than a decade earlier. Regarding WMD, all Bush said was that the regime had "plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons" -- not that it had them. Bush noted, ominously, that Saddam had kicked out United Nations arms inspectors and thus was "a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world." Other matters held the president's attention throughout the early part of 2002: corporate scandals, the continued hunt for Osama bin Laden, cracking down on al-Qaida, and the flagging economy. Internal debates may have been waged behind closed doors at the White House and in the Pentagon, but the administration was generally fairly reticent on the matter. A chronological analysis of Bush administration statements from early 2002 until the war began in March 2003 reveals a stark ramp-up in rhetoric. March 21, 2002: After Cheney returned from a 10-day swing through the Middle East -- where he tried, but failed, to secure commitments from nine Arab nations to support military action against Iraq -- he told reporters that the leaders were nonetheless "uniformly concerned about the situation in Iraq." The issue of WMD was a primary reason for this concern, he said, but not because Iraq clearly and unequivocally possessed WMD. Like the United States, Cheney said, the nine Arab nations were concerned because they had seen "the work that [Saddam] has done to develop chemical and biological weapons" as well as "his pursuit of nuclear weapons." But what Saddam actually possessed was unknown. Cheney also referred to Saddam's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds prior to the first Gulf War, in 1988. In what must stand as the only time in United States history that a Republican vice president urged reporters to read that week's New Yorker, Cheney referred to writer Jeffrey Goldberg's "devastating piece" on the chemical attacks, which had killed thousands of Kurds. One day later, at a joint press conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox in Mexico, the president continued with the administration's talking points, saying that Saddam was "a man who refuses to allow us to determine whether he has weapons of mass destruction, which leads me to believe he does." Three months later the administration's cautious tone changed abruptly. June 10: On a trip to the Middle East in June 2002, Rumsfeld abandoned the allegation that the Iraqis were merely plotting to develop WMD. "They have them," Rumsfeld declared in Kuwait, "and they continue to develop them, and they have weaponized chemical weapons." Rumsfeld went on to argue that the Iraqis had "an active program to develop nuclear weapons. It's also clear that they are actively developing biological weapons. I don't know what other kinds of weapons would fall under the rubric of weapons of mass destruction, but if there are more, I suspect they're working on them, as well." Though by then the administration had declared "regime change" to be its goal for Iraq, Rumsfeld wouldn't specifically comment on administration plans. "What might take place prospectively is not ... for me to be talking about," he said. Behind the scenes, of course, plans for the war were underway. In April, at a Central Intelligence Agency training base in Virginia, Iraqi and Kurdish opposition forces were told by government officials that the decision had been made to topple Saddam's regime. On June 19, the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, briefed Bush on the war plans to date. Nonetheless, Bush said very little about Iraq. June 24: Bush delivered a major address about the Middle East, but he focused almost entirely on issues involving Israel and the citizens of the West Bank and Gaza. His only reference to Iraq came when he stated that "every nation actually committed to peace" must "oppose regimes that promote terror, like Iraq," as well as "block the shipment of Iranian supplies" to terrorist groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. During that era, it seemed to be up to Rumsfeld to lay out the case for attacking Iraq, which he eagerly did. July 30: Rumsfeld added a frightening new type of WMD to the list of Iraq's arsenal. "They have chemical weapons and biological weapons," he said, "and they have an appetite for nuclear weapons and have been working on them for a good many years, and there's an awful lot we don't know about their programs." Throughout the summer, Democratic officials, as well as some Republicans, had been asking myriad questions about the administration's plans; they were met with relative silence, since the official line was that no decisions had yet been made. But in August, war opponents got a boost when high-profile members of Bush's father's administration began denigrating the administration's case for war. August 15: Gen. Brent Scowcroft, the elder Bush's national security advisor, channeled Cassandra in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, warning that a war against Iraq would lead to catastrophe. "Saddam would be likely to conclude he had nothing left to lose, leading him to unleash whatever weapons of mass destruction he possesses," Scowcroft wrote, among other predictions. Asked about the various criticisms on Aug. 16, while at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, the president said that he was listening carefully to what was being said. "There should be no doubt in anybody's mind," Bush said. But, he said, "America needs to know, I'll be making up my mind based upon the latest intelligence, and how best to protect our own country plus our friends and allies." And the fact was, he said, Saddam "desires weapons of mass destruction." Desires -- not possesses. Even though Rumsfeld had reiterated a month earlier that Saddam had those weapons, Bush was still being cautious in his diction. Was this caution because "the latest intelligence" didn't state that Saddam actually possessed WMD? Or that it hadn't gotten from Rumsfeld's desk to the White House yet? Or because it was too early to begin the process of having the president lay out his case? It wasn't clear, though it was around that time that White House chief of staff Andrew Card told the New York Times that the White House hadn't really begun rallying the country to the cause of war against Iraq because "from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." This campaign would happen, the administration made clear. It was still up in the air whether the president would seek the approval of either the Congress or the United Nations, but as spokesman Ari Fleischer said at the time, "the president knows that in a democracy it's vital to have the support of the public if he reaches any point where he makes decisions about military action." August 26: In the first major speech from a White House official to declare that Iraq had WMD, Cheney spoke to a friendly crowd at the 103rd national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The convention, nicely enough, was being held in Nashville, Tenn., a state that Bush and Cheney had won even though it was Al Gore's home state. Cheney probably couldn't have dreamt up a more receptive and appropriate audience for the speech he was about to deliver at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, where he would declare unequivocally, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." These were biological and chemical in nature, but they weren't even the greatest threat, Cheney said. "Many of us are convinced that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon," he warned. "Just how soon, we cannot really gauge. Intelligence is an uncertain business, even in the best of circumstances." And though he didn't say it, Cheney could have had only so much confidence in the intelligence agencies. Before the Gulf War, intelligence officers told him that Saddam was anywhere from five to 10 years away from having a nuclear weapon. After the war, however, Cheney was told that Saddam might have been within a year of getting a nuke. With that speech came a clear shift in rhetoric, though it varied depending on the audience. Sept. 12: Before the U.N. General Assembly, Bush demanded that Iraq "immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction." He detailed the specific types of WMD: "tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with" various delivery systems. U.N. inspectors reported, Bush said, that Iraq "likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents." The nuclear question remained up in the air, Bush told the skeptical international audience, but Saddam "employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians" and the country "retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon." Oct. 7: Bush traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, to outline the Iraqi threat. No longer were WMD hypothetical. "Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant," Bush declared. "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists" -- mustard gas, sarin gas, VX nerve gas, anything from its "massive stockpile of biological weapons" -- that would "allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." To many in the media and international community, however, the evidence behind those claims was still amiss. Oct. 11: One day after the House of Representatives did the same by a vote of 296-133, the Senate voted 77-23, as CNN reported unflinchingly, "to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions." Many members spoke openly about how the prospect of Saddam with nukes was a decisive factor. Jan. 7, 2003: At a Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld was asked if the U.S. had "current evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or is it just a strong suspicion?" Rumsfeld responded, "There's no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons." Regarding nuclear weapons, he said, "We do not have evidence that they have nuclear weapons," though the United States did have "evidence that they have had a nuclear program that was robust and that they were very skilled in denial and deception." Asked if there existed any current evidence behind these claims or if the claims were based on Iraq's possession of some of these weapons in the past, Rumsfeld said he didn't "think that if it were the latter the president would be saying what he's saying or the director of Central Intelligence would be saying what he's saying." Jan. 23: Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld deputy Wolfowitz said "Time is running out" no fewer than four times. Jan. 28: In his State of the Union address, Bush noted that the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in the 1990s that Saddam "had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb." Bush also repeated one highly disputed piece of intelligence regarding Iraq's nuclear weapons, saying that U.S. intelligence had reported that Saddam had "attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." The administration had been making the claim for months, though IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei argued that Iraq's explanation that the tubes were for the manufacture of 81-mm rockets was credible. "While it would be possible to modify such tubes for the manufacture of centrifuges, they are not directly suitable for it," the IAEA report stated. The president also noted that the "British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a reference to documents that the administration has since acknowledged were forged and should not have been cited. Irrefutably, there were credible claims made about Saddam's WMD program, and it is entirely possible that there were myriad WMD scattered throughout the country, contrary to international law. Many, if not most, administration claims are entirely believable. What is fascinating, however, is to watch the evolution of the threat assessment, which often had a great deal to do with not only the venue but also the specific administration official making the case. Feb. 5: Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the United Nations did not offer startling new evidence of an Iraqi buildup. March 16: On NBC's "Meet the Press," Cheney told Tim Russert that Saddam "has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." March 19: The president announced that the war had begun. The next topic to shift, of course, was no longer which WMD Saddam had but rather where they were -- or if anything at all would ever be found. March 30 In the second week of the war, Rumsfeld is asked on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" if he was surprised that no WMD had yet been found, being that coalition forces already controlled so much of the country. "Not at all," Rumsfeld said. Coalition forces controlled substantial portions of the country, but those "happen not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed." Don't worry, Rumsfeld conveyed. "We know where they are," he said. "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." In April, President Bush lowered the evidence bar, stating in an interview with NBC's Tom Brokaw that the United States would find not WMD but evidence of WMD programs. By May 4, Rumsfeld was telling "Fox News Sunday's" Tony Snow that the administration "never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country," since Iraq had spent so much time hiding its weapons. Recent weeks have seen a number of confusing and seemingly contradictory statements from the White House. Speaking to Polish TV on May 30, the president flatly declared that the hunt was over. "We found the weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, we found them." The president was referring to two trailers that Kurdish forces found in late April near Mosul, ones that the CIA has ruled, "probably" were designed to produce biological weapons, though that claim has been disputed within the CIA. Since that Polish pronouncement, however, the president has taken great pains to speak precisely about the trailers, telling cheering soldiers in Qatar on June 5 that coalition forces had found "two mobile biological weapons facilities which are capable of producing biological agents," not quite an announcement of the discovery of a smoking gun. Last week, Bush stated precisely that "Iraq had a weapons program; intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program," and that he is "absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program." Asked to explain the shift in rhetoric that transpired as the president hopped from Poland to Qatar, spokesman Fleischer claimed that the president uses the terms "WMD" and "WMD programs" interchangeably and thus there never was any shift at all. Perhaps the most revealing conversation, however, came on May 27, when Rumsfeld made another sharp rhetorical turn before the Council on Foreign Relations. There he was asked where the disconnect was between the outfitting of tens of thousands of coalition troops with chemical and biological weapon suits and the failure of any of these weapons to be used. Rumsfeld's response didn't seem to indicate that there was much intelligence behind the claims. He reached back to "facts" that preceded the first Gulf War. "We know the Iraqis used chemical weapons against the Iranians," he said. "We had facts. We know they used chemical weapons against their own population and killed tens of thousands with chemical weapons." Second, Rumsfeld said, intelligence agencies picked up "people chatting with each other," saying things like "Don't mention these words" and "Don't say that." Bearing in mind the past chemical weapons programs, the administration concluded that "they were talking about these programs in one way or another." "Now, what happened?" Rumsfeld asked. "Why weren't [the WMD] used? I don't know." The Iraqis may have "decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict," he said. "I don't know the answer."

