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Banned
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<b>[1]</b>
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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei
How is anything I have stated not anchored with fact? For someone who seems so intelligent host, you really don't get it. Hell Will might not be sold on what I've said, but I'm sure he at least grasps the argument.
My whole argument is based off of factual law , the constitution, not some op-ed with accusations, agendas, and half truths skewed to make a subjective case.
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<b>[2]</b>
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Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv
Link
....Even Clinton was right at times. Could you post any information you possess that contradicts the above, or that makes you a more reliable source than Kagan, Blix, or Clinton?
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<b>[3]</b>
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Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei
I'm betting, what were the words Host, "an attempt to denigrate" the source is going to pop up.
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<b>[1]</b>
Responding to to Mojo_PeiPei:
<h5>The irony is rich because, after your inaccurate insinuation that I had posted an "op-ed", Marvelous Marv posted an "op-ed" to serve (so far) as the entire rebuttal intended to counter the best researched MSM REPORTING of the specifics of the Bush admin. pre-war lie campaign, narrowed to one issue...aluminum tubes, that I have come across, made particulalry more damning when coupled with the March 2, 2006 report by Murray Waas.
Then.... you followed up with your "taunt"...daring me to "denigrate" Marv's "offering" !</h5>
<b>None of the three items that I posted are "op-ed"....I made that quite clear already.
I changed the NY Times Sunday 03 October 2004 (below) article link to a link where you cannot read the body of the article unless you purchase it. Would you prefer that the article be blocked from view, than available on the truthout .org site?</b>
The article above is a "hard news" report from Oct. 3, 2004 that details all references by the Bush admin. members to aluminum tubes linked to Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons development program.
Quote:
http://hotstory.nationaljournal.com/...es/0302nj1.htm
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered directly to President Bush before the Iraq war cast doubt on key public assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.....
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The article above is a "hard news" report, by an investigative journalist, just as the NY Times piece preceding it, is. When you read the NY Times report, in the new context of Murray Waas's report on what Bush and Rice and Cheney, et al, knew when they made the statements that are quoted in the Oct. 3, 2004 article, they seem to have knowingly and deliberately lied the U.S. into an unnecessary, unjustified, and thus, illegal war. At the very least, this "news" should bring calls for immediate attention to completion of the Senate Intel Committee's Phase II report, delayed since July 8, 2004!
Quote:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1002115278
'National Journal': More Evidence That Press and Public Misled on Iraq
By E&P Staff
Published: March 02, 2006 8:00 PM ET
NEW YORK More records have emerged suggesting that President Bush knew he was not telling the truth when he made various statements to the press during the run-up to the Iraq war concerning the threat to America from the Saddam Hussein regime.
<b>Murray Waas, who has broken several key stories recently related to the Plame/CIA leak case for the nonpartisan National Journal, returned Thursday on the magazine's Web site with a detailed acount of two highly classified intelligence reports that were delivered directly to President Bush before the Iraq war......</b>
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No "op-ed" in the above piece either....just a description of Murray Waas's background from his peers. I thought that it might be helpful, since the MSM is not "liberal" enough to <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&q=murray+waas&btnG=Search+News">pick up</a> his report too quickly. But they will...give them time. Here's the <b>"Mouse's" News Network, mentioning Waas (and Bush's deception)...now:
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
The Note: Home Is Where the Polls Are
WASHINGTON, Mar. 3
<b>Politics of Iraq:</b>
National Journal's Murray Waas reports that the President received "highly classified intelligence reports containing information at odds with his justifications for going to war."
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<b>So....no "op-ed", Mojo!</b>
<b>[2]</b> Marvelous Marv....Clinton's CIA director, just months after Clinton left office, makes it quite clear in the quote box below that Saddam (Tenet remarks on 07 February 2001)<i>"his ability to project power outside Iraq's borders is severely limited, largely because of the effectiveness and enforcement of the No-Fly Zones. His military is roughly half the size it was during the Gulf War and remains under a tight arms embargo. He has trouble efficiently moving forces and supplies-a direct result of sanctions."</i>
Marvelous Marv, you asked,
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Even Clinton was right at times. Could you post any information you possess that contradicts the above, or that makes you a more reliable source than Kagan, Blix, or Clinton?
