Your Move, Democrats

From the Drudge Report, Vice-President Cheney:

[T]he suggestion that’s been made by some U. S. senators that the President of the United States or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city...

Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein. These are elected officials who had access to the intelligence, and were free to draw their own conclusions.

They arrived at the same judgment about Iraq’s capabilities and intentions that was made by this Administration and by the previous Administration. There was broad-based, bipartisan agreement that Saddam Hussein was a threat … that he had violated U.N. Security Council Resolutions … and that, in a post-9/11 world, we couldn’t afford to take the word of a dictator who had a history of WMD programs, who had excluded weapons inspectors, who had defied the demands of the international community, who had been designated an official state sponsor of terror, and who had committed mass murder.

Those are facts.

What we’re hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements and making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war. The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out. American soldiers and Marines are out there every day in dangerous conditions and desert temperatures – conducting raids, training Iraqi forces, countering attacks, seizing weapons, and capturing killers – and back home a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie.

The President and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone – but we’re not going to sit by and let them rewrite history.

We’re going to continue throwing their own words back at them. And far more important, we’re going to continue sending a consistent message to the men and women who are fighting the war on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other fronts.

(Emphasis mine.)

Expect shrieks of "Halliburton!!" to fill the airwaves and blogs tomorrow.

Comments

[Justin]

Good, we'll see that the Senate Report has to say. Keep in mind, while everyone (including me) thought Saddam was a threat and had WMDs, it was the Administration that was trying to scare the crap out of us with talk of mushroom clouds and ties to Al Quada.

[Steve]

Here are two interesting articles to read that have just recently come out. I don't have time right now to say anything more than to post them.
---
1: This one I've read.

Where the WMDs Went
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 16, 2005

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Tierney, a former military intelligence officer and Arabic speaker who worked at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and as a counter-infiltration operator in Baghdad in 2004. He was also an inspector (1996-1998) for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) for overseeing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in Iraq. He worked on the most intrusive inspections during this period and either participated in or planned inspections that led to four of the seventeen resolutions against Iraq.

http://frontpagemagazine.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20154

------------------------
2: This one is a two page article that I have not read yet.

Where Are the Pentagon Papers?
The administration refuses to defend itself.
by Stephen F. Hayes
11/21/2005, Volume 011, Issue 10

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Articles/000/000/006/345qrbbj.asp?pg=1

[jEff HerNdon]

You are way off. Seek the truth @ Imperious Opinion.

[teal marie]

Steve, interesting Frontpage interview with Tierney. Powerline and Malkin have it up, too. Pretty much what you've been saying all along, huh?

Justin, yeah we are impatient for the truth, too. That's why Dick Cheney is putting his foot down. The LibDems have been lying too much.

[Steve]

Like Bill Tierney said his own story is just the story of one inspector.

There are just so many stories like his and it is simply obvious that Iraq has things that were suppose to be turned over. The little dirty tricks, the triple walls (not just double), the presidential palace complex grounds comprising square miles of uninspectable space, the delays and spies, the things stolen or removed, the complicity of the U.N. and other nations and their interests in weapons for oil instead of oil for food. The huge underground bunkers we've found in Iraq that were previously unknown.

There was also a report (David Rose or Jeffry Goldberg) of materials seen going to Mosul (city that is connected to Aleppo in the Ansar al-Islam insurgency and where Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri and his two sons who had sworn fealty to bin Laden went and Saddam's two sons were killed) in the summer of 2002. Mosul and Aleppo's railroad was reopenned once Iraq and Syria were brought back together after the oil-for-food scam began. Iraq started pumping oil illegally to Syria and I recall it being said that Syria paid in part for that oil with weapons to Iraq.

As for the summer of 2002 sightings of materials headed for Mosul it is interesting that Bill Tierney has this to say: "While working counter-infiltration in Baghdad, I noticed a pattern among infiltrators that their cover stories would start around summer or fall of 2002. From this and other (other?) observations, I believe Saddam planned for a U.S. invasion after President Bush's speech at West Point in 2002."

Also there is this observation after the August 19, 2001 international terror conference in Baghdad there was a push by Al Qaeda's Ansar Al-Islam forces into Northern Iraq and simultaneous to that there was the killing of General Ahmed Shah Massoud of the Aghanistan's Northern alliance just two days before 911. Massoud was killed when Al-Qaeda men posing as jounalists had pleaded repeatedly with Massoud for an interview. The camera these Al Qaeda "journalists" were carrying had a bomb in it which was detonated and killed Massoud. Very early in the morning of September 11, 2001 before George Bush started for Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida men had arrived at the Colony Beach Resort where the President was staying and said they were a television news crew with a scheduled “poolside” interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn't heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president's public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away.

Interesting that we have:
1: Saddam's annual terror conference in which only the most radical groups were invited this time.
2: Massoud's death by Al Qaeda "jounalists".
3: Al Qaeda war in Northern Afghanistan.
4: Al Qaeda war in Norther Iraq in communication with and overseen by Iraqi intelligence.
5: George Bush having a mysterious visit by Middle Eastern "journalists" very early in the morning.
6: And 911.
7: I do remember a story of there being indications before 911 that Saddam was maneuvering as if expecting a strike. One of those things was moving his two wives to Syria or possibly it was Tikrit.

[phil]

baldilocks says:When one is new to a place, it's only polite not to post a long off-topic essay-rant on the first post. Guess I'm going to have to turn that comment approval feature back on.

