I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Evidence of WMDs or WMD programs? I expect it will be programs and I expect Bush will say "case closed".
I know I've been on the edge of my seat since the lying SOB David Kay promised some "surprises." {/sarcasm}
I figure it takes months to manuafacture miles of documents, so we should be patient. Good find, Atrios.
Has anyone heard, or seen somewhere, the rumor that most of those troops that are ill were stationed around the Baghdad airport? Suggesting that maybe the WMD's have been shipped in, for planting, and there was an "incident".
So, far the only other rumor attributes it to Depleted Uranium. Which may be the real case, and Pnuemonia just a cover.
If, some biological cache turnes up in the next few weeks, does this tend to substantiate rumor 1?
Thanks
The BBC disputes the airport location link:
Experts are also being sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany, where some of the troops were treated after being flown from Iraq.
They will be hunting for a possible common thread.
The troops who have come down with pneumonia were geographically dispersed and came from different military units, officials said.
The cases also occurred periodically over five months, rather than all at once.
Ms Kukral said no infectious agent such as a bacterium or virus has been discovered to be common to all the cases.
"We have no evidence to indicate that there are chemical or biological weapons or environmental toxins involved."
The Iraq team will sample soil, water and air to gauge whether these factors might be playing a role.
Rummy's first plausible denial for Gulf War 2 syndrome (aka "Officer Barbrady explanation"):
All right! Move along, people. Nothing to see here. They're just a bunch o' whiney Nervous Nelly hypochondriacs, tryin' to goldbrick some medical bennies.
Gee, Atrios, you were expecting something other than lies out of this crowd?
Amid all the talk of "accountability" is the ultimate accountability, Nov. 4, 2004. Anyone who reads the blogs and isn't registered and ready to vote doesn't get to bitch.
Rummy's second plausible denial for Gulf War 2 syndrome:
Sad'em gave us SARS!
I can't wait to see David Kay's secret plan to win the war on weapons program documentation.
Melanie - hear hear.
On that note, I'm still amazed when I talk politics with people, there are some who will complain about the government yet when I ask if they vote, they sheepishly say no (most of those aren't even registered). I always admonish them to register, and have even taken people to the town hall (or whatever) to get do it. Get out the vote!
We'd have Sad'em by now if only Rummy would deploy the Zone 5 units according to Plan B.
This is totally awesome:
Americans "should not be surprised by (future) surprises," said David Kay, adding, "We are surprised by new advances that we're making."
It shouldn't therefore be suprising that this master of suprise was hired by the suprise president so he can tell us not to be suprised by suprises.
Maybe he can help write speeches for POTUS.
This is OT, but I was looking at some of the old, and now abandoned threads, and this petition came to mind.
http://www.petitiononline.com/mo....cgi?0712t001&
1
it's a petition against the Federal Marriage Act. Go. Sign.
mmm'Kay.
Josh Marshall has a link to this interesting AP story on TPM
http://story.news.yahoo.com/
news...addam_s_bluff_4. Funny they didn't mention it with Kay's comments.
Pie
So then it could be the DU problem. The Brits also use DU, and seem to defend it.
http://www.fourwinds10.com/news/...ps-in-
iraq.html
Mysterious Diseases Haunt U.S. Troops In Iraq
NATO experts attribute the mysterious symptoms suffered by U.S. soldiers to the use of depleted uranium
BAGHDAD, July 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Several mysterious diseases were reported among a number of American troops within the vicinity of Baghdad airport, a military source closely close to NATO unveiled.
U.S. soldiers deployed around Baghdad airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin, the source, who refused to be named, said in statements published Thursday, July 17, by the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper.
He asserted that three soldiers who suffered these symptoms did not respond to medical treatment in Iraqi hospitals and were flown to Washington for medication.
The military source reported a media blackout by U.S. officials to hide such information from the public.
The Americans claim the symptoms and the mysterious diseases were resulting from exposure to the scourging sun, which the U.S. troops are not used to, he added.
U.S. officials did not come up with an explanation for the symptoms, which NATO experts tend to believe result from direct exposure to powerful nuclear radiations of the sophisticated B-2 bombs used in the war on Iraq, particularly in striking Iraqi Republican Guards forces who deployed to defend the vicinity of Baghdad airport.
The military source stressed that the shrouds of secrecy imposed by American officials on the issue were prompted by fears of creating waves of panic and anger among the troops, particularly after announcements that American troops would remain in Iraq indefinitely.
He asserted that NATO experts measured levels of radioactive pollution in Iraq and confirmed there were levels of radioactive pollution with destructive impacts on man and environment that may lead to risks suffered by generations to come.
On April 25, the British Observer quoted military sources as affirming that depleted uranium shells and bombs used by U.S. and British troops during Iraq invasion were five times more than the number used during 1991 Gulf war.
The Pentagon had admitted shelling Iraq with about 350 tons of depleted uranium in 1991, aggravating cancerous tumors cases among Iraqis.
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
3. The Gulf War Syndrome. This mysterious “disease” supposedly began to afflict U.S. service personnel returning from Gulf War duty in the early 1990s. The symptoms included light-headedness, nausea, insomnia, skin rash, sexual dysfunction, lethargy, shortness of breath and, in extreme cases, cancer and even paralysis. Then the disease was reported to have spread to spouses of the returning soldiers and then to their newly born children who were suffering birth defects. Theories as to the cause proliferated. The GIs had been subjected to chemical agents or even Iraqi attacks. They had reacted to antidotes to nerve gas administered as a precaution. They had suffered from insect bites or agents administered to protect them from such bites.
The Pentagon was pressured to create a department to handle Gulf War Syndrome Complaints. Responsible research projects were launched. The result: There was no Gulf War Syndrome. The symptoms were so diverse as to belie association with any single cause. The incidence of disease among the 500,000 or so returnees was common to any similar population. One presidential commission suggested that many of the problems might have been caused by anxiety, not surprising considering the number of scare stories in circulation.
Kay has been riding this WMD tiger for years, and he's kinda afraid to dismount right now. The only surprise will be if he admits he's been full of shit all along. This "search" is taking on mythical proportions. Will it ever end? If it's up to Kay, it won't.
