I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Wild-ass theory #341: the republicans were sitting on this to cut Dean off at the knees next year, so the dems on the intelligence committee leaked it now to limit the damage.
What about any of this information required a top secret classification?
It's the Weekly Standard, not the American Spectator.
Lies? From Tipsy?? Parroted by Instacracker??? Whoda thunk!?!
Shorter Feith Memo
Shorter?
the american spectator was a reference to the clinton 'scandal', and the similar path of dubious stories like this one.
Wow it is great to see stuff from Joel again.
I really miss him. Where is he posting this days?
Crap-- so does this mean Al Qaeda got Saddam's WMD's?
If this holds up, then the administration's claims about ties with Al Qaeda were right and the case is officially closed.
Philly G - Big If, there, Philly.
In all seriousness, let's say there WAS a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. How much of a connection is needed to justify the war? ANY connection? More than one connection?
To me, this all sounds very circumstantial-- but I suppose it is hard to get solid evidence on what some of these people are up to. So if we imagine the worst case scenario, can we legimately justify what we did in Iraq? (I know Cheney would)
But I suppose the number one question is-- why to hell is this coming out now? Is it belated justification because the war seems to be going badly? Frankly, if there was a significant conneciton betweem Saddam and Al Qaeda, it would make me rethink things. But hasn't this been gone over many times in the past by the experts and found to be lacking?
"In all seriousness, let's say there WAS a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. How much of a connection is needed to justify the war? ANY connection? More than one connection?"
A connection leading up to and post 9/11 justifies a war. We were attacked on 9/11. Or did you forget?
I don't even have to think about it. This is as obvious a face saving move as the claim of Lynch's broken, nearly dead body being sodomized with the cover of her convenient memory loss at just those moments.
This will be a joke. Fox News is already on the attack.
Atrios is right - if this is true, why did we bomb Afghanistan first? Why not go straight to Iraq? Why not make this public as part of the justification for the war, instead of the bogus yellowcake story.
This doesn't even come close to adding up.
>We were attacked on 9/11. Or did you forget?
Uh, so why Iraq and not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan?
Maybe I'm not the only one sensing this...
Bush cuts Rummy out of the loop and hands control of the Iraq operation to Condi. Shortly thereafter, Rummy leaks the Long Hard Slog memo.
Now Bremer is recalled to DC. Voila, a timetable to hand over power to the Iraqis appears. Shortly thereafter, Feith leaks the Saddam Really Did Love Osama memo.
Cue Artie Johnson: "Verrrrrry interesting." Color me suspicious, but it smells to me that the DoD PNAC Brigade is waging it's own guerrila war against Cut 'n Run Rove.
"Atrios is right - if this is true, why did we bomb Afghanistan first? Why not go straight to Iraq? Why not make this public as part of the justification for the war, instead of the bogus yellowcake story."
Because Afghanistan was the hub. Iraq could turn out to be the spoke.
"Uh, so why Iraq and not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan?"
Good question, but the pro-war bloggers have been asking the same for over a year now too.
I don't know what internal intelligence says aboutt hose countries so I can't say.
We need more context. I'm WAAAAY outside the beltway here.
Who is Joel
Al Qaeda. hmm.
so what happened to getting bin Laden anyway?
He was hiding in a presidential palace, Alex. We missed him by -that- much.
Mosta y'all read calpundit.com, yes? His post helps take away any shortness of breath this Feith story might be causing...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obido...327136?
v=glance
Joel is the celebrated author of
HPLC: Practical and Industrial Applications.
Philly G - why not release this information before the war, then? Why not go to the UN with this instead of all the bullshit?
No way; this stinks as much as a two week old fish left out in the sun.
[In a long-ago debunked charge], Mohammed Atta met with intelligence official Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani in Prague. Al Ani ordered Iraqi Intelligence to give Atta money. The CIA claims that two meetings occurred, but two are in question. "Five high-ranking members of the Czech government have publicly confirmed meetings between Atta and al Ani." [but Vaclav Havel himself has said it didn't happen, as did the FBI.]
This report has got to be bogus then. If the FBI has already refuteated elements, the whole thing is suspect.
Well I gues some people will believe anything. Philly G certainly will thats for sure. Why should anyting in that memo be believed? If there was a real justification for going to war with Iraq why keep it a secret. Certainly Saddam knew about it, so did Bin Lauden, if it was true. So why keep it secret?
If true it would have gotten us a lot more support and maybe other bodies in the war. We didn't do that and apparently we didn't even share it with the leaders of allied countries.
