Bill

In a long copyrighted story, the Washington Post details the stories of numerous Iraqi scientists, all of whom are claiming:

• There were no weapons of mass destruction since the UN inspectors left in 1998
• The nuclear program has been dormant since the end of Gulf War I in 1991
• The Americans won't find anything to contradict these claims because there isn't anything there.

The Americans are, on the other hand, using some extremely heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to secure some kind of "confessions" from these scientists, including

• Keeping scientists in solitary confinement, or even incommunicado, for months on end
• Arresting scientists who never had any connection to weapons of mass descrution in any way
• Failing to declare the status of these people as either prisoners of war or something else (thereby not activating the duty of US authorities to treat these people in particular ways)
• And continuing to assert, in public, that breakthroughs in discovering weapons of mass destruction and/or programs to produce them would be forthcoming, in spite of the continued and repeated denials of every known Iraqi scientist that any such thing was even possible.

In my personal opinion, this state of affairs is an outrage! Bush is acting like he is the dictator of the world and is treating these scientists as if they are al-Queda terrorists!

Something needs to be done about Bush; and hopefully, on November 2, 2004 we will all do our duty and vote this jerk out of office!

== Bill

winstonjen

the weapons are being planted

S2Focus

This definitely stinks to high-heaven. Check out this July 18 column in the Washington Post. It provides more details about what happened to Saddam's science adviser Amir Saadi after he voluntarily surrendered to "coalition" forces.

Here's an excerpt from that column:

So where has Saadi been for the past three months? His family believes he has been imprisoned at the Baghdad airport along with other Iraqi captives. His wife said that she has been communicating through the Red Cross and that in his last communication, on June 15, he told her he was "being treated correctly," was "allowed to shower once a week" and was passing the time reading and writing.

Saadi's friends say there has been quiet discussion about his case with the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer. Believing that Saadi is "clean," some officials of the authority have recommended three times to higher officials at the Pentagon that he be released, according to Saadi's friends. Each of these requests has been rejected, they say.

But why muzzle Saadi? At a time when there are political firestorms in America and Britain over Iraq's WMD program, why not let one of Iraq's leading scientists answer questions? For example: When (if ever) were banned weapons destroyed? If they were destroyed, why didn't Iraq make a full disclosure, as demanded by the United Nations? Was Hussein afraid that if he admitted he had destroyed his WMD stockpile, he would lose a deterrent against attack by Kurdish and Shiite enemies of his regime? These are precisely the questions Saadi could help clarify.

Saadi's silence, I suspect, is evidence that the Pentagon and the White House have concluded that any public release of his testimony would undercut their position...

Godless Dave

And they wonder why Iraqi scientists didn't want to meet with them alone before the invasion.

Arken

Wow. I had honestly never thought of that as a reason why Hussein would not confirm nor deny the WMDs existence. That makes a huge amount of sense.

Of course, I'm not surprised that the American media didn't bring this up before.

Sharif

Some corroborating evidence from Feb Link

I'm sure this was brought up around here, but if not, it's pretty interesting.

Bill

Maybe that had been brought up before, but that is a fascinating article, and it presents information that I had not heard reported in the mainstream media before.

It is looking more and more like the Bush administration knowingly lied to the American people in the run-up to war. In other words, they knew the claims they were making were wrong. They obviously cherry-picked Gen. Kamel's information and presented the "bad stuff" about how big Saddam's program was before Gulf War I. But they kept hidden the claims that Gen. Kamel made about all of the WMDs being destroyed back in 1991.

== Bill

paul30

All this is especially interesting in view of Tony Blair's continuing insistence that WMD will be found, if we just wait long enough.

It seems a lot like waiting for Jesus to return.

auto-da-fe

My feelings are that the link provided by Sharif really outlines one of the biggest problems in this wartime era. The media. The media are responsible, IMO, for the opinions of at least 65% of the average Joes in the U.S. Only those who actively seek fair and balanced news, really get it. Watching Faux "News" will not give you balanced news just because they claim it.

Everyone knows that Shrub is a fucktard. They know he is evil. They don't know, however, how he continues to get away with it, and garner a fair approval rating while doing it. It is because of the media, and how it is portrayed to the public. The protection of the rich and powerful, by both the media, and fellow rich and powerful peers, is on par with something written by Shakespeare. In this country, you are a patriot if you are complacent and uphold the status quo. Any dissent will get you labled unpatriotic, or even a traitor. McCarthys' got nothing on Bush and Ashcroft.

The terrifying thought of an Ayn Rand-type world is becoming clearer and clearer in this administration.

If Genghas Kahn rose from the dead and entered himself in the '04 elections, I would be speaking ancient Chinease before I voted for Bush.

/rant off

Tigermilk

I saw this great quote the other day: