My, My It Seems Wikileaks Also Show That All Those Intelligence Agencies Were Right

[jimnyc]

ha wow, you make my point.

You've ignored every point i've made and see only we what you've read as valid, and even dismiss Blix when he doesn't agree with you.

Dude, don't be a dickhead. You're the one making a timeline of fake quotes by the rest of us to make yourself look better and literally making things up that we never said. It's not like anyone with a 1/4 a brain won't see what everyone wrote anyway, but you want to prop yourself up by giving a recap in a thread that is only a few pages long. You're angry, or come off so, because people don't want to believe in your "star witnesses" story. If even the rabid left in our government want to ignore her, what does that tell you?

Stick to conspiracy theories instead of applying quotes to my name that I never stated.

[revelarts]

see here we go,
Name calling and still no comment on Blix's testimony.

[jimnyc]

see here we go,
Name calling and still no comment on Blix's testimony.

I suggest you read a little harder, I myself even supplied several quotes from Blix on here, just not the quotes YOU want to hear. We are talking about the precursor to war and what was known at the time - and Blix himself stated that Iraq was still in material breach of resolutions and that 1,000 tons of chemical weapons were not accounted for. Those 2 items I think stand at the forefront from the day before we entered Iraq.

Still no comment as to why your beloved Lt. Col. has no solid proof, and why she isn't being welcomed with open arms by the government portion that would love no better than to crucify GWB?

[jimnyc]

see here we go,
Name calling and still no comment on Blix's testimony.

Oh, as far as the name calling - when you attribute quotes to me that I never stated - that makes you a dickhead.

[NightTrain]

Where did I call you a conspiracy theorist? Seems to me that I've been downright civil here.

1) You wanted to know about Iraq's WMDs prior to the invasion.

2) I provided proof directly from the United Nations.

3) I asked you to review it.

4) You want to talk about a woman that was "in the loop" with regards to UN Intel.

5) wtf?

Why would we even waste time on the woman when we can get it straight from the UN? Who cares what she knows and what she doesn't and where her loyalties lie?

Rather than screw around all week sifting through mountains of links, the two links I searched for and provided for you sum it all up nicely.

Clean. Easy. Fast. No arguing necessary.

You're either genuinely interested in whether or not Iraq had WMDs or you're more interested in the side stories, theories and intrigue.

I've offered to show you that there were indeed WMDs present prior to invasion and why it was necessary to remove them forcibly from Saddam's Iraq.

If you are no longer interested in learning the truth then please say so. I have a pretty girlfriend that needs a few smooches.

[revelarts]

Where did I call you a conspiracy theorist? Seems to me that I've been downright civil here.

1) You wanted to know about Iraq's WMDs prior to the invasion.

Right, there was info from the U.N. , the CIA and the D.O.D. Briton and Israel,
It was all in the air at the time. the Lt Col worked at the DoD with her hands on the intel going directly to Cheney and Watching how it was being used and misused.

2) I provided proof directly from the United Nations.
3) I asked you to review it.

that's great, no problem I've read much of it already very quickly and will look at it more closely later. I'll comment on it later. I hope you can take the time to look at the info i provided as well.

4) You want to talk about a woman that was "in the loop" with regards to UN Intel.

All Intel that was available and drove the talking points of the Administration and what was discovered by the U.N..

Why would we even waste time on the woman when we can get it straight from the UN? Who cares what she knows and what she doesn't and where her loyalties lie?

The Bush Administration had set up a special office at the D.O.D. looking for intell that they couldn't get from the CIA and regular DOD sources, she was there. It helped drive what the U.N. looked for and Bush Cheney and Rice used it to convince themselves(?) and the U.S. public.
so yes it's very relevant.

Rather than screw around all week sifting through mountains of links, the two links I searched for and provided for you sum it all up nicely.

Clean. Easy. Fast. No arguing necessary.

Then Blixs assessment of his final report in March is relevant and people should watch that too correct? no fuss no muss.

ANd if that's the case are you saying that when the President differed with the U.N's assesment he was mistaken?

You're either genuinely interested in whether or not Iraq had WMDs or you're more interested in the side stories, theories and intrigue.

I've offered to show you that there were indeed WMDs present prior to invasion and why it was necessary to remove them forcibly from Saddam's Iraq.

