Congressman John Conyers wants to know if Bush lied about WMD - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

guy44 · 05-02-2005, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) is circulating a letter calling for a further inquiry into a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

In a statement, Conyers says he is disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."

"The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the war."

Conyers says he is seeking an inquiry.

"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occuring, I am circulating the following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign on to it."

The letter follows.

###

May ___, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.

The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:

* Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

* British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

* A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

* A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:

1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.

Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Congressman John Conyers

Here's the link.

I'm not really surprised about this. There weren't any WMDs, there were no links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and it seemed pretty clear from multiple sources that Bush wanted to invade Iraq as soon as he got into office and started talking about it on 9/12, even though there was (and remains) no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.

I think it is clear that Bush...well, if he didn't outright lie, he severely twisted facts to fit his pre-existing fantasy that Iraq was a threat.

Seaver · 05-02-2005, 08:36 PM

I'm sick of this. If Bush lied, then EVERY President and Presidential candidate since Reagan has lied.

Clinton lived 8 years as president with all the best information going DIRECTLY to him, there was no doubt in his mind Saddam was armed with WMD's and was dangerous. He even agreed that the US should probably invade and kick him out of power.

Kerry has been a senator for a very long time, including on the security councel (second in line for the best info). He's been quoted as saying the same thing, he's armed with WMD's and should be taken out.

Liberman, right there with the others.

If Bush lied then everyone is everyone else just as guilty? It was bad information that snowballed and became fact (remember memogate?). What needs to happen is a true change in the information community, which is admittedly slow, but is happening. What we dont need is a witchhunt for a scapegoat based solely on party lines.

Mojo_PeiPei · 05-02-2005, 08:42 PM

I'm going to throw this out there, because I have not personally seen any evidence that has refuted this, which by the way I'm not asserting as gospel.

Iraq moved the weapons out of the country in the days leading up to the war, we have satellite imagery showing massive convoys moving from Iraq to Syria, I personally wouldn't put it past Saddam to do it.

Quote:

Over the last few months, the U.S. intelligence community has received new evidence a sizable amount of Iraqi WMD systems, components and platforms were transferred to Syria in the weeks leading up to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.

But chances are the Bush administration won't be releasing this information for a while.

The convoys were spotted by U.S. satellites in early 2003, but the contents of the WMD convoys from Iraq to Syria were not confirmed.

Confirmation later came from Iraqi scientists and technicians questioned by a U.S. team that was searching for Saddam's conventional weapons. But all they knew was the convoys were heading west to Syria.

But over the last few months, U.S. intelligence managed to track the Iraqi WMD convoy to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

Through the use of satellites, electronic monitoring and human intelligence, the intelligence community has determined that much, if not all, of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons assets are being protected by Syria, with Iranian help, in the Bekaa Valley.

The Syrians received word from Saddam Hussein in late 2002 that the Iraqi WMD would be arriving and Syrian army engineering units began digging huge trenches in the Bekaa Valley.

Saddam paid more than $30 million in cash for Syria to build the pits, acquire the Iraqi WMD and conceal them.

At first, U.S. intelligence thought Iraqi WMD was stored in northern Syria. But in February 2003 a Syrian defector told U.S. intelligence the WMD was buried in or around three Syrian Air Force installations.

But intelligence sources said the Syrians kept dual-use nuclear components for themselves while transferring the more incriminating material to Lebanon.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=38581

Quote:

Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,” that he knows the three sites where Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept. The storage places are:
Iraq's WMD locations in Syria
click for images of Iraq's WMD location in Syria

-1- Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.

-2- The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian air force camp. Vital parts of Iraq's WMD are stored there.

-3-. The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of Homs city.

ADVERTISEMENT

Nayouf writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein's Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad's cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.