Would true conservatives countenance the fiscal rape of their children and grandchildren?

One thing the Bush Administration clearly has been very good at is focusing the attention of the press (and by extension the American people) on issues that they want to highlight. This has had the effect of advancing the Bush agenda, but has had the added effect of deflecting focus away from things that the Administration does not want to highlight. One of those issues is clearly the rampant, runaway spending of your tax dollars by Bush and the Republican majority congress. At this point there can be no doubt that, as they try to focus your attention on issues like stem cells and Supreme Court nominations, Bush and the Republican Congress are spending us all into a hole from which it will take us, our children and our grandchildren years to recover.

You don’t need to take my word for this, nor the words of any democrat or Bush-hater. You need only to read what conservatives like George Will are saying, or the people at conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute recently completed a report on the spending habits of all US presidents during the last 40 years. If you’re interested in reading the report I’ve included a link at the end of this post.

If you want to continue to believe that Bush and Congressional Republicans are “on your side” or if you care only about saving stem cells and banning gay marriage perhaps you should read no further. But if you’re interested in the truth and are concerned about your financial well-being and that of your children, perhaps you should read on. Here’s some of what the Cato Institute report had to say about presidential spending over the last 40 years:

All presidents presided over net increases in spending. As it turns out George W. Bush is one of the biggest spenders of them all. In fact he is an even bigger spender than Lyndon B. Johnson in terms of discretionary spending.

The increase in discretionary spending in Bush’s first term was 48.5% in nominal terms. That’s more than twice as large as the increase in discretionary spending during Clinton’s entire 2 terms (21.6%) and higher than Lyndon B. Johnson’s entire discretionary spending spree (48.3%).

Adjusting the budget trends for inflation Bush looks even worse; his spending rate is much higher then Lyndon Johnson’s. In other words, Bush expanded federal non-entitlement programs in his first term almost twice as fast each year as Lyndon Johnson did during his entire presidency.

George W. Bush is the biggest spending president of the last 40 years in both the defense and discretionary spending categories by a long shot. He beats Johnson by almost 4% in defense spending growth and more than 3% in domestic discretionary spending growth.

And conservative columnist George Will points out that in his column today that federal spending has grown twice as fast under President Bush and congressional Republicans as under President Clinton. And with respect to the argument that this profligacy is related to 9/11 and homeland security, Will and the conservative think tanks have noted that over 65 percent of the spending increase is unrelated to national security.
Will further reports that Congressional Republicans (who achieved their majority by promising fiscal discipline) have presided over an orgy of pork spending with your tax dollars the likes of which have never been seen before. In 1991, the 546 pork projects in the 13 appropriation bills cost $3.1 billion. In 2005, the 13,997 pork projects cost $27.3 billion.

You may support Bush and the congressional Republicans because of some vague promise of “progress” on social issues with which you and the Republicans agree. In that case perhaps you are entitled to refer to yourself as a “social conservative.” But nobody who calls themselves a fiscal conservative could support Bush and the Republican Congress who are spending your tax dollars in an orgy of profligacy the likes of which has not been experienced in our lifetimes. You can continue to deny yourself this truth, but be assured that true conservatives know the truth. Bush and the Republican Congress are asking you to mortgage their futures and the futures of their children and grandchildren in exchange for soft “promises” on social issues. You are justifying the fiscal rape of your children and grandchildren perpetrated by your “moral” leaders in exchange for a vague promise of gains on social issues. Do yourself and your kids a favor; look them in the eye and explain to them why you have chosen to saddle them with these financial burdens, explain to them your reasoning. Then look in the mirror and explain to yourself how you can continue to support the people who you know in your heart are screwing you and to your kids. Is that morality? Is that conservatism?

Read the whole Cato article here:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-26.pdf

Read the Will column here:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/will/cst-edt-geo17.html

[justin]

The Tierney interview was intersting. But, isn't anyone bothered by the fact that his contention is that WMDs were removed from Iraq after Bush started getting tought in 2002? Doesn't that seem like a huge intelligence failure on its own, Iraq being one of the most watched countries on the planet at the time. So, we want to invade in part to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorist countries like Syria, and the weapons end up secretly bing moved to Syria? Kind of scary.

[Steve]

Well Phil, all that is just fine but it is off topic. I've heard it said that one reason for 911 and this country's problems in fighting terrorism pre-911 is the fact that the federal government is too distracted with the non (or un) constitutional responsibilities it now has in caring for the "nanny-state".

The tax-cuts that George Bush has implemented have grown the economy which has inturn brought in larger amounts of revenue collected by the federal government. And contrary to the usual perception of a Republican president there has been more spent by this president than the previous on, I guess what you would categorize as, entitlement spending or transfer payments.

You'll have to admit that it is all a damned if you do and damned if you don't world when it comes to these things. I believe that much of the success of the 1990s economy was due to the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The economomy was already taking an inevitable downturn when George Bush took office in January 2001. I do not understand economics all that well and I doubt many other people do either but as a layman observer I am amazed that the economy recovered and has done as well as it has after 911. It is pretty obvious that the 911 strike was meant to hurt the U.S. economy but it actually hurt the world economy which inturn hurt the world's poor the most after 911 due to transportation problems and other factors that the poor of the world depend on.

You've said something about social conservatism and that people are willing to chuck all other considerations for certain social issues. But might that rather be said of the democrats in that it is they that have made their party hostage to petty social issues and therefore have shorted the Amercian people an alternate party to vote for.