jesus fucking christ, that was long

hey i just learned a new sex reference. a hand job given from behind, while the man is on all fours, laced with a little rimming is known as 'milking the cow' now is that not the bee's knees!

I thought it was called "getting a face full of shit"

spider: email mark for the link. i haven't played in almost a year. it's a cool scrabble proggy and the talent is formidable. mark's mom will whomp your ass. be afraid.

Look, I know you all do not believe bush and his crew, no matter what. and that is fine. But I would like to step back for moment. And I would like for you to sit down and use some common sense and think about this. For 11 years+ we have heard about Iraq’s wmd program. The UN has said for 11 years that they have the weapons and that they are still developing them. Clinton bombed a factory in 98 after telling the un inspectors and the CIA to get out of Iraq. since then, no inspectors, and cuts in the CIA has made it near impossible to get new intel inside Iraq. Bush did say before he was elected he was going for regime change in Iraq. The last 15 months have been the US fighting with the UN and France, Russia, Germany and Canada about the need to go back militarily into Iraq. Bush brought out old arguments and new arguments as to why. All the new Intel we had to go on was basically sat pics and articles that appeared in various newspapers and magazines. That’s all. But common sense and history said that the weapons were there, and sat pics showed that there were things being moved around that resembled wmd and wmd programs. Why were there forged documents about illegal imports into Iraq? Where did this shit come from? What about the fuselages? Why would the Iraqi’s have mobile hydrogen labs that closely resembled mobile chem. labs? The whole thing stunk to high heaven. Something was up, and maybe the fake labs, and fake documents and Iraqi’s burying non-wmd items in the sand, including aircraft, was smoke to hide something else. If your country is under close scrutiny, and you know it, why pull all the shit Hussein pulled? Why not just open up and let anyone who wants come on in and look anywhere they want to? Why threaten to shoot down U2s? Better to get it over with, get the inspectors satisfied and out of Iraq, get the sanctions lifted, and money flowing back into Iraq, and start the programs all over again. The whole thing makes no sense. The US and Britain defied the UN and Russia, and Germany, and France. Which is more plausible? Blair and bush lying the whole time, and not arranging to have weapons found in Iraq to cover their asses, or the UN, Germany, Russia and France working together to get Iraq cleaned up before the US and Britain came it so that after we cleaned house, we would appear to be illegitimate, (like my spelling this morning) and our credit destroyed? What possible value could that have to the UN, Russia, Germany and France? A lot. A whole hell of a lot. Not saying I cling to that idea as THE explanation. I am just chewing on possibilities, because the one being preached here was not making sense.

"since then, no inspectors, and cuts in the CIA has made it near impossible to get new intel inside Iraq" If that's the case, and the intel was so bad and inconclusive, why did Bush (and you for that matter) say he was ABSOLUTELY SURE Iraq had WMD? "Something was up, and maybe the fake labs, and fake documents and Iraqi’s burying non-wmd items in the sand, including aircraft, was smoke to hide something else." Lots of maybes and ifs there. So, you're saying they put out fake documents and created wimpy looking useless equipment to cover for the really nasty stuff they really have? "Why not just open up and let anyone who wants come on in and look anywhere they want to?" Uh, hello? Inspectors. "Better to get it over with, get the inspectors satisfied and out of Iraq, get the sanctions lifted, and money flowing back into Iraq, and start the programs all over again." I agree. To bad that pesky war started, right? So you're saying the war was too hasty and was a mistake? "not arranging to have weapons found in Iraq to cover their asses" That's assuming forging WMD evidence is easy. It ain't. "I am just chewing on possibilities, because the one being preached here was not making sense." Not suprising, considering what you hear here is not what we're saying, usually. But that's not our problem if you refuse to comprehend.

no, I understand. what is so hard to understand? You do not trust bush. you did not think we had reason or right from the begining. you have not trusted bush since before the election. I expected and still expect no different outcome. Just make sure you do not blind yourself to the alternative possibilities. Instead, you are mocking my ability to comprehend, and my intelligence. Which is par for the course. most people who have their mind made up, think that their point of view is so obvious that anyone that does not see it that way must not be very bright. Please understand that I do not question your ability to understand or your intelligence. I have never called you stupid or dumb, just arrogant. because as far as you are concerned, your point of view is the right one, and any other is beneath you

"All the new Intel we had to go on was basically sat pics and articles that appeared in various newspapers and magazines. That’s all. But common sense and history said that the weapons were there, and sat pics showed that there were things being moved around that resembled wmd and wmd programs. " And that was enough reason to end the lives of thousands of people? And as far as your one-sentence summary of 3000 years of Middle eastern history, it's a little more complicated than that. First, what you refer to as Israel was in fact israel and Judea, and Judea is the basis of modern Israeli history and religon. Around the time of Christ, Judea became a Roman Province. And from about the time of the Early Islamic period (beginning ca. 623 CE), to the end of the Ottoman Empire (which resulted in the modern states of Turkey, Israel and Iraq), the region of Israel and Palestine has been an Islamic homeland. The region began seeing a larger influx of Jewish immigrants as a result of British involvement in the region tied into the larger geopolitical happenings in thelate 9th-early 20th century. I must be one of those "revisionist historians" Bush talks about!

OK buddy. Israel did not "become" part of any other country. It was invaded. over and over and over and over and over again. The modern middle east map was drawn by Brittain in the early parts of the 20th century. Is there ever really any justification to end the lives of thousands of people? No. There is no arguement that I can make that would make it ok. Anyone who opposes war has a hands-down excellent point with that argument. And I am NOT, and was never Pro-War. You have to be a sadistic son of a bitch to be pro-war. However, it does become necessary. And unfortunately, I still beleive this one was.

"You do not trust bush. you did not think we had reason or right from the begining." Wrong. I've said repeatedly that I was for the war, just not for the silly WMD reason. You just haven't been listening. Despite that, I don't like lies. Even though I think the war was necessary and will be beneficial in the long run, selling it with a lie or exaggeration is just plain wrong. If that was the case, Bush and his administration must be held responsible. "because as far as you are concerned, your point of view is the right one, and any other is beneath you" Nope. Wrong again. Man, I should just shout out numbers when you pull up a tired old rhetorical tactic. "DIMLU'S DOING A #2!"

we agree on two things. the war should not have been about wmd, and I promise you, if it does turn out that bush lied, I am for his impeachment and possibly brought up on charges. I just do not think, right now, that he has lied. CIA most likely did tell him that they do not have any strong evidence that iraq was making the cw or bw right now. He did not cite CIA intel, that I am aware of, in any of his speaches. And the point he was making was that hussien has not presented any proof of the destruction of said weapons. Personally, if there were muliple UN resolutions caling for the destruction of the wmd i had in my posession (and he still had some right after gulf one), i would have broadcast on live tv the destruction of these things. i would have had several witnesses, had them sign off on the destruction of them, and brought the inspectors to the destruction site.

oy vey. spider? are you in?

The game? Not yet...I'll email Mark.

thats best.

You have a very odd view of the history of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, spunky. I'd say you were getting it from a strictly Zionist source.

Neo has nothing to do with my "view of the history of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean"

This is where i got "The modern middle east map was drawn by Brittain in the early parts of the 20th century." Is Yale a Zionist group?

spunky, you have clearly said several times that you didnt care about other reasons, you just wanted security... you know damn well you sold the war on this board based on WMDs, "terror ships", not sitting around waiting for a bomb to go off in your own backyard... if you want to stand by your words, get in the "impeach" line with the rest of us.

I'm talking about your implication that Israel/Palestine has been a continuous jewish state for the last 3000 years.

If I had, that was in error.

"I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons . . . I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out." Former US defense secretary William Cohen "Saddam has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country". Al Gore, Sept 2002 "Iraq has offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons. The world has to deal with the kind of threat Iraq poses . . . a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists . . . who travel the world among us unnoticed." Bill Clinton, April 1998 Just trying to cure some amnesia

Yes, and they were all wrong, apparently. You're under the false impression that we trust politicians just because they're democrats. Nope.

there's no amnesia because im pretty sure no one here gives a rats ass what Cohen, Clinton or Gore has to say on the matter. Unfortunately for your point, which has little meaning, neither of those doods launched a full scale invasion and occupation of Iraq, so....who cares. Spunk. Do you understand...for the umpteenth time, that the likes of Rowlf, Tiggy, Sem and myself and others have nearly as much if not more disgust with Democrats as they do the Repubs? Cam you fathom that? When will you understand that this is not a battle of team A and team B.