In February 2003, a month before America's invasion in Iraq, very few are aware about the efforts to bring the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.
Nayouf, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter because he has terminal cancer.

http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php w/ some satellite imaging to expand http://www.2la.org/syria/wmd.html

Again, I realize there won't be any WMD's found in Iraq, but by all accounts which I have not heard to be refuted, there is satellite imagery of convoys moving from Iraq to Syria, and it honestly wouldn't surprise if Saddam moved the weapons out.

host · 05-02-2005, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

I
If Bush lied then everyone is everyone else just as guilty? It was bad information that snowballed and became fact (remember memogate?). What needs to happen is a true change in the information community, which is admittedly slow, but is happening. What we dont need is a witchhunt for a scapegoat based solely on party lines.

No, Seaver, IMO, you are just repeating the misinformation that you have been fed by this administration, it's rigged "factfinidng" commisiions that were selected and restricted by Bush, and prohibited from taking sworn testimony from administration officials.

You may be sick of all of this, and point your finger at past administrations, but it is telling that you avoid debating or debunking the specifics of the ever emerging new reports of what Bush and Blair knew, when they knew it, vs. what they were communicating to their contituencies. Bush bestowed the highest civilian award, the medal of freedom, on the director of the intelligence failure that you cite as the explanation for the mistake of launching a war. That does not make much sense.

This does:

Quote:

http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=1187
Spring 2005 Issue: Media That Set Us Free

by Bill Moyers

There’s a reason journalism is the only occupation protected by the U.S. Constitution. To govern ourselves, we the people need the truth, not what is politically expedient................

......Ideology and secrecy
Journalists who try to tell these stories, connect these dots, and examine these links are demeaned, disparaged, and dismissed.

For one thing, you’ll get in trouble with the public. The Chicago Tribune recently conducted a national poll in which about half of those surveyed said there should be some kind of restraint on reporting about the prison abuse scandal in Iraq; I suggest those people don’t want the facts to disturb their belief system about American exceptionalism.
The poll also found that five or six of every 10 Americans “would embrace government controls of some kind on free speech, especially if it is found unpatriotic.” No wonder scoundrels find refuge in patriotism; it offers them immunity from criticism.

If raging ideologies are difficult to penetrate, so is secrecy. Secrecy is hardly new. But never has there been an administration like the one in power today—so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and, in defiance of the Constitution, from their representatives in Congress. The litany is long:
• The president’s chief of staff orders a review that leads to at least 6,000 documents being pulled from government websites.
• The Defense Department bans photos of military caskets being returned to the U.S.
• To hide the influence of Kenneth Lay, Enron, and other energy moguls, the vice president stonewalls his energy task force records.
• The CIA adds a new question to its standard employee polygraph exam, asking, “Do you have friends in the media?”
• There have been more than 1,200 presumably terrorist-related arrests and 750 people deported, and no one outside the government knows their names, or how many court docket entries have been erased or never entered.
• Secret federal court hearings are held with no public record of when or where or who is being tried.

Secrecy is contagious. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced that “certain security information included in the reactor oversight process” will no longer be publicly available. New controls are being imposed on space surveillance data once found on NASA’s web site.

Secrecy is contagious—and scandalous. The Washington Post reports that nearly 600 times in recent years, a judicial committee has stripped information from reports intended to alert the public to conflicts of interest involving federal judges.

This “zeal for secrecy” I am talking about—and I have barely touched the surface—adds up to a victory for the terrorists. When they plunged those hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they were out to hijack our Gross National Psychology.
By pillaging and plundering our peace of mind they could panic us into abandoning those unique freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of the press—that constitute the ability of democracy to self-correct and turn the ship of state before it hits the iceberg.

As deplorable as was the betrayal of their craft by Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, and Jim Kelly, <h3>the greater offense was the seduction of mainstream media into helping the government dupe the public to support a war to disarm a dictator who was already disarmed.</h3> Now we are buying into the very paradigm of a “war on terror” that our government—with staggering banality, soaring hubris, and stunning bravado—employs to elicit public acquiescence while offering no criterion of success or failure, no knowledge of the cost, and no measure of democratic accountability.
<h3>
I am reminded of the answer the veteran journalist Richard Reeves gave when asked by a college student to define “real news.” “Real news,” said Richard Reeves “is the news you and I need to keep our freedoms.”</h3> I am reminded of the line from the news photographer in Tom Stoppard’s play “Night and Day:” “People do terrible things to each other, but it’s worse in places where everybody is kept in the dark.”

