Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Only 30 percent said the 9/11 theory was "not likely," according to the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
The findings followed a 2006 poll by the same researchers, who found that 36 percent of Americans believe federal government officials "either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action" because they wanted "to go to war in the Middle East."
In that poll, 16 percent said the Twin Towers might have collapsed because of secretly planted explosives - not hijacked passenger jets flown into them.
And what hit the Pentagon? Twelve percent figured it was a US cruise missile.
Oh, no. What is to become of our democracy if people are so foolish? Grasping for hope, I theorize that people don't actually go around thinking these things but being polled somehow lures them into agreeing with statements. I'm not saying the poll wasn't done according to professional standards. I'm just speculating that maybe when people hear a calm, professional-sounding voice state a proposition, perhaps something that they haven't really thought about, they fall into agreement. (And, yes, I know, it's pathetic that that's all I can come up with when I'm grasping for hope.)
Posts
196 comments:
"What is to become of our democracy if people are so foolish?"
Funny. Most of the world had this same thought on 11/3/04.
As for the poll, didn't we ignore plenty of warnings? The 8/6/01 PDB? "You've covered your ass"? Shifting focus to China, National Missile Defense, etc., against the advice of Clinton's team? Or even on the flip side, don't many folks on this site want to say the Clinton admin allowed the threat to gather?
Lots of people, in or out of power, are stupid, yes. But parts of the poll are slippery, regardless of the professional-sounding voice reading the statements.
There's a big difference between a conspiracy to ignore and just being stupid. I'd almost prefer the conspiracy. Is a smart but bad leader better than a recklessly incompetent but well-meaning leader?
Maybe most Americans are idiots, or maybe this was a poorly administered poll.
Newspapers writing about sensational poll results are the MSM equivalent of bloggers posting photos of naked women to attract traffic.
"The survey also found that people who regularly use the Internet but who do not regularly use so-called "mainstream" media are significantly more likely to believe in 9/11 conspiracies."
It was ever thus:
Describing the effect of the Depression on Americans during the 1930s, Paul Johnson wrote in his A History of the American People,
"There was an atmosphere of hysteria in parts of the United States during the middle years of the decade, not least in Washington, marked by outbreaks of that intellectual disease to which Americans are prone: conspiracy theory."
Then, it led to isolationism, and permitted a change from previous American policy which had always made moral distinctions between participants in foreign wars. Now, no distinction between aggressor or victim was made, casting both as 'belligerents".
Johnson: [US isolationism and the Neutrality Act] "had the inevitable effect of favoring the aggressive dictatorships of Europe and Asia at the expense of the pacific democracies and of victims of aggression." (pp. 773-4)
Sounds awfully familiar.
Doomed to repeat history, we are.
Relax folks.
1) This is precisely the reason our nation was designed as a republic, and also a reason for why we should return to our republican roots. We can begin by repealing the 17th Amendment.
2) One of our saving graces is the simple fact that most people simple enough to believe these things simply do not vote.
Jonathan: Maybe most Americans are idiots, or maybe this was a poorly administered poll.
I'm inclined to agree about the "poorly administered" part. "Blind eye" could refer to already-mainstream reports of intelligence not getting due attention. Plus, in this case I'd say that there's a big gap here between "very likely" and "somewhat likely." I wouldn't say this post is necessarily capturing America as 62 percent 911-truthers.
"idiocy is, in fact, simply an alternate method of viewing things with as much relevance as any other viewpoint"
Post-modernist academic thought in a nutshell.
The World Trade Center was brought down by rats marching in unison.
(And, yes, I know, it's pathetic that that's all I can come up with when I'm grasping for hope.)
Yes, it is. But its need is proven by Trevor's comment which, I think, gets to where the presumably "informed" believe stupid sh*t, much of it motivated by partisanship. There is, for whatever reason, a profoundly adolescent quality in the American electorate - a self-assumed degree of maturity not fully developed, a simmering resentment toward authority, and a presumption they know better. Which is why, as Gahrie points out, the founding fathers were so astute to establish us as a Republic rather than a Democracy (and it is a distinction that matters).
The reality is governing is hard, few do it well; governing a great power with a democratic republican form of government with separate executive, legislative and judicial branches with constituent states in a federal system is especially hard. Trevor's presumption of stupidity is an opinion he's entitled to have, as are the equally foolish opinions of the poll's respondents, but neither opinions nor polls govern, nor should they. We should be thankful, as Pogo points out, we've been able to withstand such foolishness over time; that, of course, doesn't mean we'll be able to do so forever. I blame Bush.
The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN et al. have in effect been saying for more than five years that there has been some malfeasance on the part of the U.S. Government, not the least of which was the President lying about the presence of biological weapons and/or nuclear weapon precursors in Iraq as a pretext to start a war. We don't even need to go as far as Rosie inveighing that "steel doesn't melt."
Why then is it in any way surprising that a certain number of poll respondents believe such things?
How many people still insist that Saddam really did have WMDs? And remember Cheney is still peddling the lie that there was some connection between AQ and Saddam. And how many people in this country believe in nonsense like homeopathy, creationism, astrology, and intelligent design.
And you're one to talk Ann. You spread lies about the SCHIP program and who benefits from it. Between bloggers like you, pathological liars like Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly and the entire Fox News Network, is it any wonder people are confused.
Well there you go, Richard apparently believes there were active biological and nuclear weapons programs in Iraq and that Cheney and Bush's statements on the issue (there is "no doubt" Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program) were complete and utter bullshit.
I think more telling of the issue is not the level of intelligence of these people, but the fact that they are willing to consider the government is directly involved in terrorism against the people.
I agree, these "options" are silly, they are leading, and inevitably lead people to a decision that they may not arrive at on their own. On the other hand, if government hadn't succumb to the temptation of using fear-driven tactics to achieve policy goals at home, it wouldn't be easy to paint our country as the evil empire. The fact is simple, Americans just despise government, they'll do anything to pass the time.
It's also a very dangerous way to manage people and it's no wonder that our government now feels compelled to spy, give immunity to telecommunications who did the spying, and create new laws to govern 'domestic' terrorism. It's a legitimate fear that will need to be dealt with in some capacity.
Polls like this are silly and meaningless, and not at all something to grow depressed over.
Cartman: They aren't going to find out who did it. But they'll make up a scapegoat, send him to detention, and make us all believe it. It'll be 9/11 all over again.
Kyle: Will you shut up about 9/11!
Cartman: Kyle, why are you so afraid of the truth?!
Kyle: Because anybody who thinks 9/11 was a conspiracy is a retard!
Cartman: Oh really? Well did you know that over one-fourth of people in America think that 9/11 was a conspiracy? Are you saying that one-fourth of Americans are retards?
Kyle: Yes. I'm saying one-fourth of Americans are retards.
Stan: Yeah, at least one-fourth.
Kyle: Let's take a test sample: There's four of us, you're a retard, that's one-fourth.
Cartman: ...There are soo many people who know the truth, Kyle. Uh Butters! [sees Butters walking towards the group]
Butters: Hey, fellas!
Cartman: Butters, do you think 9/11 was just a plot by some angry terrorists, or do you think there was some kind of coverup?
Butters: Well, I heard that 9/11 was caused by President Bush.
Cartman: Aha! Do you see?
Kyle: Where did you hear that??
Butters: [points] From Eric.
Cartman: I rest my case.
Kyle: [walks up and stands next to Butters] Butters, you don't really believe that, do you?
Butters: Well, l-uh, I mean, uu, you never know. Uh the government does some pretty spooky things. The government and the corporations headed by the Jews that tear down 9/11.
Cartman: That's right, Butters.
Kyle: Goddamnit, you see what happens when you spread this stupid crap, fatass?!
Cartman: What?! People see the truth?!
Butters: Can I go now?
Actually, 62% of Americans are right. And it's the other 38%, including every commenter above, who is an idiot.
On August 6th, 2001, Bush received a document that said "Bin Laden determined to strike in US".
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0409041pdb1.html
What's frightening are the wingnuts who refuse to acknowledge the truth and instead stick to their predefined fantasy worldview, one in which Bush has an IQ above 100 and the Iraq war is making the world safer.
So on August 6th, the President receives a memo that says "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York".
The poll then asked if people thought "it was 'very likely' or 'somewhat likely' that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon."
It's very clear that Bush was warned. I think he turned a blind eye to it (as do most Americans). But please - I'd like to see evidence that he took ANY extra actions beyond the FBI field investiations that were already in progress.
Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Pretty much everyone, right and left, thinks the government should have done more to prevent 9/11. It's not such a stretch to go from that to the above, especially when you're asked on the spot. I mean, is it "somewhat likely" that someone, somewhere in the federal government did ignore some sort of warning about the attacks? Yes, it's pretty much a given this point (I'm sure all of us can come up with one or two examples). It doesn't mean the respondents think that failure was malicious, or that the government was actually involved in the attacks.
Here we go again. The broken records, The tapes on loop, the scratched discs.
Where have I smelled all this before? Oh, yes! That it.
*slam*
More than a few retards on this thread, I see.
Hopeless. Pathetic.
Keep in mind that about 30% of American also thinks George W. Bush is doing a good job so there's no accounting for intelligence.
And also remember that we were specifically warned:
"CBS reporter David Martin revealed that weeks before the attacks, the CIA had warned Bush personally of Osama Bin Laden’s intent to use hijacked planes as missiles.
That followed the damaging exposure by The Associated Press’s John Solomon of a pre-9/11 FBI memo from an officer in Phoenix warning of suspicious Middle Eastern men training at flight schools—a warning that went unheeded."
And don't forget this:
Bush's daily briefing on Aug. 6, 2001, contained "information acquired in May 2001 that indicated a group of [Osama] bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the United States with explosives."
joe said..."More than a few retards on this thread, I see."
If anyone would know...
Freder: How many people still insist that Saddam really did have WMDs?
Its not a matter of belief, its a fact. Saddam continued his WMD programs while under UN inspections and sanctions. He farmed chemical research out to Sudan, nuclear research out to Lybia. And don't forget the 500 arty shells with binary sarin and mustard agents that he lost track of while playing shell games.
You want to play this stupid red herring game that "no wmds found = lie", when the truth is that WMD research programs were the issue. Saddam wasn't looking to create a stockpile of NBC material, he was trying to research development of them, with the intent to be capable of producing stockpiles on the fly as needed. Even the UN inspectors and IAEA agree on this.
And remember Cheney is still peddling the lie that there was some connection between AQ and Saddam.
More lies from you: 1) AQ was connected to Saddam through the WMD plant in Sudan 2) Saddam had sent envoys to hold talks with AQ 3) Saddam even negotiated a non-agression pact with them.
And how many people in this country believe in nonsense like homeopathy, creationism, astrology, and intelligent design, or that Bush "lied" about WMDs
/fixed
dtl: On August 6th, 2001, Bush received a document that said "Bin Laden determined to strike in US".
What you need to provide is actionable intelligence. Can you do that? Can you point to one of 500 daily warnings that is more specific?
What's frightening are the wingnuts who refuse to acknowledge the truth and instead stick to their predefined fantasy worldview, one in which Bush has an IQ above 100 and the Iraq war is making the world safer.
Yes, Bush is a horrible public speaker. You think that means he's stupid, which says more about your intelligence than his.
Lucy: And also remember that we were specifically warned: "CBS reporter David Martin revealed that weeks
Sure. I bet CBS has a "memo" to back that up. Provide a link Lucy, and not to some second-hand shill at CBS, get it from CIA.
Fen-Fen,
You're STILL running the WMD and AQ insane bullshit up the flagpole???
As for the WMD:
Thursday, October 7, 2004 Posted: 10:50 AM
According to a report by the CIA's Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, Saddam Hussein did not have WMD when the war began.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.
In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.
As for AQ:
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s Phase II report says:
Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qa’ida to provide material or operational support.
Debriefings of key leaders of the former Iraqi regime indicate that Saddam distrusted Islamic radicals in general, and al Qa’ida in particular… Debriefings also indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al Qa’ida.
No postwar information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with bin Ladin.
Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.
Fen...YOU really need to read more and talk less.
Fen,
You have to be one of the most uninformed people I have ever encountered.
Here we are, buried in Iraq, with damn near every country that once supported us bailing out, still spending 2 billion a week, 4,000 dead soldiers, 30,000 wounded (another 20,000 they reveled this week with brain injuries), not a single law or bill passed by the Iraqi Parliament (if that's what you want to call it), 65% of America wanting us out, 30% of America supporting Bush...and you're still blathering on about WMD and AQ connections to Saddam Hussein (who's been dead for quite some time).
You can't be this dense...can you?
On one side we have:
The Iraq Survey Group
and
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s Phase II report...
...and on the other side we have...
Fen-Fen.
Who are we to believe???
Lucy: You have to be one of the most uninformed people I have ever encountered.
Then why are you unable to counter the facts I present? Your post is riddled with mistakes:
1) Saddam Hussein did not have WMD when the war began.
500 chemical arty rounds of sarin and mustard gas, pesticides stored at ammo dumps, WMD research papers buried around the country to be unearthed when sanctions were lifted... and you continue to play the red herring: harp on the absence of WMDs while ignoring the WMD research programs [esp in Sudan and Lybia]
2) Debriefings also indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al Qa’ida.
And yet we now know that Saddam sent envoys to speak with Al Queda, and even negoitated a non-agression pact with them. How does that = "should not deal with"?
Fen said...
BTW, don't try to distract - still waiting for your "proof". And don't bother posting quotes without a verifiable link I can follow. I don't trust anything you quote b/c you have a history and pattern of dishonesty.
/echo
Lucy: And also remember that we were specifically warned: "CBS reporter David Martin revealed that weeks
Sure. I bet CBS has a "memo" to back that up. Provide a link Lucy, and not to some second-hand shill at CBS, get it from CIA.
Echo Lucy. Provide the link.
Document 6: CIA, Iraqi BW Mission Planning, 1992. Secret.
Source: CIA Electronic Reading Room, released under the Freedom of Information Act
This information report states that in the fall of 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered that plans be drawn up for the airborne delivery of an unspecified biological agent. The probable target was Israel. The plan envisioned a conventional air raid employing three MiG-21s, to be followed by another raid involving three MiGs and a SU-22 aircraft that would disperse the biological agent.The first mission was shot down over the Persian Gulf and "no efforts were made to find another method to deliver the BW agent."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/
Document 9: United Nations Security Council, Letter Dated 8 February 1999 from the Secretary-General Addressed to the President of the Security Council, February 9, 1999 w/enc: Report of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency in connection with the panel on disarmament and current and future ongoing monitoring and verification issues (S/1999/100).
Source: http://www.iaea.org
This report summarizes the status of the International Atomic Energy Agency's implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning the dismantling of Iraq's nuclear program as of February 1999 - two months after U.N. inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq. It includes an examination of the remaining questions and concerns and their impact on the IAEA's ability to develop a "technically coherent picture of Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons [program] and on the IAEA's technical ability to fully implement its OMV [on-site monitoring and verification] program."
Specific questions and concerns noted in the report include: lack of certain technical documentation, external assistance to Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program, and Iraq's inability to provide documentation showing the timing and modalities of its alleged abandonment of its nuclear weapons program.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/
Document 11: UK Joint Intelligence Committee, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government, September 2002. Unclassified.
Source: http://www.pm.gov.uk
This extensive analysis of Iraqi WMD programs was produced by the British Government's Joint Intelligence Committee, which is responsible for overseeing the production of national and strategic intelligence. One part of the document focuses on Iraqi chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programs for the years 1971-1998 and in the post-inspection era (1998-2002). Other parts of the document concern the history of UN weapons inspections and "Iraq under Saddam Hussein."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/
Document 13: U.S. State Department, A Decade of Deception and Defiance, September 12, 2002. Unclassified.
Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Three pages of this document focus on U.S. charges concerning Iraqi failure to comply with the restrictions pertaining to weapons of mass destruction placed upon it as a result of the Persian Gulf War. It charges, inter alia, that "Iraq is believed to be developing ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers - as prohibited by UN Security Council Resolution 687" and "Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb." With respect to chemical weapons, it charges that "Iraq has not accounted for hundreds of tons of chemical precursors and tens of thousands of unfilled munitions, including Scud variant missile warheads."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/
Document 14: CIA, Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs, October 2002, Unclassified.
Source: http://www.cia.gov
Issued a month after the British assessment (see Document 8), this CIA study is the unclassified version of a Top Secret National Intelligence Estimate completed shortly before its release. The study contains analysis, maps, tables, and some satellite photographs of apparent Iraqi WMD sites.
Among the study's key judgments is the statement that "Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in execess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/
I have more, but won't flood the thread any further out of respect for others here.
But Freder's claim is valid: And how many people in this country believe in nonsense like homeopathy, creationism, astrology, and intelligent design, or that Bush "lied" about WMDs
Hey Lucy, do you also believe in astrology and intelligent design?
Freder: Well there you go, Richard apparently believes there were active biological and nuclear weapons programs in Iraq
Well, even Hillary Clinton agreed with him:
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002
[yawn]
http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/demsonwmds.php
I cannot believe that dtl and Lucy are still peddling that briefing of Aug 2001 as being definitive that we should have stopped the attack on 9/11. Absolutely amazing.
Given that NYC has upwards of 4000 planes landing and taking off per day from multiple airports, what precisely would you do to stop the attack. Remember that you do not know the date and that you have a populace with the pre-9/11 attitude. Would you scan every single plane that would land or take off from NYC completely? What standards would you impose on this check? What airports would you target as being the source of the planes? Remember that Kerry was warned about lax security at Boston's Logan airport earlier that year and he blew it off as inconsequential. How would you sell tis to the people of the country? Would you make an announcement that Bin Laden was planning to attack buildings in NYC with a plane? How would you contain the problem of the people not believing you?
As to the AQ/Saddam issue, how do you explain the training sites that AQ used in Iraq? How do you account for the payoffs Saddam made to terrorists and the haven he offered for other terrorists? How do you deal with the Oil for Food bribery that was going on at the time? How do you explain all the commentary by the Democratic senators and congressmen about Iraq and its weaponry and the WMD Saddam used on his own populace? They got the same briefings that Bush did on those issues. Brifing books are prepared by all the intelligence agencies and the committee members of the senate and house intelligence committees get briefed by all these agencies in detail.
