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Banned
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Originally Posted by Seaver
Cook the books? Am I goign to have to dig up the countless speaches by the UN Security Council, Gore/Clinton/Kerry/Leiberman/etc gave on how dangerous Saddam was and how there was no doubt he had WMDs?
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Just once, Seaver...bring it on! Sen. Pat Roberts has avoided an honest, timely report of the Bush admin. "treatment" of intellignce that it received before the invasion of Iraq by carving his senate committee's report, first into two phases, to avoid a pre-2004 election disclosure of the issue to the public. Last fall, the democrats staged a protest in the senate to publicize the fact that Roberts never finished Phase 2 of the intelligence report. Now, as I document below, Roberts is at it again, dividing Phase 2 into pieces, to avoid disclosure before the 2006 election. I documented below that the Robb Silberman Commission said, last March 31, (2005) <b>"Second, we were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community."</b> I also documented Media Matters examples of false reporting that the Bush administration's handling ofintelligence was somehow "cleared" in the reports of those two committees.
We don't know where you get your information, Seaver; you don't tell us. This is not an even playing field.
Please back your statements, as I've done here, with quotes from Lieberman and Cheney in 2000, and Tenet and Powell in 2001, and Cheney's hysterical, March 16, 2003 "nuclear threat" statement. What a change from his Oct., 2000 VP debate statement....a change based on.....what ??? We don't know...because the Bush administration blocked three Commissions from looking into the issue...including the 9/11 commission. The statements, combined with the obvious, consistant effort to avoid disclosure of how they handled the intelligence, is pretty damning, don't you think?
If you disagree, Seaver, document why. Explain why the three investigations have never reported on this, to close the matter of whether or not Bush, Cheney, et al, lied about the justification for invading and occupying Iraq!
You would think that Bush and Cheney would want to be cleared of accusations that they lied us into an avoidable war and that they scapegoated and destroyed the CIA in the process.
Seaver, Cheney's end of October, 2000 opinion of the threat from Iraq is located in the middle of the page at:
Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/deb...s/u221005.html
THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: The Vice-Presidential Debate
Excerpts From the Debate Between the Vice-Presidential Candidates
October 6, 2000
Abstract: Excerpts from vice-presidential debate in Danville, Ky, between Sen Joseph I Lieberman and Dick Cheney (L)
Following are excerpts from the vice-presidential debate last night in Danville, Ky., between Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and Dick Cheney, as recorded by The New York Times. The moderator was Bernard Shaw of CNN.
MR. SHAW This question is for you, Mr. Secretary. If Iraq's President Saddam Hussein were found to be developing weapons of mass destruction, Governor Bush has said he would "take him out." Would you agree with such a deadly policy?
<b>MR. CHENEY We might have no other choice. We'll have to see if that happens. The thing about Iraq, of course, was at the end of the war we had pretty well decimated their military. We had put them back in a box, so to speak. We had a strong international coalition raid against them, effective economic sanctions and a very robust inspection regime that was in place. So that the inspection regime under U.N. auspices was able to do a good job of stripping out the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction -- the work that he'd been doing that had not been destroyed during the war on biological, chemical agents as well as a nuclear program. Unfortunately, now we find ourselves in a situation where that's started to fray on us, where the coalition now no longer is tied tightly together.
Recently the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two Gulf states, have reopened diplomatic relations with Baghdad. The Russians and the French now are flying commercial airliners back into Baghdad and sort of thumbing their nose, if you will, at the international sanctions regime. And of course the U.N. inspectors have been kicked out. And there's been absolutely no response.
So we're in a situation today where I think our posture vis-s-vis Iraq is weaker than it was at the end of the war. I think that's unfortunate. I also think it's unfortunate that we find ourselves in a position where we don't know for sure what might be transpiring inside Iraq.
I certainly hope he's not regenerating that kind of capability. But if he were, if in fact Saddam Hussein were taking steps to try to rebuild nuclear capability or weapons of mass destruction, you'd have to give very serious consideration to military action to stop that activity. I don't think you can afford to have a man like Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons, say, in the Middle East.</b>
MR. SHAW Senator.
MR. LIEBERMAN Bernie, it would, of course, be a very serious situation if we had evidence, credible evidence, that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. But I must say I don't think a political campaign is the occasion to declare exactly what we would do in that case. I think that's a matter of such critical national security importance that it ought to be left to those commander in chief, the leaders of the military, the secretary of state to make that kind of decision without the heat of a political campaign.
The fact is that we will not enjoy real stability in the Middle East until Saddam Hussein is gone. The gulf war was a great victory. And incidentally, Al Gore and I were two of the ten Democrats in the Senate who crossed party lines to support President Bush and Secretary Cheney in that war, and we're both very proud that we did that.
But the war did not end with a total victory and Saddam Hussein remained there. And as a result we have had almost 10 years now of instability. We have continued to operate, almost all of this time, military action to enforce a no-fly zone. We have been struggling with Saddam about the inspectors. We ought to do, and we are doing everything we can, to get those inspectors back in there.
But in the end, there's not going to be peace until he goes. And that's why I was proud to co-sponsor the Iraq Liberation Act with Senator Trent Lott, why I have kept in touch with the indigenous Iraqi opposition broad based to Saddam Hussein. Vice President Gore met with them earlier this year. We are supporting them in their efforts and we will continue to support them until the Iraqi people rise up and do what the people of Serbia have done in the last few days, get rid of a despot. We will welcome you back into the family of nations where you belong.