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/n...isplay_any/
4430
In fact, until Kay came along, most experts in most western nations believed there was no evidence for an extensive WMD program in Iraq. But after the war, when Bush I needed greater validation for his actions in the run up to the 1992 election, Kay was made chief nuclear inspector for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq. UNSCOM was created in response to the Bush claims that Iraq was a hotbed of WMD weaponry that had to be 'dismantled.' Kay's investigations turned up all sorts of 'evidence' -given the time lapse from the end of the war to Kay's mission, who knows how much of it was planted -possibly all of it. Certainly the contributions of some 'defectors' have been totally dicredited. But UNSCOM produced the same sort of arrays of conveniently -in fact, unbelievably- detailed documents, all just left 'just laying around,' waiting to be found by Kay and company. The same evidence we hear reported ad infinitum and sans question on NBC, CNN, et al. Thanks to Kay's obliging efforts for Bush after Gulf War I, the stage was neatly set for Gulf War II. In fact, the entire invasion of Iraq was trumped up over the UN clause referring to WMDs.
Whenever Kay makes the rounds of the Bush-controlled media these days, he is always introduced only as 'former UN chief weapons inspector' and 'senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Research.' In short, Kay skips over several years of his interim history. Why? Maybe because during the 'missing years,' he was Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a company with extremely close ties to the Pentagon and to the Bush administration in particular. A company up to its armpits in post-war Iraqi business, not to mention secret contracts rumored to involve electronic spying. A company in which Kay is rumored to still hold a sizeable chunk of stock, one where he maintains a rich network of inside connections.
SAIC's recent history is interesting, to say the least. The company was commissioned by G. W. Bush in 2002 to construct a replica of a mobile WMD laboratory of the sort used by Saddam. This mock up, supposedly destined to be used to train teams searching for WMDs in Iraq, was designed by Stephen Hatfill, the WMD expert now being harangued into isolation and thus silence by Bush's FBI. Last spring, the Bush administration handed SAIC some of the biggest defense contract plums to be had -a billion-dollar chunk of the NexGen business and an unbelievably porky 10-year contract worth over $600 million. I bet Kay just danced a jig of joy over that one, with visions of overflowing stock returns. Just think how much gratitude a couple of billion dollars can buy. Maybe even enough to produce another round of "evidence," thus setting the stage for Gulf War III?
But back to Gulf War I's aftermath. In 1992, Kay was fired from his UN position for trying to use underhanded methods (int
Anonymous:
See Rummy's first plausible denial. It's shorter. mmm'Kay?
But back to Gulf War I's aftermath. In 1992, Kay was fired from his UN position for trying to use underhanded methods (intriguing with the CIA and Iraqi thugs) to obtain 'informants' willing to feed him whatever information he needed (true or not). One such informant appears to be Khidir Hamza, whose 'evidence' was completely discredited by 1995. However, even in the aftermath of Kay's near-disgrace, Blix refused to bad-mouth him, as a matter of gentlemanly principles. "How did Kay repay Blix for defending him?" asks highly credentialed physicist James Gordon Prather, in a June 30, 2003 interview in the Worldnet Daily website. "He repeatedly testified before congressional committees in the months preceding Operation Iraqi Freedom as to the ineptness of Blix and the U.N. inspection regimes. Kay argued that Saddam certainly had "weapons of mass destruction" that the UN inspectors would never find and that it would ultimately be necessary to invade and occupy Iraq to find them."
If you have smelled a rat by now, then you are on the right scent. To put it all together, here is a time line that shows how the David Kay-Bush-phony evidence story all stitches together.
1983-1988: Kay worked under Ronald Reagan as a chief scientist in the Pentagon.
1983-1992: Kay was on the staff of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under the direction of Hans Blix. Both Reagan and Bush I sought an excuse to invade oil-rich Iraq, and viewed 'evidence' of nukes the best motivator for the American public. Blix, however, was a man of integrity who could not be bought, and refused to be pressured, marking him forever as an 'enemy' of the Neocon hawks. European experts, both before and during Gulf War I, support Blix's conclusions that Iraq does not have nuclear weaponry, and that WMD programs, if they exist, are limited in scope.
1990-1992: His popularity in the wake of the war and the economy he has trashed, Bush seeks to gain stature in the run up to election 1992 by magnifying, retroactively, the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. David Kay is named to head UNSCOM's nuke search. One of the other inspectors on UNSCOM's teams was biological weapons expert David Kelly. Kay's job: go into Kuwait and Iraq and produce evidence of WMDs . Kay now claims Saddam had a 'horrifyingly' huge WMD program, including nukes in the making - that he had been, in fact, just MONTHS away from being able to launch a nuclear weapon. The message, of course: "Reelect Bush - just think what an awful fate he saved us all from!". Much of Kay's case relied on cutting tenuous deals with Iraqi "scientists" of dubious credentials and CIA operatives and with producing astoundingly (insanely, in fact) detailed documents on the alleged weapons program that had just been left laying conveniently around (sound familiar?). Although Kay produces a report that includes the allegations on Saddam's nuke program, he is removed from his position with the UN for his unethical behavior.
1995:the IAEA reveals that documents supplied to them earlier by Khirid Hamza, who claimed to be a key scientist on Sadam's nuclear program, were faked. It is also revealed that Hamza's claims about his own background were grossly exaggerated.
Sept. 2002: Khidir Hamza is brought in by the Bush administration to testify before Congress to whom he makes a long list of allegations, including Saddam's closeness to weapons production, his ties to Al Queda, etc. Despite Hamza's earlier exposure as a liar, his testimony was still taken seriously by Congress and the media, and trumpeted as some of the most compelling cause for war.
February 2003: The Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council is created. A disproportionate number of the "Iraqi nationals" on this council are employees of SAIC,. including Khidir Hamza.
May 2003:Khidir Hamza is sent by the Pentagon to Iraq to head the nuclear industry there - a nice big fat reward for 'services rendered.'
I think I covered the best parts of the Kay article. Stinks like shit, don't it?
Next shocking discovery: Saddam lusted after WMDs in his heart, which is just as bad as having them. Or programs. Or aluminum tubes.
