What Do You KNOW About The Status of Post War Iraq or of the War on Terror? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 04-17-2005, 12:58 PM

Please read this post before you reply.

I have presented the current story concerning the news report that the Bush administration has decided
to stop publishing the yearly report on terrorism, and the reports surrounding the release and revision
of last year's report.

I have presented references from reliable sources that report that the Bush administration assessments
and reporting on key matters, the status of the direction of global terrorism, the progress in training of Iraqi
security forces, the status/progress of Iraqi electrical energy production, (after $1 billion has been spent to
increase it.) and the Bush restatements of the mission in Iraq.

What is it that Bush administration supporters or apologists, "know" that enables them to defend or support
the Bush admin. with such certainty ? What am I missing ? Am I "over researching", instead of accepting Bush admin.
PR at face value? Are all the conflicting reports, the ones that indicate that the war on terrorism is being lost,
that there are no reliable figures concerning the progress of Iraqi security force training, and that Iraq produced
less megawatts of power recently, than it did the week after the invasion, two years ago, to be ignored ?

Bottomline.....is there a point when you will become concerned that your support of Bush and his admin.'s policies will undermine your own credibility ? What has this administration been correct about ?

Quote:

<a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html">http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html</a>
Saturday, April 16, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.

U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report

By Jonathan S. Landay

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's
top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the
publication covered.

Several U.S. officials defended the decision, saying the methodology used by the National Counterterrorism Center to generate
statistics had flaws, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.

But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report,
"Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the
Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public,
" charged Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the
publication was eliminated, but said the allegation that it was done for political reasons was "categorically untrue."

According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department
reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called
"a central front in the war on terror."

Quote:

<a href="http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/31569.htm">http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/31569.htm</a>
Patterns of Global Terrorism -2003
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
April 29, 2004

The Year in Review

There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, and
a drop of 45 percent from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks. The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international
terrorist attacks since 1969.

A total of 307 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, far fewer than the 725 killed during 2002. A total of 1,593 persons
were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, down from 2,013 persons wounded the year before.

In 2003, the highest number of attacks (70) and the highest casualty count (159 persons dead and 951 wounded) occurred in Asia.

There were 82 anti-US attacks in 2003, which is up slightly from the 77 attacks the previous year, and represents a 62-percent
decrease from the 219 attacks recorded in 2001.

Thirty-five American citizens died in 15 international terrorist attacks in 2003:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5202007/">http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5202007/</a>
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to this report on "Global Terrorism," your credibility being called into question.
This is your deputy secretary of State, Richard Armitage, in April.

(Videotape, April 29, 2004):

MR. RICHARD ARMITAGE (Deputy Secretary of State): Indeed you will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "In the fight on terrorism." And the report says this: "There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003,
a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, a drop-off of 45 percent from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks.
The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969." And then two professors
from Princeton took a look at this, and from Stanford, and they concluded this: "Yet, a careful review of the report and underlying
data supports the opposite conclusion: The number of significant terrorist acts increased from 124 in 2001 to 169 in 2003 - 36 percent -
even using the State Department's official standards. ...The only verifiable information in the annual reports indicates that the number
of terrorist events has risen each year since 2001, and in 2003 it reached its highest level in more than 20 years."

Henry Waxman, the Democratic congressman of California, said that you are manipulating data for political purposes.

SEC'Y POWELL: Well, we're not. The data in our report is incorrect. If you read the narrative of the report, it makes it clear
that the war on terror is a difficult one, and that we're pursuing it with all of the means at our disposal. But something happened
in the data collection, and we're getting to the bottom of it. Teams have been working for the last several days and all weekend long.
I'll be having a meeting in the department tomorrow with CIA, other contributing agencies, the Terrorist Threat Information Center,
and my own staff to find out how these numbers got into the report. Some cutoff dates were shifted from the way it was done in the past.
There's nothing political about it. It was a data collection and reporting error, and we'll get to the bottom of it and we'll issue a
corrected report. And I've talked to Congressman Waxman.

MR. RUSSERT: Was it CIA data?

SEC'Y POWELL: It's a combination of data that flows in, and some of it is CIA. The Terrorist Threat Information Center compiles data,
provides it to us. But when you look at it in hindsight now, and you look at the analysis given to me by Congressman Waxman and these
two congressmen, all sorts of alarm bells should have gone off. All sorts of, as I say to my staff, circuit breakers should have dropped
when we saw this data, and they didn't. But I don't think there was anything political or policy driven about it. It was just data that
was incorrect, or it wasn't properly measured compared to the way it was measured in previous years. And so what we have to do is normalize
the data this past year, 2003, in the same way that we normalized data in previous years, and we will be putting out that corrected information
as fast as we can.

MR. RUSSERT: But it is embarrassing.

SEC'Y POWELL: Very embarrassing. I am not a happy camper over this. We were wrong.

MR. RUSSERT: You know, you take this report on terrorism, and the last time you were here about a month ago, Mr. Secretary, I asked about your
presentation to the United Nations, and this is what you said.

(Videotape, May 16, 2004):

SEC'Y POWELL: But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading. And for that I am
disappointed, and I regret it.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Inaccurate, wrong, deliberately misleading on WMD. And then this report on terrorism. Why shouldn't the American people lose all confidence in the information their government is giving them from the CIA about weapons of mass destruction, about terrorism, and who knows what else?

Quote:

<a href="http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm">http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm</a>
Patterns of Global Terrorism -2003
Released by the Bureau of Resource Management
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
June 22, 2004

The Year in Review (Revised)

Link for previously released Year in Review

There were 208 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight increase from the most recently published figure of 198* attacks in 2002,
and a 42 percent drop from the level in 2001 of 355 attacks.

A total of 625 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, fewer than the 725 killed during 2002. A total of 3646 persons were wounded in the
attacks that occurred in 2003, a sharp increase from 2013 persons wounded the year before. This increase reflects the numerous indiscriminate
attacks during 2003 on “soft targets,” such as places of worship, hotels, and commercial districts, intended to produce mass casualties.

Thirty-five U.S. citizens died in international terrorist attacks in 2003:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/electricity.html">http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/accomplishments/electricity.html</a>
Electricity

USAID's goals include the emergency repair or rehabilitation of power generation facilities and electrical grids. Teams of engineers
from the Ministry of Electricity, USAID and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working since May of 2003 to restore the capacity
to Iraq's power system.
Major Accomplishments to Date:

* By October, 2003, rehabilitated electric power capacity to produce peak capacity greater than the pre-war level of 4,400 MW.
By October, 2003, rehabilitated electric power capacity to produce peak capacity greater than the pre-war level of 4,400 MW.
Hit 5,365 MW on August 18, 2004.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/11151382.htm">http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/11151382.htm</a>
Before U.S. bombing knocked out 60 percent of Iraq's generation capacity in the 1990-91 Gulf War, Iraq churned out as much as
9,000 megawatts of electricity a day, Iraqi power officials have said. After Saddam hurriedly patched the grid,
it produced around 4,400 daily megawatts.

U.S. engineers promised to increase production to 6,000 megawatts of consistent power by last June.

Instead, the reverse happened. On March 4, a U.S. reconstruction official said that just 3,850 megawatts were generated the previous day.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2005/20050408_524.html">http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2005/20050408_524.html</a>
Trained and equipped Iraqi security forces number 152,617, divided between the ministries of interior and defense, according to
U.S. State Department April 6 statistics. The 66,895 soldiers in the Iraqi army, 186 in the air force and 521 in the Iraqi navy
come under the purview of the Ministry of Defense.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush13apr13,1,7662302.story?ctrack=1&cset=true">http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush13apr13,1,7662302.story?ctrack=1&cset=true</a>
Although Bush's figure for trained Iraqi forces was in line with the Pentagon tally of 152,617, the Government Accountability Office
had cast doubt on the administration figures. In March, the watchdog agency said the Pentagon, when tallying the number of trained
and equipped Iraqi troops, had included "tens of thousands" of police officers who were absent without leave.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05431t.html">http://www.gao.gov/htext/d05431t.html</a>
What GAO Found:...........

U.S. government agencies do not report reliable data on the extent to
which Iraqi security forces are trained and equipped. As of late
February 2005, the State Department reported that about 82,000 police
forces under the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and almost 60,000 military
forces under the Iraqi Ministry of Defense have been trained and
equipped. However, the reported number of Iraqi police is unreliable
because the Ministry of Interior does not receive consistent and
accurate reporting from the police forces around the country. The data
does not exclude police absent from duty. Further, the departments of
State and Defense no longer report on the extent to which Iraqi
security forces are equipped with their required weapons, vehicles,
communications equipment, and body armor.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030322.html">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030322.html</a>
President Discusses Beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom
President's Radio Address

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. American and coalition forces have begun a concerted campaign
against the regime of Saddam Hussein. In this war, our coalition is broad, more than 40 countries
from across the globe. Our cause is just, the security of the nations we serve and the peace of the world.
And our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support
for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050112-7.html">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050112-7.html</a>
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, that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence,
were not there. 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.

Now....the revised message as to why we are in Iraq:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/politics/12cnd-bush.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/politics/12cnd-bush.html</a>
"From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence by helping the Iraqi people establish a free country
that can sustain itself, rule itself, and defend itself," Mr. Bush said. "And in the last two years, Iraqis have made enormous progress
toward that goal."

WillyPete · 04-17-2005, 02:09 PM

Do a google for "petrodollar vs petroeuro".

It's surpising to note that in 2000 Saddam insisted that all oil from Iraq be paid for with Euros. Hostilities soon escalated.

In 2003, Iran announced an intention to build an Iranian Oil 'bourse' that would compete with the IPE in London and the NYMEX oil exchanges and its primary trade currency would be the Euro.
Soon after that, Pres. Bush announced plans to take action, citing that they were building nuclear weapons.

Iran does,however, have a nuclear power network.

Quote:

Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it has not ratified two additional protocols to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Program 93 + 2, which is designed to prevent states from developing nuclear weapons covertly despite IAEA inspections as Iraq was able to do prior to the Gulf War. Iran maintains that it will not ratify 93 + 2 due to it being denied civilian nuclear technology for Bushehr, despite its positive record with the IAEA.

Nuclear power industry contacts between Iran and Russia are based on the intergovernmental agreements of 25 August 1992, on cooperation in the civil use of nuclear energy and in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran.

...President Mohammad Khatami said on 23 December 2002 that Iran was committed to its obligations and had no intention to develop nuclear weapons. He said that Iran's willingness to send spent fuel back to Russia showed that it did not want to use it for weapons, since the nuclear waste from Bushire plant would be taken to Russia for safekeeping.

According to Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute, if Iran were to withdraw from the Nonproliferation Treaty and renounce the agreement with Russia, the Bushehr reactor could produce a quarter ton of plutonium per year, which Leventhal says is enough for at least 30 atomic bombs. See also Plutonium from Light Water Reactors as Nuclear Material, Harmon W.Hubbard, April 2003.

Normally for electrical power production the uranium fuel remains in the reactor for three to four years, which produces a plutonium of 60 percent or less Pu-239, 25 percent or more Pu-240, 10 percent or more Pu-241, and a few percent Pu-242. The Pu-240 has a high spontaneous rate of fission, and the amount of Pu-240 in weapons-grade plutonium generally does not exceed 6 percent, with the remaining 93 percent Pu-239. Higher concentrations of Pu-240 can result in pre-detonation of the weapon, significantly reducing yield and reliability. For the production of weapons-grade plutonium with lower Pu-240 concentrations, the fuel rods in a reactor have to be changed frequently, about every four months or less.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...an/bushehr.htm

Seaver · 04-17-2005, 02:25 PM

Quote:

It's surpising to note that in 2000 Saddam insisted that all oil from Iraq be paid for with Euros. Hostilities soon escalated.

In 2003, Iran announced an intention to build an Iranian Oil 'bourse' that would compete with the IPE in London and the NYMEX oil exchanges and its primary trade currency would be the Euro.
Soon after that, Pres. Bush announced plans to take action, citing that they were building nuclear weapons.