You are trying to sell the idea that the information we received after 9/11 was all available before but because of the wall built by the Gorelick memo about sharing between the agencies the analysts would not have had all the information available at the same place to come up with the total picture. You had bits and pieces scattered all over the place and nobody was entitled to see all of it to put it together. After the event you can see how it fits, but before the event it could not be filled in.
One of the big problems with the reporting on all these issues is that there are a lot of strings to this problem. You have the AQ bit which resulted in 9/11. You have the Saddam bit where he was bribing the movers and the shakers of the armaments industries big time to get supplies and information that he was not supposed to have. You have the problem of Iran and its nuclear research for a bomb. You have the dependence of the developed and developing world on oil and the fact that a lot of the major sources of oil are in the part of the world where all these other problems are happening. You have the problem that the other developed nations did not have and still do not have the defense capability to deal with these problems and in many cases appear to be assuming a fetal position and hoping it would all just go away. And in this country you have a media that is not reporting all the news to us so that we can make educated and informed decisions. Instead we get stringers who are connected to terrorist organizations, fake but truthy reporting, reporters who have an anti-administration agenda, politicians who are covering up big time for not doing the things they should have done long ago, policies that were put in place long before the latest technological advances came into being that no longer serve to do what they were intended to do and a portion of the population that is not able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. How did we survive this long with all these things going on and people like dtl and Lucy blathering on about total nonsense.
Dick,
I see you like to give one excuse after another for incompetence. Just like you're excusing incompetence now in the war in Iraq. Or incompetence in the fact that Bush refuses to sign a law that will make our ports safer.
Maybe you're happy with an administration that does NOTHING to stop attacks.
I, however, prefer an administration that would have ACTED when they got news that Al Queada was going to attack New York using airplanes.
But nope, you think that the #1 priority is making sure that Bush's vacation is not interrupted by petty details such as protecting our nation from attack.
To each his own.
"I, however, prefer an administration that would have ACTED when they got news that Al Queada was going to attack New York using airplanes."
Ask yourself (and please be honest), would you have been happy if Bush, after laying out the justification for doing so ahead of time, attacked Afghanistan? I seriously doubt it. Even better, what if he did so out of the clear blue sky (if the reasons for doing so needed to be kept vague for security purposes)?
Crimso,
Afghanistan??
What is your point?
Well, since what we knew of AQ was that they were in Afghanistan, where else would we have "ACTED?" Or are you suggesting we knew exactly what the plot was and who was involved? Perhaps we could have just rounded up anyone who was Muslim (or simply looked different in any way), but that would have been a little too close to FDR-style "ACT"ing.
Crimso,
But we spent very little time in Afghanistan...then diverted our resources to Iraq.
Good idea?
dtl: I see you like to give one excuse after another for incompetence.
Where did he do that? I know you Leftist weasels just like to make shit up out of thin air, but please have some sense of shame.
Just like you're excusing incompetence now in the war in Iraq.
You don't get out much do you? The surge is working. On what evidence do you base Petraeus's COIN campaigns is incompetent?
Maybe you're happy with an administration that does NOTHING to stop attacks.
Attacks plural? Has US soil been attacked since 9-11? You guys really are in your own reality.
I, however, prefer an administration that would have ACTED when they got news that Al Queada was going to attack New York using airplanes.
Me too. But again, you need to provide evidence of actionable intelligence to prove Bush knew AQ was going to attack the WTC with airplanes. Something like the memo John Kerry circular-filed when warned that Logan's security could easily be exploited by terrorist hijackers...
To date, for all your caterwalling, you and Lucy have failed to provide anything. Check with CBS, maybe they have another "memo" to back you up.
Lucy: But we spent very little time in Afghanistan
Hmmm. Last time I checked, we were still in Afganistan... So how's that alternate reality treating you Lucy?
Bill Clinton launched cruise missles at Afghanistan and that was overwhelmingly supported by the public.
If Bush launched an attack on Al Queada, I suspect it would have been supported as well.
But he did nothing. Even if he TRIED to do something and it failed, you could at least give him credit for that.
But he ignored the situation entirely. Unforgivable.
And as a New Yorker, I think we should have gotten pre-warning about the potential attack. People would have been more prepared and lives would have been saved. People in the second tower would have immediately abandoned the building if they had been pre-warned, because they would have realized it was terrorism and not a one-off event.
So the anthrax attacks never happened according to fen.
Alternate reality indeed.
The surge is working????
Sorry - But that's the biggest laugh I've heard all year.
Violence is down because Al Sadr has called off attacks. But he can call them back at any moment.
Want to see where violence is plummetting the most? Basra - where the British troops are vacating.
Troops leave and violence falls. It's pretty simple.
Fen thinks Bin Laden has been captured and killed.
Alternate universe indeed.
Fen,
Maybe this will help out:
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the US military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against US troops and undermanned NATO forces. This has prompted US commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new US Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions.
NATO's 30,000 troops in Afghanistan are supposed to have taken responsibility for security operations. But Taliban attacks have risen sharply, and senior US officers here describe the NATO operation as weak, hobbled by a shortage of manpower and equipment, and by restrictions put on the troops by their capitals.
We have 130,000 - 150,000 troops in Iraq
dtl: The surge is working???? Sorry - But that's the biggest laugh I've heard all year.
Hope you enjoyed the laugh, because that comment pretty much disqualifies you from any serious discussion re the war.
So the anthrax attacks never happened according to fen.
Who launched the anthrax attacks dtl? And again, where is your actionable intelligence re 9-11 or the anthrax attacks? Been waiting for you and Lucy to back your bullshit up all night...
Lucy: I never said we weren't still in Afghanistan. I said "..we spent very little time in Afghanistan"
Which implies we're not still there. You need to clarify what you said. Are we still in Afganistan or not? How can we have spent very little time in Afganinstan if we're still there? Look, I understand logic is not your strong point, but please...
We left before taking out Osama
Again with the "we left Afganistan" nonsense. LOL. And Osama is now believed to be in Waziristan [Pakistan not Afganistan]. I know all you get is NYTs and CNN propaganda in your alternate universe, but please try to keep up with this reality.
If anything, this puts the thread back on topic. Yes, there are stupid people like Lucky and dtl, and they vote....
You moonbats still believe Bush MIHOP* or LIHOP*?
[Moonbat acronym for "Bush Made It Happen On Purpose" and "Bush Let It Happen On Purpose"] via Democratic Underground
Can someone even explain why we're still in Iraq?
And sorry - but I'm not buying the Bush argument that we're there to bring democracy to brown-skinned people. . .
Hillary just needs to run an ad every day saying "What happened to Bin Laden and why isn't he dead yet?"
She'll win in a landslide.
Can we officially agree that Fen is an idiot though. Oh yeah - and a bigot too.
More Americans have died in Iraq this year than any year of the war.
Huge success that surge is.
dtl: and a bigot too.
Ha. You're the one who thinks the "brown-skinned poeple" don't deserve a shot at the Liberties you enjoy. While you indulge your hatred of non-gays and closeted gays. So ironic.
Fen,
Between you and the other dolt, Freeman, I have the feeling you're in some kind of contest to see who can say the most inane and thoroughly ignorant things in one day.
Right now, you're winning.
Especially with this nugget of incredible insight:
"Compared to radical Islam, Hitler is over-rated."
*Run that one by some of your Jewish friends or friends who served in World War II (if you have any friends of any persuasion) and see how they react.
Good-bye...dumbshit.
No - I don't think it's America's job to bring democracy to "brown-skinned Islamo-fascist scum" as you so love to call them.
And in case you've forgotten - gay people don't enjoy liberties because of fascist, bastard-Christ worshipping people like you.
"oo-hoo. 32 more dead American soldiers this month. We're winning!" - Fen
funny thing about dtl and Lucy. Neither one has a clue what to do with the intelligence that AQ was going to attack a big city with airplanes. No date was mentioned. The only reference to NYC was that Muslims had been checking out buildings. Interesting that all the other tourists to NYC also check out buildings so what does that prove. What policies would either have implemented to stave off the attack? Neither one has a clue. Dtl thinks that NYC should have been warned. Here's a clue for dtl. If the government had warned NYC that an imminent attack by AQ from his cave on the NYC would have resulted in a whole bunch of editorials by people like Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman and Frank Rich telling us that the government was smoking some funny herbs if they thought this fool from a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan was going to attack NYC with airplanes. The wall between the intelligence agencies would have kept the various agencies from putting together any meaningful scenario of what would happen. If the government had implemented searching bags and people and stopping the transportation of liquids and nail files etc, the LLL dems would have gone ballistic. They have already done that after 9/11; just imagine what they would have had to say pre-9/11.
The end result is the same. Lucy and dtl thing the government should have done something. What that something should have been is apprently immaterial.
That the government should have done something about Iraq based on the intelligence we had then from our own sources and from the sources passed on by our allies is something else they complain about. Shame they didn't do that when Bubba got the Congress to pass the regime change in Iraq legislation back in 1998 because of the policies of Saddam. I guess that was pre-2001 so it was ancient history and should just be disregarded. What we are seeing here with these two is the total meltdown of the LLL mind because it is being challenged to actually come up with some policy of what should have been done. They complain a lot but they have no clue as to what should be done. Therefore, they bray like little donkeys that Bush and company should have done something. He did. He responded to 9/11 and he also did what Bubba didn't do and that was implement the legislation that had already been passed and responded to the intelligence we had then. Beats the hell of our a whole bunch of "woe is mir".
dtl: No - I don't think it's America's job to bring democracy to "brown-skinned Islamo-fascist scum" as you so love to call them.
I've never called them that - you have.
And its funny how you can't comprehend how a reformation of the middle east as the only long-term plan marginalize radical Islam in the region. You want us to explain things to you, yet you're too stupid to understand the threat of triangulation amoung: 1) rogue nations who 2) seek WMDs and 3) support terrorist proxy attacks.
And in case you've forgotten - gay people don't enjoy liberties because of fascist, bastard-Christ worshipping people like you.
I'm not a christian. You're letting your hatred destabilize you again.
dtl: "oo-hoo. 32 more dead American soldiers this month. We're winning!" - Fen
Yah, you think body counts determine who is winning the war. What an amateur.
/edit
And its funny how you can't comprehend how a reformation of the middle east as the only long-term plan to marginalize radical Islam in the region.
Dick: If the government had implemented searching bags and people and stopping the transportation of liquids and nail files etc, the LLL dems would have gone ballistic.
Exactly. Lucy and DTL would instead have been screaming about how BushHitler was exploiting fear to distract from domestic problems or seize power. There's no way to appease these idiots - they're tribal. Bush bad Dem good.
fen, your claims are easily dismantled. Let's start with one example. You said this:
Saddam even negotiated a non-agression pact with them
You didn't give us a source, but I believe this claim of yours traces back to a letter Tenet wrote on 10/7/02. He said this:
Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression
Needless to say, there are a number of problems. One problem is that we now know that Tenet and the other Bushists had a very loose concept of the words "credible information," especially around that time. You should let us know why anyone other than a Kool-Aid drinker like you would treat Tenet as a trustworthy source.
Another problem is that Tenet does not say an agreement was reached (regarding "reciprocal non-aggression"). He only says this was "discussed." Consider the following example of what might qualify as "discussed:"
OBL's rep: OBL wants to know if Saddam is interested in a non-aggression pact, and in providing safe haven. Is he?
Saddam's rep: No.
Bingo. Now Tenet can say that "Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Because they did, right?
By the way, your language ("negotiated") seems to imply that an agreement was reached. That's your meaning, right? Then you should tell us your source, since Tenet did not claim that an agreement was reached.
Another problem is that Tenet later disavowed the letter. He said this (5/2/07):
we were sloppy in that letter
Let's go back to the idea than an agreement was reached (and not just "discussed"). That claim was made by Stephen Hayes on 11/3/03:
U.S. officials now believe that Abu Hajer al Iraqi helped bin Laden negotiate a nonaggression pact with Saddam in 1993
Ha ha, very funny. We now know that "U.S. officials now believe" translates into 'I sat on Scooter Libby's knee and took dictation, just like Judith Miller and assorted other worthless hacks did, around this time; and of course he made me promise not to use his name, just like he did with the other hacks.'
Let us know if you have anything to substantiate the claim you made. I think you have nothing other than the sources I've enumerated, and those sources obviously add up to not much.
fen, you seem to deny the obvious fact that Bush lied about WMD. Trouble is, he did (and that's aside from telling a bunch of obvious lies on other subjects). And it's not just a matter of noticing that we didn't find what he said we would find (not even close). You would be correct to assert that this, in itself, is not enough to prove that he lied. The proof is elsewhere. We know that he lied because we know that he made statements that were unsupported by the underlying intel. In particular, Bush et al expressed a level of certainty that was not congruent with the intel that was supposedly the basis for the statements that were being made. They used language like "no doubt" and "absolute certainty," even though the underlying intel had plenty of doubt, and was very far from absolutely certain.
Aside from a couple of minor exceptions, no one else expressed this level of certainty. Not the intelligence community (in this and other countries), and not the Dems. Those folks were concerned, but they did not adopt the level of certainty that Bush did. Bush pretended to be certain, even though he was not in a position to be certain. Bush claimed we knew for sure, even though we didn't. That's called lying.
Let us know if you have anything to substantiate the claim you made. I think you have nothing other than the sources I've enumerated, and those sources obviously add up to not much.
No, I have much more. I've posted it here often - a few pages of documented instances re Saddam and Al Queda, with documentation and links to follow to confirm. Others have seen me post it here [they'll probably groan b/c its so long] but they'll confirm it. I'll try to locate it in the archives for you tonight.
BTW, a problem with your argument:
One problem is that we now know that Tenet and the other Bushists... let us know why anyone other than a Kool-Aid drinker like you would treat Tenet as a trustworthy source.
1) Tenet was appointed by Clinton, not Bush, he's not a "Bushist".
2) You are claiming the CIA director is not a trustworthy source?
We know that he lied because we know that he made statements that were unsupported by the underlying intel.
Provide the evidence.
Aside from a couple of minor exceptions, no one else expressed this level of certainty. Not the intelligence community (in this and other countries), and not the Dems. Those folks were concerned, but they did not adopt the level of certainty that Bush did.
[cough]
"This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer- range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." -- From a December 6, 2001 letter signed by Bob Graham, Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford, & Tom Lantos among others
"Saddam's goal ... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" -- National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998
"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retained some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capability. Intelligence reports also indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons, but has not yet achieved nuclear capability." -- Robert Byrd, October 2002
"There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we." -- Wesley Clark on September 26, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002
"I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons...I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out." -- Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003
"Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." -- John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002
"Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." -- Bob Graham, December 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -- Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." -- Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002
"Over the years, Iraq has worked to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. During 1991 - 1994, despite Iraq's denials, U.N. inspectors discovered and dismantled a large network of nuclear facilities that Iraq was using to develop nuclear weapons. Various reports indicate that Iraq is still actively pursuing nuclear weapons capability. There is no reason to think otherwise. Beyond nuclear weapons, Iraq has actively pursued biological and chemical weapons.U.N. inspectors have said that Iraq's claims about biological weapons is neither credible nor verifiable. In 1986, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, and later, against its own Kurdish population. While weapons inspections have been successful in the past, there have been no inspections since the end of 1998. There can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction." -- Patty Murray, October 9, 2002
"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." -- Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998
"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources -- something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." -- John Rockefeller, Oct 10, 2002
"Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration�s policy towards Iraq, I don�t think there can be any question about Saddam�s conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts." -- Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002
[....]
Jukebox, its called a mulligan, and you can take one if you'd like.
recap: Democrats on Iraqi WMDs
There is no doubt
I am certain
We are confident
There's no question
It is clear
absolutely convinced
we know, we know, we know
we should assume
compelling evidence
we have known
There is no doubt
There is no reason to think otherwise
There can be no doubt
highly credible intelligence
unmistakable evidence
I don't think there can be any question
Those are simply the facts
via http://www.rightwingnews.com/quotes/demsonwmds.php
Tenet was appointed by Clinton, but if I'm not mistaken, Bush had the option of replacing him when he took office, but opted not to. IIRC, Ron Suskind portrayed Tenet as being somewhat indebted to Bush on account of that, especially when he was retained after 9/11. How much of that is true and how much is Tenet practicing some after-the-fact CYA is debatable.
Personally, I don't think there was much Bush could have done to stop 9/11. I also tend to think the general claims that Saddam was pursuing WMD and had contact with AQ are probable. But, frankly, I'd be extremely surprised if the same isn't true of every other head of state in that region. The question is really what threat it posed to us, and whether occupying the entire country of Iraq was the proper response to that threat.
jukeboxgrad,
Trying to et Fen-Fen to acknowledge literally anything other than what he wants to believe is a lost cause.
/echo, still waiting...
Fen: "you need to provide evidence of actionable intelligence to prove Bush knew AQ was going to attack the WTC with airplanes."
Lucky: "Fen's an idiot"
DTL: "And a brownshirt"
Fen: "Yah, whatever - you need to provide evidence of actionable intelligence to prove Bush knew AQ was going to attack the WTC with airplanes."
Lucky/DTL: "Waaaa! BushHitler @@!## Haliburton !**@@ War for Oil!"
Fens positions on WMD are slightly embarassing to more mainstream conservatives. What he has left over from 1990 or 20-year old plans don't matter. Very recently, he was insisting the stuff was buried before we invaded or carted off by members of the Baathist leadership to Syria or Bekaa Valley. The 2nd biggest proof of their non-existence is not a gram of any WMD was used in the desperate insurgency the Sunnis launched with AQ's help.
The biggest proof?
Saddam himself.
Lefties ignore the "Bush failure" was really the failure of every national intelligence agency and his own military....who went past the public denials the Blix-worshipping Lefties fixate on to what was being said closer to the vest.
Saddam said he always planned to keep WMD stuff after the Gulf War, but his son-in-laws betrayal of his "crown jewels" to Jordan meant he had to destroy them all to pursue the diplomatic track to end sanctions - and he said to his interrogators - as soon as sanctions ended he'd resume work on the A-Bomb so he got it before the Iranians.
The betrayal was bad in that Saddam told the FBI at prison that he couldn't afford the UN to find another cache, because he didn't know everything the sons in laws got unofficially about other WMD programs - so he destroyed it all, all that HE and his generals knew of - though some chem weapons were lost track of in the confusion of the Iranian War.