The original link to this snippet is gone, but the DU link, with snipped part is still there.
http://www.democraticunderground...0&
mesg_id=44020
"
Neusche's family could not afford to make the trip to Germany and was told he was in a coma, dying of a flu-like ailment.
Fellow soldiers chipped in for airfare and Skelton expedited their passports and paperwork to get them to Germany in time.
When Neusche's parents arrived in Germany on July 9, the illness had already begun ravaging his muscles, liver and kidneys. Neusche died in an ambulance on the way to another hospital for dialysis."
Does that sound like pneumonia?
http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_shee.../
Pneumonia.html
What are the common symptoms and complications of pneumonia?
The common symptoms of pneumonia are a cough with phlegm, fever, chills, chest pain and breathlessness. However, they may vary greatly in severity and also depend on the type of organism causing the infection.
Bacterial and mycoplasmal pneumonia
Mycoplasma pneumonia usually starts with a dry cough and tiredness, followed occasionally by a rash and phlegm production. Although the symptoms are usually mild, they can last for several weeks.
Pneumococcal pneumonia gives the common symptoms described above, such as the cough, fever and pain on the side of the affected lung. Streaks of blood may be seen in the phlegm.
The bacterium Legionella pneumophila causes the pneumonia 'Legionnaire's disease'. It spreads through water and can contaminate air-conditioning systems, which results in outbreaks of the disease. The infection begins with aches and pains, fever and headache, followed by a cough that eventually produces phlegm. Although the disease is usually mild, it can be severe, with extreme breathlessness, diarrhoea and confusion. About 20 per cent of people who develop the disease die.
The bacteria Haemophilus influenzae does not cause flu (which is caused by the influenza virus). This bacterium is a major cause of pneumonia in children below the age of six years. The pneumonia usually begins with sneezing and a runny nose, and then develops into the common symptoms described above. Also, some fluid commonly develops around the lung, called a 'pleural effusion'. However, the 'type b' strain of the bacterium can cause severe illness such as meningitis (inflammation of the lining of the brain) and epiglottitis (inflammation of the back of the throat), which is why children are advised to receive Hib vaccination (see below).
Viral pneumonia
Many viruses can cause pneumonia, including influenza, herpes, measles and chickenpox. The symptoms vary according to the type and severity of infection, but usually there is a cough, often with phlegm, fever and chills.
Fungal pneumonia
Fungi can cause pneumonia, but they are relatively rare in this country except in people who have suppressed immune systems (such as people with AIDS
I love the smell of shit in the mornin'.
Read Josh Marshall. mmmkay?
NPR tells me that W's having his annual physical at Bethesda Naval Hospital today. I wonder if he'll visit the injured while he's there.
Not that I'm a big fan o' the minions serving in Our War Machine, but don'cha enjoy the irony of Our Fratboy Prez goin' on his Crawford Vacation while Our Guys and Gals in Uniform kain't be rotated outta Eye-rack.
Atrios cuts through the BS: nice insight into the word "surprises."
That Kay article sure does stink like s**t. Thanks for posting it. I didn't realize Hamza was back in Iraq. Man, you have to get up early to keep up with the constant stream of s**t these days.
" I wonder if he'll visit the injured while he's there."
Right.
I can never understand how anyone can peg Bush as the guy next door sit and drink a beer with you type.
I remember a few weeks ago that the White House had a hissy fit with the Russians in Iraq, saying they couldn't guarantee their safety. I'm thinking that the Russians have intell guys following us around like papparazzi after Michael Jackson, and it might be a little tough to throw down those WMDs.
I'm assuming that Kay will somehow find some documents of mysterious provenance detailing all the stuff Saddam hadn't gotten around to ordering yet. Great. Find me the weapons you were yelling about, unless a paper cut is Mass Destruction.
This is knid of ot, but related.
I have followed the Hussien's sons being dead thing. Bill Maher last night showed two pics. I'm still struck by the fact that the bodies were not " charred". These were " before" pics.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-...ws/951586/
posts
"When the shooting stopped, their charred, bullet-riddled bodies were found slumped in the filthy loo, the Pentagon said."
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
"However when the troops went in, they found no one but the charred, bullet-riddled bodies of Saddam's two sons, his grandson and their bodyguard."
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
"Four charred bodies, believed to include those of Qusay, the "ace of clubs" on the US "most wanted list" of the former Iraqi regime, and Uday, the "ace of hearts", were taken out of the house, relatives of Zaidan said.
Mosul deputy governor Khasrow Guran later said that US forces were now trying to identify the four charred bodies."
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030722/.../323/
e4qnq.html
" Four charred bodies, later confirmed as including those of Qusay, the "ace of clubs" on the US list of most-wanted Iraqis, and Uday, the "ace of hearts," were taken out of the house, relatives of Zaidan said."
Why aren't more people picking up on this? Jesus EYEWITNESSES claimed the bodies were " charred". The PENTAGON claimed they were " charred".
But, I have NOT seen a single, before or after pick to support that claim.
when the surpize is indeed just PAPER, will the sheeple be satisfied?
Many of us ? having seen how we kicked tail in Afghanistan and Iraq ? are feeling a sense of invincibility and power.
How about Grenada and Panama? We kicked ass there too. Now where do we go? How about Iran and N. Korea? No, they are tough and can fight back. Well, it will have to be Syria. Yea, they are small and weak.
I can hear the songs already. But wait....The public is starting to realize Bush and his cohorts lied to us about WMD in Iraq.
"Fellow soldiers chipped in for airfare and Skelton expedited their passports and paperwork to get them to Germany in time."
This is incredible --- fellow soldiers chipped in for airfare for this guy's family. Wonder what W would have to say about that? Maybe they'll ask him while he's visiting the wounded today at BNH.
Count the lies in the following (from CNN.com):
The U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq today predicted that Saddam Hussein will be tracked down, but warned that the threat from "foreign terrorists" infiltrating the country would persist even after Saddam is captured and the remnants of his regime are hunted down.
Iraq destroyed all its WMDs in 1991. The was is a hoax.