On the other hand these guys lie all the time and never get busted, and true believers like PhillyG buy into it.
After reading Calpundit, I get the impression this memo seem to be Feith's greatest hits.
http://tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9390
A second thought: remember Powell's UN speech and how believable that was, and how it took about 48 hours for it to be completely debunked?
"How much of a connection is needed to justify the war? ANY connection? More than one connection?"
A connection leading up to and post 9/11 justifies a war."
Uh, you didn't answer the question.
Not to put too fine a point on it, of course Philly G. wants to believe this because it justifies all that he has supported. It's kind of known as "grasping at straws."
There is just no way in hell that, were this true, it would only just now come out, right on the heels of the administration's declared intent to pull out of Iraq. It would have been all over every major news outlet in the nation, if not the world, before the war.
Time to get delete some past posts, eh Atrios? The memo has not been "debunked". But your months and months of calling the Bush Administration liars about the Al Qaeda and Iraqi connection has. Go back in your comments section and check out the posts with the word "Boomerang" in them. You were warned then about the embarrassment you are starting to discover now.
Ta-ta for now...
Exactly, Tena. We've already seen that the Bushies didn't have the information necessary to go to war in the first place. They either lied or exaggerated.
Now, after the fact, we're supposed to believe that this is the real thing, and that makes everything all right?
Bullsh*t.
Feith-based wackiness, spread by Weakly Reader 
and Faux News.
PNAC propaganda. Get the hook.
More smoke than a Stevie Nicks video.
More mirrors than the last scene of Lady From Shanghai.
Joel is the celebrated author of
HPLC: Practical and Industrial Applications.
I'll be damned if I have any idea what that book is about. 
Funny that more reputable news sources haven't picked up on this *story.*
Odd, I feel no embarrassment myself over this, so I really doubt that Atrios is embarrassed, though I can't speak for him.
Don't be idiotic - why would they wait until now, of all times, to release something like this if it is true. Puhleeeeeeze.
A very funny take on the Gilmore-Potter "find", linked below.
BTW, the documents were allegedly found by journalists AFTER the CIA ransacked the building.
COPIED FROM What Really Happened on April 27th, 2003
4/27/03 First paragraph of the Telegraph version of the story "Iraqi intelligence documents discovered in Baghdad by The Telegraph..."
4/27/03 First paragraph of the Toronto Star version of the story "Top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents, unearthed by the Toronto Star in the bombed-out ..."
4/27/03 Sunday Telegraph: "No, OUR guy found the documents!!!"
4/27/03 Chronicle: "No, WE found them!!!!!!!
4/27/03 ABC: "No, WE found them, the rest of you bugger off!"
So, who found the documents? Or were there so many copies left around that every newspaper found a set?
4/27/03 And the Sunday Times gets in on the act too! "The Sunday Times reported that its own journalists had found documents in the Iraqi foreign ministry that indicate that France gave Saddam Hussein's regime regular reports on its dealings with American officials. "
Interesting that the CIA had already been through the buildings with a fine-tooth comb and they didn't find any of these incriminating documents.
4/27/03 This story has a photo of a document. Note the white-out where Osama's name is supposed to have been hidden.
4/27/03 Toronto Star staff correspondent Mitch Potter found the documents!
4/27/03 No, no, no, NO! Inigo Gilmore found those documents!!!!!!!!
http://www.independent-media.tv/.../
propaganda.cfm, with links.
roflmao.. what a bunch of gullible bastards..
LOL
They just keep reelin' these poor righties in with these things dont they? Its like MBF chumming..
LOL where's the embarrassment?!
Grasping for straws indeed..
The big question is then, why is Bush lying about it? Covering up these facts with his statement that there was no connection. I await the Standards call for impeachment.
The big question is then, why is Bush lying about it?
Feith forgot to tell Bush, or maybe Condi neglected to mention it. Cheney? Rumsfeld? Powell? Wolfie?
ROVE?
Nah, it's crap.
my favorite pull-quote from the memo: "..some of whose reporting has been corroborated.."
ha, ha, ha. yeah, that really threatens my pre-/mid-/postwar conclusion that Hussein's government had less contact with Osama than the US government -- who, after all, trained and equipped him back when he was *our* crazed jihadi.
As someone upthread asked - why was this memo top secret? All the Niger/yellowcake nonsense was made public. Why, after Bush has been forced to admit that there is no connection is this released - why didn't Bush know about it before he had to admit there is no connection? This is too stupid for any more words, really.