Well, I can't say that I have as much or more disgust with dems as repubs. But the disgust is definately nonzero...

ok...let me try it this way...do you judge the statements of a Dem or Repub differently? See, trace is trying to use the statements of Dems as some sorta of weight for support on his right side of the scales, and Im trying to explain, that and i don't view their statements as meaning much. In otherwords, does it really matter if its a repub or dem to you anymore? is there really a difference?

The difference is that the dems have been declawed and neutered.

And this is partly why I'm disgusted...

"In otherwords, does it really matter if its a repub or dem to you anymore? is there really a difference?" On some issues, yes. I know that the dems have a constituency which will push them into certain actions. Same with repubs. But I know grandstanding, or "playing to the center," when I see it.

So you beleive that WMD in Iraq was a GLOBAL conspiracy?

you'd find yourself a lot less disgusted if you abandoned all hope that the dems were in someway worth a shit. neo-con/republican/christian right smear campaigns have made the dems are pussies. the time is right to hang the Bush administration on the economy, this bullshit war and everything else under the sun, but they are too afraid. pussies pussies pussies. declawed and neutered is right.

How can you stand to be so hopeless?

why it is you were willing to give U.N. inspectors an unlimited amount of time to find these weapons, but the U.S. doesn't even get a full two months?

because the UN had little to gain dingdong, unlike the US. The UN didnt base a unilateral war on finding weapons, the US did, therefore the burden is greater. The UN is an entity less clouded by fruits such a war and occupation, than the US spunk. Thats a no brainer. and as far as why im hopless...how many times does it take you, taking it in the ass upon picking up the soap before you stop picking up the soap?

The US definately had a LOT to gain. Security. Removal of a direct threat to the US. Removal of a future threat to the US. So did the UN. Why would you say that the UN had no stakes in the matter? What was the purpose of the Security Council, if there was nothing to gain? Why have a UN at all if there is nothing to gain? Jesus Christ, man. Think about what you are saying.

Security my ass. That house of cards is being chiseled at daily. The UN is a coalition, not a sole country. Let me rephrase....The UN wouldnt have gained geo-political-military-strategic positioning on top of some of the riches oil fields in the world by searching for weapons. The UN was there at the request of the world. The World didnt ask the US to go and invade and occupy. Do you understand this? Do you understand the difference between one country and a governing world body?

You are amusing

I look forward to sitting back and watching you over the next 12 months. When it finally comes out, I am going to cound the seconds it takes for you to claim that bush or blair planted it. or say "it's irrelevent because they did not know exactly where it was before they invaded" or come up with some other half ass, wild haired remark that will make it so you can continue to feel superior. It's there, i assure you. The knowledge you have is only the knowledge you are allowed to have. The need for national security comes way before the need to protect a politician's reputation or integrity. And for once, this politician holds the exact same opinion.

You're a politician? I thought you were involved in data transfer. You can assure us it's there, but where? where is it? IT won't matter if they find it or not, because it's obvious that the threat was inflated. And it won't change how we weaseled our way into this war and occupation. And it won't change that Americans are coming home in boxes because of a small group of men from the ruling class and their geopolitical ambitions.

I was not refering to myself.

My ass is sore. It has rained for the last 30 odd hours, so i wasn't required to work today.... so i have been sitting on my ass staring @ cathode ray tubes for almost 6 hours now... (TV & PC). I enjoy that i can leave for days at a time and still come beck to the same arguement/discussion/name calling etc... its like a wormhole that only effects certain microcosoms scattered haphazardly throughout one planet (maybe more, but i can't prove nor disprove that)... and has very odd temporal effects.... Kind of like that star trek TNG episode, or was that babylon 5?? probably no, caus ei dont think i ever watched an entire episode of the '5' did i mention that i have absolutly nothing to do today? On a side note; I noticed in the news that the Pilots that were involved in the deaths of the 4 Canadians in Afganistan are not going to be court martialed. I am relieved that the US Military is NOT setting (or trying to set) a dangerous precedent regarding friendly fire....

I hate the Democrats more than the Republicans because they are pussies and wannabe Republicans. The Republican party may in many ways be evil, but they are organized for a common goal, most of them actually believe their own tripe, and I can respect that more than Joe Liebermann being a so called 'liberal' yet somehow part of the PTC. "why it is you were willing to give U.N. inspectors an unlimited amount of time to find these weapons, but the U.S. doesn't even get a full two months? " why is it you were not willing to give UN inspectors even just a few weeks more time, but cry now about our lack of patience when the US has open access and claimed it knew exactly where it was, but wasnt telling us before because it was 'classified'

"I look forward to sitting back and watching you over the next 12 months. When it finally comes out, I am going to cound the seconds it takes for you to claim that bush or blair planted it." you're saying we dont think theres anything there? I highly doubt anyone thinks there is nothing there. However to justify the war, we need stockpiles of weapons, not evidence that a program existed. Everyone knows one existed, we need evidence that one existed at the time of war for Bush to justify his position... a lot of things the US may find are not actually WMDs. Bush has actually said the 'mobile labs' were in and of themselves, WMDs. Lie. Its a fucking empty trailer. If there is evidence that weapons or evidence is planted, I will suggest it was planted. If not, then not. Period.

"So you beleive that WMD in Iraq was a GLOBAL conspiracy?" I don't, however many nations chose to believe in it, and their faith in their own fear made it real, or at least larger than it was. When a lie gets repeated too many times....

"why it is you were willing to give U.N. inspectors an unlimited amount of time to find these weapons, but the U.S. doesn't even get a full two months?" Because the UN inspectors didn't have COMPLETE CONTROL OF THE ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTRY. WE DO. When you have control, you have responsibility. We took on this responsibility, and the hawks who were screaming for this war (this means you, dimlu) shouldn't be such pussies about admiting that they were wrong if that is, in fact, the case. Stop trying to weasel out of your responsibilities and take it like a man. And I, for one, am not saying there is no WMD there. It certainly looks that way, but we can't know for sure. We have much, much more knowledge now than before we invaded, and the hawks were so fucking certain they were there then. Why can't we be just as certain, now that we have more GOOD HARD FACTS ON THE OTHER SIDE, that they are not there? Why is that, now that we can gather FACTS about WMD in Iraq, you're so hip on hyping the POSSIBILITIES of what Saddam did with the weapons, or where they MIGHT be? Can it be that the FACTS do not fit your assumptions anymore?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=417485 seems like every Middle Eastern country has been warned about WMD now... except one... ..one with 70 UN resolutions against it... HMMMMMMMMMMM....

A good overview of the current WMD situation.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/127427_jackson20.html I didnt believe it was all about the oil before, but when the oil is pumping, and then senators start wanting US troops to leave... you gotta wonder

