Freethought & Rationalism Archive

leonarde · 05-03-2003, 07:20 PM

The preceding post by The Swamp Thing is the most erroneous characterization I have yet read on the political/Iraq forum concerning this subject.

Those intelligence agencies-------including the French and German ones--------did indeed report, as prior posts here indicate, that Iraq's WMD programs were continuing over a decade after Iraq had agreed to give them up as part of a Gulf War ceasefire.

On this very page of the thread I posted a French characterization of Iraq's WMD programs, the nuclear program in particular. On a previous page I posted on the German characterization of those programs. Of course the decision about what to DO about the continuance of those programs is finally a political one. But the general picture of the programs has, for several years, been consistent across Western intelligence agencies and that general picture in no way depended on documents which have appeared recently and have been proven forged.

Cheers!

Koyaanisqatsi · 05-03-2003, 10:52 PM

And here's what Powel said at the end of that Chicago Tribune story (it cost me $2.95 to get this, by the way, leonarde; I'll expect a check in the mail

...) :

Quote:

(emphasis mine): U.S. officials have downplayed the discovery of the forgeries. Last Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine."

And btw, these documents were first presented to the executive Congressional Intelligence Committees (hence Rockefeller's letter to Meuller) before they were presented to the UN.

The SwampThing · 05-04-2003, 06:47 AM

"The preceding post by The Swamp Thing is the most erroneous characterization I have yet read on the political/Iraq forum concerning this subject. "
By Leonarde.

Well, given the fact that this statement was made by you, i take that as a complement!
Don�t you get tired of being laughed at because of your silly ideas and poor sense of reality? I know i would...
Try drinking some herbal tea, maybe it will help you! Nothing else seems to do the trick, anyway...
I would also sugest you go read some books. You do know what books are, don�t you? It�s those paper thingies, with ant footprints all over it! Try reading those!

You know, i wouldn�t want to be around, when you finally figure out the truth! You don�t live in a tall building, do you? I�d hate for you to jump in despair...
Oh, well!!
In the meantime, do continue to grace us with your pearls of knowledge, we all need a break from the stress outside and a good laughter does the trick!
I bow down to your insightfullness.
:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

Sojourner553 · 05-04-2003, 11:11 AM

Leonarde:

Two points about your position:

I agree one should assume innocence before guilt:

But let's say the Bush admin had no knowledge of these forgeries:

(1) The fact these were such BAD/OBVIOUS forgeries, meant they weren't asking our intelligence to check them out.

(2) Why did Bush keep insisting he had "proof" of WMD when this had been discredited. In fact he has never acknowledged anything was ever discredited. One sees him instead repeating the same line over and over again --

This is what makes Bush's statements a lie.

Second, regarding the WMD. I read Tenet's testimony to Congress last November. In it, he did state that our intelligence thought Iraq had some weapons of mass destruction.

But... he also testified in the question/answer session that our intelligence saw no indications this was to be used for terrorism for the US (ie was nothing but for internal purposes) or that Iraq posed any threat. Indeed, he stated the CIA concluded there was more of a threat of terrorist action if Iraq was invaded/attacked by the US than if we did nothing.

Please respond to these relevent points. Thank you.

leonarde · 05-04-2003, 11:55 AM

Partial post:

Quote:

(2) Why did Bush keep insisting he had "proof" of WMD when this had been discredited. In fact he has never acknowledged anything was ever discredited. One sees him instead repeating the same line over and over again

Wait just a cotton-pickin' minnit! Bush never said 'We know about the WMD programs because of documents from Niger'. Bush let Powell and others put forward in a public forum (ie the UN Security Council) a select cross sampling of strong indications that Iraq was continuing these WMD programs via varied and various intelligence sources: by "varied" I mean the MEANS: satellite/aerial photography, informaton from defectors/informants etc. By "various" I mean that much of this stuff was cross-referenced: a given site of interest was photographed MANY TIMES over an extended period of time, the intelligence effort to figure out what was going on in Iraq had been going on in a BIG WAY since August 2nd 1990. (Powell's presentation at the UN as far as I recall did NOT have the Niger documents included )

Probably the TOTAL number of documents bearing on Iraq's WMD program would total in the thousands, perhaps the many tens of thousands. But that's just the paper trail . Then there was a stream of scientists and other officials who defected post 1991 who gave us better ideas about what to photograph, where to look for documents etc.

But as I have pointed out previously on this thread, the French and German intelligence services, operating largely from their own independent sources came to the same general conclusions about Iraq's post-1991 WMD programs. And the French and German evaluations depended in no way on any forged documents that we know of.