Not surprising at all. It would have only made the conversion of laundered money from the oil for food corruption directly into the European pocketbooks that much easier.

host · 04-17-2005, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Not surprising at all. It would have only made the conversion of laundered money from the oil for food corruption directly into the European pocketbooks that much easier.

Not surprising that you have no response to the topic of this thread or to the
questions that I asked in the thread starter. Here is a more recent report concerning Iraqi electrical energy production:

Quote:

<a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=Millions+Said+Going+to+Waste+in+Iraq+Utilities&btnG=Search+News">http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=Millions+Said+Going+to+Waste+in+Iraq+Utilities&btnG=Search+News</a>
April 10, 2005
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Millions Said Going to Waste in Iraq Utilities
# A coalition memo says water, sewage and power facilities rebuilt with U.S. funds are falling into disrepair. Iraqis say they need more money

By T. Christian Miller, Times Staff Writer

..........................The failures have left U.S. and Iraqi officials contemplating a disheartening scenario: After expending billions of dollars and tremendous effort, some of the reconstruction effort might literally go to waste. One official involved in reconstruction estimated that "hundreds of millions" had been squandered because of improper operation and maintenance of U.S.-funded projects................................U.S. officials "made a lot of decisions themselves, and the decisions were wrong," said Tamimi, an engineer who returned to Iraq after years of exile to help rebuild the country. "This is our country. It's our city. They didn't accept that."

After nearly two years and hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of repairs to rebuild Iraq's crumbling power plants, electricity production remains below prewar levels, according to the latest State Department figures.

John "Dick" Dumford, a consultant who oversees the electrical sector for USAID, said that production, depressed by fuel shortages, had been worsened by the maintenance problems.

He said Iraq's gas and thermal generators, if properly maintained and operated, could produce about 8,000 megawatts a day — enough to cover demand. Instead, they are only producing about 3,000 megawatts a day. As a result, Iraqis still endure daily blackouts.................................

Again, I ask you, Seaver.......what has the Bush administration accomplished in
Iraq, or in the "war on terror", compared to it's statements of aims and accomplishments, and.....
how do you know? How do you know what to tell your elected representatives as to voting for further appropriations that will finance
Bush administration goals in Iraq and in the "war on terror?

Seaver · 04-17-2005, 05:11 PM

What have the Bush admin accomplished in Iraq? Are you serious?

1) Fastest advance of an army in the history of history during wartime.
2) Bringing democracy back to Iraq
3) Ending state-funded massacres of Shi'ia and Kurds

I'll give you the fact that the rebuilding is going exceptionally slow, and it needs to be put on a higher priority. I just ask you, how do you expect to protect EVERY bridge, EVERY portion of EVERY powerline. EVERY water main. Hell we have problems holding that down here in the US and there's no insurgency with the intent of holding it down.

I'm not behind the admin fully on this, they need to hire more native Iraqi's to repair these, to bring back the employment and get them to feel more of a pride for their country. But to take every chance to stab at them, while ignoring the good they've done is blind partisanship.

host · 04-17-2005, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

What have the Bush admin accomplished in Iraq? Are you serious?...............

.............I'm not behind the admin fully on this, they need to hire more native Iraqi's to repair these, to bring back the employment and get them to feel more of a pride for their country. But to take every chance to stab at them, while ignoring the good they've done is blind partisanship.

One more time, Seaver........

1.) I cannot determine what information releases from the Bush administration concerning the invasion of Iraq, the "war on terror", the rebuilding of Iraq, (and for that matter..... the status of the SSI trust fund, the job performances of "Freedom Medal" winners George Tenet and Paul Bremer, the numbers of "foreign fighters" in Iraq, determinations of pollutant hazards, efficacy and safety of new drugs, hazards in the food suppy, i.e. MCD, what actually happened on 9/11 and who was responsible, the soundness of the currency, the impact on the treasury of proposed and enacted tax cuts, and
other issues too numerous to detail here, are or are not reliable.

2.) Judging by my observations of the last four years, starting with the almost immediate post 2001 innaugaral executive order that restricted the scheduled releases of past president's files, and arriving at the article that I posted above thar describes Rice's order to cease publication of the yearly terrorism report, it appears that the Bush admin. does not want me to be able to make my own determinations, and that it is actively impeding my efforts to do so. If my reaction to this curious and disturbing departure from past administrations can be brushed aside by you, as "blind partisanship", then I have to conclude that you are accepting and blissful in your Bush admin. orchestrated ingnorance as far as the issues and performance of our government. I am not.

samcol · 04-17-2005, 09:33 PM

Yes the war on iraq and terror is a complete disaster. We are creating more terrorists by the day. I think they lie so much they believe themselves. I like how Powell says the report was flawed. It seems like every report that comes out that isn't pro war, or that the wars are improving is "flawed."

It seems like these wars are really going no where. We are just fed 'we are fighting for freedom, don't ask questions' it starts to get old. And to think we are gearing up for Iran over the same thing as Iraq

host · 04-17-2005, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

Yes the war on iraq and terror is a complete disaster. We are creating more terrorists by the day. I think they lie so much they believe themselves. I like how Powell says the report was flawed. It seems like every report that comes out that isn't pro war, or that the wars are improving is "flawed."

It seems like these wars are really going no where. We are just fed 'we are fighting for freedom, don't ask questions' it starts to get old. And to think we are gearing up for Iran over the same thing as Iraq

<a href="http://www.iraqbodycount.net/">17384</a> Iraqi civilian deaths and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/">1,723</a> coalition troop deaths......but, for the time being......discussion at TFP Politics seems to favor topics such as "erring on the side of life" for Schiavo, and why using the "N" word is a no-no.

This is a peculiar, disconnected time in history. Things will go along like this until they don't. The absurdities in national/world politics that no one seems to want to focus on now, are not confined to this end of the English speaking world, either. This season of misinformation and incompetence seems to be a deliberate and collaborative effort of equally inept British and American government extremists and their propagandists:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/12/sprj.irq.powell.ricin/">http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/02/12/sprj.irq.powell.ricin/</a>
<b>Europe skeptical of Iraq-ricin link</b>

Wednesday, February 12, 2003 Posted: 2:58 PM EST (1958 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- European intelligence officials questioned U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's contention Wednesday that the lethal poison involved in a terrorist plot broken up in Britain came from Iraq.

Powell cited the plot in testimony before the House International Relations Committee, arguing that part of the danger of not disarming Iraq lay in possible alliances with terrorists.

"The ricin that is bouncing around Europe now originated in Iraq -- not in the part of Iraq that is under Saddam Hussein's control, but his security forces know all about it," Powell said.

But investigators have said that arrests in Europe found suspected terrorists trained in biological and chemical weapons in the Pankisi Gorge region of Georgia and nearby Chechnya -- and the traces of the ricin found in a British raid were clearly "homemade."

A French intelligence source said he was "stunned" by Powell's comment.

"There is no, repeat, no suggestion that the ricin was anything but locally produced," he said. "It was bad quality, not technically sophisticated."

Further, the source said, British authorities "are clear" that the poison was "home-made."

"Don't forget, intelligence is like a supermarket, and at that level in government, you see everything, and can pick anything," the source said.

State Department officials said that Powell was likely referring to the "knowledge and capability" to produce ricin originating in Iraq -- perhaps a reference to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, said by European judicial sources to be one of the men who trained the arrested suspects in chemical and biological weaponry.

President Bush last October mentioned Zarqawi as a "very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks."

It is the second time in as many days that Powell's interpretation of purported Iraq-al Qaeda connections has been questioned. On Tuesday, Powell said that an audiotape said to be al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was indisputable proof of such a connection.

But translations of the tape show that bin Laden, while voicing support for the Iraqi people and urging them to resist any U.S.-led attack, called the Baath party of Saddam Hussein "infidels" and said he wouldn't be disappointed if Saddam Hussein and his supporters "disappear."

Other Bush administration officials defended Powell's comments. Asked about the distinction bin Laden appears to make between the Iraqi government and the Iraqi population, CIA director George Tenet told a Senate committee that such distinctions blur "very, very easily."

"It's a distinction that people have tried to make, particularly in the terrorism world, which I don't think very much of, to tell you the truth," Tenet said.

<b>Fast forward to disclosures this week:</b>

Quote:

<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_murray/20050415.html">http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_murray/20050415.html</a>

DON MURRAY:
Poison in the air
CBC News Analysis | April 15, 2005
<i>
Don Murray is one of the most prolific of the CBC's foreign correspondents, filing hundreds of reports - in French and English - from China, Europe, the Middle East and the Soviet Union. He is currently based in London as the senior European correspondent for CBC Television News.

During his 30 years with CBC, Murray has covered a multitude of major
stories...................
</i><b>
The headlines were howls of fear and warning. It was time to cower under the bed.

"The Toxic Terrorist." "He Wanted YOU Dead." "The al-Qaeda plot to poison Britain."</b>

They graced the front pages of London newspapers after a draconian publication ban was lifted on an extraordinary trial.

An Algerian named Kemal Bourgass was convicted of conspiring to cause a public nuisance through the use of poisons and explosives. He was sentenced to 17 years in jail. In an earlier trial he had been sentenced to life in prison for stabbing a police officer to death while trying to escape arrest.

The trials took place in secret.

Bourgass's intention was to make ricin, a highly toxic poison that can be made from castor beans. Police found a recipe, written in Arabic, and some ingredients in the flat where he was staying. Other men were arrested at the same time. This was in January of 2003.

British police and political officials let it be known that they had broken up an al-Qaeda ring that had been planning to wreak havoc in London. They said traces of ricin had been found in the raided apartment

The next month Colin Powell, then American secretary of state, made a speech to the UN security council about the threat Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed to the world. He spoke of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network." He said the group of men arrested in Britain constituted one of the links in that chain.

According to Powell, North African extremists had been instructed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian extremist linked to al-Qaeda and based in Iraq, to travel to Europe to conduct poison and explosives attacks. "A detainee who helped piece this together says the plot also targeted Britain. Later evidence, again, proved him right. When the British unearthed a cell there just last month, one British police officer was murdered during the disruption of the cell."

British prime minister Tony Blair echoed that: "We have seen powerful evidence of the continuing terrorist threat; the suspected ricin plot in London and Manchester."

But just how powerful was the evidence?

One hundred people were arrested in the roundup. Nine were held in a high-security prison for two years. Four men stood with Bourgass in the dock accused of plotting to make ricin and then take it to smear on door handles of cars and in phone booths to poison people.

But after a marathon trial costing almost $50 million, a jury found the other four not guilty. A further trial for conspiracy involving the remaining four still in prison was abandoned.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1461010,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1461010,00.html</a>
Doubts grow over al-Qaida link in ricin plot

Inconsistencies put credibility of supergrass in question

Vikram Dodd
Saturday April 16, 2005
The Guardian

Fresh doubt emerged yesterday about the claim that the ricin plot against Britain was linked to al-Qaida and was hatched in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. .........................
......................This week the British police said that information from Mr Meguerba was accurate in almost every case.

Lawyers for those accused of involvement in the plot say this was because the supergrass was not only involved but was an instigator of the conspiracy.

Mr Meguerba correctly said there were two Nivea cream pots in the flat in Wood Green, north London, but claimed there was ricin in them. No ricin was found, and tests by government scientists found that none had been produced.

He gave the wrong address in a north London suburb for the alleged "poison factory", but anti-terrorism officers were able to find the right one in January 2003.

The most significant British terrorism trial since the attacks on America in 2001 ended with eight people being acquitted of conspiracy to murder and the jury deadlocked on the ninth, Bourgass.

Curiously, while being interviewed by British officers, Mr Meguerba said of his co-conspirator: "I did not say he wanted to kill people."

Bourgass was already serving life for murdering a police officer and was sentenced to 17 years this week for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.

David Blunkett said about the ricin trial last November, when he was home secretary: "Al-Qaida is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through the courts over the months to come to be, actually on our doorstep and threatening our lives. I am talking about people who are and about to go through the court system." ...............