Libs

Army Sgt. Michael E. Dooley, 23, of Pulaski, Va., was killed in an ambush on an American checkpoint in western Iraq. Dooley served in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Carson near Colorado Springs, Colo. Army Pvt. Jesse M. Halling, 19, of Indianapolis, Ind., was killed in Tikrit, Iraq. Halling was assigned to 401st Military Police Company at Fort Hood, Texas. A rocket grenade and small arms fire hit a military police station in Iraq, killing Halling, the Department of Defense said. Army Pfc. Branden Oberleitner, killed in Fallujah, Iraq, when he and other soldiers were fired on by a rifle-propelled grenade. Sgt. Atanacio Haromarin, 27, of Baldwin Park, Calif., a member of the Army's 4th Infantry Division was killed near Balad, Iraq, when he and other soldiers came under attack while manning a checkpoint. Haromarin was assigned to Battery C, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Hood. Army Spc. Kyle A. Griffin, 20, an infantryman with the 51st Infantry (Long Surveillance), 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, was killed when the tactical vehicle in which he was traveling had an accident on a road between Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq, according to the U.S. Army. Staff Sgt. Michael B. Quinn, 37, and Sgt. Thomas F. Broomhead, 34, both of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, based in Fort Carson, Colorado, were killed in a firefight in Fallujah. Maj. Mathew E. Schram, 36, died when a convoy was ambushed 120 miles north of Baghdad. Army Pvt. David Evans Jr., 18, a member of the 977th Military Police Company in Fort Riley, Kan., was killed in an explosion at a munitions site he was guarding in southern Iraq. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002 Army Spc. Nathaniel A. Caldwell, 27, Omaha, Neb., vehicle accident Army Lt. Col. Dominic R. Baragona, 42, Niles, Ohio, vehicle accident. Marine Capt. Andrew David Lamont, 31, of Eureka, Calif., helicopter crash Marine Lance Cpl. Jason William Moore, 21, of San Marcos, Calif., helicopter crash Marine 1st Lt. Timothy Louis Ryan, 30, of Aurora, Ill., helicopter crash Marine Sgt. Kirk Allen Straseskie, 23, Beaver Dam, Wis., drowning Marine Staff Sgt. Aaron Dean White, 27, of Shawnee, Okla., helicopter crash Army Spc. Rasheed Sahib, 22, New York City, accidental weapon discharge Marine Cpl. Douglas Jose Marencoreyes, 28, Chino, Calif., vehicle accident Master Sgt. William L. Payne, 46, Otsego, Mich., ordnance explosion. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. George W. Bush, September 12, 2002 Lance Cpl. Nicholas Brian Kleiboeker, 19, Irvington, Ill., explosion Army Spec. David T. Nutt, 32, Blackshear, Ga., vehicle accident Air Force Staff Sgt. Patrick L. Griffin Jr., 31, Elgin, S.C., convoy was ambushed Marine Lance Cpl. Jakub H. Kowalik, 21, Schaumburg, Ill., handling unexploded ordnance that detonated Marine Pfc. Jose Francis Gonzalez Rodriguez, 19, Norwalk, Calif., handling unexploded ordnance that detonated Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew R. Smith, 20, Anderson, Ind., vehicle accident in Kuwait Marine Lance Cpl. Cedric E. Bruns, 22, Vancouver, Wash., vehicle accident in Kuwait Cpl. Richard P. Carl, 26, King Hill, Idaho, helicopter crash. Chief Warrant Officer Hans N. Gukeisen, 31, of Lead, S.D., helicopter crash. Chief Warrant Officer Brian K. Van Dusen, 39, of Columbus Ohio, helicopter crash Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. ... We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have. George W. Bush, October 5, 2002 Army Pfc. Marlin Rockhold, 23, Hamilton, Ohio, sniper Army Pvt. Jason L. Deibler, 20, Coeburn, Va., non-combat weapon discharge. Army Sgt. Sean Reynolds, 25, East Lansing, Mich., weapon accident Army Pfc. Jesse A. Givens, 34, Springfield, Mo., tank accident Army 1st Sgt. Joe J. Garza, 43, Robstown, Texas, vehicle accident Army Spc. Narson B. Sullivan, 21, North Brunswick, N.J., non-combat weapon discharge. Army 1st Lt. Osbaldo Orozco, 26, Delano, Calif., vehicle accident Army Sgt. Troy D. Jenkins, 25, of Repton, Ala., cluster bomb explosion The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. George W. Bush, October 7, 2002 Marine Chief Warrant Officer Andrew T. Arnold, 30, of Spring, Texas., grenade launcher accident Army Spc. Roy R. Buckley, 24, of Portage, Ind. Marine Chief Warrant Officer Robert W. Channell Jr., 36, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., grenade launcher accident. Marine Lance Cpl. Alan D. Lam, 19, of Snow Camp, N.C., grenade launcher accident Army Cpl. John T. Rivero, 23, Gainesville, Fla., vehicle accident If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world. Ari Fleischer, December 2, 2002 Army Pvt. Johnny Brown, 21, Troy, Ala., vehicle accident Army Spc. Thomas Arthur Foley III, 23, of Dresden, Tenn., accidental grenade explosion Marine Cpl. Armando Ariel Gonzalez, 25, of Hialeah, Fla., vehicle accident Army Spc. Richard A. Goward, 32, of Midland, Mich., vehicle accident Army Pfc. Joseph P. Mayek, 20, of Rock Springs, Wyo., accidental weapons discharge Marine Cpl. Jason David Mileo, 20, Centreville, Md., friendly fire Army Spc. Gil Mercado, 25, of Paterson, N.J., non-combat weapon discharge Marine Cpl. Jesus A. Gonzalez, 22, Indio, Calif., combat Marine Lance Cpl. David Edward Owens Jr., 20, of Winchester, Va., combat. Marine Staff Sgt. Riayan A. Tejeda, 26, New York, N.Y., combat The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it. Ari Fleischer December 6, 2002 Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeff Bohr, 39, of San Clemente, Calif., combat Army Staff Sgt. Terry W. Hemingway, 39, Willingboro, N.J., combat Army Cpl. Henry L. Brown, 22, Natchez, Miss. combat Marine Pfc. Juan Guadalupe Garza, 20, Temperance, Mich., combat Army Sgt. 1st Class John W. Marshall, 50, Los Angeles, combat Army Pfc. Jason M. Meyer, 23, Howell, Mich., combat Air Force Staff Sgt. Scott D. Sather, 29, Clio, Mich., combat Army Staff Sgt. Robert A. Stever, 36, Pendleton, Ore., combat We know for a fact that there are weapons there. Ari Fleischer January 9, 2003 Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Julian Aviles, 18, Tampa, Fla., combat Air Force Capt. Eric B. Das, 30, of Amarillo, Texas, combat Army Staff Sgt. Lincoln Hollinsaid, 27, Malden, Ill., combat Army 2nd Lt. Jeffrey J. Kaylor, 24, Clifton, Va., combat Marine Cpl. Jesus Martin Antonio Medellin, 21, Fort Worth, Texas, combat Army Pfc. Anthony S. Miller, 19, San Antonio, combat Army Spc. George A. Mitchell, 35, Rawlings, Md., combat Air Force Maj. William R. Watkins III, 37, Danville, Va., combat It appears to be a re-run of a bad movie. [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] is delaying. He's deceiving. He's asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain — he's not disarming. George W. Bush, January 21, 2003 Army Pfc. Gregory P. Huxley Jr., 19, Forestport, N.Y., combat Army Pvt. Kelley S. Prewitt, 24, Alabama, combat. Army Sgt. Stevon Booker, 34, Apollo, Pa., combat Army Spc. Larry K. Brown, 22, of Jackson, Miss., combat Marine 1st Sgt. Edward Smith, 38, Vista., Calif., combat Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. George W. Bush, January 28, 2003 Army Capt. Tristan N. Aitken, 31, State College, Pa., combat Army Pfc. Wilfred D. Bellard, 20, Lake Charles, La., vehicle fell into ravine Army Spc. Daniel Francis J. Cunningham, 33, Lewiston, Maine, vehicle fell into ravine Marine Capt. Travis Ford, 30, Oceanside, Calif., helicopter crash Marine Cp. Bernard G. Gooden, 22, Mount Vernon, N.Y., combat We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more. Colin Powell, February 5, 2003 Army Pvt. Devon D. Jones, 19, San Diego, vehicle fell into ravine Marine 1st Lt. Brian M. McPhillips, 25, Pembroke, Mass., combat Marine Sgt. Duane R. Rios, 25, Griffith, Ind., combat. Marine Capt. Benjamin Sammis, 29, Rehoboth, Mass., helicopter crash Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, 33, of Tampa, Fla., combat We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have. George W. Bush, February 8, 2003 Marine Pfc. Chad E. Bales, 20, Coahoma, Texas, non-hostile accident Army Sgt. Wilbert Davis, 40, Hinesville, Ga., vehicle accident Marine Cpl. Mark A. Evnin, 21, South Burlington, Vt., combat Army Capt. Edward J. Korn, 31, Savannah, Ga., combat Army Staff Sgt. Nino D. Livaudais, 23, Ogden, Utah, combat Army Spc. Ryan P. Long, 21, Seaford, Del., combat Army Spc. Donald S. Oaks Jr., 20, Harborcreek, Pa., combat Army Sgt. 1st Class Randy Rehn, 36, Longmont, Colo., combat Army Capt. Russell B. Rippetoe, 27, Arvada, Colo., combat Army Sgt. Todd J. Robbins, 33, Hart, Mich., combat Marine Cpl. Erik H. Silva, 23, Holtville, Calif., combat So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not. Colin Powell, March 7, 2003 Army Capt. James F. Adamouski, 29, Springfield, Va., helicopter crash Marine Lance Cpl. Brian E. Anderson, 26, Durham, N.C., non-hostile accident Army Spc. Mathew Boule, 22, Dracut, Mass., helicopter crash Army Master Sgt. George A. Fernandez, 36, El Paso, Texas Marine Pfc. Christian D. Gurtner, 19, Ohio City, Ohio, non-combat weapons discharge Army Chief Warrant Officer Erik A. Halvorsen, 40, Bennington, Vt., helicopter crash. Army Chief Warrant Officer Scott Jamar, 32, Granbury, Texas, helicopter crash Army Sgt. Michael Pedersen, 26, Flint, Mich., helicopter crash Army Chief Warrant Officer Eric A. Smith, 42, Rochester, N.Y., helicopter crash Navy Lt. Nathan D. White, 30, Mesa, Ariz., F/A-18C Hornet lost over Iraq Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. George W. Bush, March 17, 2003 Army Sgt. Jacob L. Butler, 24, Wellsville, Kan., combat Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph B. Maglione, 22, Lansdale, Pa., non-combat weapon discharge Army Spc. William A. Jeffries, 39, Evansville, Ind., illness Army Spc. Brandon Rowe, 20, Roscoe, Ill., combat Marine Capt. Aaron J. Contreras, 31, Sherwood, Ore., helicopter crash Marine Sgt. Michael V. Lalush, 23, Troutville, Va., helicopter crash Marine Sgt. Brian McGinnis, 23, St. Georges, Del., helicopter crash Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes. Ari Fleisher, March 21, 2003 Marine Staff Sgt. James Cawley, 41, Layton, Utah, combat Army Cpl. Michael Curtin, 23, Howell, N.J., suicide attack Army Pfc. Diego Fernando Rincon, 19, Conyers, Ga., suicide attack Army Pfc. Michael Russell Creighton-Weldon, 20, Palm Bay, Fla., suicide attack Marine Lance Cpl. William W. White, 24, New York, vehicle accident Army Sgt. Eugene Williams, 24, Highland, N.Y, suicide attack There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them. Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003 Marine Sgt. Fernando Padilla-Ramirez, 26, San Luis, Ariz., combat Army Sgt. Roderic A. Solomon , 32, Fayetteville, N.C., vehicle accident Marine Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Menusa, 33, Tracy, Calif., combat Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus A. Suarez Del Solar, 20, Escondido, Calif., combat Marine Maj. Kevin G. Nave, 36, White Lake Township, Mich., vehicle accident One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites. Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark, March 22, 2003 Marine Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez Flores, 21, Los Angeles, combat Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Michael Vann Johnson Jr., 25, Little Rock, Ark., combat Marine Staff Sgt. Donald C. May, Jr., 31, Richmond, Va., combat Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick T. O'Day, 20, Santa Rosa, Calif., combat Marine Cpl. Robert M. Rodriguez, 21, New York, combat Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, Boise, Idaho, grenade attack Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas A. Blair, 24, Broken Arrow, Okla., combat Marine Cpl. Evan James, 20, La Harpe, Ill., drowned in canal Marine Sgt. Bradley S. Korthaus, 29, Davenport, Iowa, drowned in canal Army Spc. Gregory P. Sanders, 19, Hobart, Ind., combat Army Spc. Jamaal R. Addison, 22, Roswell, Ga., combat Army Sgt. Edward John Anguiano, 24, Los Fresnos, Texas Marine Sgt. Michael E. Bitz, 31, Ventura, Calif., combat Marine Lance Cpl. Brian Rory Buesing, 20, Cedar Key, Fla., combat Army Sgt. George Edward Buggs, 31, Barnwell, S.C., combat Marine Pfc. Tamario D. Burkett, 21, Buffalo, N.Y., combat We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003 Marine Cpl. Kemaphoom A. Chanawongse, 22, Waterford, Conn. Marine Lance Cpl. Donald John Cline, 21, Sparks, Nev., combat Army 1st Sgt. Robert J. Dowdy, 38, Cleveland, combat Army Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, 18, El Paso, Texas, combat Marine Lance Cpl. David K. Fribley, 26, Fort Myers, Fla., combat Marine Cpl. Jose A. Garibay, 21, Costa Mesa, Calif., combat Marine Pvt. Jonathan L. Gifford, 30, Decatur, Ill., combat Marine Cpl. Jorge A. Gonzalez, 20, Los Angeles, combat Marine Pvt. Nolen R. Hutchings, 19, Boiling Springs, S.C. Army Pfc. Howard Johnson II, 21, Mobile, Ala., combat Marine Staff Sgt. Phillip A. Jordan, 42, Enfield, Conn., combat Army Spc. James Kiehl, 22, Comfort, Texas, combat We are in the process of trying to liberate that country. And at the moment where the war ends and the coalition forces occupy the areas where those capabilities -- chemical and biological weapons -- are likely to be, to the extent they haven't been moved out of the country, it obviously is important to find them. Donald Rumsfeld, April 9, 2003 Army Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata, 35, Pecos, Texas, combat Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick R. Nixon, 21, Gallatin, Tenn., combat Army Pfc. Lori Piestewa, 23, Tuba City, Ariz., combat Marine 2nd Lt. Frederick E. Pokorney Jr., 31, Tonopah, Nev., combat Marine Sgt. Brendon Reiss, 23, Casper, Wyo., combat Marine Cpl. Randal Kent Rosacker, 21, San Diego, combat Army Pvt. Brandon Sloan, 19, Bedford Heights, Ohio, combat Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas J. Slocum, 22, Thornton, Colo., combat Army Sgt. Donald Walters, 33, Kansas City, Mo., combat Marine Lance Cpl. Michael J. Williams, 31, Phoenix, Ariz. We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. Ari Fleischer, April 10, 2003 Navy Lt. Thomas Mullen Adams, 27, La Mesa, Calif., helicopter collision Marine Sgt. Nicolas M. Hodson, 22, Smithville, Mo., vehicle accident Marine Lance Cpl. Eric J. Orlowski, 26, Buffalo, N.Y., machine gun accident Army Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, Easton, Pa., grenade attack Army Reserve Spc. Brandon S. Tobler, 19, Portland, Ore., vehicle accident Marine Maj. Jay Thomas Aubin, 36, Waterville, Maine, helicopter crash Marine Capt. Ryan Anthony Beaupre, 30, St. Anne, Ill., helicopter crash Marine 2nd Lt. Therrel S. Childers, 30, Harrison County, Miss., combat Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, 28, Los Angeles, combat Marine Cpl. Brian Matthew Kennedy, 25, Houston, helicopter crash Marine Staff Sgt. Kendall Damon Waters-Bey, 29, Baltimore, helicopter crash better a neutered cat than a rabid dog. Which is responsible for the lives listed above?