More than 1500 American troops are dead, Seaver, thousand more are seriously wounded, and the low estimate is that 20,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. More than $200 billion from the US treasury has been spent. Why are you sick of hearing the questions? Without the questions, how do we learn what happened and avoid making similar mistakes?

How did we get from these sentiments, to a war about Saddam's WMD?
So far, the explanations from the Bush and Blair administrations are contradicted by news reports that are still coming in.

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in575469.shtml http://www.state.gov/secretary/forme...s/2001/933.htm
on Feb. 24, 2001, while meeting at Cairo's Ittihadiya Palace with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.

Asked about the sanctions placed on Iraq, which were then under review at the Security Council, Powell said the measures were working. In fact, he added, "(Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

Quote:

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm
RICE:
But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

alansmithee · 05-02-2005, 09:37 PM

Conyers is a publicity hound, nothing more. If another congressman would have started this, I might take it more seriously, but this guy is a clown. I don't trust anything he says. If he said the Sun was gonna rise tomorrow, I would start buying heat lamps and nightlights.

host · 05-02-2005, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

I'm going to throw this out there, because I have not personally seen any evidence that has refuted this, which by the way I'm not asserting as gospel.

Iraq moved the weapons out of the country in the days leading up to the war, we have satellite imagery showing massive convoys moving from Iraq to Syria, I personally wouldn't put it past Saddam to do it.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=38581

http://www.2la.org/syria/iraq-wmd.php w/ some satellite imaging to expand http://www.2la.org/syria/wmd.html

Again, I realize there won't be any WMD's found in Iraq, but by all accounts which I have not heard to be refuted, there is satellite imagery of convoys moving from Iraq to Syria, and it honestly wouldn't surprise if Saddam moved the weapons out.

Mojo_, it does not seem that there is any basis for those reports, and the White House had an interest in keeping them alive, if there was any potential for them to prove reliable, and the WH did not:

Quote:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/me.../26/iraq.main/
U.S. study: Iraq likely didn't ship WMD to Syria

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 Posted: 1729 GMT (0129 HKT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It is unlikely Iraq shipped banned weapons material into Syria before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, according to report released by the Iraq Survey Group, a CIA/Pentagon team searching for Iraqi weapons programs.

In October, the group said that the 1991 Persian Gulf War likely destroyed Iraq's capabilities of producing weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had none when the United States invaded.

Addenda to the group's final report -- released Monday on the U.S. Government Printing Office's Web site -- threw doubt on that scenario.

"ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place," the report said.

The group also said it had been unable to complete its investigation because of security concerns and couldn't rule out an "unofficial" transfer of material.

The report said that 12 years of international sanctions against Baghdad after the Gulf War had left Iraq's scientific community decimated and these experts' skills in a state of "natural decay."

The group added it was unlikely that scientists were capable of re-creating the destroyed weapons programs, meaning Iraq would have possessed little, if anything, to transfer.

"It is worth noting that even if ISG had been able to fully examine all the leads it possessed, it is unlikely that conclusive information would have been found," the report said.

Instead, the report said, detainees interviewed by the group "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria."

Charles Duefler, head of the Iraq Survey Group, recommended that many of the detained scientists could be released because they had been cooperative, were no longer a security risk and had no more information to share.

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050112-7.html
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. .................

......Q Two follow-ups. There's been quite a bit of talk that Syria might have hidden some of these weapons of mass destruction. Is the government of Syria cooperating at all in the search for WMD?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have the report from Charles Duelfer. You can go and look at that report in terms of addressing those issues, and I think the President has spoken to the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, if there are any other reports that come to people's attention, they'll follow up on those reports.............

............. Q Scott, did the White House intend to, at any point, come out and tell the American people that the search for WMD was over?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that the President addressed this issue back in October. Maybe you weren't there for when he talked about it. But Charles Duelfer is the one who was overseeing these efforts and he's now back here. He's continuing to wrap up his work. I think it's up to him to make those determinations about when he says everything is concluded.