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I answered the "Clinton" portion of your question by offering a quote from his appointee, CIA Director George Tenet, spoken by him just 18 days after Clinton's term as POTUS ended.
Ah...yes....your "op-ed" is rife with the opinions of PNAC board member, Robert Kagan, co-author of PNAC's "one-note song"....pre-9/11 justifications for imperialistic power projection looked even better on 9-12. Kagan....correct less frequently than a broken clock:
Quote:
"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty."
Scholar Robert Kagan, April 9, 2003
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In march, 2003, Blix asked for more time for UN weapons inspectors to complete their inspections in Iraq. Bush rattled his sword and, in the rush to war, the inspectors had no choice but to end the inspections that would have resulted in conclusions that would have avoided war, spared countless numbers from death or shattered lives. Give it up, guys. If Foxnews likely voter pollling results reported on March 3, hold or build, voters will vote for democrats to replace the House majority by a 48 percent to 34 percent margin, and the question of whether Bush launched a war of aggression will be examined to the same detail that will rival "blue dress stain" in 1998.
You may have negelcted to read or overlooked my "evidence", posted a number of times before on TFP, and re-posted below, that Powell, Rice, and even Wolfowitz agreed or expanded on Tenet's assessment that Saddam posed no signifigant threat, and that the "no fly zone" policy of ten years was working to contain Saddam. There is also a "Time" report that Rumsfeld believed similarly, even in 2002. Read my "challenge" below, and consider that Scott McClellan, speaking for the POTUS, conceded that there were no WMD in Iraq, and that there was no evidence that WMD had been moved out of Iraq. What more do you require, Marvelous Marv? Tell me, and if you promise to read it and fairly digest it, I'll endeavor to provide it!
<b>[3]</b>It's not necessary to "denigrate" Marvelous Marv's link and excerpt from the same link, Mojo_PeiPei. I request that you and Marv consider that what he posted and you apparently support was a July 20, 2003 response to my post of a 03 Oct 2004 investigative news report by three NY Times reporters that detailed three years of Bush administration efforts to exaggerate the threat to the U.S. of Saddam's nuclear weapons development program, coupled with Murray Waas's report from March 2, 2005. I'll leave it to the tow or three other readers who might be interested enough to skim through all this, to decide if Marv's "offering" is akin to bringing a knife to a gun fight?
How does a July 20, 2003 article, written when no determination was made as to whether the WMD that Rumsfeld "knew were there, east, west, north, and south of Baghdad", actually....were....there,
....contribute to furthering the discussion I initiated?
<h4>Scott McClellan's Jan. 12, 2005 admission has been enough to destroy arguments very similar to the one Marv linked to, but "there you go again!</h4>
I Posted <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1941627&postcount=88">this</a> on a TFP thread on Nov. 18, 2005. Here's an excerpt.....a question that no one who takes your "side" of the "argument", has ever been able to answer.
If anyone has answered with an organized rebuttal, please point me to a link!
Quote:
<b>.....When I post quotes...for example, from Tenet, Powell, and Rice that all make it clear that, prior to 9/11 these key spokespeople for this administration were of the unanimous opinion that Saddam's Iraq bore continued close scrutiny, but there was a consensus that his military was no threat to his neighbors, that the "no fly zone" and trade sanctions were working as intended to keep Saddam from recontituting his prior, WMD programs, and inventories.
No one from the conservative, "defender of Bush et al" POV, who I have posted the points in the above link, has ever offered an explanation or a rebuttal to my premise that Tenet, Powell, and Rice were all of the same opinion regarding the threat that Saddam and his ambitions posed.</b> No one has been willing to discuss the curious paradox of the above three officials all committing to a policy of "closely watching" what Saddam is up to, yet suddenly being part of a massive "about face", wherein Saddam is transformed almost overnight into a threat that justifies an invasion to stop, not only towards his neighbors, but even imminently to the U.S. mainland itself.