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=417787 Now Bush Blames Looters for lack of WMDs

since I have nowhere else to put it, the conspiracy theory community is all abuzz about this little tidbit of information: "The software of the BOEING 757 and 767 over rides pilot error and will not let a pilot make banking turns like the PENTAGON plane which was pulling 5 Gs at its final approach or the second WTC plane that was pulling 3 Gs." ....interesting... I'll have to check out the conspiracy show on MojoRadio this weekend to hear more.... I find the 9/11 hoax theory very intriguing... http://www.mojoradio.com/station/gary_bell_home.cfm

the neutered dems are responsible for this list. 8 years of cuts in intel and defense.

why not blame the looters for that? they got blamed for the missing art, remember?

that was an excellent piece in TNR, Tiggy. I usually read that site regulary, along with Free Republic, but have not over the last 3 months. Thanks for the link.

As you so gleefully say, dimlu, they've found much of the looted art. Why haven't they found a single bit of looted WMD? Not once.

"the neutered dems are responsible for this list. 8 years of cuts in intel and defense." Oh, are the gays and lesbians, abortion providers and civil liberties groups responsible too? Need I remind you, dimlu, that since 1994 the republicans were in control of the house of representatives, the house of congress which performs all appropriations? i.e. they control all of the money. That means they were ultimately responsible for all of the military cuts since 1994. You know, the last 9 years. Christ, you are such a blind partisan.

i played illuminati last night the sub-genius had control of the republicans and texas while the network controlled girlie magazines via the feminists nobody won, of course

"Oh, are the gays and lesbians, abortion providers and civil liberties groups responsible too?" No, freak. Those are pawns. When I refer to libs, I refer to members of government, not activist groups or joe smith voter/non-voter/bitcher. In fact, most of the time i refer to libs or dems, I do not mean your run of the mill citizen, I am refering to gov officials.

"Need I remind you, dimlu, that since 1994 the republicans were in control of the house of representatives, the house of congress which performs all appropriations? i.e. they control all of the money." Study some more and get back with me when you get it right, but thanks for trying.

"No, freak. Those are pawns." Golly, d00d. You didn't catch my Jerry Falwell reference. "Study some more and get back with me when you get it right, but thanks for trying." Um, excuse me? Educate me, then. I was wrong on that point, but you've got to admit that the republicans, since 1994, have been at least half responsible for the appropriations process. They have, after all, controlled the house of representatives. Are you actually disputing that? Now they control both houses of congress and are happily exercising their "borrow and spend" muscles.

too many words to count. i must sleep now. cows occupy my mind with clouded milk.

Captured Al-Qaeda was FBI Spy: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/23/walq23.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/23/ixworld.html

The Dog Ate My WMDs By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Friday 13 June 2003 After several years teaching high school, I've heard all the excuses. I didn't get my homework done because my computer crashed, because my project partner didn't do their part, because I feel sick, because I left it on the bus, because I had a dance recital, because I was abducted by aliens and viciously probed. Houdini doesn't have as many tricks. No one on earth is more inventive than a high school sophomore backed into a corner and faced with a zero on an assignment. No one, perhaps, except Bush administration officials forced now to account for their astounding claims made since September 2002 regarding Iraq's alleged weapons program. After roughly 280 days worth of fearful descriptions of the formidable Iraqi arsenal, coming on the heels of seven years of UNSCOM weapons inspections, four years of surveillance, months of UNMOVIC weapons inspections, the investiture of an entire nation by American and British forces, after which said forces searched "everywhere" per the words of the Marine commander over there and "found nothing," after interrogating dozens of the scientists and officers who have nothing to hide anymore because Hussein is gone, after finding out that the dreaded 'mobile labs' were weather balloon platforms sold to Iraq by the British, George W. Bush and his people suddenly have a few things to answer for. You may recall this instance where a bombastic claim was made by Bush. During his constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, Mr. Bush said, "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." Nearly five months later, those 500 tons are nowhere to be found. A few seconds with a calculator can help us understand exactly what this means. 500 tons of gas equals one million pounds. After UNSCOM, after UNMOVIC, after the war, after the US Army inspectors, after all the satellite surveillance, it is difficult in the extreme to imagine how one million pounds of anything could refuse to be located. Bear in mind, also, that this one million pounds is but a part of the Iraqi weapons arsenal described by Bush and his administration. Maybe the dog ate it. Or maybe it was never there to begin with, having been destroyed years ago by the first UN inspectors and by the Iraqis themselves. Maybe we went to war on a big lie, one that killed over 3,500 Iraqi civilians to date, one that killed some 170 American soldiers, one that has been costing us one American soldier's life per day thus far. If you listen to the Republicans on Capitol Hill, however, this is all just about "politics." An in-depth investigation into how exactly we came to go to war on the WMD word of the Bush administration has been quashed by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Closed-door hearings by the Intelligence Committee are planned next week, but an open investigation has been shunted aside by Bush allies who control the gavel and the agenda. If there is nothing to hide, as the administration insists, if nothing was done wrong, one must wonder why they fear to have these questions asked in public. The questions are being asked anyway. Thirty five Representatives have signed House Resolution 260, which demands with specificity that the administration back up it's oft-repeated claims about the Iraqi weapons arsenal with evidence and fact. The guts of the Resolution are as follows: Resolved, That the President is requested to transmit to the House of Representatives not later than 4 days after the date of the adoption of this resolution documents or other materials in the President's possession that provides specific evidence for the following claims relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: (1) On August 26, 2002, the Vice President in a speech stated: `Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction . . . What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons.' (2) On September 12, 2002, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the President stated: `Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.' (3) On October 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, the President stated: `It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons.' (4) On January 7, 2003, the Secretary of Defense at a press briefing stated: `There is no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons.' (5) On January 9, 2003, in his daily press briefing, the White House spokesperson stated: 'We know for a fact that there are weapons there Iraq.' (6) On March 16, 2003, in an appearance on NBC's `Meet The Press', the Vice President stated: `We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong.' (7) On March 17, 2003, in an Address to the Nation, the President stated: `Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.' (8) On March 21, 2003, in his daily press briefing the White House spokesperson stated: `Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly.all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.' (9) On March 24, 2003, in an appearance on CBS's `Face the Nation', the Secretary of Defense stated: `We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established.' (10) On March 30, 2003, in an appearance on ABC's `This Week', the Secretary of Defense stated: `We know where they are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.' On June 10, 2003, Representative Henry Waxman transmitted a letter to Condoleezza Rice demanding answers to a specific area of concern in this whole mess. His letter goes on to repeat, in scathing detail, the multifaceted claims made by the Bush administration regarding an Iraqi nuclear weapons program, and deconstructs those claims with a fine scalpel. "What I want to know is the answer to a simple question: Why did the President use forged evidence in the State of the Union address?" the letter concludes. "This is a question that bears directly on the credibility of the United States, and it should be answered in a prompt and forthright manner, with full disclosure of all the relevant facts." It is this aspect, the nuclear claims, that has led the Bush administration to do what many observers expected them to do for a while now: They have blamed it all on the CIA. A report in the June 12, 2003 edition of the Washington Post cites an unnamed Bush administration official who claims that the CIA knew the evidence of Iraqi nuclear plans had been forged, but that CIA failed to give this information to Bush. The Post story states, "A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of 'extremely sloppy' handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein." Ergo, it wasn't the dog who ate the WMDs. It was the CIA. Unfortunately for Bush and his people, this blame game will not hold water. Early in October of 2002, Bush went before the American people and delivered yet another vat of nightmarish descriptions of what Saddam Hussein could do to America and the world with his vast array of weaponry. One week before this speech, however, the CIA had publicly stated that Hussein and Iraq were less of a threat than they had been for the last ten years. Columnist Robert Scheer reported on October 9, 2002, that, "In its report, the CIA concludes that years of U.N. inspections combined with U.S. and British bombing of selected targets have left Iraq far weaker militarily than in the 1980s, when it was supported in its war against Iran by the United States. The CIA report also concedes that the agency has no evidence that Iraq possesses nuclear weapons." Certainly, if citizen Scheer was able to read and understand the CIA report on Iraq's nuclear capabilities, the President of the United States could easily do so as well. The scandal which laid Bill Clinton low centered around his lying under oath about sex. The scandal which took down Richard Nixon was certainly more profound, as he was accused of misusing the CIA and FBI to spy on political opponents while paying off people to lie about his actions. Lying under oath and misusing the intelligence community are both serious transgressions, to be sure. The matter of Iraq's weapons program, however, leaves both of these in deep shade. George W. Bush and his people used the fear and terror that still roils within the American people in the aftermath of September 11 to fob off an unnerving fiction about a faraway nation, and then used that fiction to justify a war that killed thousands and thousands of people. Latter-day justifications about 'liberating' the Iraqi people or demonstrating the strength of America to the world do not obscure this fact. They lied us into a war that, beyond the death toll, served as the greatest Al Qaeda recruiting drive in the history of the world. They lied about a war that cost billions of dollars which could have been better used to bolster America's amazingly substandard anti-terror defenses. They are attempting, in the aftermath, to misuse the CIA by blaming them for all of it. Blaming the CIA will not solve this problem, for the CIA is well able to defend itself. Quashing investigations in the House will not stem the questions that come now at a fast and furious clip. They lied. Period. Trust a teacher on this. We can spot liars who have not done their homework a mile away