But he and his inner circle then did a successful, though suicidal hoax. Officially they denied weapons to suck up to UN and other nation diplomats, greased by "Oil for Food" moneys. Unofficially, he pursued a policy to convince every general and every Ba'athist official outside the hoax cabal that he had them, knowing that the "inside story" despite public denials would leak to the Persians, the Zionists, the Americans, Saudis and be swallowed hook, line, and sinker because their informants believed it was 100% truthful. He was added in this by compartmentalizing and his hoax participants or Saddam himself telling a few generals in the Hammurabi Special Guard that the Nechnubaazer Guard had 12,000 war shots of VX nerve gas ready and Scuds loaded with Anthrax, while telling that Guard the Hammurabi and another few generals had them and they were to - as always - remain out of communication from such other unit officers under secret police penalties of death that had been in place since the 70s to prevent coups.
It worked. Every big time Iraqi believed that despite official denials, somebody else had them - and Saddam & Co keep feeding the fiction with things like "emergency stocking" of NBC equipment and buying big chemical reactor systems and insisting that chem plants install them "for uses they will be notified when needed". And, as expected, agents told their foreign handlers in all honesty that WMD still existed - they had seen the NBC gear, they had heard from a secret police general that two majors in another unit were executed for mentioning the nerve gas stores, and so on....
Saddam said it was a gamble. He had counted on the Russians, the French, his bribed UN officials from other nations, and the Leftist-Islamist Peace Movement (which he also helped finance) - to keep the Americans from attacking him. The gamble failed, and out of Arab honor he said Bush's offer of exile in disgrace was not an option, and he was likely a dead man within a year.
Saddam and other members of his inner circle have said that if his bluff had worked, he was at most a year from getting a clean bill of health from the bumbling UN inspectors, then all the greasing he did with money would get the UN sanctions overturned. Then, Saddam said, he planned on an urgent effort to develop atomic weapons before Iran could and starting nerve gas production at a half dozen non-chemical factories the UN had never thought to inspect for ease of conversion to WMD production of VX and sarin....he also told FBI interrogators he liked Reagan and Clinton, hated the Bushes, and thought Carter was a useful idiot.
Sorry Trevor, LOS, DTL and your fellow salami-smoking Lefties. The final history will show Iraq was hardly the worst global intelligence failure (VEKTOR and 5-6 other ones remind anyone with half a brain that any enemy will succesfully keep many critical secrets and even the best intelligence will be able to penetrate a fraction of the enemy's deceptions.
Sorry Trevor, LOS, DTL and your fellow salami-smoking Lefties. You can't blame Bush. No history will start with the assumption that Presidents and PMs are supposed to be all-knowing, expert on every subject. They will act on imperfect info. And Bush's call that Saddam was a bad guy that had to go was correct. As even Saddam agreed he was just waiting to start it all over again.
The beef with Bush is more likely to be a judgement that Iraq wasn't worth the cost to America diplomatically or financially, and that he badly bungled the postwar.
fen: "No, I have much more. I've posted it here often"
You seem to be claiming that you have proof (aside from Tenet's letter) to support your claim that "Saddam even negotiated a non-agression pact with them."
When I search this blog for the term "non-aggression" (I also tried it without the hyphen), all I find that's relevant is two instances of you flogging Tenet's letter (here and here).
"I'll try to locate it in the archives for you tonight."
Presumably you have something other than what I already found.
"Tenet was appointed by Clinton, not Bush, he's not a 'Bushist' ."
Yes, Tenet once worked for Clinton. So what. I don't care if he once worked for Mother Teresa. He worked for Bush. That makes him a Bushist. And not just that; he was a first-class Bushist. He did a heckuva job. George "slam-dunk" Tenet was always ready to give Dubya exactly what Dubya wanted. Why else do you think he walked away with a medal?
This is one of the many glaring contradictions of the Bushist narrative. According to the Bushist narrative, Bush was an innocent, passive, naive victim of bad intel handed him by CIA. But we're not supposed to ask how this is consistent with the fact that Bush handed Mr. CIA a medal.
"You are claiming the CIA director is not a trustworthy source?"
Only an ignoramus like you could look at the statements Tenet made in 2002 and claim that Tenet is "a trustworthy source." Even Tenet himself has now disavowed the letter that you're still drooling over.
NOTE: If you wrote the F-word, you just got deleted.
Now, straighten up and write decently. That was just stupid.
Fen posts inane, right wing drivel that is patently false.
He's still trying to sell a massive lie that only 30% of America believes anymore.
And he wonders why I and others refer to him as an idiot or worse.
If we wanted bullshit right wing entertainment (if you call it that), we'd listen to any number of his many heroes of the airwaves: Rush, Bill, Sean, Ann, Michael, Glenn, Brit, Tucker, etc.
Duh.
cedar,
You just ran the same insanity Fen's been spouting all night.
We get it: You love Bush, you don't think he could have done anything about it, you think the invasion was correct, you think Saddam had WMD, that Saddam was in on 9/11, loved Osama like a brother and everything is going to be A-OK.
*Oh, and when you say; "salami-smoking Lefties" should we consider that a gay slur or a sausage slur?
Ann,
What are you feelings regarding salami-smoking Lefties?
Just wondered.
Very recently, he was insisting the stuff was buried before we invaded or carted off by members of the Baathist leadership to Syria or Bekaa Valley.
I wasn't insisting, I was speculating on where his NBC material ended up. Soviet SOP for their sattelites who have WMD is to destroy all evidence if the West comes knocking. Google Primakov and Sarandar.
http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2006/02/saddams_wmd_mor.html
The 2nd biggest proof of their non-existence is not a gram of any WMD was used in the desperate insurgency the Sunnis launched with AQ's help.
I don't find that to be a proof. You assume the Sunni had knowledge of where stocks were repositioned before the war [secrecy of Saddam and chaos of impending invasion] and ignore that at least one IED used againsat us contained inert chemical agents [likely accidently uncovered by insurgents, or stored in ammo dumps and deliberately mis-marked].
I am curious as to your explanation re:
1) pesticides stored with arty rounds found during the liberation
2) Iraqi involvement in chemical weapons research in Sudan
3) Iraqi involvement in nuclear weapons research in Libya.
C4, how do you reconcile these three examples?
Cedar--
Don't you think Saddam's plans would have been thrown off by 9/11? I mean, it seems to me that in that climate, a slightly more graceful president could easily have kept the sanctions on indefinitely, and applied more pressure to Saddam to avoid any sort of WMD program (and perhaps turned his aggression toward AQ, since it would have been their stunt that was ultimately responsible for him being crippled so).
Lucy: cedar,
You just ran the same insanity Fen's been spouting all night.
Uh no. C4 disagrees with my points re WMDs. You're just too hysterical right now to comprehend what he posted. Perhaps its time for you to go on one of your cut-n-paste off topic episodes.
I mean, it seems to me that in that climate, a slightly more graceful president could easily have kept the sanctions on indefinitely, and applied more pressure to Saddam to avoid any sort of WMD program
No. I recall the "climate". Pressure was building from the Left to lift sanctions on Iraq. And the pressure from the international community was a farce - Russia, France, Germany all in violation of sanctions or colluding with Saddam against the US.
Lucy: Fen posts inane, right wing drivel that is patently false. He's still trying to sell a massive lie that only 30% of America believes anymore.
If what I posted was "patently false", why are you incapable of countering it with rational argument?
fen: "[cough]"
Your quotes are dishonest in a number of ways, but especially in two particular ways. You are pretending there is no difference between a desire to have a weapon (or a program to create weapons), and a weapon itself. You are also pretending there is no difference between 1998 and 2002.
Bush didn't sell the war merely by telling us Saddam wanted WMD. Bush didn't sell the war merely by telling us Saddam had programs for WMD. Bush sold the war by telling us Saddam had WMD. Not the same thing, but you're pretending they are. A lot of your quotes are about having programs, not about having weapons. Example: "there is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs." Another example: "there can be no doubt that Iraq has continued to pursue its goal of obtaining weapons of mass destruction." Having a "program" or a "goal" is distinctly different from having a weapon.
Aside from pretending that there's no difference between a program and a weapon, you're also pretending there's no difference between 1998 and 2002. 1998 is not 2002. Things changed. That’s reflected in what Powell and Rice said in 2001.
Subsequent to Operation Desert Fox, we became confident that Saddam was not much of a threat. This is what Powell said (2/24/01): “[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors” (video, text).
On 5/15/01, Powell said that Saddam had not been able to “build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction” for “the last 10 years.” Powell said we had succeeded in keeping Saddam “in a box.”
And this is what Rice said (7/29/01): “But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let’s remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”
And even Cheney said essentially the same thing, in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty: "the focus is over here on al-Qaida and the most recent events in New York. Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point."
It’s pretty clear that Bush is in a lot of trouble when the best you can do to defend him is say what boils down to this: Clinton’s people thought Saddam was a serious threat in 1998, so it was OK for Bush to exaggerate the threat in 2002, even though his own people knew Saddam had become significantly weaker, not stronger, since 1998.
Aside from all that, many of your quotes are dishonestly taken out-of-context. That's explained here.
he 2nd biggest proof of their non-existence is not a gram of any WMD was used in the desperate insurgency the Sunnis launched with AQ's help.
Yeah, also the fact that Saddam himself didn't use any. Once it became clear that we were seriously out to overthrow him, he really had no reason not to.
Fen said...If what I posted was "patently false", why are you incapable of countering it with rational argument?Thursday, October 7, 2004 Posted: 10:50 AM
OKAY...once again:
According to a report by the CIA's Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, Saddam Hussein did not have WMD when the war began.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them, a CIA report concludes.
In fact, the long-awaited report, authored by Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.
As for AQ:
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s Phase II report says:
Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qa’ida to provide material or operational support.
Debriefings of key leaders of the former Iraqi regime indicate that Saddam distrusted Islamic radicals in general, and al Qa’ida in particular… Debriefings also indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al Qa’ida.
No postwar information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with bin Ladin.
Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.
Are you saying you don't believe the Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee??
They're lying?
Why?
No. I recall the "climate". Pressure was building from the Left to lift sanctions on Iraq. And the pressure from the international community was a farce - Russia, France, Germany all in violation of sanctions or colluding with Saddam against the US.
Huh? There was mounting pressure post-9/11 to lift sanctions? My recollection is that the anti-war left was distinctly in favor of continued sanctions as an alternative to war.
As for the international community--again, a different president may have been able to turn that around, or at least countered it.
fen: "Provide the evidence [that Bush et al made statements that were unsupported by the underlying intel]"
Proof that Bush lied lies in the fact that he (et al) expressed absolute certainty, even though the underlying intel, as we now know, was far from absolutely certain. For example, consider this statement by Cheney (9/8/02):
we do know, with absolute certainty, that he is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.
This was a reference to aluminum tubes. Trouble is, top nuclear experts at Oak Ridge had already determined that the tubes were not "well suited" for centrifuge applications:
Energy Department experts ... concluded that using the tubes in centrifuges "is credible but unlikely, and a rocket production is the much more likely end use for these tubes." Similar conclusions were being reached by Britain's intelligence service and experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations body.
That all happened a year before Cheney spoke. "Absolute certainty" was a lie, in other words.
The exact same day that Cheney spoke, Rice told the exact same lie: that the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." When it comes to rolling out a marketing campaign for a war, these folks are well-coordinated.
Rice said the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," even though, as Silberman-Robb reported, analysts had already found "evidence that the tubes were better suited for use in rockets, such as the fact that the tubes had precisely the same dimensions and were made of the same material as tubes used in the conventional rockets that Iraq had declared to international inspectors in 1996."
The cited WaPo article explains other examples of how the underlying intel was inflated and distorted.
JukeBox: Your quotes are dishonest in a number of ways
No they're not. You claimed Democrats didn't argue about Saddam's WMDs [or WMD programs] with the same certainty [your word] that Bush did. Here's the Dem recap again:
"There is no doubt
I am certain
We are confident
There's no question
It is clear
absolutely convinced
we know, we know, we know
we should assume
compelling evidence
we have known
There is no doubt
There is no reason to think otherwise
There can be no doubt
highly credible intelligence
unmistakable evidence
I don't think there can be any question
Those are simply the facts"
but especially in two particular ways. You are pretending there is no difference between a desire to have a weapon (or a program to create weapons), and a weapon itself. You are also pretending there is no difference between 1998 and 2002.
For the sake of this argument, whats the difference? Saddam has WMDs or wants WMDs. Saddam has WMDs or has WMD programs.
Fen,
Are you saying you don't believe the Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee??
They're lying?
Why?
C4: What he has left over from 1990 or 20-year old plans don't matter.
This is another problem I have with your argument. It does matter. Even assuming the 500 arty rounds of mustard and sarin were too degraded to be effective, how did the Inspection Regimes miss them all? How can anyone claim Iraq was cleared of WMD stocks when they missed 500 arty shells?
Fen, Are you saying you don't believe the Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee??
Don't believe the Senate Intelligence Committee? My boss would be amused by that... [hint]
cedarford: "No history will start with the assumption that Presidents and PMs are supposed to be all-knowing, expert on every subject. They will act on imperfect info."
Indeed. Trouble is, Bush didn't tell us he was acting on "imperfect info." He told us he had perfect info (that's what was communicated when Bush et al used language such as "absolute certainty" and "no doubt"), even though he didn't.
"Bush's call that Saddam was a bad guy that had to go was correct"
Nice job trying to rewrite history. Bush didn't tell us 'based on imperfect info, I'm making a judgment call that Saddam has to go.' Bush et al told that they knew certain things with "absolute certainty," even though they didn't. That's called lying.
Luckyoldson said...
Fen...why aren't you answering these straight forward questions?
Are you saying you don't believe the Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee??
Do you think they're lying?
If so...why would they lie?
Huh? There was mounting pressure post-9/11 to lift sanctions? My recollection is that the anti-war left was distinctly in favor of continued sanctions as an alternative to war.
No. The meme, even post 9-11, was that sanctions were only hurting the children in Iraq, along with complaints that our enforcement of the no-fly was too expensive to maintain.
As for the international community--again, a different president may have been able to turn that around, or at least countered it.
I don't see how. What are you suggesting? What would someone like Al Gore have done to prevent that?
Fen...why aren't you answering these straight forward questions?
Are you saying you don't believe the Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee??
Do you think they're lying?
If so...why would they lie?
jukebox: Proof that Bush lied lies in the fact that he (et al) expressed absolute certainty, even though the underlying intel, as we now know, was far from absolutely certain.
Bush expressed "absolute certainty" in the intel even though the intel, "as we now know, was far from absolutely certain".
You seem to be equating a mistake with a lie? Odd defintions you have.
[WaPo, Cheney, Rice, aluminum tubes]
Does WaPo give any reason why Cheney and Rice might legitimately discount the findings of energy department? Can you?
Lucy: Are you saying you don't believe the Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee??
No. I'm saying some things in those reports are wrong or misleading. For example:
No postwar information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with bin Ladin.
Is simply false.
Lucy: Do you think they're lying?
No. See the difference? People can make mistakes and be wrong or omit important data without being liars.
Fen,
The portion of the report I posted related to WMD and AQ...the very basis of your insane argument...and instead of explaining why they would lie...you come back with a statement that you think is incorrect.
WHY would they be wrong...and you be right?
Why not just admit it, Dude...you have no idea what you're talking about and can't find a way out.
fen: "500 chemical arty rounds of sarin and mustard gas"
You're implying that we found a large number of binary sarin shells. We didn't. We found one. From Duelfer:
The most significant recovered munitions was a 152mm binary Sarin artillery projectile which insurgents had attempted to use as an improvised explosive device.
You're also implying that we found a large number of mustard shells. We didn't. 550 mustard rounds were unaccounted for. They were never found. From Duelfer:
One of the key UN unresolved issues involves 550 mustard-fi lled rounds. An ISG investigation into this issue yielded inconsistent information about the fi nal disposition of the 550 shells, with one official claiming they were retained for future use. The ISG has not been able to confirm these claims.
Hopefully you'll be explaining why you suggested that we found things that we didn't find.
Duelfer did find some old chemical shells (about 50), which were apparently so useless and obsolete that Saddam had abandoned or lost them.
Speaking of what we didn't find, here's a reminder of what we supposedly expected to find: "500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 29,984 prohibited munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several dozen Scud missiles, gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, 18 mobile biological warfare factories, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles to dispense anthrax."
(By the way, all the claims listed above, including all the numbers cited, came out of either Bush's mouth or Powell's mouth, or possibly both. Very detailed further analysis is here and here.)
Compare the list above to what we actually found: 52 chemical shells that were so degraded that they had virtually no usefulness as CW. And one measly shell that actually was a usable CW (if it were fired from artillery, which is the way it was designed to be activated).
Fen says: The Iraq Survey Group and The Senate Intelligence Committee are "mistaken," and he's right.
Oh...
jukeboxgrad,
Great presentation of facts, all backed up by direct links to studies commissioned by our own government.
Now hide and watch what you get back from Fen.
The failure of 9/11, as the 9/11 Commission reported, was not Bush's much as partisan Lefties wish to blame him for that, avian flu, Katrina being created by Global Warming that noble Algore would have stopped.....
The Commission said it was a failure of imagination, and concurred with the Senate intelligence committee that plenty of clues existed and no one was on watch at the FBI to integrate the information. No one at the FBI was working big picture. Both from critical flaws in the FBI being set up and focused on prosecuting crimes that had already occured, and only advancing that sort of employee.No one at the FBI was demoted or fired
Outside the FBI, the CIA failed to report two radical Islamists that could have gone into America. State was doing Visa Express for Saudis and arrogantly blowing off bin Laden's declaration of war. The FAA was aware of Muslim individuals acting highly suspiciously on "dry runs" but didn't act on that because "just practicing to do something bad on a plane isn't prosecutable. The ACLU and others had litigated a fear of other Americans reporting suspicious people out of fear of being fired as racists or doing things that could wreck their careers and lives with a single "profiling" law suit. (The ticket agents at Portland Maine who issued tickets to Logan for an angry, disturbed Mohammed Atta and his fellow suicide pilot said to one another right after they got tickets that if anyone was likely to be an Arab terrorist it was those two - but if they had refused tickets they would be sued and terminated the next day.)
And Bush could not be the Genius Mass Overmind acting as the National Intelligence Integrator of some 10,000 internal and foreign intelligence items tasked daily before the Muslim fanatics struck. Not even if he abandoned all his other duties. You need full teams, like we now have. Nor could Clinton, who missed a lot, and not being a scientist like he wasn't a spook - declared life existed on Mars based on a scientist's assertion.