Q And understanding that the White House --

MR. McCLELLAN: I mean, there is still some wrap-up work that he's doing; there's still some -- the Iraq Survey Group continues to operate in Iraq under the multinational force command. And much --

Q The search is over? Is the search --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think -- I think that others have already addressed that much of their physical search has -- that their physical search has essentially ended, yes, but that they continue to go through documents. So they're -- some of their work continues, because there are thousands and thousands of pages of documents that they were able to recover that were part of the basis for the previous report that Charles Duelfer released. And it was -- the President talked about it at that time, it was a comprehensive look at the regime and the regime's intentions and the regime's capabilities.

Mojo_, Bush seems to have more at stake regarding this issue. You give me the impression that you are more reluctant now to accept the WMD report of the ISG now, than Bush himself was during the above press briefing 4 months ago, on Jan. 12. Why?

host · 05-02-2005, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alansmithee

Conyers is a publicity hound, nothing more. If another congressman would have started this, I might take it more seriously, but this guy is a clown. I don't trust anything he says. If he said the Sun was gonna rise tomorrow, I would start buying heat lamps and nightlights.

Your response is directed toward the messenger. Any comments, refutation, or rebuttal, concerning the message?

Quote:

As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:

1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

alansmithee · 05-02-2005, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Your response is directed toward the messenger. Any comments, refutation, or rebuttal, concerning the message?

His message is irrelevant. When I see "Congressman John Conyers wants to know if Bush lied about WMD" I give it as much consideration as if I'd seen "Crazy old guy who pees in the elevators where I work wants to know why the gov't keeps beaming signals into his head". He has zero credibility as far as I'm concerned. As I said, if someone credible was asking about this, it might be different.

guy44 · 05-02-2005, 10:00 PM

Sorry, mojo, but no Iraqi WMDs were moved to Syria because they never existed:

Quote:

U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.

Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD." Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein's government, however, the investigators were "unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials."

The Iraq Survey Group's main findings -- that Hussein's Iraq did not possess chemical and biological weapons and had only aspirations for a nuclear program -- were made public in October in an interim report covering nearly 1,000 pages. Yesterday's final report, published on the Government Printing Office's Web site ( http://www.gpo.gov/ ), incorporated those pages with minor editing and included 92 pages of addenda that tied up loose ends on Syria and other topics.

U.S. officials have held out the possibility that Syria worked in tandem with Hussein's government to hide weapons before the U.S.-led invasion. The survey group said it followed up on reports that a Syrian security officer had discussed collaboration with Iraq on weapons, but it was unable to complete that investigation. But Iraqi officials whom the group was able to interview "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria," the report said.

The report, which refuted many of the administration's principal arguments for going to war in Iraq, marked the official end of a two-year weapons hunt led most recently by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer. The team found that the 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. sanctions had destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capabilities and that, for the most part, Hussein had not tried to rebuild them. Iraq's ability to produce nuclear arms, which the administration asserted was a grave and gathering threat that required an immediate military response, had "progressively decayed" since 1991. Investigators found no evidence of "concerted efforts to restart the program."

Administration officials have emphasized that, while the survey group uncovered no banned arms, it concluded that Hussein had not given up the goal of someday acquiring them.

Hussein "retained the intent and capability and he intended to resume full-scale WMD efforts once the U.N. sanctions were lifted," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said yesterday. "Duelfer provides plenty of rationale for why this country went to war in Iraq."

In one of the addenda released yesterday, investigators addressed the risk that Iraqi scientists will share their knowledge or material with other countries, particularly Syria and Iran, given previous contacts, financial inducements and professional opportunities. The report concluded that the risk exists but said "there is only very limited reporting suggesting that this is actually taking place and no reports that indicate scientists were recruited to work in a WMD program."

As for the possibility that insurgents in Iraq will draw on the expertise of Iraqi scientists to develop unconventional weapons for use against the United States and its coalition forces, the report describes these efforts so far as being "limited and contained by coalition action." The survey group was aware of only one scientist assisting terrorists or insurgents. He helped them fashion chemical mortar munitions.