Declassified CIA Report This is a declassified version of what the CIA was telling the Admin.

Answers to questions about the Federal Budget Process

"the neutered dems are responsible for this list. 8 years of cuts in intel and defense." You're a pussy. Trace, because, as I recall, you have been cockmouthed about laying the responsibility of 9/11 on the shoulders of 19 hijackers and their respective organizations and no one else. But, as a pussy, you'll toss that discretion out the window, because well...it fits your scheme of things. You're a fucking pussy...a military industrial stool pigeon. You are a perfect example of what the defense sector is made of. They have you eating of the hand. You;ve taken you're red pill long ago. (Btw, have you ever read any Kurt Vonnegut? You should. It suits you.) The blame of 9/11 rests on one of a couple of shoulders and it has nothing to do with the budget cuts and restructure of the military or intelligence community. Thats pussy. Thats a pussy pussy excuse, if its not obvious, i take offense too. Its ignorant of the enemy motives and ignorant of the US actions and policies overseas, ignorant of the climate in which the terrorists were born. The terrorists were not born from budget cuts and base closures fuckhole. The hijackers are a biproduct of actions, you are clearly are too blind (and subsequently ignorant) to see, which to me is sad.

sorry...i admit to foaming at the mouth. My intent no less resolute, but i should speak my mind so bluntly. Trace....whats it going to take for you to see you 've been had? Hmm? What would it take? You wanted Clinton run out of the Whitehouse for lying about sticking his prick in a place it didnt belong, but as each day goes by that its more and more evident we were shammed by the Bush administration and they have thousands of innocent Iraqi lives (potentially 2000 American lives of 9/11) and hundreds of American soldiers lives, whats it going to take for you to see that Bush and his bang of criminals need to be run out of the White House before they reduce this country to ashes and chaos? Whats it going to take? You want an admission from them? Just entertain the idea of your neo-con whiplashed head for just a second and tell me what you would need to believe what is right in front of you?

some might say America is sticking its collective prick where it doesnt belong, then lying about it...

jesus christ. penicils, erasers. ugh. "but i SHOULDN'T speak my mind so bluntly" "they have thousands of dead innocent Iraqi lives (potentially 2000 American lives of 9/11) and hundreds of dead American soldiers' lives to account for,..." ", whats it going to take for you to see that Bush and his GANG of criminals" "Just entertain the idea IN your neo-con whiplashed head..." that was ridiculous on my part. my apologies.

"GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've found the weapons of mass destruction. You know, we found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations' resolutions and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." Source Well, that clears everything right up!

it's all muddy

"key" iraqi scientists still insist weapons were destroyed http://www.msnbc.com/news/929835.asp?cp1=1

Expert Said to Tell Legislators He Was Pressed to Distort Some Evidence By JAMES RISEN and DOUGLAS JEHL NYTIMES ASHINGTON, June 24 — A top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings last week that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform with the Bush administration's views, several Congressional officials said today. The officials described what they said was a dramatic moment at a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week when the weapons expert came forward to tell Congress he had felt such pressure. By speaking out, they said, the senior intelligence expert, identified by several officials as Christian Westermann, became the first member of the intelligence community on active service to make this sort of admission to members of Congress. The House Intelligence Committee was examining questions concerning the Bush administration's handling of prewar reports on evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons and ties to terrorist groups. Mr. Westermann, officials said, is an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, a small but important office at the State Department that is intended to provide the secretary of state with intelligence analysis independent of the C.I.A. and other agencies. Mr. Westermann told lawmakers last week that while he felt pressure, he never actually changed the wording of any of his intelligence reports. He did not immediately provide lawmakers with details about his complaints, and it remains uncertain the degree to which his concerns related to Iraq or other regional issues. Administration officials said his most specific complaints concerned issues related to intelligence on Cuba, and he has not yet provided similar specific complaints about the handling of intelligence on Iraq. Mr. Westermann, who is in his mid-40's, has worked as a State Department expert on unconventional weapons for the last several years and is viewed within the department as a careful and respected analyst of intelligence. An administration official said he had served previously as a Navy officer and had not worked for the C.I.A. or other intelligence agencies. Mr. Westermann's decision to speak out has caused a stir inside the House and Senate intelligence committees, even though he did not go into details and indicated he was not comfortable doing so in front of the large group of officials around him in the House hearing. But he said he was prepared to discuss the matter further. In a second hearing last week with the Senate Intelligence Committee, he made it clear that he had felt pressure from John Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security, that originally dated to a clash the two had over Mr. Bolton's public assertions last year that Cuba had a biological weapons program. Mr. Westermann argued those assertions were not supported by sufficient intelligence. Mr. Bolton declined to comment on the matter. Mr. Westermann also declined to comment. The State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, said tonight, "We don't comment on closed hearings, but I can tell you that the secretary and deputy secretary have full confidence in John Bolton." A number of analysts at the C.I.A. and other agencies have privately complained over the past few months that they felt pressure from administration officials to write reports that they believe overstated evidence that Iraq had illegal weapons programs and terrorist links. Mr. Westermann was one of a large group of officials from several intelligence agencies who had been summoned to appear at the opening session of the House intelligence panel's review on Iraq last week. Addressing the group, Representative Silvestro Reyes, a Texas Democrat, asked whether any of them had felt political pressure in the development of their intelligence reports, which are supposed to be objective. All of the intelligence officials remained silent — except for Mr. Westermann. Staff members from the House and Senate committees have begun to pursue the matter in greater detail with him, Congressional officials said. Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat and a ranking member on the House panel, declined to discuss the matter. A spokesman for Mr. Reyes, Kira Maas, said, "The congressman does not comment on closed hearing information." The failure of the United States to find evidence of Iraq's weapons programs or its links to Al Qaeda has raised questions about whether the administration overstated the threat posed by Baghdad as it made the case for going to war. Both the House and Senate intelligence committees have begun investigations into the matter, and the C.I.A. has begun an internal review of its prewar intelligence reports. Pressure to politicize intelligence is often subtle and extremely difficult to corroborate or quantify. A number of analysts have said that the pressure they felt came in the form of intensive questioning from senior administration officials, particularly about reports that concluded that there was little evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. A number of analysts have suggested that they felt less direct pressure on reports concerning the status of Iraq's unconventional weapons, but were angered that senior Bush administration officials selectively disclosed classified intelligence reports that supported the worst-case scenario concerning Iraq's weapons programs, making it seem as if there was an imminent threat to the United States. The analysts believe that in some cases, White House and Pentagon officials made public statements about Iraq's weapons based on intelligence that was far from definitive. An administration official said that Mr. Westermann had clashed repeatedly with Mr. Bolton. A State Department official sympathetic to Mr. Bolton's views said of Mr. Westermann, "He doesn't have anything that he can point to, and he doesn't have anything more recent than Cuba." That official added, "We're in a period where people are looking for particular evidence of intelligence being altered, and he's talking about mood swings." But other administration officials said there had been ongoing tensions between the two since the Cuban issue first came up, to the point that Mr. Bolton has unsuccessfully sought to have Mr. Westermann reassigned.

now then, if this is true, and this person is coming forward... ...why are these hearing behing put behind closed doors? Obviously Bush has something to hide...

its in the best interest of the entire republican party to keep this shit behind doors. they control the House and presumably this particular committee.