Yep - corroborated just like that yellowcake story was corroborated.
"Well I gues some people will believe anything. Philly G certainly will thats for sure. Why should anyting in that memo be believed? If there was a real justification for going to war with Iraq why keep it a secret. Certainly Saddam knew about it, so did Bin Lauden, if it was true. So why keep it secret?
If true it would have gotten us a lot more support and maybe other bodies in the war. We didn't do that and apparently we didn't even share it with the leaders of allied countries.
On the other hand these guys lie all the time and never get busted, and true believers like PhillyG buy into it."
No, I think we should wait on it and see where the facts lay. And your comments are ironic considering your apparent belief that anything Atrios says is equivalent to the holy gospel.
"Not to put too fine a point on it, of course Philly G. wants to believe this because it justifies all that he has supported. It's kind of known as "grasping at straws."
No Tena, I believe the liberation of 25 MILLION PEOPLE was justification for this war. If this proves true, I assume it would justify it for you as well (although putting your Bush hatred aside might be tough).
There is really nothing much new in the memo.
"ha, ha, ha. yeah, that really threatens my pre-/mid-/postwar conclusion that Hussein's government had less contact with Osama than the US government -- who, after all, trained and equipped him back when he was *our* crazed jihadi."
That was in 1979, 24 YEARS ago you dolt.
Nope, it was before, during and after the Iran-Iraq war?
Wow! Eight months after the attack on Iraq, the chickenhawks finally find "the truth" for going after Saddam.
Let me ask you Bush supporters who pop in here to crow about every piece of horseshit the administration drops on the media. Why did Rove and "top administration officials" screw over Ambassador Wilson and his wife if they had this overwhelming evidence? Why would they do something as stupid and criminal as that?
Well, the death toll from today's helicopter crashes is up to 17, with 5 wounded and 1 unaccounted for.
DAMN!
Let's also not forget that we have OBL on tape calling Hussein a Pagan Socialist and an Infidel, suggesting that the Iraqi people rise up and overthrow him. I don't know about yo but I don't call my buddies infedels and ask the neighbors to lynch them.
Add this to the number of gaps in the cited references in this memo and you have a stink to this thing that could wake the dead.
Even if half of it turns out to be right (a dubious prposition in itself) why not tell the UN about this oh, say a year and a half ago? Why not invade Saudia Arabia or Pakistan? There are so many gaps in logic and facts here that until someone more reputable reports on this I am going to remain very skeptical.
Bush has cried wolf so many times that even he produces the head of OBL on a silver platter, I'd want to to have the dental records checked by someone at least three degrees seperated from the White House.
So, the same people *who knew where the WMDs were* now tell us there was a Saddam-al Qaeda connection?
I *so* believe them.
Philly - there is nothing, I mean nothing, in this memo that leads to the conclusion that Iraq was invaded to liberate the Iraqis. There is nothing you can show me that justifies that conclusion whatsoever. The administration started touting that after the whole WMD debacle. You know, the invisible WMDs?
My hatred of Bush is something you are inferring. I bitterly hate what Bush has done and is doing to my country. He is trying to turn it into another country altogether. I also bitterly hate what this administration has had the unmitigated hubris to inflict on an entire country and it's people for no reason whatsoever except that they thought they could do it. I hear war supporters now saying things like: "Kill them all." The people of Iraq did nothing to us, and now tens of thousands of them are dead. It was immoral and evil for this country to invade and attempt to conquer another nation, and nothing you say will change my thinking on that. When i was growing up it was axiomatic that the US didn't start wars. That is no longer something I can point to with pride.
"Let's also not forget that we have OBL on tape calling Hussein a Pagan Socialist and an Infidel, suggesting that the Iraqi people rise up and overthrow him. I don't know about yo but I don't call my buddies infedels and ask the neighbors to lynch them."
No actually he called on the fundamentalists to join Saddam to repel the invaders, ie the Americans.
And did you expect OBL to explicitly and overtly state they were in cahoots? You're more gullible than I thought.
"Philly - there is nothing, I mean nothing, in this memo that leads to the conclusion that Iraq was invaded to liberate the Iraqis. There is nothing you can show me that justifies that conclusion whatsoever. The administration started touting that after the whole WMD debacle. You know, the invisible WMDs?"
Bullshit Tena, the administration and Tony Blair's government both touted human rights violations as one of the central reasons for the war. In fact, it was included in just about every policy speech, if not literally all of them.
your apparent belief that anything Atrios says is equivalent to the holy gospel
People who are swallowing this Feith-based bs wholesale should keep their petulance to themselves.