It was All for Nothing
Rick in davis
Everyone seems to skip over the whole Hussien Kamal thing.
I heard some dumb fox bimbo this morning state that " Iraq had DECADES to hide WMD'S". Where the fuck has she been? We had specific sites where they were.
Either way, I have yet to see Hussien Kamal used against Bushco, in light of their USE of his testimony to support their claims.
By the way, has Scott Ritter been on any talk shows lately?
Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration immediately protected Saudis in the United States, including allowing members of the large Bin Laden family who were in this country to be spirited home on their government's aircraft before they could be questioned. This at a time when many immigrants from all over the world were being detained arbitrarily.>>
Why did this occur and why is this question never asked? No reporter has ever brought this up with Bush or anyone in his administration.
There is something fundamentally wrong and alarming about such a clearly politically biased individual in charge of secret inspections.
This process out to be visible, open to all and performed by non-partisans.
BOOMERANG
David Kay was one of the loudest screaming heads during the build-up to invasion.
It's no surprise to me that they would choose this disgusting tool to support their allegations.
I want to see sarin. I want to see VX. I want to see botulinum. Show me the weapons, not a pile of paperwork.
I feel a tortured explanation why the left was right all along when Kay drops the evidence at their feet coming on. Fortunately, we have all their past statements down in black and white.
Flail! Flail! Flail!
Delusional as usual, anonymous.
To the anonymous wingnut-
Speaking of past statements down in black and white, here is Safire's January 30 column:
"When Iraqi scientists are permitted to talk to inspectors and journalists without fear of having their tongues later cut out and their families slaughtered by Saddam, the truth will out in vivid detail about the decadelong deception of the U.N. With "Dr. Germs" singing to save her life at future war crimes trials, today's American straddlers will at last be confronted with conclusive evidence they now profess to doubt ... When the postwar books are written, a former Iraqi spymaster with knowledge of the suicide attacker Mohamed Atta's perhaps unwitting connection to Saddam will eagerly come forth to spill all he knows to save his neck or sell his memoirs. Suspected followers of Osama bin Laden like Musaab Zarqawi and Mullah Krekar, if alive, will further link Al Qaeda to Saddam's mukhabarat police."
Flail, indeed. When David Kaye drops his load of moldy 12-year old documents detailing a weapons program dismantled in 1991, I'm sure you wingnuts will flail even more...
Those of us on the left have figured this out, but given the general dumbing down of the media and the general public as a result, how will the average American, struggling just to make ends meet, have the time to figure this out? During Watergate we still had a press which could follow such a story until it became THE story, but that seems very unlikely now. How does one shake some life into a media in the United States which has either gone to sleep or is clinically dead?
I feel a tortured explanation... coming on.
You mean about how any possible remnants of a WMD program were effectively destroyed by Clinton's "wagging the dog" in '98 never actually happened? Me too.
Before the war, I, for one, figured that Iraq DID have Chem/Bio weapons. I just didn't think that that was a sufficient cause for going to war. The evidence is pretty strong now that I wrong about the Chem/Bio.
So, troll, if Kay's surprising surprise consists of documents and theories, will you come back and post a heart-felt admission that you were wrong?
No? So who's flailing?
I'm no fan of David Kay, but the Martin Schwarz article Atrios links to here makes some seriously false claims about Tony Blair and Donald Rumsfeld on the uranium issue.
Schwarz says of Blair," Referring to allegations that his government was the source of faked documents concerning a deal for Iraq to buy uranium from Niger, Blair said, 'We're standing by our claim.' Blair may well be a liar but on this particular occasion he did say that he was talking about Africa, not just Niger. And he did say that he supposedly has other evidence in addition to the foged documents. Blair may be a liar, but Schwarz' quotes are misleading and are not evidence for that.
Schwarz also says, "It took only "a few hours of Web research", according to IAEA sources, to find out that all the documents on the Iraq-Niger deal delivered by Britain were falsified. But US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stood by the claims, remarking that "no one has said" the documents on that deal are "not authentic".
I can find no record of such statements by Rumsfeld on either the DOD web site or Nexis. I suspect that he may be referring to an appearance by Dick Cheney on Meet The Press which has been the occasion of false allegations that Cheney denied that the Niger documents were forgeries. As Bob Somerby showed on the Daily Howler, that's not what Cheney said.
Only weeks ago Kay stood before the cameras in front of the alleged chem-bio trailors and claimed that there was absolutely no other explanation for their existence other than they were used for the production of chem-bio weapons...
An honest, independent media would run that footage non-stop. Even with this laughable loss of crediblility, the complicit press doesn't even mention it...
...so much for a "liberal" media.
i have a program for an evil weather machine.
Very nice first part of seven part article on Iraq and cost of war.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?Stor...30-100003-
2217r
" Analysis: Soaring costs of 'rescuing' Iraq
By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Published 7/31/2003 10:49 AM
(This is the first installment of United Press International's seven-part series on the U.S. presence in Iraq.)
WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- The liberation of Iraq was to have been the war that paid for itself in spades, and gave U.S. corporations the inside track on the greatest energy bonanza of the 21st century. Instead, it has become a fiscal nightmare, a monetary Vietnam that already accounts for around 15 percent of the U.S. annual budget deficit, a figure likely to only grow remorselessly into the unforeseeable future.
The unforeseen cost of the war is already attracting powerful and influential critics, most worryingly to U.S. President George W. Bush, from within the GOP itself.
On July 26, Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told National Public Radio that rebuilding Iraq is certain to cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars over the next few years. He estimated the rebuilding costs alone at $30 billion.
"But they do not wish to discuss that," he said."
...
The cost of the war itself exceed previous public projections from the office of the Secretary of Defense. At an April 16 news conference, Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim acknowledged that the cost of the war to that point came to $10 billion-$12 billion. But the cost of returning troops to base would be another $5 billion-$7 billion, plus another $9 billion for the 3-1/2 weeks of combat operations, bringing the total cost at that point to between $24 billion-$28 billion.
Since then, the continued cost of occupying Iraq and of the continued pacification and counter-guerrilla operations mounted there has been widely estimated at around $1 billion a week.
