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Ronald Dumbsfeld on - Getting Over nasty Nuclear Build-up

We apologize for including that suspect info in such an important and influential speech. No, the information as far as we know is not correct., Um-Ah., nor is it as far as we know not incorrect., but we do admit it, Um., it ., Ah., shouldn't been presented as evidence., although it came from darn good intelligence which I suppose shouldn't be confused with damn good intelligence. We don't know that the intelligence is wrong., as far as we know it could be right , it hasn't been proved to be false.., that they were looking for., Um., Ah., to build a nuclear program., we apologize for the Um, intelligence we used which we believe to be, Um-Ah, darn good., but even if the info is questionable it doesn't mean it's not Um, technically correct., I mean Uh, the source might be incorrect but the concept that source suggests might not.,Um-you know., it could be true., we have no evidence that says it's not true., even if we apologize for Um., saying it we're not saying it's wrong and in fact say that without a doubt it could Uh-Um-Ah, possibly be true, technically speaking., cause as some would like to re-write history., in fact what was said, was that intelligence received from England said such and such., and in fact that's where the intelligence all be it possibly not entirely correct in it's entirety was where the intel came from.., so the president was correct about the nuclear build-up., that there was intelligence coming from england proving that such a program existed. - Didn't Tenet say not to use that info in the speech? We know he said it probably shouldn't of been in the speech we don't know he said don't put it in the speech., he apologized and we accept that., I can't speak for him beyond that if he said this or he said that he aopologized., hell we're talking about only sixteen words here. So why are you apologizing?- You're not listening to me., we've already covered all that., you really need to get over this., it's been explained as the president was right., Um., what he said seems to have been wrong - anymore questions?

Things are looking curiouser and curiouser
That analysts at the CIA and other intelligence services had received pressure from the Bush administration, and that the CIA had not found any proof of operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.
In other words, Bush lied.


After writing Fortunate Son (book about Duh-bya) - and subsequent threats to him and his family - J.H. Hatfield found dead in hotel room - reported suicide
After disputing the validity of government weapons intelligence (used by Tony Blair and Duh-bya Bush as argument for war in Iraq) Arms expert David Kelley found dead in the woods - reported suicide
Bush had no right to declare, as he did on March 17, that "intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised,"

The Unicycle of Evil and Poppy's Bomb - Greg Palast

Do you see it? Right there, right under Tony Blair and George Bush: During their press conference Thursday, Fox News ran a continuous ribbon of text at the bottom of the screen. It said, "THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. FIRST, BRITAIN'S PRIME MINISTER, STANDING BEFORE THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS, WILL TELL A BIG FAT FIB AND THEN OUR PRESIDENT, STANDING WITH HIM AT THE WHITE HOUSE, WILL STUTTER, SPUTTER AND THEN LIE IN YOUR FACE."

Well OK, that's not the exact phrase that the Fox Network ran, but that's what the text runner meant. While Tony Blair thumped his chest and told congress, "We promised Iraq democratic government - we will deliver it," the ticker-tape at the bottom of the TV screen said that our appointed chieftain in Iraq, Paul Bremer III, had announced that there would be no elections in Iraq - not until next year, or later.

Then it was our President's turn. He used the phrase "free Iraq" about half a dozen times. We know Iraq is free because Mr. Bush explained, he has just appointed Iraq's "governing council." The puppet show, our president told us gleefully, "is now meeting regularly." What about -- dare I mention the word -- ELECTIONS? To ask during a presidential press conference about the possibility that Iraqis be allowed to vote is considered as appropriate as passing wind at a debutante ball. "Democracy," Mr. Bush wagged his finger, "will take time to create." Indeed, it's only right that free and fair elections in Iraq should wait until after free and fair elections in Florida. And THAT is not scheduled until after 2004.

Democracy, Bush and Blair admonish us, is not something we can rush into. Their point was illustrated this week when, in a little noticed announcement, Bush's man Bremer, who issues his dictates from Saddam's old office, cancelled all local elections. Bremer has decided that what Iraqis really needs now more than the chance to chose their government is an armed and unchallengeable strongman, himself.

At the press conference, the questions moved from democracy to Blair's and Bush's jointly written work of fiction: the tale of Saddam's buying up nuclear mud from the African nation of Niger. The story was, as the English say, "bollocks," but George Bush gamely insisted that, "I strongly BELIEVE [Saddam] was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program."

Mr. Bush used the term "believe" several times. It seems that as a child, our President was awestruck by the repetitive annunciation of faith to revive Tinkerbell ("We believe in fairies, Tink! We really BELIEVE!"). He is apparently unaware that the decision to go war is supposed to be based, not on beliefs, but on hard intelligence.


Blair visibly squirmed through Bush's twisting and ducking around the simple question of why Bush slithered this African hot-dirt fable into the State of the Union address.

Faced with having to unmuddle the President's inchoate response, Blair hiked up his eyebrows then fetched up this stunner: "People don't generally know… in the 1980s that Iraq purchased 270 tons of uranium from Niger." Indeed, people don't know that, Tony, because your government and the US government did it's damned best to cover it up. In the 1980s, Saddam was OUR butcher in Baghdad, a buddy of Ronald Reagan and Bush Senior. During my investigations for BBC television, I discovered during the Reagan-Bush years, Saudi Arabians gave Saddam, with a wink and nod from the US and UK, $7 billion to build a nuclear weapon so he could incinerate his enemy, Iran. However, that was back before there was an 'Axis of Evil' and Iran was the Unicycle of Evil.