When you say prior to the invasion are you talking about in the early 1990's? If that's what your saying we don't need to go any farther. Yes I know he had them in the 1990's. but in 2000 2001 2002. there were items "unaccounted for" but no Proof or solid evidence of them. If it was still there then the U.N. docs didn't know where they were or we would have found them correct? Am I missing something? You say he moved them. OK. Where? Where's the proof, not a defectors story, so many of those have been Proven false. Evidence = the items in hand. TONS of it.

And it's interesting how you want me to know the "truth" but are afraid to listen to another aspect of the story. Unless you just want to take jimnyc's word for something without looking for yourself. There may be more "truth" for you to find as well.

If you are no longer interested in learning the truth then please say so. I have a pretty girlfriend that needs a few smooches.

Smootch de girl, But don't be so sure you have all of the "truth". I think if we're both humble we both might learn something.

[revelarts]

But you know folks, I just can't figure out why when I say
-There were no tons of WMDs in Iraq. and We didn't find any. and it wasn't worth going to war over. that there's any argument.

If they were there we would have found them. Right? THAT'S SIMPLE. THAT"S CLEAR. even Colen Powell admits that they didn't go to Syria. Blair admits that the intel was wrong. (if not made up) BUSH makes inappropriate jokes about it. Rumsfield even admits we found no WMDs they probably aint there.

It's been 7 years, as so often mentioned.

Why is it so hard to admit here?
it's almost like i'm saying Santa Clause isn't real or something.

[NightTrain]

Good deal.

So, we can both agree that :

1) There were WMDs in Iraq and Saddam had used them previously.

2) Iraq interfered with inspections and refused to disarm.

3) Had active projects in place to acquire nuclear capability.

4) Was trying to upgrade missile capability for delivery of WMDs.

5) Possessed both Chemical and Biological weapons that they hid from the UN.

6) This was documented from 1991 to 2000.

Just a yes or no, please, Revel. The two links I provided outline this clearly.

[jimnyc]

It was all in the air at the time. the Lt Col worked at the DoD with her hands on the intel going directly to Cheney and Watching how it was being used and misused.

All Intel that was available and drove the talking points of the Administration and what was discovered by the U.N..

The Bush Administration had set up a special office at the D.O.D. looking for intell that they couldn't get from the CIA and regular DOD sources, she was there. It helped drive what the U.N. looked for and Bush Cheney and Rice used it to convince themselves(?) and the U.S. public.
so yes it's very relevant.

Why do you keep ignoring my request for PROOF of her claims? If you're going to keep bringing my name into your posts, at least answer those questions. What Proof of these allegations, solid proof, did she bring to our government to report what she knows?

Then Blixs assessment of his final report in March is relevant and people should watch that too correct? no fuss no muss.

All that matters from his final report is his admission that Iraq was not fully cooperating, which left them in material breach of resolutions. That and his admission that there were 1000 TONS of chemical weapons unaccounted for that they have been demanding Iraq account for, and Iraq continually ignored. Whether at that point that they found nothing at all, and found the intel given to them thus far to be bogus - none of that changes those first 2 FACTS. This is also another portion of my repeated replies that you continue to ignore. Are you afraid of the truth and giving proof?

[PostmodernProphet]

I need to correct an error in your post....

Postmodernprophet
if the video show blix saying there where no WMDs then the videos fake.

ME
Video Head of MI5 saying she didn't think saddam was a threat
List of several military and politicians who didn't believe Saddam to be a threat or have WMDS.

it would have been more accurate if you had posted this...

Postmodernprophet
if the video show blix saying there where no WMDs then the videos fake.

ME
no response, no link to a video of Blix saying there were no WMD before the war began

[revelarts]

I've got to do some work today but I'll reply,
probably to no ones satisfaction but...

I'll be back.

[revelarts]

Ok, As I said I read the link on the U.N. you've posted and gone back to review it a bit.

the summery of what I get from it is what we seem to agree on.