Quote:

<a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=630187">http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=630187</a>

Ricin: The plot that never was
A deadly poison said to be at the heart of a terrorist conspiracy against Britain led to a dire warning of another al-Qa'ida attack in the West. The Government was swift to act on the fear that such a find generated. But, as Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker report, far from being a major threat, the real danger existed only in the mind of a misguided individual living in a dingy north London bedsit

17 April 2005

It was a weapon of mass destruction, a warning that we all needed to be "vigilant and alert". Weeks before the invasion of Iraq, it was presented as the final proof that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qa'ida. Anyone wanting to exploit the politics of fear could scarcely conjure up anything more potent than the news that a suspected terrorist cell had been making ricin, one of the deadliest poisons known to man, in a north London flat.

But there was no ricin - a fact suppressed for more than two years. There was no terrorist cell, just one deluded and dangerous man who killed a police officer during a bungled immigration raid. Kamel Bourgass (probably not his real name; he used several aliases) is serving life for the murder of Special Branch detective Stephen Oake, but despite more than 100 arrests and months of investigation which took detectives to 16 countries, no al-Qa'ida plot ever materialised.....................
<h3>Charles Clarke

The Home Secretary had to apologise for the Government's failure to deport Kamel Bourgass, who was wanted for immigration offences. Mr Clarke claims it proves the need for ID cards, but faces demands to explain why ministers failed to withdraw false claims that ricin was found in Bourgass's flat.</h3>

ANATOMY OF A 'CONSPIRACY'

18 September 2002 An alleged mastermind of "ricin plot", Algerian Mohammed Meguerba, arrested in north London and fake IDs found. Bailed after suffering an epileptic fit, he absconds.

16 December 2002 Mohammed Meguerba is arrested in Algeria by security police after allegedly being smuggled in by Islamist militants.

28 December 2002 Algerian security police begin interrogating Meguerba. Within two days, he allegedly reveals poisoning plot in north London, names Kamel Bourgass as ringleader and other Algerians as co-conspirators.

5 January 2003 Police raid flat in Wood Green, north London, and arrest several men. They discover Bourgass's alleged "poisons laboratory" including recipes for ricin and toxic nicotine and cyanide gas weapons, but Bourgass is not found. Other flats raided over following days. Seven North Africans arrested, including a 17-year-old. Incriminating "poison recipes", false papers and CDs with bomb-making instructions found.

7 January 2003 David Blunkett, then Home Secretary, and John Reid, Health Secretary, issue joint statement claiming "traces of ricin" and castor beans capable of making "one lethal dose" were found in Wood Green flat. "Ricin is a toxic material which if ingested or inhaled can be fatal," they add. "Our primary concern is the safety of the public." Tony Blair (pictured below) says the discovery highlights the perils of weapons of mass destruction, adding: "The arrests which were made show this danger is present and real and with us now. Its potential is huge."

7 January 2003 Chemical weapons experts at Porton Down discover in more accurate tests that the initial positive result for ricin was false: there was no ricin in the flat. Porton Down is unable to say when it alerted the police or ministers to the error.

14 January 2003 Police raid flat in Crumpsall Lane, Manchester, seeking another terror suspect. They instead find Bourgass and alleged conspirator Khalid Alwerfeli. After a violent struggle, Bourgass murders DC Stephen Oake and wounds several other police officers.

6 February 2003 Colin Powell (pictured far right), US Secretary of State, tells UN Security Council of direct link between British "ricin plot" and alleged al-Qa'ida "poisons camp" in Iraq. He says al-Qa'ida commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "has sent at least nine North African extremists ... to Europe to conduct poison and explosives attacks ... The plot also targeted Britain ... When the British unearthed a cell there just last month, one British police officer was killed."

31 March 2003 US commanders in Iraq claim to have destroyed "poison factory", but no chemicals or laboratories found. General Richard Myers, US commander-in-chief, claims: "It is from this site that people were trained and poisons were developed which migrated to Europe. We think that's probably where the ricin found in London came from."

29 June 2004 Bourgass sentenced to life for murdering DC Oake after 11-week trial at the Old Bailey. Sentence kept secret because of impending trial for "ricin plot".

13 September 2004 After two months of legal argument in court, Old Bailey case begins against Bourgass, Mouloud Sihali, David Khalef, Sidali Feddag and Mustapha Taleb.

8 April 2005 After one of Britain's longest criminal trials and four weeks of deliberation, jury acquits Sihali, Khalef, Feddag and Taleb.

12 April 2005 Jury acquits Bourgass of the most serious charge - conspiracy to carry out a chemical attack - but finds him guilty of "conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by the use of poisons or explosives to cause disruption, fear or injury". Judge sentences him to 17 years. Government admits no ricin was found, only 20 castor beans, some cherry stones, apple pips and botched "nicotine poison" in a Nivea jar. Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald abandons trial - due to start tomorrow - of another four men accused of the conspiracy. Khalid Alwerfeli, Samir Asli, Mouloud Bouhrama and Kamel Merzoug formally declared innocent. Meguerba has yet to stand trial in Algeria and remains in custody.

boatin · 04-17-2005, 11:22 PM

i applaud your research, and your work of posting. you ask excellent questions. and your observations about 'erring on the side of life' and the "n word" are right on the money.

Sadly, I doubt anyone on the 'right' will respond in any real way. The facts are clear - the trend is obvious. And yet many refuse to see either.

Peculiar, indeed.

WillyPete · 04-18-2005, 12:46 AM

Personally?
I think the US and UK administrations have their own agenda and in some ways I can understand them covering up or spinning intel to mask real reasons for action. The only time it's justified is to prevent mass hysteria and panic.
But the result is a lack of faith in the government and a lack of trust on their behalf of the public willing to back them on tough issues if they told the truth.

I constantly feel like I'm being told not to ask questions by a well-intentioned parent who doesn't realise I can understand the situation enough to make my own mind up.

raveneye · 04-18-2005, 07:43 AM

Since host's quotes are a bit lengthy, let me summarize them briefly:

--The State Department has published, annually, a definitive document called "Patterns of Global Terrorism" since 1986. The general public can see all these publications as PDF files here:

http://www.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp

These publications have always been the definitive source on terrorism acts and statistics.

--There are two versions of the report: one is classified and is required by law to be submitted to Congress by April 30 each year. The other is unclassified and made available to the public. There is no law requiring the unclassified version to be published.

--A former CIA analyst by the name of Larry Johnson found out somehow that the unclassified issue for 2004 was blocked from publication. He also got a copy of it and found that it reported 655 terrorist attacks last year, the most ever reported for one year over the entire history of these reports. That number was corroborated by several other current intelligence agents who have seen the report.

--Larry Johnson found that the main reason for the jump in the numbers was a different method of counting used in 2004. That means that you can't really compare the 2004 numbers to those of the past. And most of the attacks (at least 300) occurred in India in the Kashmir region. The sharp increase was not caused by Islamic extremists; in fact if anything the number of attacks by Islamic extremists might have been lower in 2004. You can read more in Larry Johnson's excellent Counterterrorism Blog here:

http://counterterror.typepad.com/the.../14/index.html

--The Bush administration has admitted that the unclassified version of the report has been eliminated and will no longer be published in the future. Condoleeza Rice's office ordered that the publication be killed.

--The classified version is still mandated by law, and will be submitted this year on schedule to Congress.

--A different unclassified version will be released to the public under a different name. This new unclassified version will contain no statistics on the number of terrorist attacks.

I think it is rather obvious that politics was the reason the annual report was blocked from public view. It would be a major embarrassment to the administration because it implies that terrorism has skyrocketed under Bush's watch.

But those are the best numbers we have. They should be published. The fact that a new and better method of counting is used is irrelevant. It would be very easily to published the results from the old method and the new method side by side for comparison.

Theoretically, Congress could write another bill that requires the annual statistics to be published for the general populace.

But as long as Bush is president, that will never happen.

The Jolt · 04-18-2005, 10:59 AM

Thanks for the summary, raveneye

Bottom line here: No one will ever convice me that the Iraqis are somehow worse off now than when they had a muderous psychopath as a leader. It may not be disneyworld over there, but at least we've changed some of it for the better.

However, I will concede, they did lie about why we went over there. We had a million and one good reasons to go over there and take out Saddam, but instead Bush chose to make one up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

Yes the war on iraq and terror is a complete disaster. We are creating more terrorists by the day. I think they lie so much they believe themselves. I like how Powell says the report was flawed. It seems like every report that comes out that isn't pro war, or that the wars are improving is "flawed."

It seems like these wars are really going no where. We are just fed 'we are fighting for freedom, don't ask questions' it starts to get old. And to think we are gearing up for Iran over the same thing as Iraq

Grow some balls, dude. Were doing the right thing by getting rid of these people, and we will have to fight them sooner or later. In the words of Winston Churchill:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winston Churchill

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is BETTER TO PERISH THAN TO LIVE AS SLAVES.

Willravel · 04-18-2005, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jolt

Grow some balls, dude. Were doing the right thing by getting rid of these people, and we will have to fight them sooner or later. In the words of Winston Churchill:

A lot of "these people" are pretty sure we invaded their country. They're right. They think we have no buisness being there, so they fight in the only way they can to get us out. Who's right? It depends on who you ask. As far as I'm concerned, we're both wrong, and that's very dangerous.

What I know is that our actions have led to terrorist activities rising, not falling. Our 'war on terror' is failing day by day. The more invaded Middle Eastern countries = more people resorting to terrorism. Our wrong begets their wrong. It's a vicious cycle that will only end when one side finally realizes that they need to brake the chain.

One thing you have to realize is that America doesn't lose if we stop killing Middle Easterners. The terrorists don't win if we leave Iraq or the Middle East.

WillyPete · 04-18-2005, 12:02 PM

Also, Saddam maybe wrong, but he's been telling his people that the US is the enemy for decades.

20 year olds have grown up, possibly under the threat of the secret police if they didn't agree with Saddam, but regardless of what Saddam did, to them he spoke the truth about the Americans and the English.

Even now he's gone, the seeds of what he's sown have a very fertile field to grow in.

host · 04-18-2005, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jolt

Thanks for the summary, raveneye

Bottom line here: No one will ever convice me that the Iraqis are somehow worse off now than when they had a muderous psychopath as a leader. It may not be disneyworld over there, but at least we've changed some of it for the better..........................

A reminder that the point of this thread, backed by the references, is:
<h2>How Do You Know?</h2>

This administration seems to have a policy of not wanting you to know.
Check what they say and compare it to what you can find out on your own.
The Bush administration has distorted the record at nearly every opportunity.

Simplistic sloganeering about who is good and who is bad is a poor substitute for the work that it takes to fully shape a reliable outlook regarding post Nixon national policy and politics. The dead and the wounded pile up, and American influence and treasure bleed out because of an appalling lack of curiousity and cognition on the part of many voters in America. We'll soon see if voters in the U.K. also suffer from the Saddan=bad, Bush & Blair=good, myopia.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&notFound=true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&notFound=true</a>
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 30, 2002; Page A01

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

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

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

Throughout the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq was the sworn enemy of Iran, then still in the throes of an Islamic revolution. U.S. officials saw Baghdad as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan -- a Middle East version of the "domino theory" in Southeast Asia. That was enough to turn Hussein into a strategic partner and for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad to routinely refer to Iraqi forces as "the good guys," in contrast to the Iranians, who were depicted as "the bad guys."

A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.

Opinions differ among Middle East experts and former government officials about the pre-Iraqi tilt, and whether Washington could have done more to stop the flow to Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass destruction.

"It was a horrible mistake then, but we have got it right now," says Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA military analyst and author of "The Threatening Storm," which makes the case for war with Iraq. "My fellow [CIA] analysts and I were warning at the time that Hussein was a very nasty character. We were constantly fighting the State Department."

"Fundamentally, the policy was justified," argues David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who runs an anti-Hussein radio station in Prague. "We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Our long-term hope was that Hussein's government would become less repressive and more responsible."