I'm not happy with the W's plan to cut overtime pay and I'm not happy with the way our troops are just targets for the bastards.

I'm not happy with anything he does.

Are you happy if he takes a shit?

No we want him to be constipated:)

I'll be happy when he gives his concession speech in 2004!

Your country is cutting fucking OVERTIME PAY? What are they going to stoop to - to make sure everyone has to survive on less money, work less jobs? Don't they see the snowball effect? That everyone getting downsized, everyone getting less money, who the fuck is going to buy all these new homes, new cars, DVDs, CDs, sports events tickets, etc? Jesus, your economy is so going to collapse if you keep this shit up. You're fucked Jesus Christ, you poor bastards. Do you still think you live in the freest place in the world?

I'm sorry, I have to keep going on this... 80 million people in your country rely on regular overtime pay. For many people, including my dad, overtime pay is the difference between whether or not people go to college, pay off debts, start businesses, keep families together. This change will effect schedules, allow companies to make workers work unreasonable longer hours away from their loved ones. These days with parents working two jobs the actual family is extinct. If people are working longer hours they will be away from their family less. Politicans blame music and movies but its bad family ties and lack of time thats causing all this shit. And if they dont get that fair pay for extra hours, thats less money they deserve and work hard for... wasnt the American Dream working hard and getting ahead? what happened to that? what the fuck? Other countries get very long vacations, and you don't. You're going to lose overtime pay, what next? Are you going to sit there and let some bastard who never worked hard to get where he is, always had everything handed to him, take away what you worked so hard for and make your life worse? Bad enough he's fucking up other countries, he's raping your family. Raping them. Fucking parasite. I spit at his name on the screen. Ptouie.

no...rowlf...the silver lining.....if this goes through, he signs off on the bill.... BLAMO!!! he can kiss organized labor support good bye. some of the most powerful voting constituencies are labor unions, Prison Guard Unions, Auto Worker Unions, Dock Worker Unions...buh bye. He kicks middle america right in the dick. better start writing his concession speech now.

some corrections and clarifications from the Economic Policy Institute: "In 78 job classifications that the group examined out of 257 white-collar occupations, an estimated 8 million workers would lose their right to overtime pay. "Another 1.3 million people would lose overtime pay under the proposed salary test that exempts all nonmanual workers earning $65,000 or more, regardless of their duties. "The new definitions of professional, administrative and executive employees remove specific duties and education requirements, giving employers wide latitude to reclassify their workers, the study says. "Among the millions of jobs that will lose overtime, according to the study: emergency medical technicians, paralegals, licensed practical nurses, draftsmen, surveyors, reporters, editors, chefs, cooks, dental hygienists and health technicians. "Workers covered by union contracts will not be affected." i stand corrected about the unions, but still, look how many professions would be affected. from the LA Times: "The Labor Department said the changes -- which are unlikely to affect California workers -- would guarantee overtime pay to an additional 1.3 million low-wage employees while potentially moving about 640,000 other workers into managerial status." "But labor advocates decried the proposal as a massive giveaway to employers. AFL-CIO public policy director Christine Owens said most of the 1.3 million workers mentioned by the Labor Department already qualify for overtime pay. She said the new rules probably would cause more workers to lose overtime pay than gain it." Its unclear what exactly the impact would be. You have the Labor Dept. saying one thing, and employee groups saying another. You can bet, that in the end, it serves business interests first, rather than employees simply based on the Bush Administrations track record.

I need more info on this thing.....Spunky doesn't get overtime, ever, for his work, and it sucks, so I push him to be home when it isn't his mandatory 40 hours a week. He made more money on a smaller wage when he was able to get overtime. And it wasn't held against us, so I got help from WIC, for Micki's special needs nutritionally, and they paid for $250 for Micki to get neccessary high calorie drinks, which we lost out on with this job. That's the price we pay every day. It would be nice to be back there again, sometimes. The thing that worries me is that I know a LVN, who runs all of an office by herself and gets shorted hours so she can't get overtime and has to work another job on weekends. Since she started nursing she has had nothing but financial trouble, and is now one payment away from losing her house and her car. If it were made that she COULD NOT get overtime, they may give her more duties and more hours, and make her work for less basically, continuing her downward financial spiral, and making her kids spend more time home alone than they should (her kids are 6 and 9 and are recently latch key kids). I really need to read up more on this issue to figure out how it will not only effect us, but effect those I know and love.

oddly enough there is little info on this. do a search for "overtime pay" or any variation thereof in yahoo news and only a few stories pop up. it was such a big story at the beginning of the week. Now most of the stories are gone. hmmmm why is that? the push is to give employers the option to offer compensatory time off rather than time/half pay. it wont effect many CA residents because of our already stringinet overtime laws. Also the mandatory overtime low wage salary is 24k/year. The new law would set that at 22k/year. Anyone make that or less would automatically get overtime.

goddamn liberal media. not covering news that would hurt Bush's reelection campaign. Thats just like them to do that.

Federal FTP Site with Labor statistics.

That is not a bush initiative, it the product of a DOL and GAO review that started in 1999.

It started then, but it ends now.

you one of the 8 million that are being reclassed from hourly at 25 bucks an hour to exempt? or are you one of the ones that work for the chip industry, which cost so much in labor it forced the industry to move overseas? how about those employees? they got laid off. simmer down and think about it. the fleecing of the american industry ENDS NOW. The lay offs END NOW. Labor costs are sky high. Companies cannot afford to pay employees, as labour cost is outstripping material cost. they lay off entire groups of people. now, they have NO JOB. our economy continues to sag. foreign economies are excelling because of lower production costs, thus lower product cost, thus more sales. What about medical technicians? The cost of healthcare is THROUGH THE ROOF. reclassifying nursing supervisors from hourly to exempt, raising thier salary, and giving comp time for overtime, or, as in my case, UNLIMITED SICK DAYS. \ Which would you prefer, no job or a salary?

what bugs me is that when these companies lay them off, they still stay loyal... they blame immigrants and foreigners instead of the corporations and politicians... I didnt realize slave laborors were lobbyists!

Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat US official who identified documents incriminating Iraq as fakes says Britain must have been aware of findings By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Raymond Whitaker in London 29 June 2003 A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme last night accused Britain and the US of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein. The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the west African state of Niger, were forgeries. When he saw similar claims in Britain's dossier on Iraq last September, he even went as far as telling CIA officials that they needed to alert their British counterparts to his investigation. The allegation will add to the suspicions of opponents to the war that last week's row between the BBC and Tony Blair's director of communications Alastair Campbell was a sideshow to draw attention away from more serious questions about the justification for the war. The comments of the former US diplomat appear to be at odds with those of the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. Appearing before a parliamentary committee last week, Mr Straw said the British intelligence community had not known of the forged documents' existence "at the time when [the September dossier] was put together". But in his first interview on the issue, the former US diplomat told The Independent on Sunday: "It is hard for me to fathom, that as close as we are and [while] preparing for a war based on [claims about] weapons of mass destruction, that we did not share intelligence of this nature." Asked if he felt his findings had been ignored for political reasons, he added: "It's an easy conclusion to draw." Though the official's identity is well-known in Washington - he was on the National Security Council under President Clinton - he asked that his name be withheld at this stage. During last week's hearings by the Foreign Affairs Committee, MPs cited repeated reports that the forged documents - a letter on which the signature of Niger's president had been faked, and another carrying the signature of a man who had not held office in the country since the 1980s - had originally reached the CIA via British intelligence. Mr Straw not only denied that the forged documents came from British sources, but said Britain's allegations about Iraq's quest for uranium in Africa came from "quite separate sources". He said he would give further details of these sources for the uranium allegation in a closed session on Friday, during which he was fiercely cross-questioned by Sir John Stanley, the committee's chief sceptic. After hearing what the Foreign Secretary had to say, the Tory MP is reported to have told Mr Straw he did not believe him. The testimony of the former US diplomat further undermines the claims of both the British and US governments that Saddam had developed, or was developing, weapons of mass destruction. The Niger connection became one of the most important and most controversial elements in the build-up to war, and both Britain and the US used it to claim that Iraq was "reconstituting" its nuclear programme. It later emerged that the report was based on forged letters obtained by Italian intelligence from an African diplomat. The Italians were said to have passed the letters to their British counterparts, from where they reached the CIA. When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally had the opportunity to inspect the documents, nearly a year later, they were dismissed as fakes in less than a day. Neither the US nor Britain ever gave the IAEA any other information to back up their allegations on Iraq's uranium-buying activities, despite the "separate sources" cited by Mr Straw. In February 2002, the former diplomat - who had served as an ambassador in Africa - was approached by the CIA to carry out a "discreet" task: to investigate if it was possible that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. He said the CIA had been asked to find out in a direct request from the office of the Vice-President, Dick Cheney. During eight days in Niger he discovered it was impossible for Iraq to have been buying the quantities of uranium alleged. "My report was very unequivocal," he said. He also learnt that the signatures of officials vital to any transaction were missing from the documents. On his return he was debriefed by the CIA. One senior CIA official has told reporters the agency's findings were distributed to the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Justice Department, the FBI and the office of the Vice President on the same day in early March. Six months later the former diplomat read in a newspaper that Britain had issued a dossier claiming Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa. He contacted officials at CIA headquarters and said they needed to clarify whether the British were referring to Niger. If so, the record needed to be corrected. He heard nothing, and in January President Bush said in his State of the Union speech that the "British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa". The ex-diplomat says he is outraged by the way evidence gathered by the intelligence community was selectively used in Washington to support pre-determined policies and bolster a case for war. ______________________________ See, the British press have the balls to get to the bottom of this issue... America sleeps