In the 1990's the vast bulk of Iraq WMDs were destroyed.
What might have been left was unknown, and unaccounted for to the satisfaction of many. But there was no physical evidence of anything significant.
There were a several items of controversy over the years but nothing substantial confirmed in the U.N. reports. Definitely no large stockpiles of WMDs physically discovered. Or paperwork that validated an sophisticated ongoing WMD program. There were some indications that he MAY Have WANTED TO, INTENDED TO, YES. BUT no, ZERO, evidence of an SOLID ONGOING EXISTING PROGRAM. (If i misread the files point out to me where they had IN HAND PHOTOS or the LOCAL of the STOCKPILES of WMDs. AND OR WMD RESEARCH FACILITIES) However they had reason for some suspicion and Yes he played a bunch of games with inspectors for years making him look even more guilty. That was stupid on his part. ( stupid evil dictator is what stupid evil dictator does) And yes as I've said several times he was in breach of the resolutions/cease fire.

I think we can agree on that.
I hope.



Ok that was the U.N. report up to a point

Now Blix made several reports and the last few are significant in that they reveal that he had no evidence that would lead him concluded that there was any reason why we had to go to war.

March 2003 Blix's statement before the U.N.
http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/SC7asdelivered.htm

He discusses Iraqi dismantling of missiles (non wmd) that went over the range prescribed by resolution. THEY ARE THE ONLY SOLID ITEMS FOUND.
All other comments are about:
-Not having a clear accounting or paper trail of WMDs long ago destroyed in the 1990's.
-NOT being able to prove Iraq is starting it up any new WMD program as various intel agencies say.
-That Iraq doesn't like cooperating but they are.
-And that to check on the other accusations of WMD programs and materials should only take a few months.

How much time would it take to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks? While cooperation can and is to be immediate, disarmament and at any rate the verification of it cannot be instant. Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude, induced by continued outside pressure, it would still take some time to verify sites and items, analyze documents, interview relevant persons, and draw conclusions. It would not take years, nor weeks, but months. Neither governments nor inspectors would want disarmament inspection to go on forever. However, it must be remembered that in accordance with the governing resolutions, a sustained inspection and monitoring system is to remain in place after verified disarmament to give confidence and to strike an alarm, if signs were seen of the revival of any proscribed weapons programmes.

Are the items sited above any reason to continue plans for war?
How many men are worth sacrificing if instead the Inspectors only needed months to determine if all the negative WMD intel was true?


But the WORST OF THE WORST WMD intelligence wasn't true.


But the WORST OF THE WORST WMD intellegence wasn't true.

part 1

[revelarts]

Part 2


Frankly I believe that Bush Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice knew it was false.

Ive cobbled together a list of quotes from various sources. Mostly CIA DIA and Administration people, there more i could Add but a picture start to form that, it seems to me, is difficult to dismiss, But I'm sure some of you will.

Anyway
I've already Posted Lt Col Karen Kawaitski's info. AS far as I know only Jim has seen it.
http://www.q-and-a.org/Video/?ProgramID=1069
Jim you question her integrity and wonder why others in the media haven't shared her story.
C-Span is a pretty fair place to start. She been in the New Yorker Magazine, Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano, Democracy Now , militaryweek.com, Huffington Post, AntiWar.com, The American Conservative magazine, Salon, Motherjones, LA Weekly, Coommondreams.com, Russia Today, and more. She's been in several documentaries, Superpower, Why We Fight , Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire, Uncovered: The War on Iraq and Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War.

She work for Doug Feith In the Pentagon on the near east desk and saw an adjunct office created By Feith called the Office of Special Plans that she says Cherry picked intel info messaged it and fed it to the the BCRandR. She saw the same intel they did but knew that much of it had been discredited by DIA and CIA reports. And On some intel they just removed the caveats like the timing to create the impression that what Iraq did in the past they were doing now. the OSP was accountable to noone but the Vice President and Rumsfled.

If she was alone in her Assertions then you might , MIGHT, want to dismiss her. but she's not.

New Yorker Magazine Article by Symour Hersh 1 paragraph

They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal—a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found. And although many people, within the Administration and outside it, profess confidence that something will turn up, the integrity of much of that intelligence is now in question….