What makes present-day Hussein different from the Hussein of the 1980s, say Middle East experts, is the mellowing of the Iranian revolution and the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait that transformed the Iraqi dictator, almost overnight, from awkward ally into mortal enemy. In addition, the United States itself has changed. As a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. policymakers take a much more alarmist view of the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. Shifts in Iran-Iraq War

When the Iran-Iraq war began in September 1980, with an Iraqi attack across the Shatt al Arab waterway that leads to the Persian Gulf, the United States was a bystander. The United States did not have diplomatic relations with either Baghdad or Tehran. U.S. officials had almost as little sympathy for Hussein's dictatorial brand of Arab nationalism as for the Islamic fundamentalism espoused by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As long as the two countries fought their way to a stalemate, nobody in Washington was disposed to intervene.

By the summer of 1982, however, the strategic picture had changed dramatically. After its initial gains, Iraq was on the defensive, and Iranian troops had advanced to within a few miles of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. U.S. intelligence information suggested the Iranians might achieve a breakthrough on the Basra front, destabilizing Kuwait, the Gulf states, and even Saudi Arabia, thereby threatening U.S. oil supplies.

"You have to understand the geostrategic context, which was very different from where we are now," said Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official, who worked on Iraqi policy during the Reagan administration. "Realpolitik dictated that we act to prevent the situation from getting worse."

To prevent an Iraqi collapse, the Reagan administration supplied battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop buildups to the Iraqis, sometimes through third parties such as Saudi Arabia. The U.S. tilt toward Iraq was enshrined in National Security Decision Directive 114 of Nov. 26, 1983, one of the few important Reagan era foreign policy decisions that still remains classified. According to former U.S. officials, the directive stated that the United States would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran.

The presidential directive was issued amid a flurry of reports that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons in their attempts to hold back the Iranians. In principle, Washington was strongly opposed to chemical warfare, a practice outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. In practice, U.S. condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons ranked relatively low on the scale of administration priorities, particularly compared with the all-important goal of preventing an Iranian victory.

Thus, on Nov. 1, 1983, a senior State Department official, Jonathan T. Howe, told Secretary of State George P. Shultz that intelligence reports showed that Iraqi troops were resorting to "almost daily use of CW" against the Iranians. But the Reagan administration had already committed itself to a large-scale diplomatic and political overture to Baghdad, culminating in several visits by the president's recently appointed special envoy to the Middle East, Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Secret talking points prepared for the first Rumsfeld visit to Baghdad enshrined some of the language from NSDD 114, including the statement that the United States would regard "any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West." When Rumsfeld finally met with Hussein on Dec. 20, he told the Iraqi leader that Washington was ready for a resumption of full diplomatic relations, according to a State Department report of the conversation. Iraqi leaders later described themselves as "extremely pleased" with the Rumsfeld visit, which had "elevated U.S.-Iraqi relations to a new level."

In a September interview with CNN, Rumsfeld said he "cautioned" Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, a claim at odds with declassified State Department notes of his 90-minute meeting with the Iraqi leader. A Pentagon spokesman, Brian Whitman, now says that Rumsfeld raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. The State Department notes show that he mentioned it largely in passing as one of several matters that "inhibited" U.S. efforts to assist Iraq.

Rumsfeld has also said he had "nothing to do" with helping Iraq in its war against Iran. Although former U.S. officials agree that Rumsfeld was not one of the architects of the Reagan administration's tilt toward Iraq -- he was a private citizen when he was appointed Middle East envoy -- the documents show that his visits to Baghdad led to closer U.S.-Iraqi cooperation on a wide variety of fronts. Washington was willing to resume diplomatic relations immediately, but Hussein insisted on delaying such a step until the following year.

As part of its opening to Baghdad, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department terrorism list in February 1982, despite heated objections from Congress. Without such a move, Teicher says, it would have been "impossible to take even the modest steps we were contemplating" to channel assistance to Baghdad. Iraq -- along with Syria, Libya and South Yemen -- was one of four original countries on the list, which was first drawn up in 1979.

Some former U.S. officials say that removing Iraq from the terrorism list provided an incentive to Hussein to expel the Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal from Baghdad in 1983. On the other hand, Iraq continued to play host to alleged terrorists throughout the '80s. The most notable was Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, who found refuge in Baghdad after being expelled from Tunis for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, which resulted in the killing of an elderly American tourist.

Iraq Lobbies for Arms

While Rumsfeld was talking to Hussein and Aziz in Baghdad, Iraqi diplomats and weapons merchants were fanning out across Western capitals for a diplomatic charm offensive-cum-arms buying spree. In Washington, the key figure was the Iraqi chargé d'affaires, Nizar Hamdoon, a fluent English speaker who impressed Reagan administration officials as one of the most skillful lobbyists in town.

"He arrived with a blue shirt and a white tie, straight out of the mafia," recalled Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East specialist in the Reagan White House. "Within six months, he was hosting suave dinner parties at his residence, which he parlayed into a formidable lobbying effort. He was particularly effective with the American Jewish community."

One of Hamdoon's favorite props, says Kemp, was a green Islamic scarf allegedly found on the body of an Iranian soldier. The scarf was decorated with a map of the Middle East showing a series of arrows pointing toward Jerusalem. Hamdoon used to "parade the scarf" to conferences and congressional hearings as proof that an Iranian victory over Iraq would result in "Israel becoming a victim along with the Arabs."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chemicals Kill Kurds

In late 1987, the Iraqi air force began using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq that had formed a loose alliance with Iran, according to State Department reports. The attacks, which were part of a "scorched earth" strategy to eliminate rebel-controlled villages, provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and renewed demands for sanctions against Iraq. The State Department and White House were also outraged -- but not to the point of doing anything that might seriously damage relations with Baghdad.

"The U.S.-Iraqi relationship is . . . important to our long-term political and economic objectives," Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy wrote in a September 1988 memorandum that addressed the chemical weapons question. "We believe that economic sanctions will be useless or counterproductive to influence the Iraqis."

Bush administration spokesmen have cited Hussein's use of chemical weapons "against his own people" -- and particularly the March 1988 attack on the Kurdish village of Halabjah -- to bolster their argument that his regime presents a "grave and gathering danger" to the United States.

The Iraqis continued to use chemical weapons against the Iranians until the end of the Iran-Iraq war. A U.S. air force intelligence officer, Rick Francona, reported finding widespread use of Iraqi nerve gas when he toured the Al Faw peninsula in southern Iraq in the summer of 1988, after its recapture by the Iraqi army. The battlefield was littered with atropine injectors used by panicky Iranian troops as an antidote against Iraqi nerve gas attacks.

Far from declining, the supply of U.S. military intelligence to Iraq actually expanded in 1988, according to a 1999 book by Francona, "Ally to Adversary: an Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace." Informed sources said much of the battlefield intelligence was channeled to the Iraqis by the CIA office in Baghdad.

Although U.S. export controls to Iraq were tightened up in the late 1980s, there were still many loopholes. In December 1988, Dow Chemical sold $1.5 million of pesticides to Iraq, despite U.S. government concerns that they could be used as chemical warfare agents. An Export-Import Bank official reported in a memorandum that he could find "no reason" to stop the sale, despite evidence that the pesticides were "highly toxic" to humans and would cause death "from asphyxiation."

The U.S. policy of cultivating Hussein as a moderate and reasonable Arab leader continued right up until he invaded Kuwait in August 1990, documents show. When the then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, met with Hussein on July 25, 1990, a week before the Iraqi attack on Kuwait, she assured him that Bush "wanted better and deeper relations," according to an Iraqi transcript of the conversation. "President Bush is an intelligent man," the ambassador told Hussein, referring to the father of the current president. "He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq."

"Everybody was wrong in their assessment of Saddam," said Joe Wilson, Glaspie's former deputy at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, and the last U.S. official to meet with Hussein. "Everybody in the Arab world told us that the best way to deal with Saddam was to develop a set of economic and commercial relationships that would have the effect of moderating his behavior. History will demonstrate that this was a miscalculation."

host · 04-18-2005, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillyPete

Also, Saddam maybe wrong, but he's been telling his people that the US is the enemy for decades.

20 year olds have grown up, possibly under the threat of the secret police if they didn't agree with Saddam, but regardless of what Saddam did, to them he spoke the truth about the Americans and the English.

Even now he's gone, the seeds of what he's sown have a very fertile field to grow in.

I do not read many posts that persuade me that the author knows the subject.

Folks, if Saddam was a "murderous psychopath", who "gassed his own people",
and thus the U.S. was justified in an unprovoked invasion of Iraq that has resulted in the overthrow of his government by the force of the U.S. military,
and the deaths of at minimum, 17,000 Iraqi civilians, and in the physical destruction of much of Iraq, what say you of the Reagan and Bush I administrations, who not only supplied Saddam with the chemical and biological weapons stocks and the technical knowhow to make and to use them, but turned a blind eye to Saddam's "gassing his own people", and continued to provide him with military support, intelligence info, and diplomatic relations.

By your own "rules", are Rumsfeld, Bush I, and former members of the Reagan admin. not enablers and conspirators with the "murderous psychopath", Saddam?

Mojo_PeiPei · 04-18-2005, 12:57 PM

Well the thing about the material support was the US supplied Saddam at the extreme low of the spectrum, links have been posted here from the Stockholm Institute for Peace (I think thats the name) that puts the American contribution at 1% of all weapons supplied behind the Germans, French, and Russians. Wow isn't that a conincidence three of the biggest wars detractors were Saddams biggest weapons suppliers, they also had the most to gain by keeping him in power.

But yeah it is pretty lame that we were behind such a goon, but that was the politics of the time, I suppose we weren't to inclined to care what he did so long as he was putting the hurt on the Iranians.

Bodyhammer86 · 04-18-2005, 01:48 PM

To back Mojo's claim that we sent very few weapons to Saddam, this link shows that we sent a grand total of 100 helicopters, only 30 of which being light gunships, the others civilian models taken over for Air Force use. Compared to the hundreds of tanks, fighter jets, missiles, armored vehicles, etc. provided by Russia, France, and China, our contribution (of only 1% of the arms) seems quite insignificant.

raveneye · 04-18-2005, 02:24 PM

That SIPRI report of course covers only conventional arms.

The US in addition was the fourth largest supplier to Iraq of sensitive computer and intelligence technology (in purely monetary terms, amounting to $750 million since 1985). In purely technical terms, the U.S. could be seen as first, since no other country had the sophisticated technology that the U.S. gave Iraq.

This sophisticated technology was used for a wide variety of purposes in running Saddam's military (e.g. upgrading the Soviet SCUD missiles, and to intercept and deceptively alter images picked up by U.S. spy satellites before the first Gulf War).

There may have been transfers of a lot of other military material in secret from the U.S. William Eagleton at least left a paper trail indicating that he advocated setting up a large scale military shipment system from the U.S. to Iraq through third parties such as Egypt, so that the transfers could be hidden. This was in 1983, under Reagan.

Yes, other countries did provide nearly all the conventional arms. But all those conventional arms were commanded and operated with the help of U.S. computer and intelligence technology.

Seaver · 04-18-2005, 04:05 PM

Quote:

In purely technical terms, the U.S. could be seen as first, since no other country had the sophisticated technology that the U.S. gave Iraq.

Um... by the time our technology goes to countries like those, they've been outdated for at least 10 years. Only a select few countries such as Britain, Israel, and a very select few of NATO countries had access to first-generation systems. The stuff we sold to Iraq we had already long since sold to Japan, Saudis, Egypt, hell even the Philippeans. They could have gotten it from anyone else, by no means was it that advanced.

raveneye · 04-18-2005, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

They could have gotten it from anyone else, by no means was it that advanced.

That's an exaggeration. The U.S. is certainly in a position to provide technical assistance, training, and equipment far superior to that of any other country.

But in any case, regardless of whom they could have gotten it from, they did get it from the U.S.

According to Senate testimony later, the Reagan administration was secretly providing a wide range of technical military assistance to the Iraqis. The Reagan administration was doing this because apparently no other nation was willing and capable.