I've posted the contents of the post linked above, politicophile, at least a dozen times in these threads. You ignored the quotes in the contents of the post, and the MSM news reports of CBS news/Rumsfeld, Time's early 2002 report that Rumsfeld knew that Iraq was weak but requested intel to the contrary from the CIA "ten times", Bush's "Eff" Saddam, we're taking him out"
quote, and Wolfowitz's comments to congress that acknowledged that the "no fly" zone had been effective, but that it cost more than an invasion would, going forward......
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My comments in the preceding quote box referred to the following example of my <b>post Clinton, pre-9/11</b> quotes of Bush administration "heavyweights":
I posted the following, on Nov. 15, 2005:
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http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=42
.....You've ignored the following because it destroys your argument. I apologize for posting these quotes again....in the same forum topic, but I know of no better examples of what "holdouts" at this late date, must ignore in order to use "the appeal to Clinton". 26 months after Clinton's speech, his CIA director made it clear that Saddam did not even pose a threat to his neighbors, and that the "no fly zones" were achieving the intended effect. Two weeks later, Powell, the general who had prosecuted the '91 gulf war against Iraq, when he served as chairman of the joint chiefs, reiterated even more persuasively, what Tenet had said. Five months after that, Rice again backed both earlier statements.
There is never a response to these quotes, presumably because there is no convincing way to refute the assessments made in each one. They are consistent in that all three....CIA Director Tenet, Sec'y of State Powell, and NS Advisor Rice....<b>in a time period that began with Tenet, 26 months after your citation, continuing to Rice's statements, 31 months after Clinton's speech,</b> presumably after the new Bush administration had more time to assess the "threat" or, in this case....lack of one....that Saddam's Iraq actually posed:
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http://www.usembassy.it/file2001_02/alia/a1020708.htm
07 February 2001
Text: CIA's Tenet on Worldwide Threat 2001
.............IRAQ
Mr. Chairman, in Iraq Saddam Hussein has grown more confident in his ability to hold on to his power. He maintains a tight handle on internal unrest, despite the erosion of his overall military capabilities. Saddam's confidence has been buoyed by his success in quieting the Shia insurgency in the south, which last year had reached a level unprecedented since the domestic uprising in 1991. Through brutal suppression, Saddam's multilayered security apparatus has continued to enforce his authority and cultivate a domestic image of invincibility.
High oil prices and Saddam's use of the oil-for-food program have helped him manage domestic pressure. The program has helped meet the basic food and medicine needs of the population. High oil prices buttressed by substantial illicit oil revenues have helped Saddam ensure the loyalty of the regime's security apparatus operating and the few thousand politically important tribal and family groups loyal.
<b>There are still constraints on Saddam's power. His economic infrastructure is in long-term decline, and his ability to project power outside Iraq's borders is severely limited, largely because of the effectiveness and enforcement of the No-Fly Zones. His military is roughly half the size it was during the Gulf War and remains under a tight arms embargo. He has trouble efficiently moving forces and supplies-a direct result of sanctions. These difficulties were demonstrated most recently by his deployment of troops to western Iraq last fall, which were hindered by a shortage of spare parts and transport capability........</b>
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Quote:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/forme...s/2001/933.htm
Press Remarks with Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Cairo, Egypt (Ittihadiya Palace)
February 24, 2001
(lower paragraph of second Powell quote on the page)
.............<b>but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction.</b> We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. <b>And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.................</b>
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Quote:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../29/le.00.html
...........KING: Still a menace, still a problem. But the administration failed, principally because of objections from Russia and China, to get the new sanctions policy through the United Nations Security Council. Now what? Do we do this for another 10 years?
RICE: Well, in fact, John, we have made progress on the sanctions. We, in fact, had four of the five, of the permanent five, ready to go along with smart sanctions.
We'll work with the Russians. I'm sure that we'll come to some resolution there, because it is important to restructure these sanctions to something that work.
<b>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.
This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we're going to go about doing that..............</b>
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politicophile, the statements above seem to speak in unison, they were made, beginning 26 months after the Clinton "smoking gun" speech that you cited. <b>Do the 2001 statements of Tenet, Powell, or Rice, indicate to you that a few months later, this would be a logical "followup" reported about the Bush administration, just 40 days after Rice spoke to CNN?:</b>
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in520830.shtml
(CBS) CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.