As for the religion issue that is also a little more complicated. I believe that Thomas Jefferson's words could also be interpreted to rather be the conservative's message and their point. There are some real concerns about what and who has been historically behind the teaching of evolution and some non-scientific or psuedo-science and quasi-religious teaching associated with it. This is not to say that all the intelligent design people are people I would agree with either but I am thinking more along the lines that there needs to be more school choice so that parents can decide more what suits them and the educators have to take into account a parent's wishes.

I am somewhat for pushing the nanny-state responsibilties that have accumulated since the 1930s away from the federal level but good luck in this country and in this time with that idea.

[justin]

Oh yeah, kind of funny that Cheyney, the biggest, uh, "exaggerator" in the Administration, is going on the offensive. Game's over guys, the Administration is just trying to get hold of its base now.

"And the suggestion [that] any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city." (Cheyney, Nov. 16, 2005.)

"And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."(Cheyney, March 16, 2003).

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/cheneymeetthepress.htm

In March of 2003, no intelligence supported that statement, and in fact, directly contradicted it.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html

[justin]

Oh yeah, and how about this from Rumsfeld on Meet the Press on 3/30/03 (cut and pasted from Matt Yglesis's blog):

"Not at all [whether not finidng WMDs early in the invasion is a problem]. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t03302003_t0330sdabcsteph.html

What could that possibly mean other than he is saying that based on intelligence the Administration knows where the weapons are. But, that just wasn't true.

[teal marie]

Not a game and not over, Justin.

"We’re going to continue throwing their own words back at them. And far more important, we’re going to continue sending a consistent message to the men and women who are fighting the war on terror in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other fronts."

Pray do not attempt to undermine their morale any further with your narcissism. You've done quite enough.

I repeat, we are just as impatient for your disillusionment as you claim to be. Honestly, it cannot come too soon.

Did you understand any of that?

[Steve]

If I could say that I have an advantageous view in all of the issues concerning Iraq it is just that I spent so much time perusing Proquest at the local library and although I could not print and read everything that came up I did get to see the headlines of so many artcles. There was so much news activity with respect to Iraq that a person would have to narrow the time period down to a week or two just to keep the number of articles in the list reasonable enough to read their titles.

The problem with a lot of people who are just now jumping into the subject of Iraq is that they first do not understand nearly as much as they need to before getting into speaking about it or how to interpret a sassy little article written today.

We do not know what kind of communication intercepts the National Security Agency or any other intelligence agency for that matter that passed us information. As individual Americans we do not, nor have we ever got to see, what the intelligence agencies have. But there is more evidence available to us as citizens today than ever before and there is also enough material out there about the web of terrorist organizations that a person can consider Saddam's regime a threat enough in this world to decide to have him confronted and removed for the future of everyone. What Dick Cheney said was much like what the democrats and republicans and foreigners had been saying for years and my point in saying that is that they were NOT wrong when they said those things.

It is not too hard for me to imagine what happened and I don't think that it is all that amazing or far-out to simply see what looks to have taken place from Desert Fox on, or August 19, 2001 on. You can start with Baghdad and draw a ever widening circle of players in all of this and that circle can begin to encompass so many entities with question marks next to them within the circle of those that may have known that they were helping with at least some action against the United States. Or, maybe not the "United States", but whatever you call their(?) greivance with the twin towers in New York.

I think that we, in a sense, lucked out in going into Iraq. I know that may not seem anywhere right to say the way things are said today in that kind of stupor-mantra but the whole picture we were/are facing in regards to Iraq can be read with great peril for our future if "our" includes certain cities that also think they are "our" too. It seems weird to have to say that but as strange as things have been it seems that it needs to be said that way. "We" were lucky to have gone into Iraq for at least the sake of the same cities that were struck with planes and anthrax in September-October 2001.

David Bossie said something interesting in his book Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 911. He said that when Clinton took office in 1993 the Russians and the Chinese liked us and didn't like each other. When Clinton left office the Russians and the Chinese hated us and had joined together against us. Why? I think I might be able to imgaine why at least a little.

[teh l4m3]

Why reach for "Halliburton" when "NIE" is so much closer and more potent? You know, because we lefties are so lazy...

[baldilocks]

Your are? Your words.

[Steve]

There is something people must understand. First, it may very well be that Saddam was in on 911. In fact I think it is much more likely that he was. Second, there is a terror network in the world and especially in Europe. Third, that terror network has been around for more than 15 years and is much stronger than it was 8 years ago. Fourth, that terror network was something that Saddam had contributed to its development and had access to and had very probably used. Fifth, he did have WMD, and WMD materials and technology and he had exported them to terrorist organizations. Sixth, Saddam would be increasing all his contacts with this terror network in the future as he became wealthier and had becomed rearmed and a deterent and very likely in possession of a nuclear device making him a "absolute deterent". Seventh, with jihadists already training in his country and more coming in from Afghanistan the future of Saddam & sons country did not look good for the world's future especially sitting upon the second largest oil reserves with plenty of countries looking to do as they had done in the 1980s and rearm him. Eigth, we do not know if Saddam would be alive and in charge by today's date, he could have either been assassinated by one of his sons or the jihadists in his country. Ninth, we likely could not sit much longer in Saudi Arabia and would have had to have left Iraq to its own and that would have cost the Kurds their lives. Tenth, we would possibly have to have been forced into a war with Saddam, or whoever would be running the country, on another date when their military and the terror groups were more extensive and more beholden to Saddam due to his growing wealth.