Hey, remember how we were all so embarrassed when that stuff buried under the rosebush proved us just sowrong? Remember how we all had egg on our faces after the Kay report in September? Remember how we were all told our our doom and gloom anti-American predictions were totally bogus because we would be down to 30,000 troops in Iraq this fall--I am so red-faced over that one!
>And did you expect OBL to explicitly and overtly state they were in cahoots? You're more gullible than I thought.
I see you truly understand the great Middle East Bazaar....
"The administration started touting that after the whole WMD debacle. You know, the invisible WMDs?"
Yes, THOSE WMD's. The same ones you, I, everyone here, the UN, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, etc believed to have existed prior to the war.
Yes, THOSE WMD's. Being incorrect about something does not make it a lie. But keep yelling and screaming it if it makes you feel better.
No matter whether Al Qaeda was involved with Iraq or not-- it was just catastrophic of us to go to war without more powerful allies. The whole reason we are having trouble in Iraq now is because of that we, the mighty US, are seen as invaders and not as true liberators. And we are having major trouble there, and the rest of the world is laughing at us. Not to mention laughing at the lack of WMDs. If there was a significant Al Qaeda connection, I just have to say that Bush totally blew it by not using this info to seel our allies. Remember? Basically everyone supported going into Afghanistan.
"Remember how we were all told our our doom and gloom anti-American predictions were totally bogus because we would be down to 30,000 troops in Iraq this fall--I am so red-faced over that one!"
Yes, the left was completey wrong about that one actually. The vast majority of Iraq has welcomed the coalition forces as predicted. There was no "million Mogadishus", no "battle of Stalingrad" inside Baghdad, no thousands upon thousands of US soldiers dead. Sorry, don't change the subject.
A leaked memo by one of the Neocon leaders that was published in the Weekly Standard.
This is about the lowest level of proof ever seen.
But I do think the PNACs are worried that George is going to "cut and run" from Iraq as fast as he can and their dreams of a draft and further conquests are dimming.
Whoa, there Philly, I NEVER EVER EVER believed in the existence of those weapons. Ever. It was plain to me that this administration had a hardon for this war and that nothing anyone said, including the evidence from the UN weapons inspectors was going to stop it. The inspectors were coming up empty before the war, remember?
"Yes, THOSE WMD's. The same ones you, I, everyone here, the UN, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, etc believed to have existed prior to the war."
Perhaps. But Bush was the one who invaded on the threat of those WMD-- and he sure looks like a fool now.
Philly G:
"No Tena, I believe the liberation of 25 MILLION PEOPLE was justification for this war."
How upstanding of you and your leaders Philly. I'm sure you will now go on to liberate every single nation where oppression is taking place, since it wouldn't be fair to "randomly" select Iraq and stop at that.
Come on, hop to it, there's a lot of nation building to be done!
"Whoa, there Philly, I NEVER EVER EVER believed in the existence of those weapons. Ever. It was plain to me that this administration had a hardon for this war and that nothing anyone said, including the evidence from the UN weapons inspectors was going to stop it. The inspectors were coming up empty before the war, remember?"
I call your bullshit Tena. If you're telling the truth, then you were the only person in the world who didn't think Saddam had any WMD's. The whole argument of the anti-war crowd was to give the inspectors more time, not that Saddam didn't have WMD's.
Well, you can call it bullshit all you want, but I did not believe in the existence of those weapons, Philly. That's a fact.
Philly -
in re: liberating 25 million people, when does the invasion of China start?
North Korea, too.
oh, wait, how about Kazakhstan?
Congo?
Zimbabwe?
France! France!
which is to say: you're full of it.
pipe down, kid, you bother me.
No matter whether Al Qaeda was involved with Iraq or not-- it was just catastrophic of us to go to war without more powerful allies.
That is where the Bush administration truly showed how incompetent they were and are. And many people are paying the price for their incompetence.
Philly G, the US needed others to help us do this. You can have your opinions as to why they refused, but that doesn't help the troops who are dying. The few we have are deserting us because of problems in their own countries. This memo is crap. It might continue to make you feel good. But it's not going to change the situation in Iraq or the world.
It's not going to save us. We're fucked.
We are alone.
And it's really a stretch to cite human rights, when this war has killed as many innocent people as it has - do not hand me that. It's really showing a lot of concern for people's human rights to drop cluster bombs on a city, allow millenia's worth of archealogical treasures to be looted and destroyed, and round up women and children.