Have no doubt - America's internal intelligence has always been bad compared to other nations. (1)Excessive FBI focus on criminal prosecution rather than ID threats to banks, young kids, or critical infrastructure before "a crime has happened the Super Duper Agents could finally react to. It was never set up structurally to take on intelligence work, but used it's Congressional clout to seize that service before a new, or existing rival agency could take it from the "crimebusters". (2)More privacy and "rights" for internal threats than anywhere else on Earth. (3)Poor information-sharing between entrenched fiefdoms within the USA and walls to intelligence, intelligence gathering abroad and high walls between the military and civilian intelligence gathering efforts.
That said, a refresher for both those who say Bush should have known, and those saying it was impossible to prevent.
We will never have perfect, omniscient intelligence, and no elected official can be the global intel mastermind by lack of lifetimes training, lack of time, on a task that involves thousands of gatherers and hundreds of integrators, finally, post 9/11..but:
a. The threat of Muslims to use planes as weapons at Amman after a hijacking and plans of GIA to crash a plane into the Eiffel Tower as well as hijack were well known by some officials, not at all by others, inc the FBI.
2. Warnings of large numbers of suspicious Muslims coming her to learn to fly large jet airliners when those jobs are almost always given to ex-AF officers in Muslim countries was a well-known fact in the industry were ignored.
3. Warnings that the Muslims were mainly interested in how to steer and fly the plane but not land it and in GPS navigation were numerous, but ignored because "it wasn't a crime. If the French had heard though, they would instantly have said that is what the GIA people planned on in having a pilot who only needed to know how to fly jets into major buildings.
4. Threats and risks people exist who 30 years ago had done work on how much damage a plane crashing into a major city fully fueled at at speed could do after the San Diegowell-known, but that catastrophic damage never made it onto anyone's terrorist risk assessments.
5. FBI overconcern for enemy rights and liberties and preferring to focus on crime only made them incurious about Moussaoui and Muslims scouting out and videoing major US buildings all over the country. NO crime to videotape a nuke power plant, right?
6. No one at FBI connected the hijacking dry runs James Wood the actor and others reported with imminent hijackings. Lost in the clutter of stuff and more interesting, career-rewarding work like busting a union for improper fund loans..
Cedarford,
Save yourself some time and a few brain cells...you're running low already:
Delusion: Something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated.
fen: "Bush expressed 'absolute certainty' in the intel even though the intel, 'as we now know, was far from absolutely certain'. You seem to be equating a mistake with a lie? Odd defintions you have."
You have pretended that you don't understand the difference between a program and a weapon. Now you're pretending that you don't understand the difference between certainty and correctness.
The problem is not that there was intel that turned out to be incorrect. The problem is that Bush acted as if the intel expressed certainty, even though it didn't.
When I say "as we now know," I am not referring to the fact that we ended up not finding WMD. I am referring to the fact that the intel was highly conflicted and equivocal. We know this now. We did not know this then. Bush knew this then, and pretended otherwise.
"Does WaPo give any reason why Cheney and Rice might legitimately discount the findings of energy department?"
It is one thing to "legitimately discount the findings of energy department." It is something else to act as if those findings don't exist, and to gag the scientists who reported those findings. That's what Bush did.
Not just that. Cheney et al didn't just hide the DOE finding from us, and pretend it didn't exist. He did something worse than that. He pretended DOE agreed with him. Someone (almost undoubtedly Cheney) sent someone (almost undoubtedly Libby) to tell Judith Miller that DOE supported Cheney's centrifuge story. Of course, this was the exact opposite of the truth.
This is what Judith Miller wrote on 9/13/02: "[an administration official said] that the best technical experts and nuclear scientists at laboratories like Oak Ridge supported the C.I.A. assessment."
This is what SSCI said about that passage (p. 94):
A September 13, 2002 New York Times article which discussed the IC debate about the aluminum tubes, noted that an administration official said, “. . .the best technical experts and nuclear scientists at laboratories like Oak Ridge supported the CIA assessments.” The [redacted] contractors told Committee staff, however, that before September 16, 2002, they had not seen any of the intelligence data on the Iraqi tubes. DOE officials, including the Director of the Oak Ridge Field Intelligence Element, told Committee staff that the vast majority of scientists and nuclear experts at the DOE and the National Labs did not agree with the CIA’s analysis.
(Emphasis added.) In other words, someone working for Bush told Miller an outright lie, and Miller obediently published it. And Miller published the falsehood even though an expert personally warned her not to (pdf):
Judy Miller had called me at home and left a message before her September 8th story, but I was out of town and only got home on the day the story appeared. I called her back and alerted her to the internal expert criticism of the administration’s public claims. Partly in response, she decided to do another article, which appeared on September 13. In a surprising development, however, the article was heavily slanted to the CIA’s position, and the views of the other side were trivialized. An administration official was quoted as saying that “the best” technical experts and nuclear scientists at laboratories like Oak Ridge supported the CIA assessment. These inaccuracies made their way into the story despite several discussions that I had with Miller on the day before the story appeared—some well into the night. In the end, nobody was quoted questioning the CIA’s position, as I would have expected.
That darn liberal media.
No. The meme, even post 9-11, was that sanctions were only hurting the children in Iraq, along with complaints that our enforcement of the no-fly was too expensive to maintain.
Well, I'll grant that a lot of people did believe the sanctions were primarily hurting the Iraqi people instead of Saddam, though I also recall that being cited as a reason to go to war, so it's hardly a viewpoint unique to the left. Likewise, my recollection is that it was the pro-war crowd making the big hullaboo about the no-fly zone's cost, the obviation of which was supposed to have offset the expense of the invasion/occupation.
I don't see how. What are you suggesting? What would someone like Al Gore have done to prevent that?
Anything? I mean, frankly, Bush's efforts with regard to Iraq were focused from day one on war. Even he could have done things different. I just think that Gore, for example, would have related better to foreign leaders, and been far more canny in influencing them toward US-friendly positions. I think he would have pursued a far more coherent non-proliferation plan and been more effective at hunting down AQ. I think that Bin Laden's head on a stick would send exactly the right message to the world, that occupying Iraq sends pretty much the opposite message, and that Gore would have felt the same. Etc etc etc. Anyway, what exactly has Bush done about Germany, France, etc, allegedly colluding with Saddam?
(The deleted item above was a double-post.)
Luckyoldson said...Great presentation of facts, all backed up by direct links to studies commissioned by our own government. Now hide and watch what you get back from Fen."
See what I mean?
Nada.
Juke: Hopefully you'll be explaining why you suggested that we found things that we didn't find.
Sure. You're confusing seperate finds. I'm not talking about whatever Duelfer found, I'm talking about what our troops found.
Compare the list above to what we actually found: 52 chemical shells that were so degraded that they had virtually no usefulness as CW.
No. The count is above 700 now, not 52. And yes, most were in degraded in various ways.
Do you understand the definition of "degraded"? One of my hobbies is archery. I have about 40 "degraded" arrows - broken tips, splintered spines, torn fletchings, broken nocks. You want to stand at 30 yards and let me shoot at you with these "degraded" arrows to see if any are still lethal?
According to Thomas Ricks, the total cost of the 10 year no-fly zone was 5 Billion dollars and we lost nary a one American life.
Today we spend 2 Billion a WEEK...and have lost 4,000 to death...48,000 wounded (counting the brain injured that have just surfaced).
As for the children's suffering...considering the lack of water, electricity, safety, medical attention, and lost family and friends...it's one hell of a lot worse right now.
Lucy: See what I mean? Nada
I was typing in another thread, dumbass.
cedarford: "The threat of Muslims to use planes as weapons"
Here's something that isn't mentioned much. Shortly before 9/11, Bush was at an event that was threatened by a 9/11-style attack. This is one more of a series of warnings that Bush had, which he seemed to ignore.
On 7/21/01, Bush was at the G-8 summit in Italy. During this event, Italy closed the local airspace because of warnings that "Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner" into the buildings where world leaders were meeting.
A bit more about this: "In an interview published Sept. 21 in the French newspaper Le Figaro, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said his government provided information to the United States about possible attacks on the Genoa summit by Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden. 'There was a question of an airplane stuffed with explosives. As a result, precautions were taken.'" (link)
16 days later, Bush was presented with a PDB (pdf) entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." This document said "Bin Ladin implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef ... Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of ... Omar Abdel Rahman ... FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."
It's remarkable that Bush is able to see connections that don't exist ("You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam." [link]), but was apparently not able to imagine that there might be some connection between the information he was handed on 8/6 and the personal threat that he was subjected to barely two weeks earlier. As far as I can tell, there's no sign that he lifted a finger to look into this in any way. Instead, August 2001 was a time for his "month's vacation at his ranch" where he had his "working vacation," which meant "meeting with senior staff between time spent jogging and fishing" (link). As far as I can tell, not a moment of this time spent "meeting with senior staff" was devoted to considering possible connections between what Bush learned on 7/21 (when his Italian hosts were concerned that Bin Laden might use an airliner to assassinate him) and 8/6 (when he was informed that the FBI felt that Bin Laden was involved in suspicious activity with regard to preparations for hijackings). As far as I can tell, there was no discussion, for example, of whether these various clues suggested that maybe there should be a moderate tightening of airport security practices.
I don't think it's 20/20 hindsight to call this a failure of leadership. And any rational person learning these facts would start to think about conspiracy theories.
By the way, also note this earlier report: "In August 1998, the Intelligence Community obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. The information was passed to the FBI and the FAA." (link)
Another warning: "in 1996, a terrorist captured in Manila told Philippine police that Al Qaeda planned to hijack 11 U.S. airliners simultaneously and to fly a plane into CIA headquarters near Washington." (link)
It seems that certain people were paying attention, and taking precautions. Ashcroft was flying in private planes, because of a "threat assessment."
Why didn't that "assessment" result in taking steps to protect all Americans, and not just Ashcroft? There are a lot of important questions that haven't been answered.
Fen is now comparing the damage he could do with "degraded arrows, broken tips, splintered spines, torn fletchings, and broken nocks...to what Saddam might have done with degraded shells found in Iraq.
Give it up, Dude.
Lucy: Fen is now comparing the damage he could do with "degraded arrows, broken tips, splintered spines, torn fletchings, and broken nocks...to what Saddam might have done with degraded shells found in Iraq.
No idiot. I'm trying to get Juke to recognize the difference between "degraded" and "non-lethal".
fen: "And yes, most were in degraded in various ways. "
It's nice of you to acknowledge that, but (just like Hoekstra and Santorum) you're still greatly exaggerating the importance of what was found.
Note this:
a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions. "This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."
And this:
All the chemical weapons found to date were manufactured before the 1991 gulf war and have been found in "small numbers" in various places. The munitions are "generally in poor condition" and "are not in condition to be used as designed."
And this (pdf):
It should not be surprising that chemical munitions produced by Iraq beginning in the early 1980's and continuing until 1991 have been found in Iraq during the course of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Such rounds continued to be found during the entire course of the United Nations inspection activities in Iraq between 1991 and 1998 and during the brief resumed activities of the UN prior to the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom. …
The mustard produced by Iraq was of reasonable quality but had been put into containers and munitions that were of such poor quality that, by the mid-1990's - they were generally leaking and very dangerous to handle. It was generally believed therefore that the chemical rounds that would be found would be of such low quality that they would not be effective weapons - self-policing in terms of the harm they could do to US forces and Iraqi civilians.
"broken tips, splintered spines, torn fletchings, broken nocks"
Your posts are looking more and more like satire. Yes, surely we can learn a lot by discussing archery.
Kay said "they would not be effective weapons." Tell us which of those big words are too complicated for you to comprehend.
oldsen, try posting a disagreement without an insult ya moron.
fen: "I'm trying to get Juke to recognize the difference between 'degraded' and 'non-lethal'."
Kay said "they would not be effective weapons." That sounds pretty synonymous with "non-lethal." You should tell us what makes you smarter than Kay.
We're still waiting for you to show us your proof (aside from Tenet's letter, which he later disavowed, and which doesn't even claim an agreement was reached) regarding the "non-aggression pact."
Also waiting for you to explain why Bush et al asked the NYT to print an outright lie regarding aluminum tubes.
Give it up oldsen
Also waiting for you to explain why Bush et al asked the NYT to print an outright lie regarding aluminum tubes.
Now your saying the greylady is under Bush's thumb? That's rich.
David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group searching for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, has hinted at the same conclusion. When he testified about his Interim Report, he reported, “…we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved”
Hmm.
or is Dr. Kay a "Bushite" who lies?
bfunke,
Blow me.
Juke: Kay said "they would not be effective weapons." That sounds pretty synonymous with "non-lethal." You should tell us what makes you smarter than Kay.
Not smarter than Kay, but smarter than you. Not effective != non-lethal. They may not have the kill ratio originally intended, but they can still be lethal.
Does Kay ever address how different sets could be cannibalized to "effective" chemical attacks?
9-11 Commission: ...a failure of imagination...
Besides, you still miss the point: how can anyone claim the inspections regimes cleared Iraq of NBC material when they missed over 700 chemical shells?
mdis29a said...
Cedar--
Don't you think Saddam's plans would have been thrown off by 9/11? I mean, it seems to me that in that climate, a slightly more graceful president could easily have kept the sanctions on indefinitely.
NO, the sanctions were on the verge of being removed with powerfuln diplomatic backing by the Arab nations, China, Russia, France. Even Britain was strongly wavering on sanctions because like UN staff urging 3rd Worlders to end sactions in General Assembly votes, Galloway and several others in Labour had gotten Oil for Food dollars.
And up until the runup when we had deployed our invasion force, the Left was adamently against Sanction
- keeping a running total of innocent brown babies and little children the Hitlerlike Albright, Blair, neocons had "murdered" in Iraq.
IMO, Saddam's assessment that UN Sanctions would go away within a year of Blix's certified "clean bill of WMD health" was correct. It was a done deal with Russia waiting on a backlog of tens of billions in weapons orders, China, Egypt, India, and France promised oil field rights, and the Arab League solidly in favor of the "inhuman, murderous sanctions against brother Arabs" being lifted.
And he was clear with his US interrogators that as soon as Sanctions ended he was going to reconstitute his nuclear and VX nerve gas programs and MRBMs to match Irans and Israels. Lets hope, give the US is not exactly neutral that this admission was video'd and backed up by others in the inner circle.
Mdis29a - Huh? There was mounting pressure post-9/11 to lift sanctions? My recollection is that the anti-war left was distinctly in favor of continued sanctions as an alternative to war.
The Left did a 180 on Sanctions, but only when 250,000 men were on Saddams Borders ready to go in and take him out.
Even then, it was a message of Sanctions, even if they "murder" little brown babies, were preferable to a war where millions of innocent babies, children, women, and old men could die of disease and starvation or B-52 bombers. And their solution was - "keep Saddam constained with sanctions until Head Inspector BLix - Our Hero - certifies Iraq is WMD-free.
Then, the Left, as it implied, their advocacy of reversing on sanctions to block war - would disappear with no reason to have any war since Blix would likely certify non-existence of WMD - and the "Will of the International Community at the UN " would decide if Saddam should have sanctions lifted for his clean record since 1994. And world peace would be saved. And the "baby-killing" sanctions finally removed.
or is Dr. Kay a "Bushite" who lies?
Ha. Good find. Its funny how the Left only quotes selectively. Here's another example:
HAVE WAR CRITICS EVEN READ THE DUELFER REPORT?
by Richard O. Spertzel
Wall Street Journal
October 14, 2004
"...While no facilities were found producing chemical or biological agents on a large scale, many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale production of chemical nerve agents, sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, ricin, aflatoxin, and other unspecified biological agents. These laboratories were also evaluating whether various poisons would change the texture, smell or appearance of foodstuffs. These aspects of the ISG report have been ignored by the pundits and press."
"...The chemical section reports that the M16 Directorate had a plan to produce and weaponize nitrogen mustard in rifle grenades and a plan to bottle sarin and sulfur mustard in perfume sprayers and medicine bottles which they would ship to the United States and Europe."
"...The ISG was also told that ricin was being developed into stable liquid to deliver as an aerosol in various munitions. Such development was not just for assassination. If Iraq was successful in developing an aerosolizable ricin, it made a significant step forward. The development had to be for terrorist delivery. Even on a small scale this must be considered as a WMD."
"... Biological agents, delivered on a small scale (terrorist delivery) can maim or kill a large number of people. The Iraqi Intelligence organizations had a history of conducting tests on humans with chemical and biological substances that went beyond assassination studies. While many of these were in the 1970s and 1980s, multiple documents and testimony indicate that such testing continued through the 1990s and into the next millennium, perhaps as late as 2002.
"...As for the U.N. inspection system preventing such R&D, why did Iraq not declare these clandestine laboratories to Unscom and Unmovic and why did these inspection agencies not discover these laboratories?"
Mr. Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99, just returned from Iraq, where he has been a member of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG).
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/8195
Fen said..."Not smarter than Kay, but smarter than you. Not effective != non-lethal. They may not have the kill ratio originally intended, but they can still be lethal."
Thank the Lord they didn't have "degraded arrows, broken tips, splintered spines, torn fletchings, and broken nocks"...or we would have really been screwed.
Or degraded bowling balls...or big rocks or...
GIVE IT UP, DUDE...YOU'RE TOAST.
Fen,
All kidding aside...don't you think that after 5 years in Iraq...if there was really anything even close to what you tout...we would see piles and piles of the WMD on the front page of every newspaper in the world by now???
Really...think about it.
If it's so...who's keeping it all a secret?
bfunke: "Now your saying the greylady is under Bush's thumb? That's rich."
He asked them to print a lie, and they did. He also asked them to hold the FISA story until after the election, and they did. Those are facts. If you have an interesting way to explain away those facts, we're waiting patiently for you to tell us what it is.
"Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved"
The source you cited is "a research report" that someone wrote "in his English class."
You obviously don't expect to be taken seriously.
"or is Dr. Kay a 'Bushite' who lies?"
I'm open to the possibility that he's a liar, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that he is. If you have any, you should let us in on the secret and tell us where it's hidden.
fen: "And yes, most were in degraded in various ways."
Oh yeah, one more thing.