The report found that missing equipment, however, "could contribute to insurgent or terrorist production of chemical or biological agents."

In most cases the equipment appeared to have been randomly looted, but in selected cases it appeared "to be taken away carefully," Duelfer said in an interview yesterday. Overall, though, "it's like going to a demolition derby for car parts," said Duelfer. The right equipment "is hard to get."

Four military personnel assigned to the survey group's mission perished in the violence that engulfed Iraq, and five others were seriously wounded, in a mission that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

No further work is planned, although teams are on hand to be dispatched when credible reports of weapons material are received in Iraq. The report says, however, that continued reports of banned arms in Iraq "are usually scams or misidentification of materials or activities." It predicts that such reports will continue.

Although new information may be forthcoming, Duelfer said in an accompanying letter that he has "confidence in the picture of events and programs covered by this report."

"If there were to be a surprise in the future," he added, "it most likely would be in the biological weapons area" because the size of those facilities can be so small.

Duelfer also recommended that the United States release some of the scientists and technocrats who are still being held captive in Iraq strictly because of their work on Iraq's weapons programs dating back to the Gulf War. "Many have been very cooperative and provided great assistance in understanding the WMD programs" and Iraq's intentions, and have exhausted their knowledge of these subjects, he wrote. "In my view, certain detainees are overdue for release."

Of 300 individuals on a "blacklist" developed by U.S. military and intelligence officials before the war, 105 have been detained. But the list, said the report, was flawed. "Some very despicable individuals who should have been listed were not, while many technocrats and even opponents of the Saddam regime made the list and hence found themselves either in jail or on the run."

The Pentagon's Whitman said that he was unaware of any scientists who had been released recently because of Duelfer's appeal and that the Defense Department routinely reviews detainees' status to see "whether or not they are a threat to the coalition and Iraqi security forces and whether or not they continue to have intelligence value."

Link.

guy44 · 05-02-2005, 10:01 PM

alansmithee, the report he is talking about comes from Britain, which is up in arms over this development. They seem to be taking the information seriously. Conyers isn't the only one.

Mojo_PeiPei · 05-02-2005, 10:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Mojo_, it does not seem that there is any basis for those reports, and the White House had an interest in keeping them alive, if there was any potential for them to prove reliable, and the WH did not:

Mojo_, Bush seems to have more at stake regarding this issue. You give me the impression that you are more reluctant now to accept the WMD report of the ISG now, than Bush himself was during the above press briefing 4 months ago, on Jan. 12. Why?

Like I said I didn't accept the above links I posted as gospel, I honestly never heard anything that refuted them though. So thanks for posting the information.

05-02-2005, 10:01 PM	#10 (permalink)
guy44 Somnabulist Location: corner of No and Where	alansmithee, the report he is talking about comes from Britain, which is up in arms over this development. They seem to be taking the information seriously. Conyers isn't the only one. __________________ "You have reached Ritual Sacrifice. For goats press one, or say 'goats.'"

05-02-2005, 08:36 PM	#2 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	I'm sick of this. If Bush lied, then EVERY President and Presidential candidate since Reagan has lied. Clinton lived 8 years as president with all the best information going DIRECTLY to him, there was no doubt in his mind Saddam was armed with WMD's and was dangerous. He even agreed that the US should probably invade and kick him out of power. Kerry has been a senator for a very long time, including on the security councel (second in line for the best info). He's been quoted as saying the same thing, he's armed with WMD's and should be taken out. Liberman, right there with the others. If Bush lied then everyone is everyone else just as guilty? It was bad information that snowballed and became fact (remember memogate?). What needs to happen is a true change in the information community, which is admittedly slow, but is happening. What we dont need is a witchhunt for a scapegoat based solely on party lines.

05-02-2005, 09:37 PM	#5 (permalink)
alansmithee Junkie	Conyers is a publicity hound, nothing more. If another congressman would have started this, I might take it more seriously, but this guy is a clown. I don't trust anything he says. If he said the Sun was gonna rise tomorrow, I would start buying heat lamps and nightlights.