Cheers!

leonarde · 05-04-2003, 12:00 PM

Getting back to the forged "Niger" documents: the US received these from UK and probably believed that the UK had verified their authenticity. Why MI-6 (?) didn't do a thorough job on that I have no idea.

This would also explain why Secy Powell was so nonchalant about the documents proving fraudulent: they were British-supplied documents and represented less than the tip of the iceberg of evidence about Iraq's WMD programs.

Cheers!

Koyaanisqatsi · 05-04-2003, 05:04 PM

Powell wasn't just "nonchalant," he showed callous indifference to the inaccuracy of the information that a war was based upon; a war instigated by the US for no legitimate reason; a war that signalled a fundamental, 180 degree shift in official American foreign policy!

Quote:

If that information is inaccurate, fine.

All countries have weapons of mass destruction. A friggin' knife is a "weapon of mass destruction" if used properly! This term alone is an affront to the intelligence of every human being on this planet, not to mention the fact that North Korea actually have nuclear capabilities, and we did not declare war on them!

The entire charade was orchestrated by the Bush administration and supported by various WESTERN INTELLIGENCE agencies with the deliberate and oft stated purpose of "preparing" public opinion as well as the opinions of any dissenters in Congress and the UN so much so that we now have a serious diplomatic crisis with Germany, France, Russia and a divided British parliament.

Worse, by placing such a divided emphasis on Iraq as opposed to the far more dangerous threat of a nuclear North Korea, the Bush administration has sent a clear and present message to any other "rogue" nation; that to own a nuclear weapon means sanctuary from American aggression.

The only thing our own intelligence community seems to agree on is that this war damaged the "war on terrorism" far more so than it could have helped it, primarily due to the very fact that it affirmed and confirmed the anti-American Imperialist stance in the minds of just about everyone throughout the world.

As evidenced indirectly by the "surprise" resignation of Rand Beers, the top National Security Council official in the "war on terror." This from P. Mitchell Prothero of UPI:

Quote:

(emphasis mine): Rand Beers would not comment for this article, but he and several sources close to him are emphatic that the resignation was not a protest against an invasion of Iraq. But the same sources, and other current and former intelligence officials, described a broad consensus in the anti-terrorism and intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq would divert critical resources from the war on terror. Beers has served as the NSC's senior director for counter-terrorism only since August. The White House said Wednesday that he officially remains on the job and has yet to set a departure date.

"Hardly a surprise," said one former intelligence official. "We have sacrificed a war on terror for a war with Iraq. I don't blame Randy at all. This just reflects the widespread thought that the war on terror is being set aside for the war with Iraq at the expense of our military and intel resources and the relationships with our allies."

...

"This is a very intriguing decision (by Beers)," said author and intelligence expert James Bamford. "There is a predominant belief in the intelligence community that an invasion of Iraq will cause more terrorism than it will prevent. There is also a tremendous amount of embarrassment by intelligence professionals that there have been so many lies out of the administration -- by the president, (Vice President Dick) Cheney and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell -- over Iraq."

Bamford cited a recent address by President Bush that cited documents, which allegedly proved Iraq was continuing to pursue a nuclear program, that were later shown to be forgeries."It is absurd that the president of the United States mentioned in a speech before the world information from phony documents and no one got fired," Bamford said. "That alone has offended intelligence professionals throughout the services."

...the CIA warned Congress last year that an invasion might lead to a rise in terrorism. This, they say, is evidence there's more than just ambivalence about the war among the spy community. "If it was your job to prevent terror attacks, would you be happy about an action that many see as unnecessary, that is almost guaranteed to cause more terror in the short-term?" said one official. "I know I'm not (happy)."

Not to mention (as so many others have) that we share complicency with Iraq's "WMD" programs (US Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup, by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, December 30, 2002):

Quote:

(emphasis mine): High on the Bush administration's list of justifications for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally.

Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.

The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait -- which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors -- is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I highly recommend everyone read the entire article, especially you, leonarde, as you'll no doubt find support of your own position.

Here's more on our now comparatively hypocritical stance toward Iraq's bio-chemical WMD's:

Quote:

(emphasis mine): According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen, to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to discuss the affidavit.

At the same time the Reagan administration was facilitating the supply of weapons and military components to Baghdad, it was attempting to cut off supplies to Iran under "Operation Staunch." Those efforts were largely successful, despite the glaring anomaly of the 1986 Iran-contra scandal when the White House publicly admitted trading arms for hostages, in violation of the policy that the United States was trying to impose on the rest of the world.

Although U.S. arms manufacturers were not as deeply involved as German or British companies in selling weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of "dual use" items such as chemical precursors and steel tubes that can have military and civilian applications. According to several former officials, the State and Commerce departments promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S. exports and acquire political leverage over Hussein.