Mojo_PeiPei · 04-18-2005, 04:47 PM

No other country was involved in an ongoing bloodbath with it's neighbor who happened to Iran.

guy44 · 04-18-2005, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

No other country was involved in an ongoing bloodbath with it's neighbor who happened to Iran.

Which in no way justifies giving military aid to a murderous psychopath.

This is one reason why many people around the world are sick of the U.S. We so often do what is in our short-term political interest, with so little thought as to the long-term consequences, that nobody believes us when we want to do good. Can you blame Iraqis or Afghanis, who we have both aided and helped kill for decades, for viewing us skeptically?

Locobot · 04-18-2005, 04:54 PM

Yeah the U.S. didn't supply any weapons to S. Hussein

There's simply no evidence!

raveneye · 04-18-2005, 04:57 PM

Quote:

No other country was involved in an ongoing bloodbath with it's neighbor who happened to [be] Iran.

So you're now saying that arms transfers to Iraq were justified? Were only the U.S. transfers justified, or were the European transfers also justified?

samcol · 04-18-2005, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jolt

Thanks for the summary, raveneye

Bottom line here: No one will ever convice me that the Iraqis are somehow worse off now than when they had a muderous psychopath as a leader. It may not be disneyworld over there, but at least we've changed some of it for the better.

However, I will concede, they did lie about why we went over there. We had a million and one good reasons to go over there and take out Saddam, but instead Bush chose to make one up.

Grow some balls, dude. Were doing the right thing by getting rid of these people, and we will have to fight them sooner or later. In the words of Winston Churchill:

Anyway, we had a million and one good reasons to go over there? Good for who is my question. It wasn't good for myself, I don't feel like it was good for the country (the money, the allies lost, the terrorists created). These people were 0 threat to us. I don't recall the Constitution saying it's ok to spread democracy. The Military is for defending the nation, not attacking.

If a murderous psycopath is defined as someone who kills innocent civilians, has rape rooms, and tortures people, then Saddam is a psycopath. Then you look at what's happened there since we've invaded, thousands of civilians killed, prisoners sodomized and humiliated, and the torture is back. It's bad when Saddam does it, and ok when we do it. I don't understand the logic there.

The Jolt · 04-18-2005, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

A reminder that the point of this thread, backed by the references, is:
<h2>How Do You Know?</h2>

I don't believe that our government is perfect in any sense of the word. I KNOW that Democracy is a much better form of government because it allows people to change their leaders easily and without bloodshed.

I believe that even though Saddam did not have WMD's he was trying to make us think he did. He was probably financing terrorists and paying the famlies of suicide bombers. Would you rather defend the US on American soil or on Iraqi soil?

But the main point of this point host, is to ask you one question:
<h2>How Do You Know?</h2>

Don't quote me newspaper articles, my dad (a lawyer) won't even comment to the press anymore because 90% of the time they distort his words to support the article they've already planned to write, or they just don't understand enough about what he is saying to use it correctly.

All you have is an impression that our presence in Iraq is making terrorists and found a few journalists who share it. I believe that Iraqis, just like everyone else I know, simply want to live a shrapnel free life and see the benefits of democracy.

The New York Times, CBS News, Houston Chronicle - all of these are only symptoms of a major disease in the news media.

If you've been there you KNOW, If you know people there you KNOW, otherwise you are simply giving an opinion.

That's what most of world politics is about - opinions.

The Jolt · 04-18-2005, 07:03 PM

samcol, I apologize for the "grow some balls, dude" comment

host · 04-18-2005, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jolt

I don't believe that our government is perfect in any sense of the word. I KNOW that Democracy is a much better form of government because it allows people to change their leaders easily and without bloodshed.

I believe that even though Saddam did not have WMD's he was trying to make us think he did. He was probably financing terrorists and paying the famlies of suicide bombers. Would you rather defend the US on American soil or on Iraqi soil?

But the main point of this point host, is to ask you one question:
<h2>How Do You Know?</h2>

Don't quote me newspaper articles, my dad (a lawyer) won't even comment to the press anymore because 90% of the time they distort his words to support the article they've already planned to write, or they just don't understand enough about what he is saying to use it correctly.

All you have is an impression that our presence in Iraq is making terrorists and found a few journalists who share it. I believe that Iraqis, just like everyone else I know, simply want to live a shrapnel free life and see the benefits of democracy.

The New York Times, CBS News, Houston Chronicle - all of these are only symptoms of a major disease in the news media.

If you've been there you KNOW, If you know people there you KNOW, otherwise you are simply giving an opinion.

That's what most of world politics is about - opinions.

The Jolt, by your logic, the Bush administration instigated aggressive war in Iraq via military invasion to, as you stated, "rather defend the US on American soil or on Iraqi soil?"

Defend America, from what ? You are skeptical about news reporting, but in your skepticism, you make a strong case that it is of vital importance for the Bush administration to release, timely, frank, and reliable reports concerning the rebuilding of Iraq and the status of the war on terror. I know that this is not happening, because journalists' reports of Iraqi electrical production do not collide with reports that our government releases, because it has ceased to release such reports, now that the news is unfavorable.

Journalists and the non-partisan GAO agree that Bush admin. info releases concerning the progress in training Iraqi security forces are incomplete and
misleading. Now the report to the public on terrorists incidents of the previour year will not be published on the order of Secty of State Rice, because the information that it reports is inconsistant with Bush admin. claims of progress in the "war on terror".

I do not have to rely on news reports vs. Bush admin. reports or withholding of reports to make accurate assessments of important events. For example, Hans Blix, Scott Ritter, David Kay, and Charles Duelfer all refuted the assertion that you and the Bush admin. made that "Saddam did not have WMD's he was trying to make us think he did". These weapons inspector's reports, since Dec., 2002, three months before Iraq was invaded, up until Scott Mcllellan's Jan. 12, 2005 press briefing, quoted above, allow me to know well that you still buy into inaccurate opinions very similar to the ones touted by Bush spokespersons and sympathetic media personalities.

Saddam complied with the UN in the Dec. 2002 release of 12,000 pages of info concerning the status of Iraqi WMD programs, which turned out, after the US spent several hundred million dollars in a futile attempt to refute them, turned out to be an accurate Iraqi account, yet you just wrote that "he was trying to make us think he did". I know that Saddam was attempting to comply with the UN, Bush promised to seek a UN resoution before invading Iraq, and then ordered the invasion without seeking the resolution that he pledged to seek.

The Jolt, please provide examples of Saddam "financing terrorsts". "Probably" is not good enough to justify aggressive war, especially when you offer no durable evidence that the US was directly threatened. Bush did not choose to respond to Saddam in a manner that was anywhere near proportional to acts that threatened US security. Every example cited by Powell in his infamous UN briefing in Mar, 2003, have since been exposed as unreliable. French journalists perceived and reported this when it happened (see my earlier post), you still do not seem to accept it, now.

The Jolt, my avatar is a tribute to SCOTUS Justice Robert Jackson, the chief
US prosecutor of war crimes at Nuremberg. Here is what he had to say about
waging a war of aggression. No journalist need sway my thinking that the
US executive branch is now populated by several as yet unindicted war criminals, Justice Jackson persuaded me of that as this run up to war unfolded:

Quote:

<a href="http://www.roberthjackson.org/theman2-7-8-2.asp">http://www.roberthjackson.org/theman2-7-8-2.asp</a>
..........The central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds them all together, is the plot for aggressive wars. The chief reason for international cognizance of these crimes lies in this fact. Have we established the Plan or Conspiracy to make aggressive war?

Certain admitted or clearly proven facts help answer that question. First is the fact that such war of aggression did take place. Second, it is admitted that from the moment the [ ] came to power, every one of them and every one of the defendants worked like beavers to prepare for some war.....

WillyPete · 04-19-2005, 02:29 AM

Face it folks, anything the US does in the middle east is for the US's own benefit and for cheaper oil.

It is your lifeblood.
People either have to start giving up cheap oil and what it represents in their wealth and daily lives, or they have to buck up and quit worrying about how their government goes about getting it for them.

Policy changes according to who is in power and what the current situation is.
I don't think the majority were unhappy with the idea of the US helping Saddam fight the fundamentalist Islamic nation of Iran at the time.

I guess the events over there should be accompanied with the side note of "It seemed a good idea at the time" when relegated to the history books.

It's hard to set a standard to the world to represent a working democracy when you're also hip deep in other nations' problems.

host · 04-19-2005, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillyPete

Face it folks, anything the US does in the middle east is for the US's own benefit and for cheaper oil................

.............I don't think the majority were unhappy with the idea of the US helping Saddam fight the fundamentalist Islamic nation of Iran at the time.............

Was that what the US executive administration was doing ?

Quote:

<a href="http://www.infoplease.com/spot/scandal5.html">http://www.infoplease.com/spot/scandal5.html</a>

The scandal that marred Ronald Reagan's presidency was rooted in two separate military initiatives in which American involvement was prohibited by federal law.

The first was the ongoing war between Iran and Iraq. Officially, American foreign policy took no sides in the conflict; however, secretly, officials at the National Security Council (NSC) were selling weapons (at heavily inflated prices) to Iran. This was done in exchange for Iranian assistance in negotiating the release of American hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian terrorists.

Secrecy was necessary for a number of reasons. First, the arms deal was illegal, violating a U.S. trade and arms embargo against Iran. It also clearly subverted the Reagan administration's policy not to negotiate with terrorists. And finally, profits from the operation were being used to fund another conflict, that of the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, who were trying to overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/icsummary.html">http://www.webcom.com/pinknoiz/covert/icsummary.html</a>
Records of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh relating to Iran/Contra
<a href="http://www.archives.gov/research_room/independent_counsel_records/independent_counsel_walsh.html">http://www.archives.gov/research_room/independent_counsel_records/independent_counsel_walsh.html</a>

Executive Summary

In October and November 1986, two secret U.S. Government operations were publicly exposed, potentially implicating Reagan Administration officials in illegal activities. These operations were the provision of assistance to the military activities of the Nicaraguan contra rebels during an October 1984 to October 1986 prohibition on such aid, and the sale of U.S. arms to Iran in contravention of stated U.S. policy and in possible violation of arms-export controls. In late November 1986, Reagan Administration officials announced that some of the proceeds from the sale of U.S. arms to Iran had been diverted to the contras..............

Overall Conclusions

The investigations and prosecutions have shown that high-ranking Administration officials violated laws and executive orders in the Iran/contra matter.

Independent Counsel concluded that:

the sales of arms to Iran contravened United States Government policy and may have violated the Arms Export Control Act1

the provision and coordination of support to the contras violated the Boland Amendment ban on aid to military activities in Nicaragua;

the policies behind both the Iran and contra operations were fully reviewed and developed at the highest levels of the Reagan Administration;

although there was little evidence of National Security Council level knowledge of most of the actual contra-support operations, there was no evidence that any NSC member dissented from the underlying policykeeping the contras alive despite congressional limitations on contra support;

the Iran operations were carried out with the knowledge of, among others, President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, and national security advisers Robert C. McFarlane and John M. Poindexter; of these officials, only Weinberger and Shultz dissented from the policy decision, and Weinberger eventually acquiesced by ordering the Department of Defense to provide the necessary arms; and

large volumes of highly relevant, contemporaneously created documents were systematically and willfully withheld from investigators by several Reagan Administration officials.

following the revelation of these operations in October and November 1986, Reagan Administration officials deliberately deceived the Congress and the public about the level and extent of official knowledge of and support for these operations.

In addition, Independent Counsel concluded that the off-the-books nature of the Iran and contra operations gave line-level personnel the opportunity to commit money crimes...................

Prosecutions

In the course of Independent Counsel's investigation, 14 persons were charged with criminal violations. There were two broad classes of crimes charged: Operational crimes, which largely concerned the illegal use of funds generated in the course of the operations, and "cover-up" crimes, which largely concerned false statements and obstructions after the revelation of the operations. Independent Counsel did not charge violations of the Arms Export Control Act or Boland Amendment. Although apparent violations of these statutes provided the impetus for the cover-up, they are not criminal statutes and do not contain any enforcement provisions.

