The results of these deliberated lies will be to exacerbe legitimately the arabian communities and terrorist support and the so called "pacifists" which are sincere pacifists probably for the majority but who can be just manipulated when needed like during the fake Peace Munich Pact of Hitler. With all their bright intelligence how can they ignore such a result so if they did it it is more probably deliberate and deliberate for what: exacerbing the arab world which can only lead to more terrorism.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18798 Nazi could be tough to prove, business links are there. Come to think of it, there is more connection between the prez's family and BinLadin family, than Osama and Saddam.
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Columnist The New York Times June 13, 2003 Let me give the White House a hand. Condoleezza Rice was asked on "Meet the Press" on Sunday about a column of mine from May 6 regarding President Bush's reliance on forged documents to claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. That was not just a case of hyping intelligence, but of asserting something that had already been flatly discredited by an envoy investigating at the behest of the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Ms. Rice acknowledged that the president's information turned out to be "not credible," but insisted that the White House hadn't realized this until after Mr. Bush had cited it in his State of the Union address. And now an administration official tells The Washington Post that Mr. Cheney's office first learned of its role in the episode by reading that column of mine. Hmm. I have an offer for Mr. Cheney: I'll tell you everything I know about your activities, if you'll tell me all you know. To help out Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney, let me offer some more detail about the uranium saga. Piecing the story together from two people directly involved and three others who were briefed on it, the tale begins at the end of 2001, when third-rate forged documents turned up in West Africa purporting to show the sale by Niger to Iraq of tons of "yellowcake" uranium. Italy's intelligence service obtained the documents and shared them with British spooks, who passed them on to Washington. Mr. Cheney's office got wind of this and asked the C.I.A. to investigate. The agency chose a former ambassador to Africa to undertake the mission, and that person flew to Niamey, Niger, in the last week of February 2002. This envoy spent one week in Niger, staying at the Sofitel and discussing his findings with the U.S. ambassador to Niger, and then flew back to Washington via Paris. Immediately upon his return, in early March 2002, this senior envoy briefed the C.I.A. and State Department and reported that the documents were bogus, for two main reasons. First, the documents seemed phony on their face â for example, the Niger minister of energy and mines who had signed them had left that position years earlier. Second, an examination of Niger's uranium industry showed that an international consortium controls the yellowcake closely, so the Niger government does not have any yellowcake to sell. Meanwhile, the State Department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, independently came to the exact same conclusion about those documents, according to Greg Thielmann, a former official there. Mr. Thielmann said he was "quite confident" that the conclusion had been passed up to the top of the State Department. "It was well known throughout the intelligence community that it was a forgery," said Melvin Goodman, a former C.I.A. analyst who is now at the Center for International Policy. Still, Mr. Tenet and the intelligence agencies were under intense pressure to come up with evidence against Iraq. Ambiguities were lost, and doubters were discouraged from speaking up. "It was a foregone conclusion that every photo of a trailer truck would be a `mobile bioweapons lab' and every tanker truck would be `filled with weaponized anthrax,' " a former military intelligence officer said. "None of the analysts in military uniform had the option to debate the vice president, secretary of defense and the secretary of state." http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/13/opinion/13KRIS.html
Why was it necessary to rely on intelligence estimates in the first place? Because Saddam had provided zero credible proof that all the banned WMD that everyone--even the UN inspectors--acknowledged that he possessed in the 90's had been destroyed as required by the Gulf War ceasefire. Not only did he not provide proof of destruction, he actively attempted to thwart inspections, blocked interviews with scientists, played games on access and generally acted very much like a dictator with something to hide. Which he did successfully for 12 years until two men, George Bush and Tony Blair, said enough. And who isn't glad he's gone, except perhaps the NY Times editorial board, some corrupt eurotrash pol's on his payroll and some prominent members of the Democrat party?