the article goes on to

W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of Middle East intelligence at the D.I.A., said, “The Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government’s foreign policy, and they’ve pulled it off. They’re running Chalabi. The D.I.A. has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there’s no guts at all in the C.I.A.”
Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of counter-terrorism operations and analysis at the C.I.A., worked with Shulsky (OSP Boss) at a Washington think tank after his retirement. He said, “Abe is very gentle and slow to anger, with a sense of irony. But his politics were typical for his group—the Straussian view.” The group’s members, Cannistraro said, “reinforce each other because they’re the only friends they have, and they all work together. This has been going on since the nineteen-eighties, but they’ve never been able to coalesce as they have now. September 11th gave them the opportunity, and now they’re in heaven. They believe the intelligence is there. They want to believe it. It has to be there.”…
…In interviews, former C.I.A. officers and analysts described the agency as increasingly demoralized. “George knows he’s being beaten up,” one former officer said of George Tenet, the C.I.A. director. “And his analysts are terrified. George used to protect his people, but he’s been forced to do things their way.” Because the C.I.A.’s analysts are now on the defensive, “they write reports justifying their intelligence rather than saying what’s going on. The Defense Department and the Office of the Vice-President write their own pieces, based on their own ideology. We collect so much stuff that you can find anything you want.”…
…A former high-level intelligence official told me that American Special Forces units had been sent into Iraq in mid-March, before the start of the air and ground war, to investigate sites suspected of being missile or chemical- and biological-weapon storage depots. “They came up with nothing,” the official said. “Never found a single Scud.”…
…On April 22nd, Hans Blix, hours before he asked the U.N. Security Council to send his team back to Iraq, told the BBC, “I think it’s been one of the disturbing elements that so much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been so shaky.”…

So there a are few others that seem to corroborate her story but sadly there's more.

Patrick Lang, DIA
Patrick Lang, the former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence, said the Office of Special Plans "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat. Lang said in interviews with several media outlets that the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy.

"“I don’t have any problem with them bringing in a couple of people to take another look at the intelligence and challenge the assessments. But the problem is that they brought in people who were not intelligence professionals, people brought in because they thought like them. They knew what answers they were going to get.” [New York Times, 4/28/2004]"

That agency was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he added in a phone interview. He said the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating U.S. foreign policy.

Vincent Cannistraro Head of CIA's counter-intelligence unit
“I think that early on in the administration—sometime within the first five to six months after Sept. 11, 2001—the decision was made that Iraq had to be dealt with. The intelligence community was tasked to collect information.” [ABC News, 6/16/2003]

“They are politicizing intelligence, no question about it. And they are undertaking a campaign to get George Tenet [the director of central intelligence] fired because they can’t get him to say what they want on Iraq.” [Washington Post, 10/25/2002]

“Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there’s a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA.” [Guardian, 10/9/2002]

“The [INC’s] intelligence isn’t reliable at all. Much of it is propaganda. Much of it is telling the Defense Department what they want to hear. And much of it is used to support Chalabi’s own presidential ambitions. They make no distinction between intelligence and propaganda, using alleged informants and defectors who say what Chalabi wants them to say, [creating] cooked information that goes right into presidential and vice-presidential speeches.” [Independent, 9/30/2003]

He told Reuters that “he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up ‘fraudulent’ intelligence” that had been acquired through the notorious Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. [Reuters, 5/30/2003]


-----
Tyler Drumheller, CIA chief in Europe

CBS NEWS
Former Top CIA Official On "Faulty" Intelligence Claims
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...in;contentBody
Drumheller was the CIA's top man in Europe, the head of covert operations there, until he retired a year ago. He says he saw firsthand how the White House promoted intelligence it liked and ignored intelligence it didn’t:

"The idea of going after Iraq was U.S. policy. It was going to happen one way or the other," says Drumheller.

Drumheller says he doesn't think it mattered very much to the administration what the intelligence community had to say. "I think it mattered it if verified. This basic belief that had taken hold in the U.S. government that now is the time, we had the means, all we needed was the will," he says….

...Meanwhile, the CIA had made a major intelligence breakthrough on Iraq’s nuclear program. Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister, had made a deal to reveal Iraq’s military secrets to the CIA. Drumheller was in charge of the operation.

"This was a very high inner circle of Saddam Hussein. Someone who would know what he was talking about," Drumheller says.

"You knew you could trust this guy?" Bradley asked.

"We continued to validate him the whole way through," Drumheller replied.

According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high-level meeting at the White House, including the president, the vice president and Secretary of State Rice.

At that meeting, Drumheller says, "They were enthusiastic because they said, they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis."

What did this high-level source tell him?

"He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program," says Drumheller.

"So in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam's inner circle that he didn't have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?" Bradley asked.