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Quote:
http://www.odci.gov/cia/reports/721_...an_jun2000.htm
Unclassified Report to Congress
on the Acquisition of Technology
Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction
and Advanced Conventional Munitions,
1 January Through 30 June 2000
.....We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs, although given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as likely. We assess that since the suspension of UN inspections in December of 1998, Baghdad has had the capability to reinitiate both its CW and BW programs within a few weeks to months. Without an inspection monitoring program, however, it is more difficult to determine if Iraq has done so.....
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Quote:
http://telaviv.usembassy.gov/publish...y/me0224b.html
February 2001
Remarks by
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
and Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa
Ittihadiya Palace
.......but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. 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. 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. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue..........
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and....if you will....here's the lie....on March 15, 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq:
Quote:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel...etthepress.htm
NBC News
MEET THE PRESS
Sunday, March 16, 2003
GUEST: Vice President DICK CHENEY
MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert - NBC News
What do you think is the most important rationale for going to war with Iraq?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think I’ve just given it, Tim, in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons.
MR. RUSSERT: And even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said he does not have a nuclear program, we disagree?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I disagree, yes. And you’ll find the CIA, for example, and other key parts of our intelligence community disagree. Let’s talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We’ve got, again, a long record here. It’s not as though this is a fresh issue. In the late ’70s, Saddam Hussein acquired nuclear reactors from the French. 1981, the Israelis took out the Osirak reactor and stopped his nuclear weapons development at the time. Throughout the ’80s, he mounted a new effort. I was told when I was defense secretary before the Gulf War that he was eight to 10 years away from a nuclear weapon. And we found out after the Gulf War that he was within one or two years of having a nuclear weapon because he had a massive effort under way that involved four or five different technologies for enriching uranium to produce fissile material.
We know that based on intelligence that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He’s had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. <b>And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.</b> I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong. And I think if you look at the track record of the International Atomic Energy Agency and this kind of issue, especially where Iraq’s concerned, they have consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don’t have any reason to believe they’re any more valid this time than they’ve been in the past....
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Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...r.iraq.claims/
Did the Bush Administration exaggerate the threat from Iraq?
By Wolf Blitzer
CNN
Tuesday, July 8, 2003 Posted: 6:29 PM EDT (2229 GMT)
Washington (CNN) -- It was perhaps the most compelling reason for the U.S. to go to war against Saddam Hussein -- namely that he was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. But that allegation has now come back to embarrass the President.
The White House now acknowledges President Bush should never have said this in his State of the Union address in January:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
That's in part because the British government itself has now backed away from that assertion.
What's clear now is that earlier intelligence reports suggesting Saddam Hussein's regime was attempting to obtain uranium from the African nation of Niger were based on false information, including forged documents.
But what's even more embarrassing to Bush administration officials is that the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department had themselves earlier concluded the Niger uranium reports were almost certainly not true.
Former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger in February 2002 -- eleven months before the President's State of the Union Address -- to investigate the allegations.
"I traveled there, spent eight days out there, and concluded that it was impossible that this sort of transaction could be done clandestinely," Wilson told CNN.
Two months after the President's address to Congress, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and went further than the president in alleging Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program.
"He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. <b>And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons," Cheney said.</b>
The White House has now released a statement acknowledging the Niger documents were forged but insisting there were other intelligence reports at the time suggesting Iraq was indeed attempting to acquire uranium from other countries in Africa. Still, the White House says, those reports were not specific.
"Because of this lack of specificity, this reporting alone did not rise to the level of inclusion in a presidential speech. That said, the issue of Iraq's attempts to acquire uranium from abroad was not an element underpinning the judgment reached by most intelligence agencies that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program," the statement said.
Sen. Carl Levin, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, says this issue reinforces the need for a formal inquiry -- why as late as the President's State of the Union address, the President was "still using information which the intelligence community knew was almost certainly false."
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Seaver. made you've read "garbage....misinformation" of the type that is described here:
Is this how a loyal senate committee chairman works to clear his president of charges that he lied us into war? Does it help Bush's credibitlity that Sen. Roberts wants to again, "divide out" the portion of his Intel Committee's report that could clear the POTUS's good name? It's only 22 months overdue, now!
Quote:
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/expo...506/news4.html
Sen. Roberts seeks delay of Intel probe
By Alexander Bolton
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wants to divide his panel’s inquiry into the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq-related intelligence into two parts, a move that would push off its most politically controversial elements to a later time.
The inquiry has dragged on for more than two years, a slow pace that prompted Democrats to force the Senate into an extraordinary closed-door session in November. Republicans then promised to speed up the probe.....
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Quote:
http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html#overview
REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT, MARCH 31, 2005
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
.......Finally, we emphasize two points about the scope of this Commission's charter, particularly with respect to the Iraq question. First, we were not asked to determine whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That was the mandate of the Iraq Survey Group; our mission is to investigate the reasons why the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments were so different from what the Iraq Survey Group found after the war. <b>Second, we were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its judgments about Iraq's weapons programs--not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information.</b>
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We've done the "hard work" of documenting the administration's lies and the coverup designed to shield the president. We can justify saying that Bush and Cheney lied us into an avoidable and costly war. The actions of Sen. Roberts and the marching orders from the Bush admiinstration that the Robb-Silberman commission abided by, are damning to Bush and Cheney's integrity, as well. It's not six months after Iraq was invaded, anymore Seaver. it's 26 months. There were no WMD, the president lied about that, and won't let a responsible commission or senate committee issue a report about the lies. The pre-invasion statements and the lack of any WMD say it all Seaver.
Last edited by host; 05-13-2006 at 06:27 PM..
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