People do not seem to understand that Saddam, and also the land of Iraq, is suppose to be the next Caliphate of the Muslim world according to these jihadists and is suppose to stretch from Indonesia to Spain. These Islamists are already speaking of being in ownership of London and Great Britain someday and ultimately the world. It sounds hokey but they are dead serious. Al Qaeda are already speaking of themselves as being a nation within the world with their own "science of jihad studies" and universities and everything else that comes with a nation. You may laugh but it is not me it is them that is saying it and like I said they are serious. Iraq's oil revenue cannot be put into these efforts and we cannot afford to pull another Somalia and run. If that should be the case then I believe that if something major should happen to either New York or Washington D.C. in the future the military should not feel any reason to respond and should rather cordon off those two cities as part of another country or given the status of Puerto Rico.

The people voting in the Senate aren't children and they knew full well what they were signing. And Saddam was in violation of Resolution 1441 as he had been with all the other resolutions including the ceasefire resolution 687.

I read these two years ago and they got me started."

This first one is the index:

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/index.html

This is the first one and possibly the best of them for our purposes in this argument:

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/einhorn.html
---
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/gallucci.html

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/perricos.html

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/nichols.html

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/infogather.html

[Steve]

This one too on biolgical weapons:

http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/leitenberg.html

[justin]

The Corner seems to have it right on Murtha's new stand on the war:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_11_13_corner-archive.asp#082858

I think the war was a bad idea at the time, but leaving now will only compound the errors. I really think this is the moment the country has turned against the war. Now really is the time for Bush to make the case as to why we whould be there. Unfortunately, his communication skills haven't been that great lately.

[justin]

Steve,

The ISIS sight is a good source. I had read some of David Albright's stuff after 9/11, and I definitely respect what is says, but it's funny, because I'm not sure how much the articles support some of your propositions.

For example, the ISIS sight has a summary of Iraq's nuclear program which says:

Iraq's nuclear weapons program started in the early 1970s and is now ended. This program was effectively halted in 1991 by UN Security Council mandated inspections, before Iraq was able to build a nuclear weapon. Inspections were ended in late 1998 when Saddam Hussein ceased cooperation with inspectors. Saddam Hussein's regime was removed from power in 2003, and no evidence of ongoing nuclear weapons programs has been found as of October 2004.

http://www.isis-online.org/mapproject/country_pages/iraq.html

[sagewoman]

You're all so funny... As if you have some deep insight into what any of these folks in power are really up to. Guess that gives you a sense of security somehow. Bored now...

[skinnerI]

If these guys would just expend half the ammount of energy on Harry potter Lore as they do whining and crying with co-whiners
Theyed be better citizens and kids would, even like them ,maybe Perhaps they wouldnt have to spat so much about whos mom's basement theyre gonna live in after wedlock
P.S.
Dont say anything but I bet they smoke pot

[Steve]

I guess I would have to ask what "ongoing" it really suppose to mean and how much that is relevent to Saddam's future capabilities to restart a program. I would have to ask how sure they are of that? Also there is this verbal trick and that is the use of the words "no evidence of". That is a statement, when you think about it, is not really being honest with the reader. A simular principle is that there were people who said that about Osama bin Laden in the first several weeks after 911 as well but, although it may have been technically true for all the public knew at the time, it was not really the honest or fully relevent thing to say.

The interview with Bill Tierney is interesting in respect to a nuclear program and huge underground facilities. I can also imagine that of all things the nuclear program would have been the most cleaned-up and cleaned-out in the months between the summer of 2002 and March of 2003. There is the high-explosives reported to be in the country that has been said to have the capability to be used in a nuclear device. There is also the story dated 1997 of the 'explosive lenses' I gave in an earlier thread. Fall of 1997 being the last time there were meaningful inspections. I currently do not have my nose in a book or good article about all the twisted things that took place in Iraq during the 1990s inspections process but when I am I get the feeling that there is simply too many illegal things obviously going on in Iraq and what for and what is safest to assume?

Its not just going on in Iraq but the whole Middle East, and the world. A group with Harvard university recently said that only 50% of Russia's nuclear arsenal is currently secured. The country of Turkey as had a lot of busts involving people with uranium from the former Soviet states and that includes HEU. Turkey had a wide open border trade with Iraq. There was also the story going around that Al Qaeda may have already acquired a nuclear device from the Russian Chechen Mafia, whatever that is. There is also the possibilty that North Korea could sell a nuclear weapon off the shelf. There is also the AQ Kahn network centrifuges meant for Libya in which most of them are unaccounted for. And the reports that Saddam appears to have been seeking uranium in a number of African countries of which Niger was just one of them.

Another thing that comes to mind is that it was said that Saddam had a working nuclear device by the end of Gulf War I but all he needed was the fissile material and that he actually was known to have had three such fissile-less devices. I believe Scott Ritter was also one of the sources for that story. I don't give it a lot of weight but there was a rumor and it was knocked down quickly afterward but it still leaves me wondering and that is that these nuclear devices were found near Tikrit in about July of 2004. If not, it is still not that important in the overall view of this issue. For that to be true it would mean we are not being told everything in the opposite sense that is usually claimed and there may be reason to believe that is true of other things besides the nuclear device rumor. Maybe someone reading here knows more about what finally became of that rumor.