"Yes," Drumheller replied. He says there was doubt in his mind at all.

"It directly contradicts, though, what the president and his staff were telling us," Bradley remarked.

"The policy was set," Drumheller says. "The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Drumheller expected the White House to ask for more information from the Iraqi foreign minister.

But he says he was taken aback by what happened. "The group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they're no longer interested," Drumheller recalls. "And we said, 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said, 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.'"

"And if I understand you correctly, when the White House learned that you had this source from the inner circle of Saddam Hussein, they were thrilled with that," Bradley asked.

"The first we heard, they were. Yes," Drumheller replied.

Once they learned what it was the source had to say — that Saddam Hussein did not have the capability to wage nuclear war or have an active WMD program, Drumheller says, "They stopped being interested in the intelligence."

The White House declined to respond to Drumheller's account of Naji Sabri’s role, but Secretary of State Rice has said that Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister turned U.S. spy, was just one source, and therefore his information wasn’t reliable.

"They certainly took information that came from single sources on uranium, on the yellowcake story and on several other stories with no corroboration at all and so you can’t say you only listen to one source, because on many issues they only listened to one source," says Drumheller.

"So you’re saying that if there was a single source and that information from that source backed up the case they were trying to build, then that single source was ok, but if it didn’t, then the single source was not ok, because he couldn’t be corroborated," Bradley asked.

"Unfortunately, that’s what it looks like," Drumheller replied.

"One panel after another found that agencies were giving conflicting information to the president," Bradley remarked.

Drumheller admits they were. "And that's the problem. No. There was no one voice in coming out of the intelligence community and that allowed those people to pick and choose those bits of information that fit what they wanted to know."


…."The American people want to believe the president. I have relatives who I've tried to talk to about this who say, 'Well, no, you can’t tell me the president had this information and just ignored it,'" says Drumheller. "But I think over time, people will look back on this and see this is going to be one of the great, I think, policy mistakes of all time."

CIA CHief Drumheller interview with Spiegel about "Curveball" Info in Powells U.N. Speech.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...462782,00.html

…Drumheller: I had assured my German friends that it wouldn't be in the speech. I really thought that I had put it to bed. I had warned the CIA deputy John McLaughlin that this case could be fabricated. The night before the speech, then CIA director George Tenet called me at home. I said: "Hey Boss, be careful with that German report. It's supposed to be taken out. There are a lot of problems with that." He said: "Yeah, yeah. Right. Dont worry about that."
SPIEGEL: But it turned out to be the centerpiece in Powell’s presentation -- and nobody had told him about the doubts.
Drumheller: I turned on the TV in my office, and there it was. So the first thing I thought, having worked in the government all my life, was that we probably gave Powell the wrong speech. We checked our files and found out that they had just ignored it.
Larry Johnson, CIA analyst
“We’ve entered the world of George Orwell. I’m disgusted. The truth has to be told. We can’t allow our leaders to use bogus information to justify war.” [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 6/8/2003]

“By April of last year, I was beginning to pick up grumblings from friends inside the intelligence community that there had been pressure applied to analysts to come up with certain conclusions. Specifically, I was told that analysts were pressured to find an operational link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. One analyst, in particular, told me they were repeatedly pressured by the most senior officials in the Department of Defense.… In an e-mail exchange with another friend, I raised the possibility that ‘the Bush administration had bought into a lie.’ My friend, who works within the intelligence community, challenged me on the use of the word, ‘bought,’ and suggested instead that the Bush administration had created the lie.… I have spoken to more than two analysts who have expressed fear of retaliation if they come forward and tell what they know. We know that most of the reasons we were given for going to war were wrong.” [Bamford, 2004; Falls Church News-Press, 2/2004]


Melvin A. Goodman Senior Analyst CIA Intell Specialist National war college
“To deny that there was any pressure on the intelligence community is just absurd.” [Reuters, 6/6/2003]
[ed: Goodman is referring here to the lectures he gives to intelligence analysts at the State Department’s Foreign Services Institute] “I get into the issue of politicization. They don’t say much during the question period, but afterwards people come up to me, DIA and CIA analysts who have had this pressure. I’ve gotten stories from DIA people being called into a supervisor’s office and told they might lose their job if they didn’t revise a paper. ‘This is not what the administration is looking for. You’ve got to find WMD’s, which are out there.’” [Vanity Fair, 5/2004]