All of the individuals charged were convicted, except for one CIA official whose case was dismissed on national security grounds and two officials who received unprecedented pre-trial pardons by President Bush following his electoral defeat in 1992. Two of the convictions were reversed on appeal on constitutional grounds that in no way cast doubt on the factual guilt of the men convicted. The individuals charged and the disposition of their cases are:

(1) Robert C. McFarlane: pleaded guilty to four counts of withholding information from Congress;

(2) Oliver L. North: convicted of altering and destroying documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress; conviction reversed on appeal;

(3) John M. Poindexter: convicted of conspiracy, false statements, destruction and removal of records, and obstruction of Congress; conviction reversed on appeal;

(4) Richard V. Secord: pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress;

(5) Albert Hakim: pleaded guilty to supplementing the salary of North;

(6) Thomas G. Clines: convicted of four counts of tax-related offenses for failing to report income from the operations;

(7) Carl R. Channell: pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States;

(8) Richard R. Miller: pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States;

(9) Clair E. George: convicted of false statements and perjury before Congress;

(10) Duane R. Clarridge: indicted on seven counts of perjury and false statements; pardoned before trial by President Bush;

(11) Alan D. Fiers, Jr.: pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress;

(12) Joseph F. Fernandez: indicted on four counts of obstruction and false statements; case dismissed when Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh refused to declassify information needed for his defense;

(13) Elliott Abrams: pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress;

(14) Caspar W. Weinberger: charged with four counts of false statements and perjury; pardoned before trial by President Bush.

At the time President Bush pardoned Weinberger and Clarridge, he also pardoned George, Fiers, Abrams, and McFarlane.

The Basic Facts of Iran/contra

The Iran/contra affair concerned two secret Reagan Administration policies whose operations were coordinated by National Security Council staff. The Iran operation involved efforts in 1985 and 1986 to obtain the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East through the sale of U.S. weapons to Iran, despite an embargo on such sales. The contra operations from 1984 through most of 1986 involved the secret governmental support of contra military and paramilitary activities in Nicaragua, despite congressional prohibition of this support.

The Iran and contra operations were merged when funds generated from the sale of weapons to Iran were diverted to support the contra effort in Nicaragua. Although this "diversion" may be the most dramatic aspect of Iran/contra, it is important to emphasize that both the Iran and contra operations, separately, violated United States policy and law.2 The ignorance of the "diversion" asserted by President Reagan and his Cabinet officers on the National Security Council in no way absolves them of responsibility for the underlying Iran and contra operations.

The secrecy concerning the Iran and contra activities was finally pierced by events that took place thousands of miles apart in the fall of 1986. The first occurred on October 5, 1986, when Nicaraguan government soldiers shot down an American cargo plane that was carrying military supplies to contra forces; the one surviving crew member, American Eugene Hasenfus, was taken into captivity and stated that he was employed by the CIA. A month after the Hasenfus shootdown, President Reagan's secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran was reported by a Lebanese publication on November 3. The joining of these two operations was made public on November 25, 1986, when Attorney General Meese announced that Justice Department officials had discovered that some of the proceeds from the Iran arms sales had been diverted to the contras.

When these operations ended, the exposure of the Iran/contra affair generated a new round of illegality. Beginning with the testimony of Elliott Abrams and others in October 1986 and continuing through the public testimony of Caspar W. Weinberger on the last day of the congressional hearings in the summer of 1987, senior Reagan Administration officials engaged in a concerted effort to deceive Congress and the public about their knowledge of and support for the operations.

Independent Counsel has concluded that the President's most senior advisers and the Cabinet members on the National Security Council participated in the strategy to make National Security staff members McFarlane, Poindexter and North the scapegoats whose sacrifice would protect the Reagan Administration in its final two years. In an important sense, this strategy succeeded. Independent Counsel discovered much of the best evidence of the cover-up in the final year of active investigation, too late for most prosecutions............

..............President Reagan's directive to McFarlane to keep the contras alive "body and soul" during the Boland cut-off period was viewed by North, who was charged by McFarlane to carry out the directive, as an invitation to break the law. Similarly, President Reagan's decision in 1985 to authorize the sale of arms to Iran from Israeli stocks, despite warnings by Weinberger and Shultz that such transfers might violate the law, opened the way for Poindexter's subsequent decision to authorize the diversion. Poindexter told Congress that while he made the decision on his own and did not tell the President, he believed the President would have approved. North testified that he believed the President authorized it.

Independent Counsel's investigation did not develop evidence that proved that Vice President Bush violated any criminal statute. Contrary to his public pronouncements, however, he was fully aware of the Iran arms sales. Bush was regularly briefed, along with the President, on the Iran arms sales, and he participated in discussions to obtain third-country support for the contras. The OIC obtained no evidence that Bush was aware of the diversion. The OIC learned in December 1992 that Bush had failed to produce a diary containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra, despite requests made in 1987 and again in early 1992 for the production of such material. Bush refused to be interviewed for a final time in light of evidence developed in the latter stages of OIC's investigation, leaving unresolved a clear picture of his Iran/contra involvement. Bush's pardon of Weinberger on December 24, 1992 pre-empted a trial in which defense counsel indicated that they intended to call Bush as a witness.

The chapters on White House Chief of Staff Regan and Attorney General Edwin Meese III focus on their actions during the November 1986 period, as the President and his advisers sought to control the damage caused by the disclosure of the Iran arms sales. Regan in 1992 provided Independent Counsel with copies of notes showing that Poindexter and Meese attempted to create a false account of the 1985 arms sales from Israeli stocks, which they believed were illegal, in order to protect the President. Regan and the other senior advisers did not speak up to correct the false version of events. No final legal determination on the matter had been made. Regan said he did not want to be the one who broke the silence among the President's senior advisers, virtually all of whom knew the account was false.

The evidence indicates that Meese's November 1986 inquiry was more of a damage-control exercise than an effort to find the facts. He had private conversations with the President, the Vice President, Poindexter, Weinberger, Casey and Regan without taking notes. Even after learning of the diversion, Meese failed to secure records in NSC staff offices or take other prudent steps to protect potential evidence. And finally, in reporting to the President and his senior advisers, Meese gave a false account of what he had been told by stating that the President did not know about the 1985 HAWK shipments, which Meese said might have been illegal. The statute of limitations had run on November 1986 activities before OIC obtained its evidence. In 1992, Meese denied recollection of the statements attributed to him by the notes of Weinberger and Regan. He was unconvincing, but the passage of time would have been expected to raise a reasonable doubt of the intentional falsity of his denials if he had been prosecuted for his 1992 false statements.

<a href="http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/">http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/</a>
FINAL REPORT OF THE
INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR
IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS

<a href="http://archives.cjr.org/year/94/2/irancontra.asp">http://archives.cjr.org/year/94/2/irancontra.asp</a>
On January 19, the day after independent counsel Lawrence Walsh released his final report on the Iran-contra scandal, The New York Times ran a front-page news analysis headed THE SCANDAL THAT FELL FLAT. Written by David E. Rosenbaum, the article dismissed Walsh's final report as adding "nothing but small details to what was already known." The issues, he wrote, were "basically lost on the American public," and key culprits emerged from the hearings "as patriots."

WillyPete, several of the people implicated in the conspiracy and coverup of
arm sales to Iran during the same Reagan years when the US was also arming Saddam, have been appointed to important positions in the current Bush admin. Again, the "Saddam was bad, but Iran was our mutual enemy" excuse for selling him the means and the knowhow to deploy chemical and biological weapons, does not convincingly fly, in the face of the evidence that the Reagan admin. was actively engaged in selling weapons to Iran at the very same time.

This time around, the Bush admin. is not restrained by an office of special prosecutor statute:<a href="http://www.infoplease.com/spot/indepcounsel1.html">http://www.infoplease.com/spot/indepcounsel1.html</a>

Is it any wonder that the Bush admin. implemented the following policy, early in 2001, and then expanded it after 9/11?

Quote:

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20731-2001Oct31">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20731-2001Oct31</a>
Bush Clamping Down On Presidential Papers
Incumbent Could Lock Up Predecessor's Records

By George Lardner Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 1, 2001; Page A33

The Bush White House has drafted an executive order that would usher in a new era of secrecy for presidential records and allow an incumbent president to withhold a former president's papers even if the former president wanted to make them public.

The five-page draft would also require members of the public seeking particular documents to show "at least a 'demonstrated, specific need' " for them before they would be considered for release.

Historians and others who have seen the proposed order called it unprecedented and said it would turn the 1978 Presidential Records Act on its head by allowing such materials to be kept secret "in perpetuity."............

.................. "The majority of former presidents have released virtually all of their records," the aide added. "This executive order does nothing to change that."

The proposed order, dated Oct. 29, grew out of a decision by the Bush administration early this year to block the release of 68,000 pages of confidential communications between President Ronald Reagan and his advisers that officials at the National Archives, including the Reagan library, had wanted to make public.

Relying on an obscure executive order that Reagan issued just before leaving office, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales prescribed a series of delays so that Bush could decide whether to invoke "a constitutionally based privilege or take other appropriate action."

The papers in question, some dealing with Reagan-era officials who now have high posts in the Bush administration, were to have been disclosed last January under the 1978 law, which said that the documents could be restricted at the most for 12 years after Reagan left office.

The new executive order would replace the 1989 Reagan decree and cover not only confidential communications between a president and his advisers but, as Graham put it, "almost anything in the White House files." ................

samcol · 04-19-2005, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillyPete

Face it folks, anything the US does in the middle east is for the US's own benefit and for cheaper oil.

It doesn't look like it's been for cheaper oil at all. After all oil prices have nearly doubled since 2001. To me it seems like it's about consolidation of oil rather than trying to honestly supply more oil cheaper. The oil companies need to keep their cartel.

Quote:

2005 Average* $44.56/$43.71
2004 Average* $37.41
2003 Average $27.69
2002 Average $22.81
2001 Average $23.00
http://www.ioga.com/Special/crudeoil_Hist.htm

This along with the plunging dollar (i think it's dropped like 40 cents against the Euro in 3 years?) is the most seriuos threat to the US economy. I haven't seen the Aphganistan or Iraq war do anything to improve these two huge issues.

host · 04-19-2005, 05:40 AM

No response, so far, to the question of when it would be appropriate to infer that previous US executive administrations were complicit conspirators who turned a blind eye to Saddam's military deployment of chemical and biological weapons, continuing to offer material support, technical and military support, and maintained full diplomatic relations with his regime even after knowing that he "gassed his own people"?

(I guess the "N word" and the Ann Coulter threads are just too compelling today. Ole host just won't stop blathering about hypocrisy and the waging of illegal war of aggression..........)

Quote:

<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp-list_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp-list_x.htm</a>
9/30/2002 - Updated 02:31 PM ET
A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq

Shipments from the United States to Iraq of the kinds of pathogens later used in Iraq's biological weapons programs, according to records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Senate Banking Committee and U.N. weapons inspectors:

ANTHRAX

Iraq admitted making 2,200 gallons of anthrax spores and putting some of them into weapons. U.N. inspectors said Iraq could have made three times as much anthrax as it acknowledged, and could not verify Iraq's claims to have destroyed all of its weaponized anthrax.

The American Type Culture Collection, a biological samples repository in Manassas, Va., sent two shipments of anthrax to Iraq in the 1980s. Three anthrax strains were in a May 1986 shipment sent to the University of Baghdad, which U.N. inspectors later linked to Iraq's biological weapons program. A 1988 shipment from ATCC to Iraq also included four anthrax strains.

BOTULINUM

Iraq admitted making 5,300 gallons of botulinum toxin, a deadly poison produced by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria, and putting some of it into weapons. Five warheads filled with botulinum toxin are missing.

ATCC sent six strains of Clostridium botulinum to the University of Baghdad in the May 1986 shipment. The September 1988 ATCC shipment to Iraq also contained one strain of Clostridium botulinum.