Cover Your Hair By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF - NY Times BASRA, Iraq Still no luck in my quest to help the administration find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But meanwhile, I'm getting the impression that America fought Saddam, and the Islamic fundamentalists won. For a glimpse of the Islamic state that Iraq may be evolving into, consider the street execution of an infidel named Sabah Ghazali. Under Saddam Hussein, Christians like Mr. Ghazali, 41, were allowed to sell alcohol and were protected from Muslim extremists. But lately extremists have been threatening to kill anyone selling alcohol. One day last month, two men walked over to Mr. Ghazali as he was unlocking his shop door and shot him in the head â the second liquor store owner they had killed that morning. An iron curtain of fundamentalism risks falling over Iraq, with particularly grievous implications for girls and women. President Bush hopes that Iraq will turn into a shining model of democracy, and that could still happen. But for now it's the Shiite fundamentalists who are gaining ground. Already, almost every liquor shop in southern Iraq appears to have been forcibly closed. Here in Basra, Islamists have asked Basra University (unsuccessfully) to separate male and female students, and shopkeepers have put up signs like: "Sister, cover your hair." Many more women are giving in to the pressure and wearing the hijab head covering. "Every woman is afraid," said Sarah Alak, a 22-year-old computer engineering student at Basra University. Ms. Alak never used to wear a hijab, but after Saddam fell her father asked her to wear one on the university campus, "just to avoid trouble." Extremists also threatened Basra's cinemas for showing pornography (like female knees). So the city's movie theaters closed down for two weeks and reopened only after taking down outside posters and putting up banners, like this one outside the Watani Cinema: "We do not deal with immoral movies." "We're now searching all customers as they enter the movie theater," said Abdel Baki Youssef, a guard at the Atlas Cinema. "Everybody is worried about an attack." Paradoxically, a more democratic Iraq may also be a more repressive one; it may well be that a majority of Iraqis favor more curbs on professional women and on religious minorities. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his smart new book, "The Future of Freedom," unless majority rule is accompanied by legal protections, tolerance and respect for minorities, the result can be populist repression. Women did relatively well under Saddam Hussein (when they weren't being tortured or executed, penalties that the regime applied on an equal opportunity basis). In the science faculty at Basra University, 80 percent of the students are women. Iraq won't follow the theocratic model of Iran, but it could end up as Iran Lite: an Islamic state, but ruled by politicians rather than ayatollahs. I get the sense that's the system many Iraqis seek. "Democracy means choosing what people want, not what the West wants," notes Abdul Karim al-Enzi, a leader of the Dawa Party, a Shiite fundamentalist party that is winning support in much of the country. Mr. Enzi is the kind of figure who resonates in mud-brick Iraqi villages in a way that secular American-backed exiles like Ahmad Chalabi don't. While Mr. Chalabi was dining in London, Mr. Enzi was risking his life on secret spy missions for the Dawa Party within Iraq, entering from his base in Iran. Four of his brothers and one sister were executed for anti-government activities, and Mr. Enzi was himself sentenced to death in absentia in 1979. He was once arrested in Iraq on a spy mission, but officials did not realize who he was and released him a month later. I found Mr. Enzi brave, admirable and medieval. What should we do about this? I'm afraid there's not much we can do to discourage fundamentalism in Iraq, although staying the course and building a legal system may help. For now, the U.S. seems to be making matters worse by raiding offices of Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, who ran an anti-Saddam organization from exile in Iran and who in the past advocated an Islamic government. Cold-shouldering Mr. Hakim is counterproductive. It bolsters his legitimacy as a nationalist and further radicalizes his followers. We may just have to get used to the idea that we have been midwives to growing Islamic fundamentalism in Iraq.
Might not do any good, yet here's a tongue-in-cheek summary for everyone. IMHO, the conspiracy theorists need to stop blaming the government for whatever did/didn't happen in Iraq and start concentrating on the public mindset that made it possible, and indeed quite necessary in the minds of those who did/do support the invasion. Like it or not, our government reflects us.