The original source behind what you're talking about is this (pdf):
Since 2003 coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent
Here's the plain reading of that language: 100% of what we found is degraded. And that's consistent with the various related statements I cited (by Kay and others). 100% means all, not "most." Why did you say "most?" You are suggesting that the number of non-degraded shells that we have found is greater than zero, by some meaningful amount. Really? Where's your proof?
Duelfer discussed one (1) binary sarin shell that may have been considered viable. Do you have any other shells in mind? Or is "most" just another of your typical distortions?
"they can still be lethal"
Kay said "they would not be effective weapons." Nevertheless, you claim "they can still be lethal." Simple question: how do you know? Hopefully your answer will be based on your expert mastery of chemical weapons, and not your expert mastery of archery.
By the way, the bleach and ammonia under your sink can produce deadly chlorine gas. Why are you keeping WMD in your house?
"Does Kay ever address how different sets could be cannibalized to 'effective' chemical attacks?"
It's a darn shame that Bush hired Kay instead of you, since you seem to think that he doesn't know what he's talking about.
"how can anyone claim the inspections regimes cleared Iraq of NBC material when they missed over 700 chemical shells?"
I already cited Kay explaining this, but you're obviously not paying attention.
Losing track of 700 shells in a country the size of Iraq is not hard to do. We managed to lose track of hundreds of tons of cash in Iraq (totalling billions). We've lost track of thousands of guns. Our accounting systems obviously need a lot of work. There's no reason to assume Saddam's were any better.
"sulfur mustard in perfume sprayers"
Small problem: Bush didn't sell the war by telling us that Saddam was going to attack us with deadly "perfume spayers."
JukeBox: We're still waiting for you to show us your proof (aside from Tenet's letter, which he later disavowed, and which doesn't even claim an agreement was reached) regarding the "non-aggression pact."
Finally found it all buried in these threads:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/crow-was-insistent-poking-rove-in-chest.html#comments
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/05/ludicrous-chris-dodd-etc.html#comments
Recap:
"The 1993 document, in Arabic, bears the logo of the Iraqi intelligence agency and is labeled "top secret" on each of its 20 pages. The report is a list of IIS agents who are described as "collaborators." On page 14, the report states that among the collaborators is "the Saudi Osama bin Laden." The document states that bin Laden is a "Saudi businessman and is in charge of the Saudi opposition in Afghanistan. And he is in good relationship with our section in Syria," the document states, under the signature "Jabar."
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006218.php
[...]
"Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990's were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq. The document states that Iraq agreed to rebroadcast anti-Saudi propaganda, and that a request from Mr. bin Laden to begin joint operations against foreign forces in Saudi Arabia went unanswered. There is no further indication of collaboration.
Mr. bin Laden "also requested joint operations against foreign forces" based in Saudi Arabia....The document is of interest to American officials as a detailed, if limited, snapshot of communications between Iraqi intelligence and Mr. bin Laden, but this view ends with Mr. bin Laden's departure from Sudan. At that point, Iraqi intelligence officers began "seeking other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location," the document states. The Iraqi document itself states that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."
The Iraqi document states that Mr. bin Laden's organization in Sudan was called "The Advice and Reform Commission." The Iraqis were cued to make their approach to Mr. bin Laden in 1994 after a Sudanese official visited Uday Hussein, the leader's son, as well as the director of Iraqi intelligence, and indicated that Mr. bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan.
A former director of operations for Iraqi intelligence Directorate 4 met with Mr. bin Laden on Feb. 19, 1995, the document states"
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006998.php
[...]
"Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces and obtained by CNSNews.com, show numerous efforts by Saddam Hussein's regime to work with some of the world's most notorious terror organizations, including al Qaeda, to target Americans. They demonstrate that Saddam's government possessed mustard gas and anthrax, both considered weapons of mass destruction, in the summer of 2000, during the period in which United Nations weapons inspectors were not present in Iraq. And the papers show that Iraq trained dozens of terrorists inside its borders.
One of the Iraqi memos contains an order from Saddam for his intelligence service to support terrorist attacks against Americans in Somalia. The memo was written nine months before U.S. Army Rangers were ambushed in Mogadishu by forces loyal to a warlord with alleged ties to al Qaeda.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/008063.php
[...]
We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, for example, Iraqi intelligence agents met with [Usama] bin Laden, the head of Al Qaeda in Sudan."
The president added that Saddam gave safe haven to Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006935.php
[...]
Going back to the early and mid-1990s when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an al-Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that al-Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early al-Qaida ties were forged by secret high-level intelligence service contacts with al-Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al-Qaida. These statements are repeated, in substance, in the commission staff's Statement No. 15.
We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service. The staff report doesn't contradict these statements; it alludes vaguely to "reports that contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan...."
A detained al-Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist al-Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by al-Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Nothing in the staff report contradicts these statements.
A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to al-Qaida members on document forgery Nothing in the staff report contradicts this statement.
Al-Qaida continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida. Fortunately, this operative is now detained and he has told his story. I will relate it to you now as he, himself, described it. This senior al-Qaida terrorist was responsible for one of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan. His information comes firsthand from his personal involvement at senior levels of al-Qaida. He says bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan, deceased al-Qaida leader Muhammad Atif, did not believe that al-Qaida labs in Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq. The support that this detainee describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abdallah al-Iraqi had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gasses. Abdallah al-Iraqi characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006935.php
[...]
There's much more in both threads, so I won't clutter this one up anymore. And before you complain about Powerline, note that they simply rounded up the quotes - the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc.
JUkebox Indeed. Trouble is, Bush didn't tell us he was acting on "imperfect info." He told us he had perfect info (that's what was communicated when Bush et al used language such as "absolute certainty" and "no doubt"), even though he didn't.
You confuse imperfect information with the certainty various leaders and decision makers arrive at that form certainty in their mind from a plethora of imperfect information. Gore was not convinced of the certainty of CO2 driving global warming by doing his own supercomputer modeling of weather and wading through 12,000 man-years worth of data assembled and analyzed over the last 20 years.
He was convinced by others.
To criticize Gore for saying it when he failed to objectively review all the evidence after getting a PhD in Atmospheric Physics or Climatology is like critizing Bush for being an executive, not some supersleuth trained for a lifetime to evaluate raw intelligence on Muslim bad guys and WMD.
Reports had Bush and Powell not wholly convinced by the WMD threat-touting warhawks, even though the CIA, the Mossad, German Intelligence, MI-6, Jordanian, Saudi, Egyptian, French, Turkish, and Chinese intelligence had formed a certainty, based on the certainty of their informant Iraqis duped by Saddam's hoax - that WMD existed.
Eventually Bush got convinced, became certain, lost his doubt after the Jews in Mossad weighed in with their stellar past reputation and CIA evaluation was backed by all the Euro spooks and the Muslim nations around Iraq.
And even more unfortunately, decided to pitch WMD as the main PR reason for the War, though other factors were legitimate causus belli - a gift, a sword that the anti-American, anti-Western Left has savored ever since to use to try and destroy Bush, America, and Western interests.
Jukebox - It's remarkable that Bush is able to see connections that don't exist ("You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam." [link]), but was apparently not able to imagine that there might be some connection between the information he was handed on 8/6 and the personal threat that he was subjected to barely two weeks earlier. As far as I can tell, there's no sign that he lifted a finger to look into this in any way.
So now you are saying that not only are Presidents supposed to be weather supercomputer modelers, intelligence pros better than the actual ones, WMD experts....
But now Bush and other Presidents must be Security experts - knowing in detail every element of security wherever they go for meetings. What rounds the Secret Service carries, review their fields of fire around the President's entourage, what air security is in place, any poisons that could be used targeting Chirac....And with their vast Presidential knowledge of security...emerge from the latest global climate run they are doing on the WhiteHouse basement supercomputer, toss aside the 500 intelligence threats they are personally evaluating, the satellite recon pictures the President is trying to read looking for chem weapons...then sit down at a meeting and correlate elements of G-8 security involving one of 7-8 air threats to link it to 600 possible ways that bin Laden was going to hit the USA?
A G-8 where the Prez was focused on the meeting, not on if fucking air defences over Italy are adequate.
Sorry, Jukebox, idiotic argument.
And I suspect the Left's insistance that the President be accountable as all-knowing and reliant on no one else who in an expert -in anything in the world that could come across their desk for a decision - will disappear instantly once a liberal Democrat is ever elected to office.
You are suggesting that the number of non-degraded shells that we have found is greater than zero, by some meaningful amount. Really? Where's your proof?
Simple logic. Even Kay admits that all 100% were not degraded in the same way. "Degraded" the way he uses it is meant to imply they would not work as intended, but says nothing about canibalizing several to make a few effective chemical shells, or harvesting elements from them for unconventional uses [IEDs, etc].
Show me a detailed report of each and every chemical shell, where its degraded and why, and perhaps I'll reconsider. Otherwise, you're making a rather bold and unsupported assumption.
Hopefully your answer will be based on your expert mastery of chemical weapons
Well, I did work the S-3/NBC while in the Marines, so I have a better understanding of what's involved than you.
and not your expert mastery of archery.
Yah, please demonstrate once more that you're too dense to understand the point: "degraded" weapons are still lethal.
[...]
Fen: "how can anyone claim the inspections regimes cleared Iraq of NBC material when they missed over 700 chemical shells?"
Juke: I already cited Kay explaining this, but you're obviously not paying attention. Losing track of 700 shells in a country the size of Iraq is not hard to do -
Yah, you missed the point yet again. I'm paying attention, you're just not adressing my question. It has nothing to do with Saddam losing track of 700 shells... One more time:
"how can anyone claim the inspections regimes cleared Iraq of NBC material when they missed over 700 chemical shells?"
Lets simplify it for you even further: DEA searches a house and declares it clear of all drugs. You go in and find 700 "degraded" marijuana plants that DEA somehow missed. Do you trust that DEA gave the house a thorough search?
fen: "Finally found it all buried in these threads"
You found nothing that answers my question.
"the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc."
You're a liar. You cited four powerline posts. There is one link to NYT. The other sources are things like Cybercast News Service, Fox, and Washington Times.
Your MO is to blow lots of smoke designed to try to hide the fact that you're evading a simple question.
You made a specific claim. I challenged you to support that claim. So far, you haven't done so. I didn't ask you to show me that Saddam and OBL were linked. I asked you to support the specific claim you made. I guess you forgot, so here it is:
Saddam even negotiated a non-agression [sic] pact with them
Nowhere in the mountain of baloney you've posted (directly or indirectly) is there proof for this claim.
cedar: "I suspect the Left's insistance that the President be accountable as all-knowing"
You're a complete waste of time, since you're too dense to comprehend that there is no "insistance that the President be accountable as all-knowing." There is only insistence that the president tell the truth. Bush didn't. That's been proven beyond doubt, in this thread and elsewhere.
Juke: Nowhere in the mountain of baloney you've posted (directly or indirectly) is there proof for this claim [non-agression pact].
Uh, I went beyond that, beyond any non-aggression pact, with examples that proved cooperation between Saddam and Al Queda.
You're too lazy to search the two links for the actual non-aggression pact, I'll do it for you. Just give me a few minutes to locate it okay?
fen: "says nothing about canibalizing several to make a few effective chemical shells"
You're spinning like a top. You said "most" were degraded. This means some were not degraded. If some were not degraded, that means there were already at least "a few effective chemical shells," and there would be no need to talk about "canibalizing several to make a few effective chemical shells."
Trouble is, the official sources (which I cited) seem to indicate that all, not most, of the shells we found, were degraded. So the question remains: why did you say only "most" were degraded?
Your nonsense about "canibalizing" is a pathetic attempt at misdirection. You're trying to say something like this: 'even if they were all degraded, there is still danger, because there is a possibility of canibalizing several to make a few effective chemical shells.'
But that's not what you said. You said that only "most" were degraded. That's different than saying 'all were degraded but there could still be danger.' As I said, you're spinning like a top.
"you're making a rather bold and unsupported assumption"
There's nothing "bold" about taking Kay's words at face value. He said "they would not be effective weapons." This is directly at odds with your claims, that they are still lethal, and that not all were degraded. The one who is making "bold and unsupported assumption[s]" is you. You still haven't told us the basis for your claims, just like you haven't told us why you made a claim about a "non-aggression pact."
"Well, I did work the S-3/NBC while in the Marines, so I have a better understanding of what's involved than you."
But you're not just claiming you know more than me. You're suggesting you know more than Kay. Really? Then what a shame that Bush hired Kay, and not you.
" 'degraded' weapons are still lethal"
Kay didn't just say they were "degraded." He said "they would not be effective weapons." We're still waiting for you to explain why we should be terribly concerned about items that "would not be effective weapons."
"DEA searches a house and declares it clear of all drugs. You go in and find 700 'degraded' marijuana plants that DEA somehow missed. Do you trust that DEA gave the house a thorough search?"
If the house is the size of Iraq, then missing 700 small items, which have long ago lost their effectiveness, is indeed consistent with "a thorough search." You should learn something about the concept of materiality.
Lucky: All kidding aside...don't you think that after 5 years in Iraq...if there was really anything even close to what you tout...we would see piles and piles of the WMD on the front page of every newspaper in the world by now???
Wow. A serious question posed by Lucky, and without ad hom. [pinches self]
Fair enough. No. I don't believe there were stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. I think Saddam made a careful risk-assessment and destroyed stocks that would incriminate him. My argument has been against the Left's insistence that there were NO WMDs in Iraq. There's simply no way to know that - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And yet, people like Juke express with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY [his words re Bush] that Iraq had no WMDs. By his own standards, he's a liar.
Saddam was not interested in stockpiling WMDs, he was interested in researching NBC weaponization in ways that could be quickly reconstituted once inspections ceased and sanctions were lifted.
I think he ditched all WMD stocks he could, decided what equipment could be claimed dual-use, and smuggled any irreplacable material and research out of country.
Oh, no. What is to become of our democracy if people are so foolish?
That most people are idiots is nothing new. The idea behind democracy is that the various stupidities usually cancel each other out.
IMO, 90% of the failure of the US to act on a multiplicity of clues about 9/11 was with the FBI, it's structure, priorities. and it's people.
Not Bush.
Not the CIA.
Not Clinton.
And even if the FBI had worked properly, or AQ been more clever about concealing it's pilot training or using existing Muslim airline pilots...there is a chance it could have worked anyways.
That is what happens in war. You take casualties from an intelligent adapting enemy like Al Qaeda and the 60 other terorist groups of fanatic Muslims out there. Just like in war, there will always be a certain percentage of our ground soldiers killed and maimed despite being the best trained, best led, with the best equipment.
*************
Fen, I have to admit, you sorta embarass me as a conservative with your WMD "Truther" crusade. Kind of like a Lefty would be emarassed by a Lefty openly going around saying Bush has a vast hidden hoard of hurricane-manipulating equipment, meant to steer hurricanes towards blacks and gays, to better exterminate them.
No weapons found at military levels or usable with usable delivery systems. Not a gram used in our attack or by insurgents or AQ.
You might get people to stop laughing at you if you take another tack - like finding and publishing and talking up the reports that Saddam and others made statements to US and Iraqi interrogators that they were going to go full-bore for nuclear bombs and other WMD when sanctions were lifted...
fen: "You're too lazy to search the two links for the actual non-aggression pact"
Uh, no. I carefully examined all the material you provided, and chased every link (and even jumped through some hoops to deal with one or more links that are dead). There's nothing in there to support your claim about "the actual non-aggression pact," except for what amount to references to the Tenet letter which I cited above.
You're blowing smoke, as usual.
"I went beyond that, beyond any non-aggression pact, with examples that proved cooperation between Saddam and Al Queda."
Your examples "proved" nothing. The links you offered trace back to highly questionable documents. These documents weren't taken seriously by the Republican-controlled Senate committee which said this (pdf):
Conclusion 1: ... Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa’ida to provide material or operational support. ... Saddam distrusted Islamic radicals in general, and al-Qa’ida in particular. ... bin Ladin attempted to exploit the former Iraqi regime by making requests for operational and material assistance, while Saddam Hussein refused all such requests. ... Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida.
But since you're smarter than Kay and Duelfer, I'm sure you will also now explain why you're smarter than the folks who wrote that report.
"yet, people like Juke express with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY [his words re Bush] that Iraq had no WMDs"
You're obviously not paying attention to what I've actually said. I didn't say that we know with absolute certainty that Iraq had no WMDs. We don't know that. However, what we do know with absolute certainty is that Bush made statements which misrepresented the underlying intel.
Juke: We're still waiting for you to explain why we should be terribly concerned about items that "would not be effective weapons."
Your getting sloppy, not up to your earlier form. Perhaps you are tired and should go to bed.
And as I've already explained a half-dozen times, even simplified so you would understand: any of my "degraded" arrows "would not be effective weapons", yet I could still kill you with them. I don't understand why you can't grasp that simple concept.
Here, read a few definitions and then get some bed rest:
Degraded
to reduce in amount, strength, intensity, etc.
to become degraded; weaken or worsen; deteriorate.
Example: Juke's capacity to reason was degraded by lack of sleep [note that he hadn't lost ALL reason]
Non-effective
not producing a decided, decisive, claimed, or desired effect
incapable of having an intended or expected effect.
Example: The arrow's shaft was bent, rendering it non-effective. It didn't fly true and missed Juke's heart. However, it lodged in his lower calf and he died from the resulting infection.
Have a nice night, Mulligan.
Juke: Uh, no. I carefully examined all the material you provided... There's nothing in there to support your claim about "the actual non-aggression pact"
You say that with such "absolute certainty" [your words re Bush] and yet you somehow missed it. Question: by your own standards, doesn't that make you a "liar" like Bush?
Here:
Clinton Justice Department [indictment of OBL]: "Al-Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/05/ludicrous-chris-dodd-etc.html#comments
Jukebox -
You typify the regular lying, disingenous behavior of Lefties that equate someone being wrong and certain about something with lying. A tactic that goes back to the Jewish Bolshevik training to never challenge someone on the merits, but to challenge them on their motives. ie They aren't wrong, they are liars. And everyone that doesn't agree is also evil and a liar.
Bush is not wrong and was misled by the experts and intelligence services from 20 nations - no! - Lefties say that shows he is evil, a liar, likely racist and homophobic and a Christionist white male oppressor to boot.
Like Bush, Clinton was certain that Saddam had WMD, told everyone he did including his Annual Report to Congress.