When United Nations weapons inspectors were allowed into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, they compiled long lists of chemicals, missile components, and computers from American suppliers, including such household names as Union Carbide and Honeywell, which were being used for military purposes.

A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq during the mid-'80s under license from the Commerce Department, including various strains of anthrax, subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program. The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare.

The fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons was hardly a secret. In February 1984, an Iraqi military spokesman effectively acknowledged their use by issuing a chilling warning to Iran. "The invaders should know that for every harmful insect, there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it . . . and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide."

Why was all this going on? Because we wanted Iran to lose the Iran-Iraq war, so kindly cease using Iraq's WMD programs as any kind of legitimate proposition.

It all stopped, granted, when Hussein invaded Kuwait. Why? Because he went against the wishes of the US.

That Hussein had bio-toxins and was using them was therefore no great concern to American interests until he went rogue (for which he was roundly defeated).

The question then became, of course, whether or not Iraq would comply with the UN resolution of disarmament and not necessarily that they had bio-toxins; this was known because we allowed them to have them and even facilitated their acquisition (or, at the very least, turned a concerned, but blind eye to it, again, so long as Iraq was complying with US interests).

What then became of paramount importance was whether or not Iraq had nuclear capabilities, which, as your own sources demonstrated, they did not. Without enriched uranium, you do not have nuclear capabilities, regardless of how many long-range missiles you might have, or even all of the shell casings and implosion devices required.

In other words, the focus of WESTERN INTELLIGENCE became that of Iraq's nuclear capabilities and the only evidence that they did, apparently, came from forged documents that the outside experts easily identified, once they were allowed to review them.

But the declaration that they were forged was met with obvious and even stated indifference by the same people that had made the case as a deciding factor (re: Powell, et al).

This was the lynchpin for the dissenters in Congress for justifying a war and not whether or not Hussein had bio-agents; we knew he had those and didn't care until Hussein went rogue, thus any referencing bio-WMD's by any of us is entirely irrelevant.

The only relelvant issues to Congress were their nuclear capabilities and/or if they had any substantive ties with al Qaeda, which means that these two concerns should have had the full attention of our intelligence experts to conclusively demonstrate.

They did not, yet we went to war anyway, even after it was discovered (easily) that the "smoking gun" documents regarding whether or not Hussein had fissionable material were demonstrated to be forgeries.

So tie all of this up into a nice, tidy bow and you have over a decade of spreading misinformation deliberately, by at least the British, American, and German intelligence community for the purposes of swaying public opinion with a smokescreen that slipped in "nuclear capabilities" along with already known bio-agents in order to fabricate an air of legitimacy in the public's mind regarding our unjust war.

It didn't and won't stop anti-American terrorism (indeed, in the minds of the intelligence community, it will only increase it) and the key element to Congress in voting for the war, proves to have been a forgery after the troops were already sent.

Regardless to all of this, however, is the irrefutable fact that one cannot murder somebody today just in case they might do something against you tomorrow; a state of preparedness that our own intelligence community grants Hussein did not possess. For if that is now our foreign policy (which it is) we will be bombing countries left and right and should have started with North Korea.

Misinformation, lies, hypocrisy, gross incompetence and double standards are not legitimate justifications for fundamentally shifting our foreign policy, let alone instigating a war in which unknown thousands were killed.

No matter how you slice it and no matter how thin the slices, the conclusion is that no verified, substantive, conclusive evidence was ever presented to Congress to justify this war. Worse, the discovery of the forgery should have immediately ceased our war efforts until such time as further verified, substantive, conclusive evidence could be found.

But, hey, in the now immortal words of Powell, our foreign policy's new motto might as well be painted on all of our war planes and stiched into our flag, "If that information is inaccurate, fine." E Pluribus Unum, indeed.

leonarde · 05-04-2003, 05:39 PM

Partial post:

Quote:

All countries have weapons of mass destruction.

Only if one defines it so sloppily that just about any weapon qualifies.

Quote:

A friggin' knife is a "weapon of mass destruction" if used properly!

Bingo! I knew you could do it!

Quote:

This term alone is an affront to the intelligence of every human being on this planet,[...]

I happen to know that this term was used at least a quarter of a century ago among nations of the Warsaw Pact. Perhaps it goes back to the 1950s. It meant: nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons.

Cheers!