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or this....in March 2002?
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http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...mep.saddam.tm/
First Stop, Iraq
By Michael Elliott and James Carney
Monday, March 24, 2003 Posted: 5:49 PM EST (2249 GMT)
How did the U.S. end up taking on Saddam? The inside story of how Iraq jumped to the top of Bush's agenda -- and why the outcome there may foreshadow a different world order
"F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." Those were the words of President George W. Bush, who had poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
<b>It was March 2002,</b> and Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America's Middle East allies. Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively, recalls a participant, and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase.
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or this...nine months after Rice's CNN appearance....
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http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...235395,00.html
May 5, 2002
............Hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle strongly believe that <b>after years of American sanctions and periodic air assaults, the Iraqi leader is weaker than most people believe. Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed.</b> The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic was discredited last week..............
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Even Wolfowitz, in this "pitch" for the proposed invasion, did not deny that the existing Iraq "containment" policy had been effective. He seemed to think that invading Iraq would save money......
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061100723.html
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003..............
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....and I posted the following three reports on <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=1695374&highlight=mcclellan+weapons+thought#post1695374">a TFP thread</a> on March 2, 2005
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<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6834079/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6834079/</a>
U.S. found no evidence WMD moved from Iraq
No signs that weapons were smuggled, intelligence officials say
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:24 a.m. ET Jan. 17, 2005
WASHINGTON - As the hunt for weapons of mass destruction dragged on unsuccessfully in Iraq, top Bush administration officials speculated publicly that the banned armaments may have been smuggled out of the country before the war started.
Whether Saddam Hussein moved the WMD deadly chemical, biological or radiological arms is one of the unresolved issues that the final U.S. intelligence report on Iraqs programs is expected to address next month.
But intelligence and congressional officials say they have not seen any information never a piece, said one indicating that WMD or significant amounts of components and equipment were transferred from Iraq to neighboring Syria, Jordan or elsewhere.
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<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1620839&postcount=74">http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1620839&postcount=74</a>
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1674786&postcount=49">http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1674786&postcount=49</a>
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(Posted for the first time by host on a TFP thread)
<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050112-7.html#1">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050112-7.html#1</a>
<b>Excerpt from Scott McClellan Press Briefing, Jan. 12, 2005</b>
Q The President accepts that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he said back in October that the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer concluded what his predecessor had said, as well, <b>that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there.</b> And now what is important is that we need to go back and look at what was wrong with much of the intelligence that we accumulated over a 12-year period and that our allies had accumulated over that same period of time, and correct any flaws.
Q I just want to make sure, though, because you said something about following up on additional reports and learning more about the regime. You are not trying to hold out to the American people the possibility that there might still be weapons somewhere there, are you?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I just said that if there are -- if there are any other reports, obviously, of weapons of mass destruction, then people will follow up on those reports. I'm just stating a fact.
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Quote:
<a http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/in...12cnd-wmd.html
(copy and paste above link in google search box, you made need to register at nytimes site to view article)
Search for Illicit Weapons in Iraq Ends
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune
Published: January 12, 2005
ASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - The White House confirmed today that the search in Iraq for the banned weapons it had cited as justifying the war that ousted Saddam Hussein has been quietly ended after nearly two years, with no evidence of their existence.
That means that the conclusions of an interim report last fall by the leader of the weapons hunt, Charles A. Duelfer, will stand. That report undercut prewar administration contentions that Iraq possessed biological and chemical weapons, was building a nuclear capability and might share weapons with Al Qaeda. A White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, insisted today that the war was justified. He rejected the suggestion that the administration's credibility had been gravely wounded in ways that could weaken its future response to perceived threats.
The administration appeared to be dropping today even the suggestion that banned weapons might be deeply buried or well hidden in Iraq. Mr. McClellan said that President Bush had already concluded, after the October release of an interim report from Mr. Duelfer, "that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there."
Some administration officials have suggested that some arms might have been moved out of Iraq, perhaps to Syria. But Mr. McClellan appeared to rule that out.
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Last edited by host; 03-04-2006 at 10:31 AM..
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