Will any Lefty call Bill a liar? Of course not. The Jewish Bolsheviks counseled that questioning the motives of those on your side is not only wrong but revanchist and counter-revolutionary to human progress and merits a stay in the Gulags they designed (Stalin came later) , or a bullet.
/edit
You're getting sloppy, not up to your earlier form. Perhaps you are tired and should go to bed.
[same for me, good night all]
fen: "any of my 'degraded' arrows 'would not be effective weapons', yet I could still kill you with them"
Indeed. And if I take enough dental floss and wrap it around your throat in an expert manner, "I could still kill you" with that, too. That doesn't mean that it's proper to describe dental floss as "lethal," or that it makes sense to invade and occupy a country because we're afraid of their dental floss.
This is what Bush said we would find:
500 tons of mustard gas and nerve gas, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 29,984 prohibited munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several dozen Scud missiles, gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, 18 mobile biological warfare factories, long-range unmanned aerial vehicles to dispense anthrax.
This is what we actually found: several hundred old, forgotten shells that were sufficiently degraded that Kay described them this way: they "would not be effective weapons."
Only a partisan hack would consider those shells significant in any way. I don't understand why you're not also making a fuss about the chlorine and ammonia that Saddam had hidden under his sink. And his dental floss.
fen: "Al-Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq"
That's it? That's your proof? Really? Is that the best you can do? Now I understand why you made your 'proof' so hard to find, and only made direct mention of it after posting about two dozen comments that ducked the question.
Your 'proof' is utterly bogus. Yes, it's true that on 11/6/98, US prosecutor Fitzgerald issued an indictment that said this:
al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq
You're hoping we won't notice that Fitzgerald later withdrew that claim. The original indictment was superceded by a later indictment, the one actually used at trial (pdf), which replaced the above language with this:
USAMA BIN LADEN, the defendant, and al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with representatives of the government of Iran, and its associated terrorist group Hizballah, for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States
The claim about an alliance with Iraq was dropped, because Fitzgerald realized it was not a solid claim. He discussed this in testimony before the 9/11 commission on 6/14/04 (transcript):
FITZGERALD: … the question of relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda is an interesting one. … I can tell you what led to that inclusion in that sealed indictment in May and then when we superseded, which meant we broadened the charges in the Fall, we dropped that language.
We understood there was a very, very intimate relationship between al Qaeda and the Sudan. They worked hand in hand. We understood there was a working relationship with Iran and Hezbollah, and they shared training. We also understood that there had been antipathy between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein because Saddam Hussein was not viewed as being religious.
This process (where Fitz dropped the language regarding OBL and Saddam) was summarized by Pincus in WP on 6/17/04:
At yesterday's hearing, commissioner Fred F. Fielding questioned the staff's finding of no apparent cooperation between bin Laden and Hussein. He pointed to a sentence in the first sealed indictment in 2001 of the al Qaeda members accused of the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; that sentence said al Qaeda reached an understanding with Iraq that they would not work against each other and would cooperate on acquiring arms.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, now a U.S. attorney in Illinois, who oversaw the African bombing case, told the commission that reference was dropped in a superceding indictment because investigators could not confirm al Qaeda's relationship with Iraq as they had done with its ties to Iran, Sudan and Hezbollah. The original material came from an al Qaeda defector who told prosecutors that what he had heard was secondhand.
(Emphasis added.) In other words, Fielding did what you did: he tried to make a fuss about the sentence in the earlier indictment, which involved pretending he didn't know that this sentence was dropped from the actual trial indictment. And speaking of partisan hacks who lie shamelessly, Andrew McCarthy did the exact same maneuver, here. And NRO did the exact same maneuver, here. This is a perfect case study in how the GOP is packed with liars, from top to bottom.
By the way, the first indictment is what the 9/11 commission report (pdf) described as "the original sealed indictment" (p. 128). They described it this way to differentiate it from the later indictment (the trial indictment).
Please note that Tenet's letter did not even charge that an agreement was reached. It only charged that an agreement was discussed. That's because Tenet had no proof other than the proof that Fitz ended up discarding. And then even Tenet's weaker charge was eventually disavowed by Tenet ("we were sloppy in that letter"). And the charge was entirely disavowed by a Republican-controlled committee which said (in 2006) that "Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida."
It's interesting to watch how the allegation has steadily shrunk, over time. It's also interesting to watch how dead-enders like you fraudulently flog something Fitz said in 1998, even though what he said was later disavowed by Fitz himself, Tenet, and a Republican senate.
Hopefully you'll explain why you've been making phony allegations, backed by bogus proof that you bend over backwards to obscure.
cedar: "You typify the regular lying, disingenous behavior of Lefties that equate someone being wrong and certain about something with lying."
Uh, no. The problem is not that Bush ended up being wrong (well, that's a problem, but it's a somewhat separate problem). The problem is that Bush misrepresented the underlying intel, by leading us to believe that it was unequivocal. Trouble is, it was highly equivocal. It was not OK for him to pretend otherwise. It was not OK for him to misrepresent the underlying intel. This is called lying.
The problem is not that Bush expressed certainty, and ended up being wrong in his certainty. The problem is that Bush led us to believe that the underlying intel expressed certainty, even though it didn't (not by a long shot).
"Bush … was misled by the experts and intelligence services from 20 nations"
Those "experts and intelligence services from 20 nations" did not express absolute certainty. Bush pretended they did (and we didn't become aware of this discrepancy until later). That's the core issue.
"Clinton was certain that Saddam had WMD"
I realize you're not going to lift a finger to address what I already said regarding the differences between 1998 and 2002. By the way, there is no question that Saddam "had" WMD. Please note the past tense. He just didn't have them in 2002.
Now I understand why you made your 'proof' so hard to find, and only made direct mention of it after posting about two dozen comments that ducked the question.
No I didn't. I dug up two links to the previous discussion on this site and gave them to you. I went ahead and posted examples of Saddam-AQ cooperation that went far beyond any non-agression pact, while promising I would try to find the non-Tenant quote for you.
You're the one who claimed with "absolute certainty" that you has explored those links in detail. Now you're lashing out because, by your own standard, you are a liar [ie. your previous assertion that Bush claimed absolute certainty when he wasn't certain]
Only a partisan hack would consider those shells significant in any way.
You really are being dense. The shells are significant regardless of whether they are degraded. The point you continue to miss is obvious to anyone but a "partisan hack": If inspectors managed to miss 700 chemical arty shells...what else did they miss?
Really, I shouldn't need to lead you around like this.
Juke: By the way, there is no question that Saddam "had" WMD. Please note the past tense. He just didn't have them in 2002.
Are you saying that with "absolute certainty"? How can you know that?
Juke: That's it? That's your proof? Really? Is that the best you can do?
No. Thats what I said was in the archives - I wrote about ties between Iraq and AQ and recalled something about a non-aggression pact that didn't include Tenant.
You know how to use the internet, start with Wapo:
Iraq, al-Qaeda and Tenet's Equivocation
By Christina Shelton
Saturday, June 30, 2007; Page A21
"That day I summarized a body of mostly CIA reporting (dating from 1990 to 2002), from a variety of sources, that reflected a pattern of Iraqi support for al-Qaeda, including high-level contacts between Iraqi senior officials and al-Qaeda, training in bomb making, Iraqi offers of safe haven, and a nonaggression agreement to cooperate on unspecified areas. My position was that analysts were not addressing these reports since - "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR2007062901947.html
Juke: Those "experts and intelligence services from 20 nations" did not express absolute certainty. Bush pretended they did (and we didn't become aware of this discrepancy until later).
You seem to want it both ways. CIA Director Tenant was also an "expert" who expressed absolute certaintry [slam dunk] while advising his boss:
"And Cheney's spokesman pointed to a 2002 letter written by CIA Director George J. Tenet stating that "we have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade" and "credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Cheney's office also pointed to a 2003 Tenet statement calling Zarqawi "a senior al Qaeda terrorist associate."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
So Tenant retracts, and you label Bush a "liar" for listening to him... Bets that most your WMD "lies" follow the same model.
And this, from the Under Secretary's rebuttal of the IG's report:
"Sometime in early 2002, in the course of her work, [a DoD analyst] came across a finished 1998 CIA report on Iraq's [redacted]. The report mentioned that Usama bin Laden had requested and received certain training from an Iraqi [redacted] service. On her own initiative, she requested and received through CIA channels the underlying information on which the item was based, consisting of two Memo Dissems, and subsequently obtained additional CIA reports from DIA and CIA on the issue of Iraq and al-Qaida.
*** She recommended that the [Joint Intelligence Task Force] publish the [intelligence community] reporting data "so that it would be available to the entire [intelligence community] because reports published previously did not contain this important data" and that, without it, "analysis of the subject would be incomplete and inaccurate in the future." ***
The analyst then called the J-2's senior analyst and again recommended that the [intelligence community] reporting information be published to the entire [intelligence community]. The J-2 analyst responded that "putting it out there would be playing into the hands of people like Wolfowitz," that the information "was old" and "only a tid-bit," asked how did she "know that the information was true," made a comment about trying to support "some agenda of people in the building," and bucked the issue of publication back to the JITF chief. The JITF chief took no further action on the recommendation to publish the information, as far as we know."
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016781.php
Juke, here's a recap of what Tenet wrote to Congress. You want to detail exactly what he retracted?
"Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank."
"We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaida going back a decade."
"Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression."
"Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad."
"We have credible reporting that al Qaida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."
"Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent military action."
And his testimony to Senate Select Cmte on Intel:
"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaida. It also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a sold foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources."
And again to Senate Armed Services Cmte:
"[W]e also know from very reliable information that there's been some transfer of training in chemical and biologicals [sic] from the Iraqis to al Qaeda."
/via Powerline
"Will any Lefty call Bill a liar? Of course not."
Even though it's indisputably correct to do so.
Where have you gone
Eric Arthur Blair
Our nation turns its
Lonely eyes to you...
fen: "That day I summarized a body of mostly CIA reporting … and a nonaggression agreement to cooperate on unspecified areas."
You're quoting Tenet. By "that day," he is making reference to something he said on 8/15/02.
Thanks for helping us see that Tenet is all over the map, just like you. Tenet is saying that as of 8/15/02, he believed in the existence of "a nonaggression agreement."
That's quite interesting, because less than two months later, he was only willing to make a weaker claim. On 10/7/02, he said this:
Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression
Tenet does not say an agreement was reached (regarding "reciprocal non-aggression"). He only says this was "discussed."
Why did Tenet's claim shrink, between 8/02 and 10/02? This is one of many questions that you are inclined to duck. And of course Tenet's claim shrunk even further. Tenet later disavowed the letter. He said this (5/2/07):
we were sloppy in that letter
Anyway, you're ducking the central issue. You made a claim, and then presented a statement in the original indictment as your support for that claim, even though Fitz, Tenet, and the Republican senate all disavowed that claim. The claim was removed from the actual trial indictment, but of course you neglect to mention that, or even acknowledge that. That's because you're determined to demonstrate clearly what you are: a fraud.
"I went ahead and posted examples of Saddam-AQ cooperation that went far beyond any non-agression pact"
Your "examples of Saddam-AQ cooperation" are transparent frauds, just like the claim you made about the alleged "non-agression pact."
"You're the one who claimed with 'absolute certainty' that you has explored those links in detail"
I did explore your links in detail, and I found that they contained nothing to prove the claim you made. And I have shown that what you call proof is not proof at all. It was a statement by Fitz which he quickly withdrew. That's the part you're hoping we won't notice.
"The shells are significant regardless of whether they are degraded."
They are "significant" only to hacks like you. Kay and the other experts I quoted said they weren't significant. We're still waiting for you to explain what makes you smarter than they are.
"what else did they miss? [inspectors]"
Nothing of significance. If they had, it would have surfaced by now.
"So Tenant retracts, and you label Bush a 'liar' for listening to him"
Bush listened only to the people who were saying what he wanted to hear (and Tenet said lots of things because he knew Bush wanted to hear them, and that's why Bush gave Tenet a medal). There was lots of contrary information, but Bush pretended it didn't exist, and led us to believe it didn't exist. That's called lying.
"Bets that most your WMD 'lies' follow the same model."
I gave you an exceedingly explicit and detailed example regarding aluminum tubes. Of course you haven't lifted a finger to address it, because you'd rather blow large quantities of obfuscatory smoke, made up of bogus claims, which allows you to hide from simple questions.
"And this, from the Under Secretary's rebuttal of the IG's report"
Yet another example of you blowing a lot of random smoke as a way to avoid dealing with simple questions.
Why did you present a claim from Fitz's original indictment, even though the claim was later disavowed by Fitz and everyone else? Is it that you just didn't know that? Either way, you haven't taken responsibility for posting a bogus claim.
"here's a recap of what Tenet wrote to Congress. You want to detail exactly what he retracted"
To understand what he "retracted," we only need to pay attention to the way a Republican senate summarize the situation in 2006 (pdf):
Conclusion 1: ... Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa’ida to provide material or operational support. ... Saddam distrusted Islamic radicals in general, and al-Qa’ida in particular. ... bin Ladin attempted to exploit the former Iraqi regime by making requests for operational and material assistance, while Saddam Hussein refused all such requests. ... Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida.
Juke: You're hoping we won't notice that Fitzgerald later withdrew that claim.
No, I honestly didn't know he had. Thanks for the correction.
Bottom line: you've tried to argue that Bush "lied" by claiming "absolute certainty" when there was none. But all you've done is prove that he listened to the expert [and perhaps flawed] analysis of his CIA Director. And in the process, you've been hoist on your own petard - claiming "absolute certainty" [twice] when there is none, revealing yourself as a "liar" just like Bush.
I think your central mistake is an assumption that any intel has 100% certainty. Thats rarely true, if ever.
Juke: You're quoting Tenet. By "that day," he is making reference to something he said on 8/15/02. Thanks for helping us see that Tenet is all over the map, just like you.
No. Read your own link again. I'm quoting Christina Shelton, not Tenet.
Juke: Kay and the other experts I quoted said they weren't significant.
If thats what they actually said ["weren't significant"] then they are logically wrong. Inspectors missed 700 degraded chemical arty shells. That means their search for WMD was incomplete.
This is getting tedious. You've failed to prove Bush lied and are now going around in circles. Put up or shut up.
Juke: To understand what he "retracted," we only need to pay attention to the way a Republican senate summarize the situation in 2006
Now your hiding, and lacing your argument with ad hom. So now I'm interested in the exact retraction by Tenet. Here is his testimony again. Please detail what parts he is retracting. I'd prefer you detail each retraction beneath each of his original statements, if you can manage it:
1) Tenet's letter to Congress
A) "Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank."
B) "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaida going back a decade."
C) "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression."
D) "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad."
E) "We have credible reporting that al Qaida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."
F) "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent military action."
2) Tenet's testimony to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaida. It also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a sold foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources."
3) Tenet's testimony to Senate Armed Services Cmte:
"[W]e also know from very reliable information that there's been some transfer of training in chemical and biologicals [sic] from the Iraqis to al Qaeda."
fen: "No, I honestly didn't know [that Fitz had withdrawn his claim]"
You seem to get all your news from Power Line. Therefore your ignorance is no surprise.
"Thanks for the correction."
You're welcome. You should also apologize for repeatedly making a false claim, and you should make it clear that you're withdrawing your false claim. And you should also explain why any of us should take any of your claims seriously, since it's been shown that you express yourself with great confidence even though it's clear that you're actually an ignoramus.
"all you've done is prove that he listened to the expert [and perhaps flawed] analysis of his CIA Director"
You're basically claiming that Bush didn't know anything other than what Tenet told him (sort of like how you don't know anything aside from what you read on Power Line). How comforting to know that Bush is so incurious that he gets 100% of his information on a crucial subject from one person.
Anyway, nice job completely ignoring the details regarding the aluminum tubes, which I cited above. Let us know if you're really claiming that Rice and Cheney were simply unaware of the DOE findings regarding the tubes.
Nice job also failing to explain why Tenet got a medal, if the problems were really all his fault, after all.
"I think your central mistake is an assumption that any intel has 100% certainty."
You insist on making things up. I don't make the assumption that "any intel has 100% certainty." Some intel does, but most intel doesn't. The core problem is that Bush pretended that he had intel which was 100% certain. Such intel might possibly exist, but it did not actually exist, in this case. But nevertheless Bush pretended he had such intel. That's the core problem.
"No. Read your own link again. I'm quoting Christina Shelton, not Tenet."
You're right. My mistake. Thanks for pointing it out. Anyway, this is just Shelton and Tenet pointing fingers at each other, and trying to shift the blame. They both made statements which were later discredited. I don't understand why you dragged in Shelton's comments, to begin with. It's in your usual style of throwing in the kitchen sink, as a way to run away from core questions.
"Inspectors missed 700 degraded chemical arty shells. That means their search for WMD was incomplete."
You're funny. You like to remind us that intel is almost never 100% certain. At the same time, you like to pretend that there could ever be such a thing as a perfectly complete weapons inspection, in a country as big as Iraq.
Intellectual consistency is not exactly your strong point.
"You've failed to prove Bush lied"
Here's another reminder: you've totally ignored the example I cited regarding aluminum tubes. Your selective deafness is charming.
By the way, aside from lying about WMD, Bush lied about lots of other things. Here's a classic Bush lie: "he wouldn't let them in." Look it up.
"Here is his testimony again"
You're rehashing statements Tenet made years ago. We now know that he was blowing smoke, just as you like to blow smoke.
Years later, subsequent to all that testimony, Tenet admitted his letter was "sloppy." If you still treat his letter (and related claims) as credible, even though he disavowed it in this manner, then there's not much I can do to help you.
And in your usual style of ducking simple questions, you refuse to explain why the GOP-controlled senate committee also disavowed Tenet's various claims, which you still consider so impressive.
Here's another reminder: you've totally ignored the example I cited regarding aluminum tubes
Another lie. I responded to your example - I asked you if Wapo gave any legitimate reason why Rice would disregard Energy's findings. Was she privy to additional info that they weren't? Did another government agency refute Energy's findings?
You have this double standard re "experts". They're you're smoking gun when you agree with them, and your whipping boy when you don't.
/and why are you dodging this?
Juke: To understand what he "retracted," we only need to pay attention to the way a Republican senate summarize the situation in 2006
Now your hiding, and lacing your argument with ad hom. So now I'm interested in the exact retraction by Tenet. Here is his testimony again. Please detail what parts he is retracting. I'd prefer you detail each retraction beneath each of his original statements, if you can manage it:
1) Tenet's letter to Congress
A) "Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank."