There was also this from the Norman Podhoretz article:

[Lawrence] Wilkerson:

The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this rpm, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments?
---
The obvious thing after all we've been through with Iraq and their ways is that it isn't really suprising to not have found much. To have found little (if "little" is what you call it) should have been expected. The important thing is what did we find and what therefore are the possibilites? It is a little bit like a crime scene and most investigators going to one don't expect to have all the evidence laid out before them.

Although there were things found such as Mahdi Obeidi's old centrifuge program which of course still counts as important. There was also Saddam's gathering of his nuclear scientists just before the start of the planned Al-Aksa Intifada in September of 2000 and calling them his 'nuclear mujahideen’.

It was simply Saddam's nature to push and push and conceal and conceal because he was somebody who had no other purpose in life and no other reason to live and be president in the eyes of those that surrounded him and allowed him to stay in power. He had to be who he was as much as a person would have to swim in place to keep from going over a waterfall.

Saddam's actions should not be treated as mechanically amoral, and without being judgeable like a child's or a pet's actions. He, as a culpable grown up, gambled on the premise that he could always continue to play his games, and oppress and kill his people, and break international law with no consequences. He possibly thought he could bluff that he had WMD and expect to get away with it but, if so, why even then should we be expected to know that and spend anytime indulging him in a game like that from our point of view. If a person even looks like they are playing Russian Roulette with a child they should be taken out now and questions asked later.

Not that Saddam was only bluffing because there are these things from the article about the 37,000 boxes of Doha Qatar files link I gave above:

4: Money transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan.
6: Iraq Intel report on Kurdish activities: Mention of Kurdish report on Al Qaeda--reference to Al-Qaeda presence in Salman Pak.
15: Formulas and information about Iraq's Chemical Weapons Agents.
18: Ricin research and improvement. [Ricin and Al-Zarqawi and Ansar al-Islam]
31: Chemical gear for Fedayeen Saddam.
33: Chemical agent purchase orders (Dec. 2001).
34: Iraq ministry of Defense Calls for Investigation into why documents related to WMD were found by UN inspection team.
35: Correspondence between various Iraqi organizations giving instructions to hide chemicals and equipment.
37: Correspondence from IIS to Iraqi Embassy in Malaysia. [Two things there (1) Ahmed Hikmat Shakir and Yazid Suufat/hijacker meeting in Jan 2000 and the AQ Kahn nuke network and Libya]
38: Cleaning chemical suits and how to hide chemicals.
40: Secret meeting with Taliban Group member and Iraqi government (Nov. 2000)

[skinnerI]

Oh correction I meant Justin and Bill oh!!!! I was scanning at warp spead this time { Im getting G O O D ] these two
are the butt twins Bill Oh!!! must be out picking out his gown tonight

[skinnerI]

Steve I got to tell you ,I really like ya But you gotta slow down and realise your BEATING A DEAD HORSE !!!!!!
I dont read it because I Hate details they bore the living mormon religion out of me. I
{ THANKS} These idiots dont read it cause they cant admit theyre Morons Theyre riding around all girly like thinking theyre smart STOP WASTING YOURE TIME
I say this as a freind . I hope
Theres a reason why Jesus couldnt heal the Romans until long after he was crucified

What an analogy HUH !!! ?????

[Steve]

This is from the Weekly Standard article link above about the 37,000 boxes in Doha, Qatar:

The document collection effort in Iraq was haphazard, to say the least. No comprehensive guidance was ever provided to soldiers and intelligence officials on what exactly they should collect. This lack of direction meant that in many cases unit commanders made decisions about what to gather and what to discard. When David Kay ran the Iraq Survey Group searching for weapons of mass destruction, he instructed his team to ignore anything not directly related to the regime's WMD efforts. As a consequence, documents describing the regime's training and financing of terrorists were labeled "No Intelligence Value" and often discarded, according to two sources.

repeat: documents describing the regime's training and financing of terrorists were labeled "No Intelligence Value" and often discarded,
------------------------
I just don't know what to think of that because it just simply makes no sense. You could look at a statement like that and put it on a piece of graph paper. The verticle length of the graph represents innocence to culpability and the horizonal dimension of the graph represents degrees of stupidity to intelligence. You would then have four quandrants with the lower left meaning stupid and therefore not culpable and the upper right quadrant of the graph meaning intelligent and culpable and therefore done for some sinister purpose on behalf of someone.

The upper-left portion of the graph would be stupid and culpable and the lower-right quadrant of the graph would be intelligent but not guilty of anything sinister.

Then your mind can place a lot of virtual dots all over that graph as you think of various reasons for what was said concerning the discarding of those documents as the article says: "training and financing of terrorists were labeled 'No Intelligence Value' and often discarded".

[skinnerI]

HEY STEVE Did you watch the OSU
Oregon state game Today? { they call it the civil war game here in Oregon} The Ducks won which
made me happy cause I have two nephews that went there The only good thing about this colledge is theyre football team because 90% of the colledge proffessors are commies theyve spent a lifetime , being overpaid and spewing out theyre socialistic enviro unfreindly anti humanity
horse shit any thing man does is bad we shouldnt kill trees eat animals or celebrate christmas { the city of Eugene banned christmas ornaments in the city] They might insult the very sensitive muslims and jews ???
Will I know alot of jews and they love this time of year.. not offended in the least we share the same book { put a star of david on youre tree } The Koran Now thats another story Ive never read it but from what Ive seen from the beleivers , It says kill they neighbor as you would other muslims not of your sect But first of all kill jews and christians and then start new smaller sects so you can kill some more guys and keep banging youre dumbass diaper head with this stupid book ... This is just my take and shouldnt be mis unscrewed as anything else and should be used in religious classes for 5 bucks just by writing me

[grandpa stole bets]

[baldilocks says: Bugger off, Ackmed! This ain't the Sudan.]