"I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declared Tuesday June 24 2003 compare the above with the following: "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Vice President Dick Cheney March 16 2003, and before congressional vote for war October 2002 Rumsfeld on Monday dismissed claims by the Iraqi government that it has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and is making no effort to acquire them. "They are lying," Rumsfeld June 10, 2002 "Iraq has 'Massive' Nuclear Weapons Program" Secretary of State Colin Powell Feb. 5, 2003 UN speech "no doubt" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, and that it had been working on nuclear weapons. " Rumsfeld Tuesday, March 4, 2003 Come on folks, trust everything they say..... Wake up America!
Blair No Longer Trustworthy, Says Newspaper Poll Reuters Saturday, June 28, 2003; 5:01 PM LONDON (Reuters) - Most Britons no longer find Prime Minister Tony Blair trustworthy and nearly half think he should quit, according to a newspaper poll Sunday. It showed most voters also say his record on health, crime, transport and asylum-seekers is poor. Beset by questions over whether he exaggerated the case for war against Iraq and under fire from political opponents for what they call a botched cabinet reshuffle this month, Blair emerged badly from the MORI poll commissioned by the News of the World. Fifty-eight percent of those questioned said he was not trustworthy, against 36 percent who thought he was, while 53 percent said he had run out of ideas. By contrast, 52 percent of respondents thought Chancellor Gordon Brown was trustworthy. The poll found 48 percent thought Blair should quit, 51 percent thought Labour's record on both health and crime-fighting was poor, while 53 percent thought his record on transport was bad. Labor is equal with the Conservatives on 35% while the Liberal democrats are on 19%, according to the poll which was conducted among 1,007 adults on 26-27 June.
Weapon of Mass Deception What the Pentagon doesnât want us to know about depleted uranium. In the weeks leading up to the war on Iraq, TV screens across America were crowded with images of U.S. soldiers readying for upcoming battles with a crazed dictator who would stop at nothing. One clip after another showed U.S. soldiers racing to don $211 suits designed to protect them from the chemical and biological attacks they would surely suffer on the road to ousting Saddam Hussein. But these grim forecasts were wrong. Despite the advance hype, Husseinâs dreaded arsenal was not the biggest threat to Americans on the battlefield in Iraq. In fact, it was no threat at all. The real threatânot only to U.S. troops but to Iraqis as wellâmay prove to be a weapon scarcely mentioned before, during or after the war: depleted uranium. A toxic and radioactive substance, depleted uranium (DU)âotherwise known as Uranium 238âwas widely used by U.S. troops as their Abrams battle tanks and A-10 Warthogs thundered through Iraq this spring. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/062903H.shtml
Who Lost the WMD? As the weapons hunt intensifies, so does the finger pointing. A preview of the coming battle By MASSIMO CALABRESI AND TIMOTHY J. BURGER Sunday, Jun. 29, 2003 Meeting last month at a sweltering U.S. base outside Doha, Qatar, with his top Iraq commanders, President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either. A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked. It seems as if just about everyone has questions these days about the missing WMD. Did U.S. intelligence officialsâor their civilian bossesâoverstate the evidence of weapons before the war? And if some intelligence officials expressed skepticism about WMD, who ignored them? For the past several weeks, the usually lockstep Bush Administration has done its best to maintain a unified front in the face of these queries. Whenever asked, Administration officials have replied that the weapons will turn up eventually. But as the search drags on through its third largely futile month, the blame game in Washington has gone into high gear. And as Bush's allies and enemies alike on Capitol Hill begin to pick apart some 19 volumes of prewar intelligence and examine them one document at a time, the cohesive Bush team is starting to come apart. "This is a cloud hanging over their credibility, their word," Republican Senate Intelligence Committee member Chuck Hagel told abc News. Here are key questions Congress wants answered: What Was Cheney's Role? Lawmakers who once saluted every Bush claim and command are beginning to express doubts. Two congressional panels are opening new rounds of investigations into the Administration's prewar claims about WMD. One of their immediate inquiries, sources tell Time, involves Vice President Dick Cheney's role in reviewing the intelligence before the bombing started. Cheney made repeated visits to the CIA in the prelude to the war, going over intelligence assessments with the analysts who produced