Well, I didn't think he had any WMDs. I thought he might have some nasty chemicals and maybe something biological like Anthrax, but nothing that could cause more damage than one of our 500 pound bombs.
Nothing worth going to war over, and nothing which posed a threat even to its neighbors.
"Well, you can call it bullshit all you want, but I did not believe in the existence of those weapons, Philly. That's a fact."
Well I guess I have to take your word for it. But you're in the minority, even on this site.
"Philly G, the US needed others to help us do this. You can have your opinions as to why they refused, but that doesn't help the troops who are dying. The few we have are deserting us because of problems in their own countries. This memo is crap. It might continue to make you feel good. But it's not going to change the situation in Iraq or the world."
Pie, what would you have done differently to get France or Germany to join us? Saddam had 18 resolutions to comply with the UN resolutions, either disarm weapons or provide proof of disarmament. He did neither.
"And it's really a stretch to cite human rights, when this war has killed as many innocent people as it has - do not hand me that. It's really showing a lot of concern for people's human rights to drop cluster bombs on a city, allow millenia's worth of archealogical treasures to be looted and destroyed, and round up women and children."
300,000 innocent dead under Saddam. 9 thousand dead as a result of this war, almost all being Iraqi soldiers, or those targeted by the Fedayeen after the war.
The looting of treasures story was debunked long ago. Update your material.
>Well, I didn't think he had any WMDs.
I thought the minute that he allowed inspectors in and gave them carte blanche...that was that.
I also think Bush (or whoever makes this decisions) knew that too. That was why they made such a rush, because more inspections and no WMDs would harden attitudes against a war...
and Bush (or who make decisions about this stuff)...figured a fait accomplii complete with dancing Iraqis would would blow away any criticism of the rationale.
But...I guess he was wrong.
Sorry, don't change the subject.
Philly, your self-righteous petulance combines amusingly with your ignorance.
The administration said we would be down to 30,000 troops this fall. We are not down to 30,000 troops. Look it up.
On your "change the subject remark": that last paragraph wasn't actually addressed to you. I don't really read your posts anymore, only skim through on my way somewhere else; you know very much less than you think you do, and display a kind of almost religious fervor and humorless egotism which makes "debate" with you impossible and wearying.
Bye.
More typos than usual, I see Nano.
Bad bad Nano
Um, Philly...
...do check back a few months in the archives. Not just Tena, not just I, but most people against the war thought that Saddam didn't have anything since after the second Gulf War (the first being that one between Iraq and Iran). At best, the U.N. report pointed to some unexplained discrepancies between what had been published in their stated arsenal and what they'd accounted for. Both the US and the UK would fail such an audit spectacularly.
And then there was what one evil cartoonist did (I'd like to claim it was Ted Rall, but I can't swear to it):
Rumsfeld: Think, George. If Saddam had WMDs, we'd never dare invade him.
Considering how Iran and North Korea, which actually have teeth, have been treated, there seems more truth in it every day...
Dei.
I find it rather ironic that a lot of you claim you were one of those who didn't think he had any WMD's at all. I'd be interested in perusing the comments prior to the war to see if it holds. I won't bc it'd take too long, but it would be interesting reading I'm sure.
The looting of treasures story was debunked long ago.
Well, and this is absolutely the last one: you don't know what you are talking about.
I call your bullshit Tena. If you're telling the truth, then you were the only person in the world who didn't think Saddam had any WMD's. The whole argument of the anti-war crowd was to give the inspectors more time, not that Saddam didn't have WMD's.
Philly G, this happened with Viet Nam, but I didn't know it until much later. Don't you realize that we were listening to all the hype in the lead up to this, and all the pro-war people and the media were orgasmic about Saddam and WMDs. We had this discussion the other day. I didn't believe any of it, but I gave Colin Powell one last chance when he presented the *evidence* to the UN. It was a pitiful performance. I was only willing to believe they might have *something,* but nothing that presented a threat to the United States.
But they didn't even have *something.*
I refuse to be intimidated by those who insist that this war was justified. It wasn't. We screwed up. Big time.
"On your "change the subject remark": that last paragraph wasn't actually addressed to you. I don't really read your posts anymore, only skim through on my way somewhere else; you know very much less than you think you do, and display a kind of almost religious fervor and humorless egotism which makes "debate" with you impossible and wearying.
Bye."
Well if you want to ignore my comments, I would suggest not quoting me and then responding.