[Steve]

Granpa stole bets,

Questions:

Who is the Muslim?

The women and children found beheaded about 6 months ago or the beheaders?

In Uday's rape rooms it would be the women and children raped there or the rapest?

Would the Muslim be the 2 year old child who had her feet crushed in front of her parents or would be the one doing the crushing?

Would the Muslim be the person who had a tounge amputated, ear cut off, or eye gouged out, or would the Muslim be the person who did such things?

Would the Muslim be the one that beheaded mothers in front of their homes and in front of their families or would it have been the mother that was the Muslim?

Would a Muslim still be a Muslim of he defiled the "Holy Land" by spilling oil into the gulf starting the wells on fire and draining and poisoning the marshes where Arab communities had been for thousands of years?

Would a Muslim have an official title of "Rapist" in the new Caliphate imagined?

When Saddam's regime had people devoured by dogs, or thrown into a pile of burning tires, or put in a box for weeks with a dead body next to them what verse of the Koran was he referencing?

What verse of the Koran was Saddam referencing when he used lit cigars to put out on the vagina of women prisoners or using a broken bottle to insert where it would cut a women up from the inside?

The most favoured people would be who in the light of all that? The victims, as they are still being victimized with suicide bombs and tortures when captured today, or the perpetrators of these crimes?

[baldilocks]

Steve,

Grandpa the jihadi is banned--for spamming and for being an anal orifice--so don't expect an answer here.

[justin]

More of Bush looking bad.

"Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
[...]
One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources."

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm

Oh, and how about this:

The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with The Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-curveball20nov20,1,6788510.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Your move, Dick Cheyney.

[Steve]

Justin,

I was unable to get your links to work but the LA Times is, well, a whole other story. But whoever "curveball" is it really doesn't make for much of a story concerning Iraq and WMD. It looks like he may still be at it if he was ever at it at all.

There is the 37,000 boxes in Doha Qatar and there is just so many many things that have already happened in the 1990s and already said by people to worry over "curveball". Germany has been one of the greatest proliferators of chemical weapons to rogue regimes in history so I don't know what to think of them.

As for what was said just 10 days after 911? I wouldn't put a lot of weight in public statements at a time like that. The words are spoken very measuredly and the words aren't mean to say that they are the last word on the subject. What they know or what they are working on at the time is not something they are going to tell at a time like that. My advice to you is to not put too much weight on the idea that the words "secular" and "religious" mean a whole lot. That idea still goes around like the idea that Mohammed Atta was a "fundementalist". Those kinds of words when applied to the M.E. and terror are misleading for the most part.

I'll admit I am a little curious about 911 from a number of different angles but those things are for a different kind of forum than this.

Below is more from another perspective.
-------------------------
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20252

"Boogie to Baghdad"

By Byron York
TheHill.com | November 21, 2005

In case you don’t remember, “Boogie to Baghdad” is the phrase that Richard Clarke, when he was the top White House counterterrorism official during the Clinton administration, used to express his fear that if American forces pushed Osama bin Laden too hard at his hideout in Afghanistan, bin Laden might move to Iraq, where he could stay in the protection of Saddam Hussein.

Clarke’s opinion was based on intelligence indicating a number of contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq, including word that Saddam had offered bin Laden safe haven.
--- cut for abbreviation ----
If you’ve forgotten, here’s the short version of the story behind “Boogie to Baghdad,” taken
from the Sept. 11 report:

In 1996, after bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get along with his new Taliban hosts. So he made inquiries about moving to Iraq.

Saddam wasn’t interested. At the time, he was trying to have better relations with his neighbors — and bin Laden’s enemy — the Saudis.

But a bit later, Saddam apparently changed his mind. According to the report:

“In March 1998, after bin Laden’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with bin Laden.”

Still nothing happened. But later:

“Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and bin Laden or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the [intelligence] reporting, Iraqi officials offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative.”

It was in that context that Clarke believed that if the United States made bin Laden’s situation too hot in Afghanistan, then, in Clarke’s non-famous words, “old wily Osama will likely boogie to Baghdad.”

Now, that doesn’t at all suggest that Iraq had a role in Sept. 11, but it certainly does suggest a relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda.
---- cut for abbreviation --------
just days after the Sept. 11 attacks — in which Russert asked, “Do you have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraq to this operation?”

“No,” Cheney said.

In 2002, Russert asked, “Has anything changed, in your mind?”

“I’m not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11,” Cheney said. “I can’t say that. On the other hand, since we did that [2001] interview, new information has come to light. And we spent time looking at that relationship between Iraq, on the one hand, and the al Qaeda organization on the other. And there has been reporting that suggests that there have been a number of contacts over the years.”

Cheney mentioned the still-disputed/alleged/possible/discredited/maybe meeting between lead hijacker Mohamed Atta and Iraqi agents in Prague. It was the subject of some dispute, he added. “The debates about, you know, was he there or wasn’t he there, again, it’s the intelligence business,” Cheney said.