So that was today's news: no elections in Iraq, a confession about Poppy Bush's old bomb for Saddam, and photo ops of a boy and his lapdog.

If you listened carefully, our president salted his responses with some unintended truths. Standing next to Blair, George Bush concluded, "Freedom and self-government are hated and opposed by a radical and ruthless few." Yes, George - I can easily name two.

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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters on June24, 2003 "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis hasd nuclear weapons. I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons."

March16, 2003 - Vice President Dick Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press, "We believe he (Saddam Hussein) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

The 16 pages, dated March 2001, show maps of Iraq oil fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals. A document titled Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts is also included, listing which countries were keen to do business with Saddam's regime.
Judicial Watch requested the papers two years ago as part of its investigation into links between the Bush administration and senior energy executives including Enron's former chairman Ken Lay. Mr Cheney has fought the release of the documents at every stage. A court ordered two weeks ago that at least some of the task forces working papers should be made public.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said: "People will draw their own conclusions about the documents, but that is what an open society is about. Given the delay in their release, the Bush administration clearly did not want them to come out."

A spokesman for Mr Cheney did not return calls yesterday. The US Commerce Department said in a statement: "It is the responsibility of the Commerce Department to serve as a commercial liaison for US companies doing business around the world, including those that develop and utilise energy resources. The Energy Task Force evaluated regions of the world that are vital to global energy supply."

Judicial Watch isn't claiming that the documents are proof of any particular intent but says they should be open to public scrutiny. Mr Fitton said: "Opponents of the war will point to the documents as evidence that the Bush administration was after Iraqi oil. Supporters will say the energy task force would have been remiss if it did not take Iraq's oil into account."
Nevertheless, the documents represent a surprising development. Until now it had been assumed that the US government was stonewalling over the energy task force papers because they would show the extent to which major party benefactors, including Enron, effectively wrote national energy policy. Judicial Watch and other watchdogs are now curious what else may be revealed.

A court ordered the government to comply with the Freedom of Information Act and give up these documents more than a year ago. Judicial Watch said it could not explain why the papers were suddenly released. A government spokesman declined to elaborate. Maps of oil fields and pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and a list of energy development projects in those two countries are also included.
Mr Cheney argues that his consultations with the energy industry should be private so that all parties can speak freely. A US court recently described this invoking of executive privilege "extraordinary" and "drastic".

 

CIA Probe Finds Secret Pentagon Group Manipulated Intelligence on Iraqi Threat

A half-dozen former CIA agents investigating prewar intelligence have found that a secret Pentagon committee, set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, manipulated reams of intelligence information prepared by the spy agency on the so-called Iraqi threat and then delivered it to top White House officials who used it to win support for a war in Iraq.

More than a dozen calls to the White House, the CIA, the National Security Council and the Pentagon for comment were not returned.

The ad-hoc committee, called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other Pentagon hawks, described the worst-case scenarios in terms of Iraq's alleged stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and claimed the country was close to acquiring nuclear weapons, according to four of the CIA agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the information is still classified, who conducted a preliminary view of the intelligence. Read Full Article

Judith Miller - wmd & middle east expert?

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Bush 'planned to topple Saddam before Sept 11'
By David Rennie in Washington
(Filed: 12/01/2004)

The White House was in full damage control mode yesterday after a former leading official said the Bush administration planned to invade Iraq long before the September 11 attacks, despite a lack of evidence that it had weapons of mass destruction.
Paul O'Neill, an outspoken industrialist sacked as the treasury secretary a year ago, is the first official of cabinet rank to break the code of silence that governs this unusually disciplined and loyal administration.

Mr O'Neill, whose post earned him a seat on the National Security Council, said the Iraq intelligence he read was over-interpreted by a White House determined to make a case for war, despite careful caveats inserted by the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

" In the 23 months I was there, I never saw anything that I would characterise as evidence of weapons of mass destruction," he told Time magazine.

" There were allegations and assertions by people . . I never saw anything in the intelligence that I would characterise as real evidence."

Mr O'Neill, a veteran of the Ford and Nixon administrations, was sacked after a series of public gaffes and private rows over the prudence of President George W Bush's tax cuts.

In a tell-all book to be published this week, he also claims that Mr Bush was inscrutable and seemingly uninterested in policy debates, leaving his leading aides to play "blind man's buff" as they tried to second-guess his intentions.

Above all, Mr O'Neill described the White House as driven by conservative ideology and the need to pander to the "corporate crowd".

He told Ron Suskind, the book's author, that an invasion of Iraq was being planned almost as soon as Mr Bush took office.

To Washington insiders, it is hardly a secret that the Bush administration contained hawks who were determined to topple Saddam Hussein.

Indeed, regime change in Iraq was official White House policy under President Bill Clinton.
White House officials counter-attacked swiftly. "Nobody listened to him while he was in office," a senior official said of the former treasury secretary. "Why should anybody now?"


Cheney had Iraq in sights two years ago
By Simon English in New York (Filed: 22/07/2003)


Documents released under America's Freedom of Information Act reveal that an energy task force led by vice-president Dick Cheney was examining Iraq's oil assets two years before the latest war began.
The papers were obtained after a long battle with the White House by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal charity that opposes government secrecy and which is suing for the dealings of the task force to be made public.

The emergence of the documents could fuel claims that America's war in Iraq had as much to do with oil as national security. It also indicates that the Bush administration is beginning to lose the battle to keep its internal workings secret.