Combining these two figures -- the Pentagon's own admitted costs of the war and the generally accepted cost of occupation operations, the costofwar.com Web site has estimated the cost of the war for the fiscal year after it took place at $76 billion.
Costofwar.com also notes interest rates on the $1-billion-a-week occupation costs will make them $1.5 billion a week, or $78 billion per year. And even that figure may prove optimistic, as it assumes larger numbers of U.S. troops will not be required and the current levels of violence against U.S. forces will not escalate either.
The federal budget deficit for the coming year has been projected by the Bush administration's own Office for the Management of the Budget at $455 billion: the largest in history. That means the Iraq war and its consequences alone will comprise 15.5 percent of the annual federal deficit at a time when it is larger, and rising faster, than ever before. Far from being a windfall to the U.S. economy, the Iraq war has already proven itself
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?Stor...30-100003-
2217r
Far from being a windfall to the U.S. economy, the Iraq war has already proven itself to be a ball and chain around the economy's neck.
What happened to the vast oil production bonanza that was going to flow from Iraq? It hasn't happened and quite possibly never will. No one doubts the oil is there. But what the war planners and energy strategists never factored into their considerations was that, far from welcoming the U.S. Army and Marines as their liberators, the Iraqis -- Sunni and Shiite alike -- might resent any continued U.S. military occupation and very quickly make it too hot to handle, which is exactly what has happened.
So far, no significant amounts of Iraqi oil have been produced for world markets since the war ended. Therefore Iraqi oil exports, which were running at 2.6 million to 2.8 million barrels per day before the war began in March, have now further dropped.
The complete failure of two successive U.S. administrators in Baghdad to restore security, order and basic services to Iraq is a major reason why this has not happened.
The administration, indeed, has been unable to even recruit any significant number of volunteers from conservative think tanks or the federal government to volunteer to work in Iraq for the next year or two, so the occupation administration there remains seriously undermanned.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?Stor...30-100003-
2217r
In the meantime, the supposed "macro-economic" benefit of "liberating" Iraqi oil for the world market not only has not happened, precisely the opposite has occurred. Iraq is now in far-worse position to export either crude or refined oil to the world markets. As a result, the continuing effect of the war has been to strengthen the market position of the three leading global producers, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran, while keeping global energy prices relatively high and thereby adding a further burden to the U.S. annual balance of trade deficit, already by far the largest of any country in world history.
And even if Iraqi oil finally starts to flow under optimum conditions, the total amount of revenue realistically projected from it would do no more than balance the already horrendous costs of the U.S. occupation.
John Cassidy made the relevant calculations in the July 14 issue of The New Yorker. He wrote: "Assuming that oil prices hover around twenty-five dollars a barrel, which is in the middle of OPEC's target range (twenty-two to twenty-eight dollars a barrel), a resurgent Iraqi oil industry producing six million barrels of oil a day for export would generate about fifty-five billion dollars a year in revenues."
But the cost to the United States of occupying Iraq is already running at between $52 billion to $78 billion a year on the U.S. government's own projections. And even if none of that $55 billion went to offset the costs of U.S. occupation, divided among the 30 million people of Iraq, it comes to, as Cassidy wrote "about five dollars per person per day -- enough to place Iraq above the World Bank's global poverty line of two dollars a day, but not by very much."
I just borrowed what I thought were the best parts.
So, no oil benefit. massively expensive.
And, conservatives don't want to go there.
Big clusterfuck.
Add the previous PNIR ( I hope I got that right) about having quite a bit of money invested there, and if the US pulls out it looks like a loss to the rest of the world, and this puts whoe ever comes in office between a rock and a hard place.
Can't afford to stay, can't afford to go.
What was Bushco thinking? Some of their policy people had to see something like this happening.
Even if Bushco gets a second term there will still be no benefit from this.
This is a classic no-win situation.
The Today show this morning had on the undersecretary of something or other and that person said something along the lines of "it's probably just pneumonia, but we can't completely rule it out as some biological agent, because know that those types of weapons were over there."
She then went on to say that the rate was far less than would be expected given the number of soldiers.
I don't know where to find the transcripts - it happened in the first hour
"it's probably just pneumonia, but we can't completely rule it out as some biological agent, because know that those types of weapons were over there."
" U.S. soldiers deployed around Baghdad airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin"
" When Neusche's parents arrived in Germany on July 9, the illness had already begun ravaging his muscles, liver and kidneys. Neusche died in an ambulance on the way to another hospital for dialysis.""
Sounds just like Pneumonia, right?
No one has posted, and the numbers probably don't exist, how many IRAQI's have these symptoms, and where they are located.
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
nhaling depleted uranium particles causes acute symptoms identical to those claimed by sick servicemen from the Balkan and Gulf conflicts, according to a US government toxicology report.
The 1998 report by the US Agency for Toxic Substances describes symptoms which include fatigue, shortness of breath, lymphatic problems, bronchial complaints, weight loss, bleeding and unsteady gait.
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
Uranium (whether depleted or natural) is a heavy metal and is chemically toxic in large amounts. We all consume some uranium with food and water, and no harmful effects at this level of exposure have been reported. However, scientists are studying people in different regions carefully to find out if there are effects of natural uranium in the diet. In high doses uranium can damage the kidneys causing renal failure. This would manifest through a number of symptoms including nausea, tiredness and anaemia. Kidney function can be tested by blood and urine tests.
“During Watergate we still had a press which could follow such a story until it became THE story,…” It was one newspaper, not the press, back then. However, it would have remained a mostly undisclosed and minor story if Congress had not properly fulfilled their role to look into the matter. That is where Butterfield disclosed the existence of the WH tapes and John Dean and others told us what the WH was doing, only minor things like breaking into medical offices to steal the records of WH enemies like Ellsberg, money laundering and campaign “dirty tricks.”
Marie...
Yes, it was one paper with two reporters who had the guts to do it. Now, 30 yrs later, Woodward has become a fawning apologist for this current group of High criminals...what a sad spectacle he's become...
Under the radar: You ask what Bushco was thinking, and wonder if their policy guys saw this coming.