Was there anything else? Russert asked.

“I want to separate out 9/11 from the other relationships between Iraq and the al Qaeda organization,” Cheney said. “But there is a pattern of relationships going back many years.”

Which leaves just one question. In light of the Sept. 11 commission’s report — and no matter what Democrats say — what was wrong with that?

[Justin]

Steve, Curveball was one of the more important current sources of intel for the Bush administration concerning WMDs, and he turned out to be a total fraud.

Here's the link again

http://www.latimes.com/news/
printedition/la-na-curveball20nov20
,1,6788510.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

[Steve]

The link you gave requires me to be a member and I am trying not to be a member of too many things.

All that was important for the Clinton Administration was also important for the Bush administration and what "curveball" had to say is not all that important. Besides, it appears to have been a set-up and although that is not a good thing for the US in a couple of ways its a seperate issue.

As for mobile labs I think they were hinted at as existing in Iraq during the Clinton administration and I think there are other sources than "curveball". Al J. Venter had something to say about them in his book and maybe I'll post an excerpt from his book if I have the time but I am typing this last into this post and it is getting late after work and I've got to make Thanksgiving tomorrow, or today.
------------------
UN Probes German Companies in Oil for Food Scandal

By Beat Balzli

German companies are also involved in the kickback scandal looming over the oil for food program. United Nations investigators recently requested exports files on 50 German firms from the Foreign Ministry....

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/
spiegel/0,1518,353585,00.html
------------------
Keeping in mind Germany-France and Russia's activities with Iraq from the 1970s, and especially through the 1990s, I have to wonder what Germany's "curveball" was really all about. Possibly a payback in-kind for our phony disturbance with them over Scientology and who knows whatelse during the 1990s.

Either way, the story doesn't do a whole lot for me. Bogus Germany and an obviously bogus source, that is, if we are to believe that the Germans ever got anything from this guy and ever believed it themselves IF they did.

To continue with the subject in light of what is now known would be to continue to participate in the possible ruse of a dishonest transaction with German intelligence. A country with a lot of history with just such regimes as Saddam's which also includes a history of WMD materials and technology sharing let alone the oil-for-food deal.

I am not sure why George Bush kept George Tenet on execpt possibly because he wanted to give George Tenet a chance around a president that cared rather than the kind of treatment many in US security received under the Clinton administration. The nature of that story has been told by a number of people.
--------------
This goes over George Tenet's view of the "curveball" incident:

http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2005/04/
curveball-last-post-iran-2-laid-out.html

This also has some interesting things to say. It looks suspicious:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17901
---------------------------
"Mother of All Connections" from the Weekly Standard, July 18, 2005 issue...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp?pg=2

The United States was losing patience--both with Iraq and with U.N. fecklessness. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, had found a home in Afghanistan and was turning out terrorists from its camps by the thousands.

On February 3, 1998, Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, came to Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi leaders. The visit came as Islamic radicals gathered once again in the Iraqi capital for another installation of Hussein's Popular Islamic Conferences. Iraqi vice president Taha Yasin Ramadan welcomed them on February 9 with the language of jihad:

The Islamic nation's ulema, advocates and preachers, are called upon to carry out a jihad that God wants them to carry out through honest words in order to expose the U.S. and Zionist regimes to the world peoples, to explain facts, and to say what is right and to call for it. This is their religious duty. The Muslim ulema are called upon before Almighty God to act among the Muslim ranks to confront the infidel U.S. moves and to raise their voices against the U.S.-Zionist evil.

We do not have reporting on when, exactly, Zawahiri left Baghdad. But we do know from an interrogation of a senior Iraqi Intelligence official that he did not leave empty-handed. As first reported in U.S. News & World Report, the Iraqi regime gave Zawahiri $300,000 during or shortly after his trip to Baghdad.

On February 17, 1998, Bill Clinton traveled the short distance from the White House to the Pentagon to prepare the nation for a confrontation with Iraq. The symbolism was obvious, the rhetoric belligerent. Clinton explained why "meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering." He warned about the threats from the "predators of the 21st century," rogue states working with terrorist groups. "There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq." War seemed imminent.

Two days later, on February 19, the Iraqi Intelligence Service finalized plans to bring a "trusted confidant" of bin Laden's to Baghdad in early March.
------
Parts of Bill Clinton's February 17, 1998 speech at the Pentagon...

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/
1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/

Those who have questioned the United States in this moment, I would argue, are living only in the moment. They have neither remembered the past nor imagined the future.

One of these presidential sites is about the size of Washington, D.C. That's about how many acres did you tell me it was? 40,000 acres. We're not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved.

The UNSCOM inspectors believe that 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.

It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them.

Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.

Consider this already these sanctions have denied him $110 billion. Imagine how much stronger his armed forces would be today, how many more weapons of mass destruction operations he would have hidden around the country if he had been able to spend even a small fraction of that amount for a military rebuilding.

In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.
======================

[Steve]

Saddam's ways when it comes to concealing programs and terrorism were due to a requirement put upon him by his fellow countrymen as much as it was something Saddam personally wanted to do. He wasn't able to stop doing these things because those around him would not have allowed it and would have removed him from power and his life if they had to. Their whole reason to exist was to wage war against Israel, the United States, his own people, and anybody else who got in his way.
---------------
Parts of a recent weekly Weekly Standard article:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Articles/000/000/006/388astht.asp

During the 1990s, many in the U.S. intelligence community came to believe that the Middle East could be carved into neatly-drawn ideological boxes. The "secular" Saddam fit into one box, while the Islamists of al Qaeda fit into another. It was assumed that their ideological differences precluded cooperation and Saddam could never trust a group like al Qaeda. We now know, thanks to the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into prewar intelligence, that this assumption was made without the benefit of any intelligence assets within Saddam's inner circle. There are also ample reasons (including the role played by radical Islamist Hassan al-Turabi as an intermediary) to believe that this premise was not a wise one.