Stansfield Turner, former director of CIA
“There is no question in my mind (policymakers) distorted the situation, either because they had bad intelligence or because they misinterpreted it.” [USA Today, 6/17/2003]



Richard Clarke, White House counterterrorism advisor
Clarke recounts how on Jan. 24, 2001, he recommended that the new president's national-security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, convene the president's top advisers to discuss the Qaeda threat. One week later, Bush did. But according to Clarke, the meeting had nothing to do with bin Laden. The topic was how to get rid of Saddam Hussein. "What does that tell you?" Clarke remarked to Newsweek. "They thought there was something more urgent. It was Iraq. They came in there with their agenda, and [al*Qaeda] was not on it."

Clarke emphasizes that Bush's focus on Iraq actually served to increase the terrorist danger. Clarke writes that Bush "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide."

Clarke is not a Democrat, and his sentiments are not antiwar in principle. In fact he is a foreign-policy hawk and career government official who served five presidents, three of them Republicans.

"Beginning on the night of 9/11, we have the secretary of defense and others talking about going to war with Iraq. I think we knew pretty much that week that the probability of finding a justification for going to war with Iraq was high on their agenda."
"And he said: "Saddam! Saddam! See if there's a connection to Saddam!" And this wasn't "See if there's a connection with Iran, and while you're at it, do Iraq, and while you're at it, do the Palestinian Islamic group." It wasn't "Do due diligence." It wasn't "Have an exhaustive review." It was "Saddam, Saddam." I read that pretty clearly, that that was the answer he wanted.
I said to him, "We have already done that research prior to the attack" -- in fact, we'd done it a couple of times -- "and there's nothing there." And the facial expression back was, "That wasn't the right answer."
So I said, "Well, but we will do it again." And we asked CIA to do it again. CIA did it again, came up with the same answer. That answer was written up and handed to the president by George Tenet in one of his morning meetings, and it said, "For the third or fourth time, we've gone back to look at the relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and there is no real cooperation between those two.""
"I remember vividly, in the driveway outside of the West Wing, Scooter Libby, from the vice president's office, grabbing me and saying, "I hear you don't believe this report that Mohamed Atta was talking to Iraqi people in Prague." I said, "I don't believe it because it's not true." And he said: "You're wrong. You know you're wrong. Go back and find out; look at the rest of the reports, and find out that you're wrong." I understood what he was saying, which was: "This is a report that we want to believe, and stop saying it's not true. It's a real problem for the vice president's office that you, the counterterrorism coordinator, are walking around saying that this isn't a true report. Shut up!" That's what I was being told.
I'm somebody who has been in Washington national security for 30 years. I'm not easily intimidated. Imagine if you're an analyst at the CIA who's been there for four or five years."

“I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq.” [Washington Post, 3/22/2004]
Associated Events

“The White House carefully manipulated public opinion, never quite lied, but gave the very strong impression that Iraq did it. They did know better. We told them. The CIA told them. The FBI told them. They did know better. And the tragedy here is that Americans went to their death in Iraq thinking that they were avenging Sept. 11, when Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. I think for a commander in chief and a vice president to allow that to happen is unconscionable.” [New York Times, 3/23/2004]

Larry Wlkerson, Gen Powell's Chief of staff
Look him up and see what he has to say if your interested