I cut this paragraph from the article Atrios cited:
"Since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush administration has spent US$2 billion in new monies for research and policy advice on WMD threats. Think-tanks all over the United States are benefiting from that money and have learned their lesson: no threat, no money. So they're producing spectacular analyses and reports on nuclear threats. 'We're questioning the analysis of US think-tanks. These people are interested in contract money,' one IAEA official said."
Bushco doesn't have policy guys in the normal sense. These guys are ideologues shopping for the intelligence that supports their policies, not shaping their policies to fit reality.
yankeedoodle
If you haven't yet, read the article. I didn't post anything about too few troops who aren't trained.
I saw Hitchens on Bill Maher the other night, and I almost fell for the saudi's have been put in their place, and oil will flow like water.
Then I see this.
Either way though, we are screwed for the next, half-century, century?
And, it can't be dropped, no withdrawl not enough troops.
Would it make a difference if the UN stepped in? How would the US re-coup the loss of maoney and status?
This is starting to sound as if Bennet planned it on a gambling binge, same odds of winning.
Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration immediately protected Saudis in the United States, including allowing members of the large Bin Laden family who were in this country to be spirited home on their government's aircraft before they could be questioned. This at a time when many immigrants from all over the world were being detained arbitrarily.
Why did this occur and why is this question never asked? No reporter has ever brought this up with Bush or anyone in his administration.
Snopes.com has the full story here. (If haloscan screws this up, here's the URL: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flight.htm ).
The Bin Laden family left on two flights, one on September 18 in their own chartered jet and the other on September 19 in a jet provided by the Saudi government.
Why they were allowed to leave without even being questioned by Ashcroft's minions may be explained in those missing 28 pages from the 9/11 report. In other words, it's unlikely that we'll ever find out.
The problem with the Snopes article is that FBI agents were pulled off Bin laden family investigation.
I think that was covered in the 911 report.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature....ure.cfm/ID/
7310
Did Our President Spike The Investigation Of Bin Laden?
" What we did discover was serious enough. To begin with, from less-than-happy FBI agents we obtained an interesting document, some 30 pages long, marked "SECRET." I've reproduced a couple of pages here (figure 2.1). Note the designation "199I" -- that's FBI-speak for "national security matter." According to insiders, FBI agents had wanted to check into two members of the bin Laden family, Abdullah and Omar, but were told to stay away by superiors -- until September 13, 2001. By then, Abdullah and Omar were long gone from the United States."
...
Despite these tantalizing facts, Abdullah and his operations were A-OK with the FBI chiefs, if not their working agents. Just a dumb SNAFU? Not according to a top-level CIA operative who spoke with us on condition of strictest anonymity. After Bush took office, he said, "there was a major policy shift" at the National Security Agency. Investigators were ordered to "back off" from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks, especially if they touched on Saudi royals and their retainers. That put the bin Ladens, a family worth a reported $12 billion and a virtual arm of the Saudi royal household, off-limits for investigation. Osama was the exception; he remained a wanted man, but agents could not look too closely at how he filled his piggy bank. The key rule of any investigation, "follow the money," was now violated, and investigations -- at least before 9/11 -- began to die.
...
Following the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, Clinton hunted Osama with a passion -- but a passion circumscribed by the desire to protect the sheikdom sitting atop our oil lifeline. In 1994, a Saudi diplomat defected to the United States with 14,000 pages of documents from the kingdom's sealed file cabinets. This mother lode of intelligence included evidence of plans for the assassination of Saudi opponents living in the West and, tantalizingly, details of the $7 billion the Saudis gave to Saddam Hussein for his nuclear program -- the first attempt to build an Islamic Bomb. The Saudi government, according to the defector, Mohammed Al Khilewi, slipped Saddam the nuclear loot during the Reagan and Bush Sr. years when our own government still thought Saddam too marvelous for words. The thought was that he would only use the bomb to vaporize Iranians.
Clinton granted the Saudi defector asylum, but barred the FBI from looking at the documents. Al Khilewi's New York lawyer, Michael Wildes, told me he was stunned. Wildes handles some of America's most security-sensitive asylum cases. "We said [to the FBI], 'Here, take the documents! Go get some bad guys with them! We'll even pay for the photocopying!'" But the agents who came to
http://www.tompaine.com/feature....ure.cfm/ID/
7310
Clinton granted the Saudi defector asylum, but barred the FBI from looking at the documents. Al Khilewi's New York lawyer, Michael Wildes, told me he was stunned. Wildes handles some of America's most security-sensitive asylum cases. "We said [to the FBI], 'Here, take the documents! Go get some bad guys with them! We'll even pay for the photocopying!'" But the agents who came to his office had been ordered not to accept evidence of Saudi criminal activity, even on U.S. soil.
In 1997, the Canadians caught and extradited to America one of the Khobar Towers attackers. In 1999, Vernon Jordan's law firm stepped in and -- poof! -- the killer was shipped back to Saudi Arabia before he could reveal all he knew about Al Qaeda (valuable) and the Saudis (embarrassing). I reviewed, but was not permitted to take notes on, the alleged terrorist's debriefing by the FBI. To my admittedly inexpert eyes, there was enough on Al Qaeda to make him a source on terrorists worth holding on to. Not that he was set free -- he's in one of the kingdom's dungeons -- but his info is sealed up with him. The terrorist's extradition was "Clinton's." "Clinton's parting kiss to the Saudis," as one insider put it.
This make-a-sheik-happy policy of Clinton's may seem similar to Bush's, but the difference is significant. Where Clinton said, "Go slow," Bush policymakers said, "No go." The difference is between closing one eye and closing them both.
It looks obvious that BOTH Republican and Democrats didn't want to piss off the saudi's.
What is chilling, is that when people point out how alike Clintonian Democrats and Republicans are, not just Nader, the die hard fan base gets rabid and evil.
Let the facts speak for themselves, while Clinton had many positives, as can be seen from the above, there seem to be JUST AS MANY negatives.
Don't let hero wroship cloud your judgement on Clinton.
On the other hand, it is just as obvious that Clinton was better at dealing with the terrorist threat than Bush. While Clinton's policy was flawed, Bush's is broken.