B) "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaida going back a decade."
C) "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression."
D) "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad."
E) "We have credible reporting that al Qaida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."
F) "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent military action."
2) Tenet's testimony to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaida. It also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a sold foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources."
3) Tenet's testimony to Senate Armed Services Cmte:
"[W]e also know from very reliable information that there's been some transfer of training in chemical and biologicals [sic] from the Iraqis to al Qaeda."
jukeboxgrad: You're implying that we found a large number of binary sarin shells. We didn't. ... You're also implying that we found a large number of mustard shells. We didn't.
Excerpt from: Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria, Official Says
WASHINGTON, June 29, 2006 – The 500 munitions discovered throughout Iraq since 2003 and discussed in a National Ground Intelligence Center report meet the criteria of weapons of mass destruction, the center's commander said here today.
"These are chemical weapons as defined under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and yes ... they do constitute weapons of mass destruction," Army Col. John Chu told the House Armed Services Committee.
The Chemical Weapons Convention is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. It was signed in 1993 and entered into force in 1997.
The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said.
If you still treat his letter (and related claims) as credible, even though he disavowed it in this manner, then there's not much I can do to help you.
All I'm asking is that you detail his disavowals. Why do you still refuse to do that?
Juke: You're basically claiming that Bush didn't know anything other than what Tenet told him
I never said that. I said he listened to the expert advice of his CIA director. Nothing in that statement implies
sort of like how you don't know anything aside from what you read on Power Line.
Again, Powerline was my primary source b/c they had nicely rounded up evidence of Iraqi-AQ ties in their archives. Despite your lies, their links were to articles in WaPo, NYTs, ABC, etc. So your remark is juvenille and stupid
How comforting to know that Bush is so incurious that he gets 100% of his information on a crucial subject from one person.
Never said that. But I get it - when pressed and flustered, you abandon rational argument and indulge in ad hom, followed up by strawmen.
Sad. You were the first lefty here in a long time capable of making valid counter-points. I over-estimated you.
/edit, didn't finish the first para
Juke: You're basically claiming that Bush didn't know anything other than what Tenet told him
I never said that. I said he listened to the expert advice of his CIA director. Nothing in that statement implies he ignored other advice from other intelligence agencies
/bump and echo, why are you still dodging this?
Juke: To understand what he "retracted," we only need to pay attention to the way a Republican senate summarize the situation in 2006
Now your hiding, and lacing your argument with ad hom. So now I'm interested in the exact retraction by Tenet. Here is his testimony again. Please detail what parts he is retracting. I'd prefer you detail each retraction beneath each of his original statements, if you can manage it:
1) Tenet's letter to Congress
A) "Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank."
B) "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaida going back a decade."
C) "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression."
D) "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad."
E) "We have credible reporting that al Qaida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."
F) "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent military action."
2) Tenet's testimony to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaida. It also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a sold foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources."
3) Tenet's testimony to Senate Armed Services Cmte:
"[W]e also know from very reliable information that there's been some transfer of training in chemical and biologicals [sic] from the Iraqis to al Qaeda."
Added: You've changed your story Juke. You said Tenet retracted his letter to Congress, saying it was "sloppy". Now you're applying that to his Senate testimony [Intel and Armed Services] too.
And back again to Rice and Energy:
"The one-page October 2002 President's Summary [of the NIE]specifically told Bush that although most agencies judge that the use of the aluminum tubes was related to a uranium enrichment effort... INR and DOE believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons uses.
The lengthier NIE -- more than 90 pages -- contained significantly more detail describing the disagreement between the CIA and the Pentagon's DIA on one hand, which believed that the tubes were meant for centrifuges, and State's INR and the Energy Department, which believed that they were meant for artillery shells."
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0302nj1.htm
In other words, you have honest disagreement between CIA/Pentagon and INR/Energy. Rice chose to go with CIA/Pentagon analysis, and unless you were there to hear the arguments presented pro/con, you have no idea why Energy's assessment was trumped by CIA/Pentagon intel.
[...]
BTW, can't locate Tenet's retraction on the net. All I can find is one terrorist who's debriefing was deemed suspect after it was learned he was tortured in Egypt to "confess" to chemical weapon ties between Iraq and AQ. Is that all you're talking about, or is there more to Tenet's retraction.
You're not going to post it, are you? Why not? What are you afraid of?
[tick tock tick tock]
You're coming back right? You're at some meeting or out playing golf, not running away from me.
You're going to post Tenet's retraction and detail what parts of his testimony it applied to?
How'd this thread turn into yet another WMD argument? The original topic was the Scripps/Howard-Ohio U. poll about 9/11 conspiracy theory.
I'm not even going to touch the WMD topic; it's done to death and beyond already. Anyway:
LuckyOldson:
You point out that there was a story by CBS reporter David Martin that said the CIA had "had warned Bush personally of Osama Bin Laden’s intent to use hijacked planes as missiles". Martin did indeed do a story on what the Bush administration knew before 9/11, but it's an overstatement to link that to warnings of missile use. That claim - that Martin reported the CIA warned the jets would ram buildings - traces back to an "InTheseTimes.com" story which makes the claim, but doesn't provide support for it. In turn, if you trace the actual CBS-David Martin story directly, it merely discussed the hijacking of airliners. No mention was made of turning them into "missiles" at all. From CBS's own site:
"CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin says the warning was in a document called the President's Daily Brief, which is considered to be the single most important document that the U.S. intelligence community turns out. The document did not, however, mention the possibility of planes being flown into buildings. "
Source: "What Bush Knew Before Sept. 11 (May 17, 2002)"
It's fair to say that the White House and CIA had warnings of hijackings, but not of hijacked jets being used to ram buildings.
Downtownlad:
The link you provide also merely mentions the hijackings, and doesn't extrapolate to jets being used to attack buildings. The mention of "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York" was not made in the context of those buildings being targets specifically of hijacked aircraft, but rather as supporting evidence of preparations for some sort of strike. A fair interpretation of the text is that the authors' opinion(s) lean towards the hijackings being a separate act from whatever attack involves the surveilled buildings.
In fact, the few indications that existed suggested that the hijacked planes would provide hostages who could be used to gain the release of Abd al-Rahman.
It's quite fair - obvious, in fact - to say that there were warnings of Bin-Laden ordered terrorism on the horizon, but it's not substantive to say that there were specific warnings about planes being used to strike buildings. Evidence points away from that thesis, and more towards the warnings leading towards attempted bombings like the first WTC attack, or towards other uses of hijacked planes. In other words, the warnings led intelligence and law enforcement people in different directions than "airliner used as missile".
For everyone else: A good starting point for research into various 9/11 claims would be 9/11 Myths; they in fact have a page on the specific topic of US foreknowledge and forewarnings:
http://911myths.com/html/foreknowledge.html
The James Randi Educational Foundation's forums are also a good place to look for info about this:
http://forums.randi.org/archive/index.php/f-64.html (use the search feature to find specific topics)
jukeboxgrad: You're spinning like a top. You said "most" were degraded.
Regardless if most, or all, or just some were degraded...
Excerpted (again) from: Munitions Found in Iraq Meet WMD Criteria, Official Says
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred, Chu said. It's not known exactly how sarin breaks down, but no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic.
"Regardless of (how much material in the weapon is actually chemical agent), any remaining agent is toxic," he said. "Anything above zero (percent agent) would prove to be toxic, and if you were exposed to it long enough, lethal."
Tibore: How'd this thread turn into yet another WMD argument?
Juke is trying to prove Bush "lied" about Iraq. So far he's failed.
micheal: While that's reassuring, the agent remaining in the weapons would be very valuable to terrorists and insurgents, Maples said. "We're talking chemical agents here that could be packaged in a different format and have a great effect," he said, referencing the sarin-gas attack on a Japanese subway in the mid-1990s.
Wasting your time. Juke is immune to the concept of cannibalizing degraded weapons and employing them in unconventional ways.
fen: "Did another government agency refute Energy's findings?"
No. Even the CIA acknowledged that the tubes might be for rockets. But this didn't stop Rice and Cheney from stating that centrifuges were the only possible use.
Rice said that the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." This statement is simply, unmistakably false, and it doesn't even correspond with what the CIA claimed (and it was the CIA that was pushing the bogus centrifuge claim). In other words, the position Bush's people expressed in public was more extreme than even the most extreme position expressed within the IC. This is a classic example of how they misrepresented the underlying intel.
And you still haven't bothered to explain why Bush et al had the NYT print a lie.
"You have this double standard re 'experts'."
By the way, the CIA analysis wasn't put together by "experts." It was put together by a CIA analyst named Joe who had never designed a centrifuge. Our best nuclear experts, who had infinitely greater expertise than him, found multiple major problems with his analysis. According to Silberman-Robb, Joe committed "inexcusable analytical lapses." DOE knew that, and said that. DOE was ignored and gagged.
"In other words, you have honest disagreement between CIA/Pentagon and INR/Energy."
There was indeed "disagreement." Trouble is, Cheney and Rice issued public statements which swept the disagreement under the rug, and pretended that the IC was unanimous (and the NYT helped, by printing a false statement). This is called lying.
"you have no idea why Energy's assessment was trumped by CIA/Pentagon intel"
The CIA analysis was composed of "inexcusable analytical lapses." But it's no mystery why it "trumped" the DOE assessment: the former fit Bush's needs, and the latter didn't.
"why are you dodging this"
As usual, the dodging is all yours. We're still waiting for to explain why we should accept claims that Tenet made in 2003, even though the GOP senate rejected those claims in 2006.
"All I'm asking is that you detail his disavowals"
Tenet didn't issue detailed "disavowals." He didn't need to, because the GOP senate rejected his claims.
"Despite your lies, their links were to articles in WaPo, NYTs, ABC, etc."
The liar is you. You cited four Power Line articles (above at 1 AM). The links you provided are as follows:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006218.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006998.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/008063.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006935.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006935.php [link]
(Yes, for some strange reason you cited the same article twice.)
The first item on that list cites the Washington Times. With a dead link, no less.
The second item on that list cites the NYT.
The third item on that list cites Cybercast News Service.
The fourth item on that list cites Fox and state.gov.
Thanks for providing such a blatant example of how you shamelessly make things up.
"I never said that. I said he listened to the expert advice of his CIA director. Nothing in that statement implies he ignored other advice from other intelligence agencies"
With regard to the tubes, Bush did indeed ignore "other advice from other intelligence agencies," even though DOE had much greater expertise in this subject. And he issued statements designed to deceive us into thinking that the DOE analysis didn't exist.
"Juke is immune to the concept of cannibalizing degraded weapons and employing them in unconventional ways."
You're immune to noticing that this has never happened, even though the region is full of people who have spent the last several years trying to kill each other. But I guess you see nothing odd about this.
This is the number of US troops who have been killed as a result of someone "cannibalizing degraded weapons and employing them in unconventional ways:" zero. But needless to say, a large number of US troops have been killed and injured by IEDs, which have nothing to do with "cannibalizing degraded weapons" and using their toxic chemicals. So your priorities are a bit peculiar.
michael: "The munitions found contain sarin and mustard gases"
Please try to keep up. Fen already pointed out the existence of these shells. And I pointed out that Kay said they "would not be effective weapons."
"no matter how degraded the agent is, it's still toxic"
Yes, and the chlorine gas you can create with the bleach and ammonia under your kitchen sink is also highly "toxic." What's your point?
tibore: "It's fair to say that the White House and CIA had warnings of hijackings, but not of hijacked jets being used to ram buildings."
Did you read the thread? Proof that you're wrong can be found above, at 11:37 pm.
"it's not substantive to say that there were specific warnings about planes being used to strike buildings"
Maybe you should go one step further and assert that it was OK for Bush to ignore the PDB because it didn't cite exact flight numbers.
jukeboxgrad: Fen already pointed out the existence of these shells. And I pointed out that Kay said they "would not be effective weapons."
I don't disagree that, in the condition we found them, they weren't usable for their originally intended purpose - as biologically or chemically laced artillery shells.
That is not to say that the chemical or biological contents of them couldn't be removed, combined, and added to an IED or SCUD.
It's not out of the realm of possibilities, given who we are fighting in Iraq, especially given this:
Iraq chlorine attacks raise new concerns
And put a halt to the ad hominems, unless what you're trying to prove is that you're an asshole, in which case I'm willing to stipulate.
michael: "It's not out of the realm of possibilities"
It's hard to argue with that. Little green men visiting from outer space is also "not out of the realm of possibilities." But it seems not to have happened lately. Likewise, using "chemical or biological contents of them" seems to have happened a grand total of this many times: zero. I wonder why that is.
Here's an idea: put more energy into dealing with what's actually happening, and less energy into making a fuss about what's not.
fen, this might be the right time to remind you of what you said yesterday, at 3:14 pm, when I had been quiet for exactly two hours and seventeen minutes:
[tick tock tick tock]
You're coming back right? You're at some meeting or out playing golf, not running away from me.
Three hours after you posted that gratuitous mockery, I posted a thorough response. That was over 18 hours ago. Since then, all we've heard from you is the sound of crickets. Presumably "you're at some meeting or out playing golf, not running away from me."
"Did you read the thread? Proof that you're wrong can be found above, at 11:37 pm."
Jukeboxgrad,
I'll admit, I wasn't clear with my statement, but no, I'm not wrong. I didn't state things with enough detail or with the proper specificity, but I'm not wrong. Bear with me:
According to the link you provided, the intelligence at the time identified discussions to use planes to ram buildings. But, those plans involved taking jets from outside US airspace, then flying them to America. What the US did not identify was the possibility of hijacking a US flight to do the same thing. And that ends up being an important difference, because the US believed it had the issue of foreign-origin hijacked jets covered.
That's also where I was unclear. You see, people keep saying "The US was warned about 9/11", the implication being that the government not only knew of the plans to hijack US flights, but also knew those flights would be used to ram buildings. That's overstating what the government knew. The US had intelligence about multiple, separate activities, the following 3 of which are relevant to this discussion:
1. Surveillance of major buildings,
2. Discussions of hijacking US originating flights, and
3. Terrorist discussions of ramming airplanes into buildings
They knew that there was surveillance of major buildings and structures in big cities, but the thought was that those might be attacked via vehicle-bombs, like what happened in the '93 World Trade Center bombing.
They knew there were discussions of hijacking US flights, but the thought was that those would be to provide hostages to negotiate the release of already captive radicals.
They knew that there were terrorist discussions of flying airplanes into buildings, but the very important thing to realize here is that they did not connect that with the hijackings of US flights; again, they believed jets used as suicide planes would originate from outside the US. And again, the government believed they already had a defense against that. The report at your link comes out and says this; that's why the following line is in that report:
"... they (the FAA) believed that a flight originating outside the United States would be detected before it reached its intended target inside the United States."
These distinctions are subtle, but they're still important. The whole reason the US was unable to respond effectively to hijacked aircraft within the borders is that any scenario the government envisioned did not involve those planes being used as suicide missiles, while any scenario involving any danger from foreign-originating flights was believed to be already covered by the normal procedures used in identifying and reacting to threats entering the US ADIZ. The combination - hijacking US flights, then using those to ram buildings - was not considered. In hindsight, we see that's exactly what was planned, but beforehand, we see that the intelligence led people in various directions away from the exact scenario as it occurred on 9/11.
So no, the US did not have intelligence saying that hijacked US flights would be used to ram buildings. I should have been more specific in what I wrote, but I'm still essentially correct.
"Maybe you should go one step further and assert that it was OK for Bush to ignore the PDB because it didn't cite exact flight numbers."
Come on. Be reasonable. That's not what I was trying to say at all. I'm trying to illustrate the subtleties of the situation. It's an oversimplification to boil things down to "Bush knew" or "the government knew". The government had a whole lot of information that added up to individual, separate possibilities. That's the reality of the situation.
From the great TV show, Yes Prime Minister The Ministerial Broadcast
tibore: "they believed jets used as suicide planes would originate from outside the US … The combination - hijacking US flights, then using those to ram buildings - was not considered"
Thank you for your patient and thorough answer, but you're simply wrong. And you're wrong in several different ways.
First of all, please consider the following two statements:
A) no one envisioned that terrorists would use airplanes as missiles
B) no one envisioned that terrorists would use airplanes (hijacked domestically) as missiles (against a US target)
If I understand you correctly, you're acknowledging that A is false. Trouble is, A, not B, is precisely what Bush repeatedly claimed in his defense. This was a lie, because A is false. Also, you're claiming that B is true. Trouble is, B is also false.
Let's start with official information that was released in 9/05, by former members of the 9/11 commission (pdf, p. 53):
In 1998 and 1999, the FAA intelligence unit produced reports about the hijacking threat posed by Bin Ladin and al Qaeda, including the possibility that the terrorist group might try to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark. It viewed this possibility as "unlikely" and a "last resort." FAA perceived as far more likely that al Qaeda would hijack a flight overseas, where the terrorists had access to safe havens. They believe that from these safe havens, Bin Ladin could use passengers to bargain for the release of Islamic extremists imprisoned in the United States.
I think it's clear enough, in context, that "hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark" means 'hijack a US commercial jet inside the US and slam it into a U.S. landmark.' If they had meant specifically 'hijack a flight overseas, and fly it to the US, and slam it into a US landmark' they would have specifically said that. This is especially clear from the context, where the next sentence says "al Qaeda would hijack a flight overseas."
So there are two threats described: hijack a US jet, inside the US, and slam it into a US landmark, and hijack a flight overseas, fly it to some safe haven, and use the passengers as bargaining chips.
At this point it makes sense to refer to a specific point you made: "they (the FAA) believed that a flight originating outside the United States would be detected before it reached its intended target inside the United States … any scenario involving any danger from foreign-originating flights was believed to be already covered by the normal procedures used in identifying and reacting to threats entering the US ADIZ"
What you're overlooking is that the idea that the flight "would be detected before it reached its intended target inside the United States" is a reference only to a specific kind of threat, that "a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center." That threat scenario seems to imply some kind of private plane, not a hijacked plane. And yes, such a private plane would indeed "already covered by the normal procedures used in identifying and reacting to threats entering the US ADIZ." But this is not a hijacking scenario, and it has nothing to do with hijacking scenarios.