[b]Hans Blix[/]
Between late November and mid-March 2003, Blix reports, the UN inspectors made seven hundred separate visits to five hundred sites. About three dozen of those sites had been suggested by intelligence services, many by Tenet's CIA, which insisted that these were "the best" in the agency's database. Blix was shocked. "If this was the best, what was the rest?" he asked himself. "Could there be 100-percent certainty about the existence of weapons of mass destruction but zero-percent knowledge about their location?"
By this time Blix was firmly opposed to the evident American preference for disarmament by war. "It was, in my view, too early to give up now," he writes. Tony Blair in late February tried to convince Blix that Saddam had WMD even if Blix couldn't find them – the French, German, and Egyptian intelligence services were all sure of it, Blair said. Blix told Blair that to him they seemed not so sure, and adds as an aside, "My faith in intelligence had been shaken." On March 5, Blix on the phone with Rice asked her point-blank if the United States knew where Iraq's WMD were hidden. "No, she said, but interviews after liberation would reveal it."
In that meeting of the Security Council both ElBaradei and Blix reported their continuing plans for further inspections, and both said that outstanding issues might be resolved within a few months. This was not what the United States wanted to hear. In mid-February, President Bush had derided efforts to give Iraq "another, 'nother, 'nother last chance." Blix had pleaded in a phone call about the same time to Secretary of State Colin Powell for a free hand at least until April 15. "He said it was too late."
Three years later, in a speech to the Arms Control Association, Blix reflected on that moment in his office at the UN – the afternoon of March 16 – when the State Department's John Wolf called to say that the time had come to pull the inspectors out of Iraq. "My belief is that if we had been allowed to continue with inspections for a couple of months more, we would then have been able to go to all of the sites which were given by intelligence," he said. "And since there were not any weapons of massive destruction, we would have reported there were not any." An invasion might have taken place anyway, Blix concedes; the Americans and British had sent several hundred thousand troops to Kuwait and could not leave them sitting in the desert indefinitely. "But it would have been certainly more difficult," Blix said. Even so, in Blix's view, something important had been achieved. "The UN and the world had succeeded in disarming Iraq without knowing it." Blix guessed that Saddam hid his compliance so Iran wouldn't think him weak, but it was the Americans who were deceived.


Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, formerlythe director of policy planning at the State Department. A former Rhodes Scholar, he also served as the U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and was senior director of Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.
frontline interview
"Was it necessary to go to war when we did?
"When we did, no. That was a question of choice. Obviously, you could have delayed it a day, a week, a month, a year. There was no necessity then. It wasn't as though the Iraqis were poised to suddenly do something or break out. So the decision to go to war -- which obviously was the president's decision -- like everything else about this war, was an elective decision."




curveball
the best source for WMD info was a complete fraud
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...808,full.story
60 minites



Hussien Kamel, former Director of Iraq's Industrialization Corporation in charge of Iraq's weapons program, stated in an Aug. 22, 1995 briefing with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA):
"I don't remember resumption of chemical weapon production before the Gulf War. Maybe it was only minimal production and filling. But there was no decision to use chemical weapons for fear of retaliation. They must have a revision of decision to start production.
All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missiles, nuclear were destroyed."
Aug. 22, 1995 - Hussein Kamel*


http://usiraq.procon.org/view.resour...ourceID=000674

[jimnyc]

I'll repeat myself for those who like to talk in circles to muddy the waters:

Still no comment as to why your beloved Lt. Col. has no solid proof, and why she isn't being welcomed with open arms by the government portion that would love no better than to crucify GWB?

Why do you keep ignoring my request for PROOF of her claims? If you're going to keep bringing my name into your posts, at least answer those questions. What Proof of these allegations, solid proof, did she bring to our government to report what she knows?

So I'm assuming she or her buddies have no tangible or direct proof? Were all of these people called before congress or the senate intelligence committee? What charges were brought forth to anyone in our government or military as a result of the proof these people came forward with. What happened when she contacted high ranking leaders the VERY DAY she witnessed the activity? Who was the first person she reported it to when she gained this knowledge, and did that person report it to appropriate authorities immediately?

[jimnyc]

I have another question for you, Rev, that I've asked of many others throughout the years and they could never give a straight answer, just unfounded accusations and theories.

From the years 2001-2002 there were 9 Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee to that of 8 Republicans. The Chairman was Bob Graham, a Democrat. From 2003-2004 there were 8 Democrats on the committee and 9 Republicans. John Rockefeller would Vice Chair this committee. This committee was privy to all the intel and were briefed directly by the various intelligence agencies leading up to the war in Iraq.

I'll save you the quotes made by prominent Democrats over the years about Iraq, some even being very members of this committee.

But from 2001 to the day we entered Iraq, until this very day, I don't see a single Democrat that had access to MORE information than their counterparts, standing up and complaining about what they saw and what was actually delivered to others and finally the citizens.

I assume you'll say that the intel was already cherry picked by the time the agencies reported to them, but what proof would you have of that? If those YOU are believing have only their word as proof, why would their words be more believable than hundreds and hundreds within government and a Democrat led Intelligence Committee?

I'd like more direct and tangible proof than a handful of people just expecting us to believe them. We would all be naive if we thought every single person in government and our military was pro Bush and pro War.