In March 1986, the CDC sent samples of botulinum toxin and botulinum toxiod (used to make a vaccine against botulinum poisoning) directly to Iraq's al-Muthanna complex, a center for Iraq's chemical weapons program and the site where Iraq restarted its dormant biological weapons program in 1985.

GAS GANGRENE

U.N. inspectors concluded Iraq could have produced hundreds of gallons of the germs that cause gas gangrene, though Iraq admitted producing just a fraction of that amount. Gas gangrene, caused by the Clostridium perfringens bacteria, causes toxic gases to form inside the body, killing tissues and causing internal bleeding, lung and liver damage.

ATCC sent three strains of Clostridium perfringens to the University of Baghdad in the May 1986 shipment and another three strains in the 1988 shipment.

OTHER

The CDC sent bacteria samples to Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission in 1985, 1987 and 1988. The commission was involved in Saddam's attempts to build a nuclear bomb and other weapons of mass destruction.

The CDC also sent bacteria samples to the Sera and Vaccine Institute in Amiriyah, Iraq in 1988. The institute stored samples and did genetic engineering research for Iraq's biological weapons programs, U.N. inspectors found.

Quote:

<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002-09-30-iraq-ushelp_x.htm</a>
09/30/2002 - Updated 02:33 PM ET
Report: U.S. supplied the kinds of germs Iraq later used for biological weapons

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iraq's bioweapons program that President Bush wants to eradicate got its start with help from Uncle Sam two decades ago, according to government records getting new scrutiny in light of the discussion of war against Iraq.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent samples directly to several Iraqi sites that U.N. weapons inspectors determined were part of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program, CDC and congressional records from the early 1990s show. Iraq had ordered the samples, claiming it needed them for legitimate medical research. (Related story: A look at U.S. shipments of pathogens to Iraq)

The CDC and a biological sample company, the American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and the germs that cause gas gangrene, the records show. Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including the West Nile virus.

The transfers came in the 1980s, when the United States supported Iraq in its war against Iran. They were detailed in a 1994 Senate Banking Committee report and a 1995 follow-up letter from the CDC to the Senate.

The exports were legal at the time and approved under a program administered by the Commerce Department.

"I don't think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis' biological weapons programs," said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. biological weapons inspector.

"But they did deliver samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time."

The disclosures put the United States in the uncomfortable position of possibly having provided the key ingredients of the weapons America is considering waging war to destroy, said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. Byrd entered the documents into the Congressional Record this month.

Byrd asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the germ transfers at a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Byrd noted that Rumsfeld met Saddam in 1983, when Rumsfeld was President Reagan's Middle East envoy.

"Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?" Byrd asked Rumsfeld after reading parts of a Newsweek article on the transfers.

"I have never heard anything like what you've read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt it," Rumsfeld said. He later said he would ask the Defense Department and other government agencies to search their records for evidence of the transfers.

Invoices included in the documents read like shopping lists for biological weapons programs. One 1986 shipment from the Virginia-based American Type Culture Collection included three strains of anthrax, six strains of the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and three strains of the bacteria that cause gas gangrene. Iraq later admitted to the United Nations that it had made weapons out of all three................

Minimum of 17,300 Iraqi civilians dead, 1550 American troops dead, many more Iraqi and American military with serious wounds, and many of you would vote for more of these inane and contradictroy policies, in a heartbeat......

What do you know about the administration and it's policies that you support?

tecoyah · 04-19-2005, 08:03 AM

Tecoyah watches the silence.........quite amused by the missing replys.

I doubt very much you will get many .....as there seems little this administration has done that stands out as worthy of support. And contrary to what some may think, This does not in any way please me.

boatin · 04-19-2005, 08:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Jolt

But the main point of this point host, is to ask you one question:
<h2>How Do You Know?</h2>

Don't quote me newspaper articles, my dad (a lawyer) won't even comment to the press anymore because 90% of the time they distort his words to support the article they've already planned to write, or they just don't understand enough about what he is saying to use it correctly.

Let's just take one issue then: the cancelling of the report on terrorism. Do you doubt the reality that that has been cancelled? If you believe that, and I can't imagine how you couldn't, how do you feel about it?

Does that seem like a good move by the administration? Does it build trust with the American people? Why would they do that?

One plausible reason is that they think it illustrates that we are losing the war on terror, and it would cost them politically. And perhaps the war has been about politics, power, and managing thier own agenda - and NOT about making us safer.

Can you think of another reason?

Manx · 04-19-2005, 09:08 AM

This is kind of old, but seems to be a less inquisitive version of this thread topic:

Quote:

You don't know shit about Iraq
by Chris Bowers

Its about time that I sat down and told you this. I was hoping it wouldn't have to be me, but someone needed to finally do it. For quite some time now, you have been going off about what we "need" to do in Iraq. You have been telling us how "things are going" over there, and making suggestions and proclamations about what "we need to do" based on what you seem to believe is a wealth of knowledge about the situation.

Well, I'm here to finally tell you what you what no one else seems willing to say: you don't know shit about Iraq. In fact, you don't even know how much shit there is about Iraq that you don't know.

For starters, you don't speak Arabic. In fact, there's a pretty good chance you don't even know someone who speaks Arabic. Further, you probably don't even know what percentage of Iraqis speak Arabic. I know for damn certain that you don't speak Kurdish.
Second, you have never been to Iraq. You may have seen a few maps on TV, but you have never actually been there. There is even a reasonable chance that you could not identify Iraq on a blank map. Almost certainly you do not know which countries border Iraq, without looking at a map. Its very likely you have never met anyone from Iraq, even if you have seen a few on TV.

Third, you probably know fuck all about Islam. You don't know what the word means in Arabic. You don't know the difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam. You don't know which type of Islam is more common in the region or in the world. you don't known when Ramadan is. You don't know when Muslims pray. You don't know where Mecca and Medina are. you don't know why those two cities are so important in the religion. You don't know when Mohammad lived. You have never read the Koran. You probably have even read part of it. You don't know what is forbidden by Islam, or what is permitted. You have maybe one Muslim friend.

Fourth, you have no clue about the history of the region. You have never heard of the Ottoman empire. You don't know about regional politics and the nineteenth century. You don't know what the British did in Iraq. You don't know about WWI in the region. You don't know when Iraq became independent. You don't know when Saddam Hussein took power. Even though you were alive the entire time, you don't know when the Iran-Iraq war took place. Before the war started, you only knew the same of one city in Iraq--Baghdad.

Fifth, you have no fucking idea what our military capability actually is. you couldn't even guess within 300,000 troops how many are available for active duty. You have no idea how many are deployed in different parts of the world. You don't know the location of more than three military bases. You don't know what type of weaponry, armor and vehicle the military currently uses. You don't even know the order of ranks among enlisted men in the Marines. Hell, you don't know if the Marines are part of the Army or if they are a separate branch of the armed services. You don't know what the military budget is. You don't know what congressional committees oversee military activities. You don't know how long a standard tour of duty lasts. You don't know the demographic composition of the armed forces.

Sixth, you don't know anything about the so-called "Iraqi resistance." You don't know what their motives are. You don't know what their goals are. you don't know how many of them there are. You don't know what groups they are affiliated with. You don't know how many are native Iraqis, how many are not from Iraq, or how many used to be part of Saddam's regime. You don't know what kind of tactics they use. You don't know how much public support they have. You don't know if they are one group or several groups. You don't know their political or religious beliefs. You don't know if they are losing strength or gaining strength.

Seventh, you don't have the slightest clue about the structure of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. You don't know where they operate from. You don't know where their funding comes from. You don't know their plans. You don't know their strengths or weaknesses. You don't know which organizations operate out of which countries. you don't know what their goals are. You don't know where they draw their recruits from. You don't know how many people hate them and how many people sympathize with them. You don't know what connections they have with each other or with current regimes. You don't know how these organizations are run, or if there are factional splits within them. You don't know the names of more than three of their leaders. You probably could not even write a definition of the word "terrorist."

Eighth, you probably have never been a civilian in a war zone. You saw the attacks of 9/11 on television, but you probably didn't experience them, or know anyone who did. Your town has probably never been bombed or invaded. You have never seen your country overthrown in a violent coup. You have probably never lived under a dictatorship. You almost certainly do not know what its like to face jail simply for speaking up for your beliefs.

Ninth, you know absolutely nothing about Iraqi public opinion. You don't know what people over there are thinking. You don't know what people are thinking in different regions of the country. You don't know what they would like to see in a government. You have no idea what their idea of justice and democracy is. You may have heard a snippet of a poll or two, but since you don't know how those polls were conducted, what the methodology is, and how scientific such a poll is in relation to other polls, you really have no fucking clue what even the so called "general" sentiment is. you don't know how many Iraqis welcome the presence of U. S. troops. You don't know how many Iraqis wish U.S. troops harm. You don't know what people there are thinking, and you probably never will.

Tenth, you almost certainly do not know what its like to face combat. There is a decent chance that you know someone how is facing combat, but you can't understand what they are going through.

Eleventh, what little you do know, or what little you think you know, comes entirely from the mass media. You might question the way the media presents its stories, but you make no real effort to find information from other sources. Hell, you don't even follow the events in the mass media that closely. Maybe a couple of times a week you will actually watch the news all the way through. You know more about "Friends" or the "American Idol," than you know bout recent events in Iraq. You certainly have never actually watched or read anything from Al-Jazeera, even though you often deride the way it covers the news.

Twelfth, you can't possibly have the slightest idea how things in Iraq will change as time progresses. No one knows that. you can not see into the future. You don't know how it all will end. You don't know what will happen next.

Thirteenth, you know jackshit about the United Nations and international diplomacy. You don't know which countries are in the "Arab League." You can't name even half of the members of the U.N. security council. You don't know when the U.N. was founded, and you have never read the U.N. charter. you don't know where U.N. troops are currently deployed. You don't know the budget of the U.N., and you don't know where that money comes from. You don't understand U.N. voting procedures. Maybe, just maybe you know what city the U.N. headquarters are in. you certainly don't know all the members of NATO, the EU, or the "non-aligned" movement.

Fourteenth, you definitely do not know "what the world thinks about the U. S." You do not have a clear understanding of the opinion of the U.S. in very many, if any, countries of the world. Hell, you probably don't even know the names of more than six heads of state throughout the world, much less what they think of the U.S. You don't even know why other countries think certain things about us. You may have a guess, but let me tell you right now, that guess is probably way off.

Fifteenth, you don't know crap about economics. you don't know how the federal reserve system works. you don't know how OPEC works. You don't know how the unemployment rate is defined. You don't understand currency or gold markets. There is absolutely no way you understand you these structures are connected to the building of a functioning nation-state. Trade agreements? Please. you have never read one in your entire life.

Sixteenth, even though you always talk about Democracy, I bet you couldn't even define what you mean by that. Go ahead and try. Define it in three sentences or less. Now, try to explain how that was achieved in this country. Goooood luck.

Seventeenth, if you actually managed to come up with something about what you mean by Democracy and how it was achieved in America, try to come up with a way that "we" can go about accomplishing the same thing in Iraq in just a matter of a year or two, if ever. When making this calculation, don't forget to take into account of the things I have pointed out to you that you don't know.

I'm only saying this so that you will stop pretending that you know the solution to "the situation in Iraq." You don't have a clue. Even if you did know all of the things I listed, you still would only have a cursory understanding of how to help "the situation." Even then, the best you could do was offer a semi-demi-psuedo educated guess about the best course of action that would be rife with sweeping generalizations and the lacking in significant evidence. Even then, you might as well use a dartboard.

However, you don't even have close to that cursory understanding of what is taking place, and neither do I. Just about the only thing you and I can know for certain is that over 800 coalition troops have lost their lives in Iraq, and over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have also died. These numbers can be proven. Not much else can be.

Considering all of this, I would appreciate it if you stopped telling everyone what should be done over there. You don't know what needs to be done, and I don't either. This is something you need to remember in the future whenever another one of our "elected" officials tells us that a nation that has not attacked us is a "threat to our security" and that we need to engage in "regime change" to fix the situation. When they say this, tell them bullshit. when they say it will be a clean and easy procress, them htem bull fucking shit. Please remember how messed up things are in reality, no matter how they sound in a neatly prepared speech. Please remember how little you actually know about these situations, and beg "our leaders" to remember the same thing about themselves, because the last thing we need is to get into another situation like this that no one knows how to fix.