them. Some Democrats say Cheney's visits may have amounted to pressure on the normally cautious agency. Cheney's defenders insist that his visits merely showed the importance of the issue and that an honest analyst wouldn't feel pressure to twist intelligence. The House intelligence committee (and possibly its Senate counterpart, sources say) plans to question the CIA analysts who briefed Cheney, and that could lead to calling Cheney's hard-line aides and perhaps the Veep himself to testify. Is Powell Trying To Have It Both Ways? Secretary of State Colin Powell, who staked his reputation on his February declaration at the U.N. about Saddam Hussein's arms program, is also feeling the heat. Powell's aides fanned out after that performance to say the Secretary had gone to the CIA and scrubbed every piece of intelligence to make certain it was solid. But since then, little of Powell's presentation has been proved by evidence on the ground, and last week his aides were on the defensive over a memo from the State Department's intelligence bureau that questioned whether two Iraqi trailers discovered in April were mobile bioweapons labs, as Powell has asserted. Questionable intelligence that made it into Powell's February speech leaves him particularly vulnerable. Expect a push by Democrats, and perhaps some Republicans, to seek Powell's testimony too. Will Tenet Be Left Holding the Bag? CIA Director George Tenet is faring a bit better. The House committee's top Democrat, Jane Harman, noted last week that "caveats and qualifiers" Tenet raised in prewar intelligence about Iraq's weapons were "rarely included" in Administration arguments for war. After the awkward Q&A in Doha, Bush put Tenet in charge of the WMD hunt. Tenet in turn hired a former U.N. weapons inspector, David Kay, to run the search, but Tenet and Kay have a lot of ground to make up fast. Tenet, sources say, recently conceded to the House panel that the CIA should have done more to warn that finding WMD could be a drawn-out process. Tenet got a reprieve last week when an Iraqi scientist who had hidden parts and documents for nuclear-weapons production in his backyard for 12 years came forward. Tenet's usually behind-the-scenes CIA suddenly became very public in trumpeting the importance of the discovery, if only to remind people how hard illicit weapons would be to find. But Tenet's hot zone isn't Baghdad; it's Capitol Hill. He canceled testimony before the Senate committee last week, citing a schedule conflict. If he doesn't find any weapons, he needs to find a way not to be blamed. Bush officials believe that time and history are on their side. They argue that now that Saddam is gone, Americans don't care very much about finding WMD. They also say it is only a matter of time before more evidence of weapons materials and programs emerges. And when that occurs, they contend, all their opponents will look as silly as they did when they argued that the war was going badly in its second week. "The Dems are looking for an issue, but I think they're making a mistake," says a senior Administration official. Democrats do sense a possibly potent campaign theme, but they run the risk of appearing to politicize a sensitive national-security issue as they try to prove the Administration has a credibility gap. But Democrats are not alone in feeling as though they may have been sandbagged on the evidence before the war began. Sources say g.o.p. Senate Intelligence Committee members Olympia Snowe and Hagel have privately questioned the Administration's handling of prewar intelligence. The Republican-held House voted last week to order the CIA to report back on "lessons learned" from the buildup to war in Iraq. The House and Senate intelligence-committee leaders have agreed to coordinate their probes loosely to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. In a rare move, the House panel quietly voted on June 12 to grant all 435 Representatives access to the Iraq intelligence, although a Capitol Hill source said fewer than 10 members outside the committee had reviewed the material. Administration officials have a further concern about where all these questions are leading. They fear that any problem with the prewar intelligence could undermine Bush's ability to continue his muscular campaign against terrorism overseas. The Administration has argued that to counter new kinds of threats posed by terrorists, rogue states and WMD, it has to be able to act pre-emptively. But pre-emption requires excellent intelligence, and the whole doctrine is undermined if the intelligence is wrongâor confected. "Intelligence takes on an even more important role than in the past because you can't wait until you see an enemy army massing anymore," says former Clinton Deputy National Security Adviser James Steinberg. But if WMD don't turn up and the Administration wants to act elsewhere, it may find that the enemy massing against it is public opinion at home. From the Jul. 07, 2003 issue of TIME magazine