Scandal lurks in shadow of Iraq evidence By Diane Carman, Denver Post Columnist It's getting harder to ignore. More and more evidence is emerging to suggest that U.S. intelligence was manipulated to justify going to war with Iraq. Among the allegations: U.S. officials cited documents provided by foreign ambassadors - documents that they knew to be forgeries - as proof of the existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Aluminum tubes and gas centrifuges that President Bush said were used to "enrich uranium for nuclear weapons" had already been determined by the CIA to be ordinary rocket materials too flimsy to handle nuclear material. Claims by the administration that Iraq had unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering deadly biological agents around the world to the U.S. were known to be false; analysts estimated they didn't have the range even to reach Tel Aviv. Vice President Dick Cheney had visited CIA headquarters several times in the months before the war to pressure analysts to find evidence that would justify an attack on Iraq. And evidence that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda was deliberately withheld from Congress and the public in an attempt to mislead everyone about the danger Iraq posed. Several members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Democrats Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Richard Durbin, D-Ill., told The New Republic that they knew that evidence contradicting the Bush administration's claims had been concealed, but they were unable to reveal it because it was classified. Still, Congress, which spent $80 million to prove that, yes, Bill Clinton did have sexual relations with that woman, has yet to order an investigation. Rep. Diana DeGette claims to know why. "It's obvious. It's because the Republicans control Congress and the White House," the Colorado Democrat said. Last week, she called for a bipartisan investigation to determine if there was a "massive intelligence failure" leading up to the war in Iraq. Either there never was the irrefutable evidence of weapons of mass destruction and we were deceived, she said, or the deadly weapons exist in Iraq where Hussein is believed to be hiding and our intelligence is not capable of finding them. Regardless of which scenario Americans prefer to embrace, it's a troubling situation. We deserve an explanation. Before the war, DeGette said, "both (Secretary of State) Colin Powell and the president unequivocally said there were biological, chemical and possibly nuclear weapons that were poised to strike and that created an imminent threat." In fact, when Powell made his dramatic presentation of the purported evidence against Iraq to the United Nations in February, DeGette admitted that she found it disturbing. The congresswoman, who had voted against the resolution to go to war with Iraq, said Powell raised "very serious questions" about the danger Iraq posed. She had company. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., called it "shocking." The public responded similarly. In the days following Powell's U.N. appearance, polls showed opposition to the pre-emptive war evaporating in the U.S. Seventy percent of Americans believed that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. Sixty percent thought the country was developing nuclear weapons. "On that basis, we went out and attacked another country," DeGette said. It was the rationale we presented to the world for going to war. "Now, it's becoming more and more clear that evidence of those weapons never existed," DeGette said. And while it's unclear whether the intelligence was flawed, misinterpreted or simply manipulated to produce a predetermined outcome, DeGette said, it's clear something went wrong. "There's one thing the American public doesn't like," she said, "and that's being duped." If Congress succeeds in stonewalling an investigation, the damage to the intelligence agencies will be severe. Once their integrity is undermined, they become objects of contempt and ridicule. That's why DeGette predicts that despite her Republican colleagues' loyalty to Bush, Congress ultimately will vote for an investigation. "The public will demand it," she said. As the weeks and months go by, if evidence of weapons of mass destruction isn't found in Iraq, containing the scandal will be impossible, she said. The truth will have to emerge. "This is not about a political gotcha situation," DeGette said. "One reason people like me are trying to be respectful and not make this into a political issue is that it goes so much deeper than that. This goes to the integrity of our intelligence, the integrity of our foreign policy. "This is heavy-duty stuff."

Seven months before September 11, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet, testified before Congress that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or to other countries in the Middle East. But immediately after the terrorist attacks on 9-11, which the Bush administration claims Iraq is partially responsible for, the President and his advisers were already making a case for war against Iraq without so much as providing a shred of evidence to back up the allegations that Iraq and its former President, Saddam Hussein, was aware of the attacks or helped the al-Qaida hijackers plan the catastrophe. It was then, after the 9-11 attacks, that intelligence reports from the CIA radically changed from previous months, which said Iraq posed no immediate threat to the U.S., to now show Iraq had a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and was in hot pursuit of a nuclear bomb. The Bush administration seized upon the reports to build public support for the war and used the information to eventually justify a preemptive strike against the country in March even though much of the intelligence information in the latest CIA report has since been disputed.. In just seven short months, beginning as early as February 2001, Bush administration officials said Iraq went from being a threat only to its own people to posing an imminent threat to the world without providing evidence to back up its claims. Indeed, in a Feb. 12, 2001 interview with the Fox News Channel Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time.” But Rumsfeld testified before the House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 18, 2002 that Iraq is close to acquiring the materials needed to build a nuclear bomb. “Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent -- that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons,” Rumsfeld testified before the committee, a transcript of which can be found at http://www.useu.be/Categories/GlobalAffairs/Sept1802RumsfeldIraqDisarmament.html . ”I would not be so certain… He has, at this moment, stockpiles chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear weapons.” Rumsfeld never offered any evidence to support his claims, but his dire warnings of a nuclear catastrophe caused by Saddam Hussein was enough to convince most lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, that Saddam’s Iraq was doomed. Shortly after his remarks before the House Armed Services Committee, Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use “all appropriate means” to remove Saddam from power. Two months have passed since the U.S. invaded Iraq and not a spec of anthrax nor any other deadly chemical or biological weapon has been found. U.S. military forces have searched more than 300 sites but have turned up nothing substantial. Lawmakers are now questioning whether the intelligence information gathered by the CIA was accurate or whether the Bush administration manipulated and or exaggerated the intelligence to make a case for war. However, intelligence reports released by the CIA and more than 100 interviews top officials in the Bush administration, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, gave to various Senate and Congressional committees and media outlets prior to 9-11 show that the U.S. never believed Saddam Hussein to be an imminent threat other than to his own people. Moreover, the CIA reported in February 2001 that Iraq was “probably” pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs but that it had no direct evidence that Iraq actually had actually obtained such weapons. “We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since (Operation) Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs, although given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as likely,” CIA director Tenet said in a agency report to Congress on Feb 7, 2001, which can be found at http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/CIA/CIA-2-23-01.htm . “We assess that since the suspension of (United Nations) inspections in December of 1998, Baghdad has had the capability to reinitiate both its (chemical and biological weapons) programs… without an inspection monitoring program, however, it is more difficult to determine if Iraq has done so.” “Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not operating,” according to the 2001 CIA report. “Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the US to accurately assess the current state of Iraq’s WMD programs.” Ironically, in the February 2001 report, Tenet said Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network remain the single greatest threat to U.S. interests here and abroad. Tenet eerily describes in the report a scenario that six months later would become a reality. “Terrorists are also becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated in order to defeat counter-terrorism measures. For example, as we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out "softer" targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties. Employing increasingly advanced devices and using strategies such as simultaneous attacks, the number of people killed … Usama bin Ladin and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat. Since 1998, Bin Ladin has declared all U.S. citizens legitimate targets of attack. As shown by the bombing of our embassies in Africa in 1998 and his Millennium plots last year, he is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning,” Tenet said. However, Tenet only briefly discussed the al-Qaida threat and devoted the bulk of his testimony on how to deal with the threat of rogue countries such as North Korea, Syria, Iran and Iraq. Six months later, Bin Laden was identified as the mastermind behind 9-11. Between 1998 and early 2002, the CIA’s reports on the so-called terror threat offered no details on what types of chemical and biological weapons that Iraq obtained. But that changed dramatically in October 2002 when the CIA issued another report, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm, that this time included details of Iraq’s alleged vast chemical and biological weapons. The October 2002 CIA report into Iraq’s WMD identifies sarin, mustard gas, VX and numerous other chemical weapons that the CIA claims Iraq had been stockpiling over the years, in stark contrast to earlier reports by Tenet that said the agency had no evidence to support such claims. And unlike testimony Tenet gave a year earlier, in which he said the CIA had no direct evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs, the intelligence information in the 2002 report, Tenet said, is rock solid. “This information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence,” Tenet said during a CIA briefing in February, a transcript of which can be found at http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/CIA/cia-tenet-threats-021103.htm “It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources.” The CIA would not comment on the differing reports between 2001 and 2002 or how the agency was able to obtain such intelligence information and corroborate it so quickly. Still, in early 2001, while hardliners in the Bush administration were privately discussing ways to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Secretary of State Powell said the U.S. successfully “contained” Iraq in the years since the first Gulf War and that because of economic sanctions placed on the country Iraq was unable to obtain WMD. “We have been able to keep weapons from going into Iraq,” Powell said during a Feb 11, 2001 interview with “Face the Nation. “We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent that items that might support weapons of mass destruction development have had some controls on them… it's been quite a success for ten years…” Moreover, during a meeting with Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, in February 2001 on how to deal with Iraq, Powell said the U.N., the U.S. and its allies “have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions.” Saddam’s “forces are about one-third their original size. They don't really possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago,” Powell said during the meeting with Fischer, a transcript of which can be found at http://www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/peace/archives/2001/february/me0222a.html “Containment has been a successful policy, and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the (Gulf) war.” Powell added that Iraq is “not threatening America,” but in a separate interview with ABC’s Sam Donaldson on Feb. 1, 2001, Powell said the U.S. could attack Iraq if “something occurred to us,” which would suggest that the 9-11 terrorist attacks made Iraq a legitimate target. from globalresearch.ca