WillyPete · 04-19-2005, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samcol

It doesn't look like it's been for cheaper oil at all. After all oil prices have nearly doubled since 2001. To me it seems like it's about consolidation of oil rather than trying to honestly supply more oil cheaper. The oil companies need to keep their cartel.

This along with the plunging dollar (i think it's dropped like 40 cents against the Euro in 3 years?) is the most seriuos threat to the US economy. I haven't seen the Aphganistan or Iraq war do anything to improve these two huge issues.

It could have been worse had they been allowed to continue to use the Euro instead of the dollar for oil transactions and as I stated earlier, Iran is doing just that with it's announcement of an oil exchange using only Euros.

A grab of the huge Iraqi oil fields might not mean cheaper oil now, but if the trend is followed and the petrodollar gets competition, life as you know it will end as it will simply be too expensive to maintain the current standard of living in the US. That land grab and the future concessions wrung from it provides a little more security for the petro dollar, even with a sloghtly raised price for gas. It just means that the price won't go mental all at once.

WillyPete · 04-19-2005, 09:47 AM

And bravo on the Quote Manx.
We can only guess at half of those.

The Jolt · 04-19-2005, 11:19 AM

I agree Manx, we don't know Jack. Unless you live over there, or know someone who does, all you have is the media's preception of what is going on.

As far as the thing about War Criminals: War Criminals are what the winners call the losers. Bush is not a war criminal (he won), Saddam is a war criminal(he lost).

Quote:

Originally Posted by boatin

One plausible reason is that they think it illustrates that we are losing the war on terror, and it would cost them politically. And perhaps the war has been about politics, power, and managing thier own agenda - and NOT about making us safer.

That could be, and I'm not going to try and defend Bush, all I am trying to say is that things are most certainly better over there now than they were before. But I have no direct evidence as such, and no one trying to say that it is worse over there now can provide me with any direct first-hand experience to support their claim.

As far as "probably" not being good enough to declare war, you're right. But I wasn't the one who declared war, was I? (Hint:I am not a member of congress)

MoonDog · 04-19-2005, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Folks, if Saddam was a "murderous psychopath", who "gassed his own people", and thus the U.S. was justified in an unprovoked invasion of Iraq that has resulted in the overthrow of his government by the force of the U.S. military, and the deaths of at minimum, 17,000 Iraqi civilians, and in the physical destruction of much of Iraq, what say you of the Reagan and Bush I administrations, who not only supplied Saddam with the chemical and biological weapons stocks and the technical know-how to make and to use them, but turned a blind eye to Saddam's "gassing his own people", and continued to provide him with military support, intelligence info, and diplomatic relations.

By your own "rules", are Rumsfeld, Bush I, and former members of the Reagan admin. not enablers and conspirators with the "murderous psychopath", Saddam?

As I read your statement, which I have bolded, I would respond that the actions of the Reagan and GHW Bush Administrations made us responsible for the monster that was and is Saddam Hussein, and - consequently - made him our responsibility to deal with. An atonement for earlier decisions, if you will.

On another note, does anyone know - since we supplied Hussein with stockpiles of both chemical and biological weapons - if the information he supplied to the UN on these programs accounted for the amounts we gave/sold to him? I'm curious about that one.

04-18-2005, 12:57 PM	#17 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	Well the thing about the material support was the US supplied Saddam at the extreme low of the spectrum, links have been posted here from the Stockholm Institute for Peace (I think thats the name) that puts the American contribution at 1% of all weapons supplied behind the Germans, French, and Russians. Wow isn't that a conincidence three of the biggest wars detractors were Saddams biggest weapons suppliers, they also had the most to gain by keeping him in power. But yeah it is pretty lame that we were behind such a goon, but that was the politics of the time, I suppose we weren't to inclined to care what he did so long as he was putting the hurt on the Iranians. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

04-18-2005, 01:48 PM	#18 (permalink)
Bodyhammer86 Insane Location: Mattoon, Il	To back Mojo's claim that we sent very few weapons to Saddam, this link shows that we sent a grand total of 100 helicopters, only 30 of which being light gunships, the others civilian models taken over for Air Force use. Compared to the hundreds of tanks, fighter jets, missiles, armored vehicles, etc. provided by Russia, France, and China, our contribution (of only 1% of the arms) seems quite insignificant. __________________ Pantera, Shadows Fall, Fear Factory, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Dimmu Borgir, Watch Them Die, Motorhead, Beyond the Embrace, Himsa, Black Label Society, Machine Head, In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquility, Children of Bodom, Norther, Nightrage, At the Gates, God Forbid, Killswitch Engage, Lamb of God, All That Remains, Anthrax, Mudvayne, Arch Enemy, and Old Man's Child \m/

04-18-2005, 04:47 PM	#22 (permalink)
Mojo_PeiPei Kiss of Death Location: Perpetual wind and sorrow	No other country was involved in an ongoing bloodbath with it's neighbor who happened to Iran. __________________ To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

04-19-2005, 08:03 AM	#34 (permalink)
tecoyah Illusionary	Tecoyah watches the silence.........quite amused by the missing replys. I doubt very much you will get many .....as there seems little this administration has done that stands out as worthy of support. And contrary to what some may think, This does not in any way please me. __________________ Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

04-17-2005, 05:11 PM	#5 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	What have the Bush admin accomplished in Iraq? Are you serious? 1) Fastest advance of an army in the history of history during wartime. 2) Bringing democracy back to Iraq 3) Ending state-funded massacres of Shi'ia and Kurds I'll give you the fact that the rebuilding is going exceptionally slow, and it needs to be put on a higher priority. I just ask you, how do you expect to protect EVERY bridge, EVERY portion of EVERY powerline. EVERY water main. Hell we have problems holding that down here in the US and there's no insurgency with the intent of holding it down. I'm not behind the admin fully on this, they need to hire more native Iraqi's to repair these, to bring back the employment and get them to feel more of a pride for their country. But to take every chance to stab at them, while ignoring the good they've done is blind partisanship.

04-17-2005, 09:33 PM	#7 (permalink)
samcol Junkie Location: Indiana	Yes the war on iraq and terror is a complete disaster. We are creating more terrorists by the day. I think they lie so much they believe themselves. I like how Powell says the report was flawed. It seems like every report that comes out that isn't pro war, or that the wars are improving is "flawed." It seems like these wars are really going no where. We are just fed 'we are fighting for freedom, don't ask questions' it starts to get old. And to think we are gearing up for Iran over the same thing as Iraq

04-17-2005, 11:22 PM	#9 (permalink)
boatin Psycho	i applaud your research, and your work of posting. you ask excellent questions. and your observations about 'erring on the side of life' and the "n word" are right on the money. Sadly, I doubt anyone on the 'right' will respond in any real way. The facts are clear - the trend is obvious. And yet many refuse to see either. Peculiar, indeed.

04-18-2005, 12:46 AM	#10 (permalink)
WillyPete Addict	Personally? I think the US and UK administrations have their own agenda and in some ways I can understand them covering up or spinning intel to mask real reasons for action. The only time it's justified is to prevent mass hysteria and panic. But the result is a lack of faith in the government and a lack of trust on their behalf of the public willing to back them on tough issues if they told the truth. I constantly feel like I'm being told not to ask questions by a well-intentioned parent who doesn't realise I can understand the situation enough to make my own mind up.

04-18-2005, 07:43 AM	#11 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Since host's quotes are a bit lengthy, let me summarize them briefly: --The State Department has published, annually, a definitive document called "Patterns of Global Terrorism" since 1986. The general public can see all these publications as PDF files here: http://www.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp These publications have always been the definitive source on terrorism acts and statistics. --There are two versions of the report: one is classified and is required by law to be submitted to Congress by April 30 each year. The other is unclassified and made available to the public. There is no law requiring the unclassified version to be published. --A former CIA analyst by the name of Larry Johnson found out somehow that the unclassified issue for 2004 was blocked from publication. He also got a copy of it and found that it reported 655 terrorist attacks last year, the most ever reported for one year over the entire history of these reports. That number was corroborated by several other current intelligence agents who have seen the report. --Larry Johnson found that the main reason for the jump in the numbers was a different method of counting used in 2004. That means that you can't really compare the 2004 numbers to those of the past. And most of the attacks (at least 300) occurred in India in the Kashmir region. The sharp increase was not caused by Islamic extremists; in fact if anything the number of attacks by Islamic extremists might have been lower in 2004. You can read more in Larry Johnson's excellent Counterterrorism Blog here: http://counterterror.typepad.com/the.../14/index.html --The Bush administration has admitted that the unclassified version of the report has been eliminated and will no longer be published in the future. Condoleeza Rice's office ordered that the publication be killed. --The classified version is still mandated by law, and will be submitted this year on schedule to Congress. --A different unclassified version will be released to the public under a different name. This new unclassified version will contain no statistics on the number of terrorist attacks. I think it is rather obvious that politics was the reason the annual report was blocked from public view. It would be a major embarrassment to the administration because it implies that terrorism has skyrocketed under Bush's watch. But those are the best numbers we have. They should be published. The fact that a new and better method of counting is used is irrelevant. It would be very easily to published the results from the old method and the new method side by side for comparison. Theoretically, Congress could write another bill that requires the annual statistics to be published for the general populace. But as long as Bush is president, that will never happen.

04-18-2005, 12:02 PM	#14 (permalink)
WillyPete Addict	Also, Saddam maybe wrong, but he's been telling his people that the US is the enemy for decades. 20 year olds have grown up, possibly under the threat of the secret police if they didn't agree with Saddam, but regardless of what Saddam did, to them he spoke the truth about the Americans and the English. Even now he's gone, the seeds of what he's sown have a very fertile field to grow in.

04-18-2005, 02:24 PM	#19 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	That SIPRI report of course covers only conventional arms. The US in addition was the fourth largest supplier to Iraq of sensitive computer and intelligence technology (in purely monetary terms, amounting to $750 million since 1985). In purely technical terms, the U.S. could be seen as first, since no other country had the sophisticated technology that the U.S. gave Iraq. This sophisticated technology was used for a wide variety of purposes in running Saddam's military (e.g. upgrading the Soviet SCUD missiles, and to intercept and deceptively alter images picked up by U.S. spy satellites before the first Gulf War). There may have been transfers of a lot of other military material in secret from the U.S. William Eagleton at least left a paper trail indicating that he advocated setting up a large scale military shipment system from the U.S. to Iraq through third parties such as Egypt, so that the transfers could be hidden. This was in 1983, under Reagan. Yes, other countries did provide nearly all the conventional arms. But all those conventional arms were commanded and operated with the help of U.S. computer and intelligence technology.

04-18-2005, 04:54 PM	#24 (permalink)
Locobot is awesome!	Yeah the U.S. didn't supply any weapons to S. Hussein There's simply no evidence!

04-18-2005, 07:03 PM	#28 (permalink)
The Jolt Upright	samcol, I apologize for the "grow some balls, dude" comment

04-19-2005, 02:29 AM	#30 (permalink)
WillyPete Addict	Face it folks, anything the US does in the middle east is for the US's own benefit and for cheaper oil. It is your lifeblood. People either have to start giving up cheap oil and what it represents in their wealth and daily lives, or they have to buck up and quit worrying about how their government goes about getting it for them. Policy changes according to who is in power and what the current situation is. I don't think the majority were unhappy with the idea of the US helping Saddam fight the fundamentalist Islamic nation of Iran at the time. I guess the events over there should be accompanied with the side note of "It seemed a good idea at the time" when relegated to the history books. It's hard to set a standard to the world to represent a working democracy when you're also hip deep in other nations' problems.

04-19-2005, 09:47 AM	#38 (permalink)
WillyPete Addict	And bravo on the Quote Manx. We can only guess at half of those.