Koyaanisqatsi · 05-04-2003, 05:41 PM

Fantastic. Now would you care to actually address the substantive arguments of my post?

leonarde · 05-04-2003, 07:25 PM

The problem now, as ever, with Koy's posts is that they are so long, so filled with dozens and dozens of bold faced words and phrases that no one can say for sure what the substantive part of each of his posts is. But here's what looks important to me:

Quote:

No matter how you slice it and no matter how thin the slices, the conclusion is that no verified, substantive, conclusive evidence was ever presented to Congress to justify this war. Worse, the discovery of the forgery should have immediately ceased our war efforts until such time as further verified, substantive, conclusive evidence could be found.

I don't agree: there is in the Senate (and probably the House) something called the Senate (Sub?) Committee on Intelligence. Then there's a committee on Foreign Relations. Perhaps there's another committee whose expertise could be/was brought to bear on the Iraq policy. Some of their hearings are closed ones (ie classified stuff gets discussed). The overall Senate (House?) usually goes along with the finding(s) of the committee in question: if the Committee on Intelligence says that there's a LOT of intelligence that says that Iraq has continued its WMD programs, then most Senators will buy it. Indeed they should buy it: the German, French, and British intelligence agencies said roughly the same thing. The non-government organizations (NGOs)/think tanks dedicated to non-proliferation had the same overall evaluation of Iraq's WMD programs. Those evaluations were independent (except for the case of the British one) of any documents found to be forged.

Cheers!

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05-03-2003, 07:20 PM	#91
leonarde Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: North America Posts: 1,603	The preceding post by The Swamp Thing is the most erroneous characterization I have yet read on the political/Iraq forum concerning this subject. Those intelligence agencies-------including the French and German ones--------did indeed report, as prior posts here indicate, that Iraq's WMD programs were continuing over a decade after Iraq had agreed to give them up as part of a Gulf War ceasefire. On this very page of the thread I posted a French characterization of Iraq's WMD programs, the nuclear program in particular. On a previous page I posted on the German characterization of those programs. Of course the decision about what to DO about the continuance of those programs is finally a political one. But the general picture of the programs has, for several years, been consistent across Western intelligence agencies and that general picture in no way depended on documents which have appeared recently and have been proven forged. Cheers!

05-04-2003, 06:47 AM	#93
The SwampThing Banned Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Portugal Posts: 249	"The preceding post by The Swamp Thing is the most erroneous characterization I have yet read on the political/Iraq forum concerning this subject. " By Leonarde. Well, given the fact that this statement was made by you, i take that as a complement! Don�t you get tired of being laughed at because of your silly ideas and poor sense of reality? I know i would... Try drinking some herbal tea, maybe it will help you! Nothing else seems to do the trick, anyway... I would also sugest you go read some books. You do know what books are, don�t you? It�s those paper thingies, with ant footprints all over it! Try reading those! You know, i wouldn�t want to be around, when you finally figure out the truth! You don�t live in a tall building, do you? I�d hate for you to jump in despair... Oh, well!! In the meantime, do continue to grace us with your pearls of knowledge, we all need a break from the stress outside and a good laughter does the trick! I bow down to your insightfullness. :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

05-04-2003, 11:11 AM	#94
Sojourner553 Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Southern US Posts: 817	Leonarde: Two points about your position: I agree one should assume innocence before guilt: But let's say the Bush admin had no knowledge of these forgeries: (1) The fact these were such BAD/OBVIOUS forgeries, meant they weren't asking our intelligence to check them out. (2) Why did Bush keep insisting he had "proof" of WMD when this had been discredited. In fact he has never acknowledged anything was ever discredited. One sees him instead repeating the same line over and over again -- This is what makes Bush's statements a lie. Second, regarding the WMD. I read Tenet's testimony to Congress last November. In it, he did state that our intelligence thought Iraq had some weapons of mass destruction. But... he also testified in the question/answer session that our intelligence saw no indications this was to be used for terrorism for the US (ie was nothing but for internal purposes) or that Iraq posed any threat. Indeed, he stated the CIA concluded there was more of a threat of terrorist action if Iraq was invaded/attacked by the US than if we did nothing. Please respond to these relevent points. Thank you.

05-04-2003, 12:00 PM	#96
leonarde Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: North America Posts: 1,603	Getting back to the forged "Niger" documents: the US received these from UK and probably believed that the UK had verified their authenticity. Why MI-6 (?) didn't do a thorough job on that I have no idea. This would also explain why Secy Powell was so nonchalant about the documents proving fraudulent: they were British-supplied documents and represented less than the tip of the iceberg of evidence about Iraq's WMD programs. Cheers!

05-04-2003, 05:41 PM	#99
Koyaanisqatsi Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Yes, I have dyslexia. Sue me. Posts: 6,508	Fantastic. Now would you care to actually address the substantive arguments of my post?

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