Benjamin and his frequent co-author, Steven Simon, argue that the media and the president's opponents got it all wrong. They spend an entire chapter defending this episode in their book, The Age of Sacred Terror. They argue that the "pivotal event" for understanding the threat bin Laden posed, prior to 9/11, was the reaction to the strike on al-Shifa and the failure to give the intelligence surrounding that decision an honest hearing.

They argue the connections between the plant and al Qaeda were solid, as were the connections between the plant and Iraqi chemical weapons experts. They write,

"Officials who spoke with reporters also noted that Iraqi weapons scientists had been linked to al-Shifa, and this Iraqi connection was independently underscored by UN weapons inspectors. There are several different methods for making VX, but the only one known to involve EMPTA is Iraq's. Again, this information was never contradicted, but few found it persuasive."

This would appear to be evidence of a "noteworthy relationship," no? Not in Benjamin's view. In a debate last year on PBS's NewsHour, Benjamin explained,

"It is true that the method for producing VX gas, the chemical weapon, was an Iraqi method but we have no indication whatsoever that the Iraqis knew that bin Laden had invested in this or that there was any contact between them in this project."

Benjamin believes, therefore, that: While the U.S. intelligence community could piece together the details of al Qaeda's role at al-Shifa, the Iraqis--who were the ones actually supplying the VX nerve gas technology--could not. In addition, this all occurred at a time when Sudan's Islamist leader, Hassan al-Turabi, was openly embracing his "close ally," Saddam Hussein, and Iraq's state-run newspapers were calling Osama bin Laden a "hero."

It's as ridiculous as it sounds.

Benjamin and his fellow-travelers in the U.S. intelligence community argue that Saddam would not have provided WMD technology to al Qaeda or any other terrorist group because the risks to his regime would have been too great. But, do they really believe that an arrangement such as the one Benjamin argues existed at al-Shifa could have happened by accident? Given the nature of Saddam's neo-Stalinist regime that's hard to imagine.

It is even more difficult to imagine when one considers that intelligence indicated that this type of arrangement was occurring at more than one facility in Sudan, which was widely known to have a vast al Qaeda presence. In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD last year John Gannon, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council and deputy director of the CIA, explained, "The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al Shifa." He elaborated, "There were three different structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there. Some of the Clinton people seem to forget that they did make the Iraqi connection."

Benjamin's interpretation is also inconsistent with what his boss, Richard Clarke, and others in the intelligence community once believed. Just a few months after the strike on al Shifa the Clinton administration's original indictment of bin Laden, which alleged that al Qaeda agreed not to work against Saddam's regime and to cooperate on weapons development, was unsealed. The 9/11 Commission Report tells us that the passage concerning Iraq and al Qaeda, "led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger [National Security Advisor] that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was 'probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement.'" [emphasis added]

Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit at the time of the strike on al-Shifa, also once recognized the intelligence surrounding Sudan for what it is. In 2002, before his own flip-flop on the issue, Scheuer wrote, "We know for certain that bin Laden was seeking CBRN [Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear] weapons . . . and that Iraq and Sudan have been cooperating with bin Laden on CBRN weapon acquisition and development."

Benjamin eagerly uses his time at the National Security Council as a point of contrast for the Bush administration's claims. But the intelligence surrounding al Shifa and other Sudanese facilities is not the only body of evidence from his tenure he has to explain away. Reports of meetings, funding, and training became more and more common throughout 1998. The reports finally boiled over in December, just a few months after the strike on al-Shifa, when Saddam sent one of his top intelligence operatives to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden & Co. That meeting was in response to the Clinton administration's four day bombing campaign against Iraq. Even the worldwide media--left and right of center--reported these disturbing developments and fretted over their implications.

Among those fretting over Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda was, once again, Benjamin's boss. Multiple reports indicated that Saddam had offered bin Laden safehaven and in February 1999, Clarke warned that if he found out about an impending strike, "old wily Osama will likely boogie to Baghdad." The 9/11 Commission Report also tells us that Bruce Riedel of the NSC staff warned "that Saddam Hussein wanted Bin Laden in Baghdad."

Whatever one makes of these events in 1998 and 1999, we are certainly a long way away from Benjamin's contention in 2002 that Saddam "has shown no interest in working with [al Qaeda] against their common enemy."
---------------
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/1144699/posts

During the 1991 Gulf War, only Sudan backed Iraq, and afterwards, Iraq created it's LARGEST "diplomatic" office overseas in The Sudan. Sudan was also home to bin Laden from 1992-after being kicked out of Saudi Arabia for speaking for that government's violent overthrow. There [Khartoum or Saddam's diplomatic office?], he and the Sudanese held secret bi-annual Islamic conferences that consisted of 3 days worth of radical preaching allowed by 2 days of secret meetings. Terrorists, militants, and intel agents [repeat: "intel agents"] from Islamic nations all around the world attended these-particularly those from Iran and Iraq.