It makes no sense whatsover to apply this perspective to a hijacking scenario (and this is exactly what you are doing). To do so requires relying on the silly assumption that the hijacker could be counted on to reveal his intentions before he enters US airspace. Why would he do that? It's incredibly dumb to assume that a hijacker would be so incredibly dumb. The hijacker would simply wait until he was inside US airspace, and then pull out the boxcutters (or whatever).
If a hijacker wanted to fly into WTC, and was considering a launch from Logan as compared with a launch from, say, Athens, the main reason to choose the latter would be if he believed that security at Athens was much looser than security at Logan (and we were already clearly concerned about domestic hijackings, so this distinction is moot). It would not be a question of being concerned about any difficulty "entering the US ADIZ."
The above passage (about FAA intelligence reports) raises a different distinction between a foreign hijacking and domestic hijacking (different than the distinction you raise). The passage points out that safe havens exist overseas, so if the hijacker wanted to use the passengers as hostages, the hijacking would be foreign.
But the key point about the FAA passage is that it indicates that we knew a "terrorist group might try to hijack a commercial jet [inside the US] and slam it into a U.S. landmark." Yes, we thought it was "unlikely," and "a last resort," but we treated it as a possibility. So this passage alone is sufficient to prove that Bush lied.
Both A and B (above) are false. And a big problem is that Bush repeatedly claimed A, even though it's even more clearly false than B. Consider the following statements.
Rice, 5/16/02: I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking. You take a plane -- people were worried they might blow one up, but they were mostly worried that they might try to take a plane and use it for release of the blind Sheikh or some of their own people.
Fleischer, 5/16/02: The possibility of a traditional hijacking, in the pre-September 11th sense, has long been a concern of the government, dating back decades. The President did not -- not -- receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new type of attack that had not been foreseen. … The information, as you now know, has been very generalized; there was nothing specific, as I've indicated, about anybody using airplanes as suicide bombs, or using airplanes as missiles. … information about hijackings in the pre-9/11 world is totally different from information about hijackings in the post-9/11 world. Traditional hijackings prior to September 11th, it might as well be a different word and a different language from what we've all, unfortunately, come to know about the post-9/11 world. For decades, governments have taken steps about warnings on hijackings. Never did we imagine what would take place on September 11th, where people used those airplanes as missiles and as weapons.
Bush, 5/17/02: Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people
Fleischer, 5/21/02: we had no information about people hijacking a plane to use it as missiles, as was done on as was done on September 11th
Rice, 3/23/04: Administration officials received no intelligence suggesting that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held terrorists.
Rumsfeld, 3/23/04: I knew of no intelligence during the six-plus months leading up to September 11 to indicate terrorists would hijack commercial airlines, use them as missiles to fly into the Pentagon or the World Trade Center towers.
Bush, 4/18/04: Nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale
(Emphasis added.) The FAA passage is very helpful, because it makes it clear that both A and B are false, and it helps to prove that Bush is a liar. It's interesting to notice that Bush managed to hide this information until after the election, just as he did with the warrantless wiretapping story (he convinced NYT to sit on that story). Here's a comment about the delay:
Richard Ben-Veniste, a former member of the Sept. 11 commission, said the release of the material more than a year after it was completed underscored the over-classification of federal material. "It's outrageous that it has taken the administration a year since this monograph was submitted for it to be released," he said. "There's no reason it could not have been released earlier."
It's highly rational to be suspicious about 9/11, because Bush has a distinct track record of hiding and lying, about many things, including 9/11.
Fen: There's much more in both threads, so I won't clutter this one up anymore. And before you complain about Powerline, note that they simply rounded up the quotes - the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc. [1:00 AM]
Juke: The liar is you. You cited four Power Line articles (above at 1 AM). The links you provided are as follows:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006218.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006998.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/008063.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006935.php [link]
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/006935.php [link]
Thanks for providing such a blatant example of how you shamelessly make things up.
You obviously can't comprehend what you read. My 1AM post pointed you to two althouse threads in the archives that I dug up for you. I only lifted 4 posts as examples [recap] to show you proof of ties between Saddam-AQ.
Juke: I carefully examined all the material you provided, and chased every link [2:01 AM]
Apparently not. Here are the ones you missed while you crafting your stupid ad hom.
From the http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/crow-was-insistent-poking-rove-in-chest.html#comments thread referenced for Juke at 1AM:
Fen: the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc.
NYTs [4:53PM]
WaPo [4:57PM]
ABC News Description [5:50PM]
This now makes the THIRD time you've violated your own criteria [Bush "lied" because he claimed "absolute certainty" when there was none]. I don't think you lied, I think you made a mistake. But by your own standard, this is the 3rd time you've stumbled into your own petard - statements with "absolute certainty" when there is none. By your own measure, you are a "liar" just like Bush.
Juke: Three hours after you posted that gratuitous mockery, I posted a thorough response
Not thorough - you are still dodging my main question: I've asked you half a dozen times now to post the Tenet quote you claim disavows all of this:
"...So now I'm interested in the exact retraction by Tenet. Here is his testimony again. Please detail what parts he is retracting. I'd prefer you detail each retraction beneath each of his original statements, if you can manage it:
1) Tenet's letter to Congress
A) "Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank."
B) "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al Qaida going back a decade."
C) "Credible information indicates that Iraq and al Qaida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression."
D) "Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaida members, including some that have been in Baghdad."
E) "We have credible reporting that al Qaida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al Qaida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs."
F) "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al Qaida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent military action."
2) Tenet's testimony to Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:
"Iraq has in the past provided training in document forgery and bomb-making to al Qaida. It also provided training in poisons and gases to two al Qaida associates; one of these associates characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. Mr. Chairman, this information is based on a sold foundation of intelligence. It comes to us from credible and reliable sources."
3) Tenet's testimony to Senate Armed Services Cmte:
"[W]e also know from very reliable information that there's been some transfer of training in chemical and biologicals [sic] from the Iraqis to al Qaeda."
Added: You've changed your story Juke. You said Tenet retracted his letter to Congress, saying it was "sloppy". Now you're applying that to his Senate testimony [Intel and Armed Services] too.
[....]
Added: [and simplfied so you won't confuse the issue with a long-winded post full of distraction]
I'd prefer you detail each retraction beneath each of his original statements, if you can manage it
When I say "if you can manage it" I present you with an option: if you can detail it, that would be nice. If you cannot I still expect the Tenet quote
I gave you a pass on the Tenet quote because I always give new posters the benefit of the doubt. I assume they are arguing in good faith until they demonstrate otherwise. But...
1. I no longer trust your ability to comprehend what you read. Twice now you have misunderstood basic syntax [confusing Tenet with Shelton, carefully missing Powerline links to ABC, NYTs and Wapo.]
2. You're employing ad hom, hoping to turn the thread into a flamefest that obscures your faulty reasoning.
3. You've been caught "lying" three times now [by your own definition] in this thread alone.
So I need to see Tenet's words so I can determine for myself what he said and what previous statements he's retracting. I can't find it on the net, you continue to refuse to provide it.
To date, all I have is this:
TENET: Well, you have to -- you have to get to the subordinate clause and you have to also make clear the ultimate judgment. We didn't in that letter, but we did in all of our testimonies, in all of the papers that we presented. The Senate Intelligence Committee evaluated our work here, said that we were reasonable in the judgments we made.
The issue, for me, Wolf, is all of those things were causes of concern and yet some tried to posit operational control and command legitimacy that we never saw, and that became an issue.
BLITZER: Do you regret writing this letter?
TENET: We -- we would regret not having that clause that was -- that I talked about that was in all of our testimonies and every paper that we wrote. We were -- we were sloppy in that letter.
So I need the Tenet quote that backs up your claim: Another problem is that Tenet later disavowed the letter. I aslo want to know how disavowing the letter to Congress would include his oral testimony[x2] to the Senate.
Until you provide it, I'm done with you, and you've forfieted this debate.
/seperated and bumped, so you don't get confused again:
So I need the Tenet quote that backs up your claim: Another problem is that Tenet later disavowed the letter. I aslo want to know how disavowing the letter to Congress would include his oral testimony[x2] to the Senate.
Until you provide it, I'm done with you, and you've forfieted this debate.
C4: Fen, I have to admit, you sorta embarass me as a conservative with your WMD "Truther" crusade.
Yah, I gathered that. But please review my 1:50Am post. My position is more complex than your representation of it:
Fen: "No. I don't believe there were stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. I think Saddam made a careful risk-assessment and destroyed stocks that would incriminate him. My argument has been against the Left's insistence that there were NO WMDs in Iraq. There's simply no way to know that - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And yet, people like Juke express with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY [his words re Bush] that Iraq had no WMDs. By his own standards, he's a liar.
Saddam was not interested in stockpiling WMDs, he was interested in researching NBC weaponization in ways that could be quickly reconstituted once inspections ceased and sanctions were lifted.
I think he ditched all WMD stocks he could, decided what equipment could be claimed dual-use, and smuggled any irreplacable material and research out of country."
fen: "I only lifted 4 posts as examples"
Yes, in your 1:00 AM comment you "lifted 4 [powerline] posts as examples," and then you said this: "before you complain about Powerline, note that they simply rounded up the quotes - the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc."
You were making a claim about the 4 posts you cited. Trouble is, that claim was false. Those posts mostly cited sources like Fox, Washington Times, Cybercast News Service, and state.gov.
Now you're telling us that your statement ("the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc.") had nothing to do with the posts you had just cited, but was actually a reference to other posts, buried somewhere in another thread. If that's what you meant, you should have said so.
In any case, you were implying that Power Line only cites mainstream sources (or that the Power Line articles you cite only cite mainstream sources). That's obviously a false claim, unless you consider Washington Times and Cybercast News Service as mainstream.
"I don't think you lied, I think you made a mistake."
I didn't make a mistake. I simply took your words at face value (and the result was to discover that it's not a good idea to do that).
You insist on pretending that Bush et al didn't lie, but rather only made a mistake. To do this, you have to believe (for example) that when Rice told us that the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," that she didn't know that even the CIA (the folks pushing the bogus centrifuge claim) was not supporting the extreme claim she made. Even the CIA admitted that the tubes "could be used as rocket bodies for multiple rocket launchers" (SSCI 2004, p. 90). Rice's statement denied that. Likewise for a similar statement made by Cheney.
Is that really what you're saying, that Rice and Cheney have such poor reading comprehension that they misunderstood what CIA said? And this is without even beginning to explain why they swept aside what DOE said: that the tubes were almost certainly for rockets, not centrifuges. Are you claiming that Rice and Cheney were so clueless that they simply didn't know this? Because that's what you have to do in order to claim that they were not lying, but rather simply made an innocent mistake.
"I've asked you half a dozen times now to post the Tenet quote you claim disavows all of this"
You're well aware of the quote, because you cited it yourself ("we were sloppy in that letter").
"I aslo want to know how disavowing the letter to Congress would include his oral testimony[x2] to the Senate"
The claims are essentially the same, so disavowing the letter is tantamount to disavowing his testimony.
Anyway, what's really funny is that you're treating Tenet as credible. That's why you're obsessed with posting his statements, over and over again (you've posted the exact same lengthy material at least five times). Here's your argument, in a nutshell: 'Tenet said it, so it must be true, even though a GOP senate rejected his claims; and I'm going to ignore the fact that Tenet issued a disavowal, because I don't think the disavowal is detailed enough.' That's a bullet-proof argument, provided you're a Kool-Aid drinker.
And it's adorable to notice the way you repeatedly duck simple questions. Like this one: if Tenet's statements are credible, why were they contradicted in 2006 by a GOP senate? As you know, the senate said this (pdf):
Conclusion 1: ... Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa’ida to provide material or operational support. ... Saddam distrusted Islamic radicals in general, and al-Qa’ida in particular. ... bin Ladin attempted to exploit the former Iraqi regime by making requests for operational and material assistance, while Saddam Hussein refused all such requests. ... Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida.
I guess you're not going to lift a finger to address that. Just like you're not going to lift a finger to explain how Rice's statement was something other than an outright lie. You've been doing a nice job of running away from those questions, and I'm sure you'll continue to do so.
Juke: You were making a claim about the 4 posts you cited. Now you're telling us that your statement ("the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc.") had nothing to do with the posts you had just cited, but was actually a reference to other posts, buried somewhere in another thread. If that's what you meant, you should have said so
I did say so, in the very post you reference:
Fen: "Finally found it all buried in these threads:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/crow-was-insistent-poking-rove-in-chest.html#comments
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/05/ludicrous-chris-dodd-etc.html#comments
[...]
There's much more in both threads, so I won't clutter this one up anymore. And before you complain about Powerline, note that they simply rounded up the quotes - the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc." [emp added, 1:00AM]
Maybe I confused you, maybe you skimmed and didn't read carefully, but you said:
Uh, no. I carefully examined all the material you provided, and chased every link [Juke 2:01AM] ...and then accused me of lying about Powerline links to ABC News, NYTs, and Wapo. By your own standard [claiming "absolute certainty" and being wrong] you are a liar.
And remember, your silly argument is predicated on me being ignorant because I only read Powerline. Obviously, you've discredited your own argument, since its obvious I peruse links to media like ABC, NYTs and Wapo.
Juke: You're well aware of the quote, because you cited it yourself ("we were sloppy in that letter")
Thats your evidence that Tenet retracted his letter and testimony before two Senate Committees? Hint: sloppy != false. You'll have to do better.
Anyway, what's really funny is that you're treating Tenet as credible.
Your own Senate report says as much:
"The Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report concluded that the CIA's methodological approach for assessing a possible Iraq-Al Queda relationship was reasonable and objective." (p69)
That's a bullet-proof argument, provided you're a Kool-Aid drinker.
You are the one who thinks being wrong = lying, degraded = useless, sloppy = false. Is English your native language?
The "Kool-Aid" argument is that Bush, Rice, Tenet et al all deliberately lied. Again, your own link disagrees with you:
"As noted in this report, intelligence in not a perfect science and we should not expect perfection from Intelligence Community analysts. It is entirely possible for an analyst to perfrom meticulous and skillfull analysis and be completely wrong". (p9)
They even go on to mention you in their report:
"Simply stated, this second series of reports is designed to point fingers in Washington and at the Administration. The conclusions in the reports were crafted with more partisan bias than we have witnessed in a long time in Congress. The "Phase II" investigation has turned the Senate Intelligence Committee, a committee initially designed to be the most bipartisan committee in the Senate, into a political playground stripped of its bipartisan power, and this fact has not gone unnoticed in the Intelligence Community." (p149)
And BTW, the same Senate Committee "did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
fen: "I did say so"
I'll make it so simple that even you'll understand. You said this: "the links they provide are to sources like NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc."
But you cited Power Line articles that referenced Fox, Washington Times, Cybercast New Service, and state.gov. Simple question: are those sources in the same category as "NYTs, WaPo, CNN, ABC etc?" Because that's what you're claiming, right?
"Your own Senate report says as much [that Tenet is credible]"
I guess you're really determined to prove that you like to mislead people. Or maybe you're just trying to prove that you have exceptionally poor reading comprehension. You yanked one sentence from the 2006 report (pdf): "The Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report concluded that the CIA's methodological approach for assessing a possible Iraq-Al Queda relationship was reasonable and objective."
That sentence does not tell us that the senate, in 2006, considered Tenet to be credible. That sentence is simply the senate in 2006 reminding us of something the senate said in 2004. And even that sentence is weak praise, especially when you take into account the next sentence (which you left out, for some reason): "The Committee noted that the CIA acknowledged the lack of specific information on bin Ladin's and Saddam Hussein's views of a relationship and that CIA based assessments of Iraq's links to al-Qa'ida on circumstantial evidence."
In any case, the next section of the 2006 report (which you completely overlook) describes how it later became clear that the claims of Saddam-OBL cooperation were greatly exaggerated. And therefore the 2006 report reached this conclusion:
Conclusion 1: ... Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa’ida to provide material or operational support. ... Saddam distrusted Islamic radicals in general, and al-Qa’ida in particular. ... bin Ladin attempted to exploit the former Iraqi regime by making requests for operational and material assistance, while Saddam Hussein refused all such requests. ... Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida.
But of course you won't address those statements.
"intelligence in not a perfect science"
Indeed. Therefore Bush et al had no business pretending that they possessed perfect intelligence. But that's exactly what they did, when you used language like "no doubt" and "absolute certainty." It is indeed possible for intelligence to be that certain. But in this case, it was not. Bush pretended it was. That's a big problem.
"They even go on to mention you in their report"
For some strange reason, you forgot to tell us who is the "they" that you are quoting. The passage you lifted ("this second series of reports is designed to point fingers") is not from the main body of the 2006 report. It's from a "minority views" section that was signed by only 4 R senators. Even though the committee had a GOP majority, the majority did not approve the statement you cited. It's more than slightly dishonest of you to present text that is not part of the main body of the report (which was approved by the majority of the committee), and pretend that it is.
"the same Senate Committee 'did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts' "
You're jumping back and forth indiscriminately between the 2004 report and the 2006 report. I don't know if this is because you're confused, or if this is because you're trying to be intentionally confusing. Maybe both.
The passage you just cited is from the 2004 report. Yes, the GOP majority, issuing a report a few months before the 2004 election, put that sentence in the main body of the report. But since you're obviously a big fan of the minority views expressed in these reports, it's funny that you've overlooked this (SSCI 2004, p. 484):
The Committee's report did find that analysts were repeatedly questioned and asked to find links between Iraq and al-Qaida to make the Administration's case. In fact, the CIA Ombudsman for Politicization reported to the Committee that "several analysts gave the sense that they felt the constant questions and pressures to reexamine issues were unreasonable." Further, as stated in the Committee's report, the Committee staff interviewed Mr. Richard Kerr who said, "in this case I talked to people who felt that there was more pressure than they thought there should have been . . . they felt that they were being pressured and questioned about their analysis."
There's more like that. That's just one example. You're made it clear that you think minority views should only be taken into account when they serve your purposes. You've also made it clear that you think it's legitimate to pretend that they're something other than minority views.
I realize you're not going to tell us why we should ignore the conclusions of the 2006 report, approved by the majority of a GOP-controlled committee ("Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qa’ida"). And you're also not going to tell us why Rice and Cheney made statements about the tubes that were even more extreme than the most extreme views within the IC.
Instead of directly answering those questions, you've been using dishonest quoting to try to change the subject. How predictable.
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