That is a VERY BIG difference.
Basharov,
Kudos for linking to Snopes, but did you even read the whole thing? "Ashcroft's minions", the FBI, did question the people who left on those flights.
Micheal Moore is an embarrassment to the left. I'd prefer Hugh Spivey.
This story certainly bears repeating, again and again:
It was the Washington Times that first reported that this particular "sixth-months-away-from-an-atomic-bomb" claim was bunk.
When I read that in the Moony Times -- and saw that no one else had picked it up -- I e-mailed the IAEA in Vienna.
No other reporters had called or e-mailed for verification!
When Peter [Whatzit] e-mailed me back with confirmation that no such IAEA study existed, I immediately forwarded the IAEA quotes to my good friend at the New York Times.
He's one of the NYTimes' top reporters -- but the story wasn't pursued by his editors.
Why?
"Someone else got there first."
The story died. It was reported, to the best of my knowledge, by no one other than the WashTimes.
Bush and Blair lied. Period. And they STILL haven't been held to account for that Sept. news conference as they should have been.
John Loftus, who contributes to WABC's John Batchelor/Paul Alexander, gave a speech last week, summarized at
http://israpundit.com/archives/0...ves/
001803.html
"4. Russia told Hussein one month before the war to remove all WMD to Syria and told Hussein to make many tapes to be played after. Iraq transported all the WMDs to Syria to be buried in Beka Valley in Lebanon. They did it at night so as not to be detected by Israeli or US satellites. It didn’t help. The satellites were able to detect where soil had been disturbed and put back so the exact location is known. It will come out during elections in the US. Debka first called it.
5. Syria has been given their marching orders. Syria has withdrawn all troops from Lebanon except for the Beka Valley where they have been ordered by the US to protect the WMD. Later they will be taken back to Iraq where they will be destroyed in the appropriate way."
Sounds a bit suspect, but as surprises go, that would pretty much fit the bill.
And while most Democrats will laugh it off and ridicule it as "wishful thinking," interestingly there's one notable exception lately who, in fact, has been "surprisingly" supportive of Bush--Bill Clinton.
Conspiracy theory goes that he's tickled pink with the Dem Presidential candidates and their "It's the WMD, stupid!" campaign, which will most likely be a loser issue for all of the Dem candidates when the "surprise" comes out next year. That will ensure that in 2008, Hillary will not have to run against an incumbent Democrat; they by then long having been the 2004 sacrificial lambs of the Clintons.
Surprise, indeed.
Loser
Where is the link that supports your claim?
" "4. Russia told Hussein one month before the war to remove all WMD to Syria and told Hussein to make many tapes to be played after. Iraq transported all the WMDs to Syria to be buried in Beka Valley in Lebanon. They did it at night so as not to be detected by Israeli or US satellites. It didn’t help. The satellites were able to detect where soil had been disturbed and put back so the exact location is known. It will come out during elections in the US. Debka first called it."
No one doubts the HIGHLY RELIABLE Debka?
If there is another link than Debka, show it.
Paul
I think the post of yours also later claims that SYRIA is a TOOL of the US.
Didn't post that part though, right?
C'mon SYRIA protecting SADDAM'S WMD'S for the US to reveal later.
Some one is on the crack pipe.
under the radar-
The Debka link was simply mentioned at that site. In case you didn't follow, the link was to Israpundit. The guy who posted said he went to a lecture by John Loftus, where he took these notes down. I never looked for the Debka link.
And Loftus seems pretty close with his intel, from what I've heard so far on WABC.
People have disputed the Syria part, and especially the Hezbollah having withdrawn part. What, like I was hiding something by not posting that?
Anyway, lots of Democrats will hope this is all a pipedream. We'll see.
Yes, the story Loftus told came from Debka.
Which is why he said "Debka had it first."
Of course, concealing evidence of WMD so it can be used during the 2004 elections would be reprehensible in the extreme.
That is, assuming this load of moronic brownshirt bullshit has an ounce of truth...
Radar,
My 'claim'? It is in the snopes link that b-kov originally posted. It is quoted from a newspaper. Where is the confusion?
"including the evidence of the transfer to Syria by Saddam’s agents of large parts of the forbidden program."
That's the only mention the Debka link above makes of the WMD in Syria. Unless Debka left out the Beka Valley part as well as the other 20 or so points. Or unless you know more about this than just some piercing insight from Loftus' saying "Deka had it first."
Unless this can be backed up, sounds like a kneejerk Liberal reaction to bad news. Moronic, even.
Hey: if Bushco had actually known there were WMD and had only been unable to prove it because Hussein sent all the weapons to Syria right before the war, then they wouldn't have been so busy spinning out ridiculous alternative justifications for war in recent months. I'll believe the WEAPONS of mass destruction exist when I see them and not a moment sooner.
Loser
"the FBI, did question the people who left on those flights."
That claim. I can find the source of Bushco telling the FBI to back off.
This repost at Snopes;
" In his first interview since the attacks, Saudi Ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, also said that private planes carrying the kingdom's deputy defense minister and the governor of Mecca, both members of the royal family, were grounded and initially caught up in the F.B.I. dragnet. Both planes, one jumbo jet carrying 100 family members, and the other 40, were eventually allowed to leave when airports reopened and passports were checked."
Doesn't add up to this claim;
"Bin Laden family members were not allowed to slip out of the USA "over the objections of the FBI" or before the FBI had an opportunity to "interrogate" them, as nearly every news account of these flights mentions that the FBI questioned the departing Saudis, grounded their planes, and supervised their departures."
They use only that single article that doesn't seem to mention the FBI questioned ANYONE. I'm certain if the Bin ladens had been questioned by the FBI it would have made the news.
So, find a source to support that claim.
other than Snopes.
As can be seen here, the FBI did a THOROUGH job questioning the Bin Laden's.
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
"But the bin Ladens did not have to worry about that. While FBI agents looked into bin Laden family members in the Boston area immediately after September 11, it appears that the agents' first chance to interview them — or other family members who lived elsewhere in the country — came on the day they left the U.S. Each family member was given the all-clear on the basis of a single, day-of-departure interview — conducted, in Bill Carter's words, "at the airport, as they were about to leave."
Asked by National Review whether the FBI had conducted a full and thorough investigation of all the family members before allowing them to go, Carter repeated his earlier statement: "The FBI had an opportunity to interview the individuals on that plane, and we were satisfied with the information they provided." Asked again, he said the same thing. "Unless you have evidence to stop them from leaving the country, they have every right to do that," Carter explained. "The bin Laden family is very large, and for the most part are involved in legitimate enterprises. The fact of the matter is that because of September 11, some of these individuals felt it would be better to leave the country. They have every right to do that."
But some law-enforcement experts found the abbreviated investigation puzzling. "That's highly unusual, and they could not have done a thorough and complete interview," said John L. Martin, the former chief of internal security for the Justice Department. "It was obvious at the time that the Bureau did not have the kind of intelligence to know who was behind [the September 11 attacks], how they were financed, and what the U.S. connections might have been." Also, Martin said, "It is an absolute rule of law enforcement that the agent or officers conducting the interviews control the interview, and that the persons of interest, suspects, or prospective defendants do not set the ground rules for the interview."
In addition, it is a routine law-enforcement practice to question — sometimes repeatedly and in great detail — family members of suspects in murder cases. Investigators do not usually presume that a relative has no connection or knowledge of a crime; instead, they usually conduct an investigation to make sure the relatives can be eliminated as suspects or witnesses. While that is going on, the instincts of law enforcement are normally to freeze all potential suspects and witnesses in place until the investigation has reached some conclusions."
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=c...&hl=en&ie=UTF-
8
"In October 2001, ABC News interviewed a sister-in-law of Osama bin Laden, who was asked whether bin Laden family members had given money to Osama. "I don't know that," Carmen bin Laden answered, "but my opinion is yes . . . I think they would say, okay, this is — for Islam they would give. You know, for Islam they would give." Carmen bin Laden is the estranged wife of Osama bin Laden's brother Yeslam, who runs the Saudi Investment Company in Switzerland. Family friends have contradicted her account, but in March of this year, French police searched Yeslam bin Laden's villa in Cannes, reportedly looking for evidence of terrorism-related money laundering involving the Saudi Investment Company. Swiss police also searched other properties connected to the firm.
In addition, investigators believe that another bin Laden relative, Osama's brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, is thought to be an important figure in al Qaeda. Khalifa has been linked to Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as well as to the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Khalifa is also thought to have provided crucial start-up money to Abu Sayyaf, the Philippine terrorist group.
Then there are the bin Ladens' alleged ties to a Bahamas-based bank that is suspected of laundering money to terrorist groups. And, finally, there are Osama bin Laden's communications with his stepmother, Al-Khalifa bin Laden. He reportedly called her days before September 11 to tell her that "something big" would soon take place."
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/co...?
011112fa_FACT3
In criminal cases, it is common practice to bring relatives of defendants before grand juries. But Abdullah, the only relation who had remained in the United States—he stayed in Boston for almost a month—said that he was never questioned in person. He would have been willing to help, he said; an F.B.I. agent telephoned, but they spoke only briefly. Abdullah added that he has not seen Osama for several years, when they attended family gatherings on such occasions as Ramadan, and that he has no more idea how to find him than anyone else does.
Yep, very thorough.
So it looks as if Snopes is "technically" correct. But, the details support the Bush hands off claim.
"Russia told Hussein one month before the war to remove all WMD to Syria and told Hussein to make many tapes to be played after. Iraq transported all the WMDs to Syria to be buried in Beka Valley in Lebanon. They did it at night so as not to be detected by Israeli or US satellites. It didn’t help. The satellites were able to detect where soil had been disturbed and put back so the exact location is known."
Simple question: if this is true and BushCo. knew that these weapons had been transported elsewhere then why has the U.S. spend so effort looking for them in Iraq hmmm?
I respect and have found valuable Jim Lobe's work (he's the author of the piece Atrios quotes, an opinion piece in Asia Times that's also at the Foreign Policy In Focus site). BUT...
Blair and Bush met at Camp David last September, not Crawford. They cited two different reports designed to raise alarms about Iraq's weapons, neither one exactly what Lobe says. Here's the CBS reporting from the press conference:
>>Bush said U.N. weapons inspectors, before they were denied access to Iraq in 1998, concluded that Saddam was "six months away from developing a weapon." He also cited satellite photos released by a U.N. agency Friday that show unexplained construction at Iraq sites that weapons inspectors once visited to search for evidence Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms.
I shouldn't be up at this hour anyway.
Short version: Lobe is remembering this wrong in several ways.
CBS report on Bush-Blair press conference:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2...ain521177.shtml
CNN story on unraveling of the "new satellite pictures" report that same afternoon (so Wash. Times was not the only outlet to debunk the story):
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/07.../07/bush.blair/
"They did it at night so as not to be detected by Israeli or US satellites. It didn?t help. The satellites were able to detect where soil had been disturbed and put back so the exact location is known."
This is just so goddamn stupid it's amazing anyone would ever say it much less repeat it as valid information.
Hey, I know, maybe they could mount a really powerfull searchlight on the next satellite we send up so we don't have these problems with the dark.
Is there a word for someone even stupider than "morans"?
Okay, in the light of day I see Martin Schwarz is the author of the piece Atrios excerpts, not Jim Lobe. I'm sending feedback to fpif.org, where the piece is also posted, since this thread will scroll off the main Eschaton page soon.
What is up with group of Swedish scientists who traveled to Iraq (without Swedish government approval), they seem to have found proof of Saddam's WMD's or as they put it "the smoking gun"
Also, what is up with the Nigerian incident...seems a group of Italian anti-war activists within the Italian government had doctored the real Nigerian documents, then sent the doctored documents to Great Britain. It appears the the BBC reporter Gilligan was using those "doctored" documents as prove of "no proof"
What is up with that?
What is up with trolls who can't provide links to back up their random assertions? What is up with trolls who can't read the BBC's own statements about complex issues?
What is up with that?
Rummy's Third Plausible Denial (aka the Kobe gambit):
Look it's Kobe's accuser.
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