Here's exactly what I thought before the war and what I still think could be the truth - the fucking idiots in the administration have started WWIII.
We have just lost more soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan today. The helicopter that went down landed in a residential area and houses are burning.
It's easy to sit here in the US and think wars somewhere else are a really good idea. It's a lot damned more realistic to look at wars from inside those burning houses and those helicopters.
philly g,
I posted many times that I doubted he had anything other than what I said. Nothing resembling anything which could be called "WMD." Ricin wouldn't count. Anthrax wouldn't count. Even Sarin, unless in sufficient quantities, wouldn't count. I thought he had nothing, as I said, more scary than one of our medium sized bombs, and not the equivalent of too many of those. In other words, nothing that could pose a significant threat either to us or his neighbors.
Philly G:
"Yes, THOSE WMD's. The same ones you, I, everyone here, the UN, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, etc believed to have existed prior to the war."
Philly G,
You're incorrect. The UN never said the weapons existed. France and Russia are on record a year ago as saying they'd seen no proof there were any weapons. Obviously Scott Ritter said it was very unlikely Iraq had anything. Rolf Ekeus, the former head of UNSCOM, said it was possible Iraq had no weapons.
And I didn't believe they had anything. That's why I made a $1000 bet with someone that no significant amounts of weapons will be found by a year from the invasion.
The fact is that there never was any good evidence Iraq retained banned weapons. If you'd like to understand why, email me and I'll be happy to send you an explanation. (It's too long to post here.)
My last comment on this subject today:
I don't care if you believe me or not, and you are welcome to try to find some evidence that I have said otherwise at any time. I never believed it, and it has turned out that i was right.
Philly G:
"Yes, THOSE WMD's. The same ones you, I, everyone here, the UN, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, etc believed to have existed prior to the war."
Philly G,
You're incorrect. The UN never said the weapons existed. France and Russia are on record a year ago as saying they'd seen no proof there were any weapons. Obviously Scott Ritter said it was very unlikely Iraq had anything. Rolf Ekeus, the former head of UNSCOM, said it was possible Iraq had no weapons.
And I didn't believe they had anything. That's why I made a $1000 bet with someone that no significant amounts of weapons will be found by a year from the invasion.
The fact is that there never was any good evidence Iraq retained banned weapons. If you'd like to understand why, email me and I'll be happy to send you an explanation. (It's too long to post here.)
We wouldn't have gone if we actually thought he presented that great a threat.
We knew he was weakened by sanctions...and were surprised at the resistance we got.
Of course, most of us knew that the guerilla war would begin after occupation.
So why didn't Bush administration?
"Here's exactly what I thought before the war and what I still think could be the truth - the fucking idiots in the administration have started WWIII."
This comment is representative of the Left now I think and shows their inability to "get it". WWIII was started on 9/11/01 when Islamic terrorists and nations that harbored them declared war on the Western world - the Bush administration is going to finish it.
"alegations,""claims..."
Isn't this just more attenuated and unsubstantialted dross from the right?
If they have proof, show us.
Oh yea, there are claims that cows fly when we are all asleep. The Sudanese government sold them the tecnology - big yellow wings.
Pie, what would you have done differently to get France or Germany to join us? Saddam had 18 resolutions to comply with the UN resolutions, either disarm weapons or provide proof of disarmament. He did neither.
Philly G, Bush had supposedly assembled an intelligent, experienced staff that should have been able to get to the truth of Saddam's assertions.
Instead, intelligence was discredited and reworked to fit their *agenda.* They didn't fool the world, but they totally conned a good segment of the American population. You know, many are starting to realize it. They're furios. No one likes to be fooled.
If you're not convinced, okay. Someday, hopefully, we'll all know what really happened.
But I'm convinced that this was one huge crime. And Bush is the Worst. President. Ever.
furious
furious
"I don't care if you believe me or not, and you are welcome to try to find some evidence that I have said otherwise at any time. I never believed it, and it has turned out that i was right."
Chill Tena, I said I'd take your word for it.
There's a reason this story hasn't made it past Fox News, yet. There's nothing to it.
If you assembled all the positive evidence that Fidel Castro was responsible for the Kennedy assassination, you might get a memo of similar length. The case actually looks compelling until you note that a memo containing the negative evidence would run twelve times as long.
This is a case of very bad social science.
My position on this whole thing from the beginning was that Saddam should have been taken out but this Bush regime was the wrong one to do it. Their svengali-like ties to big oil would rouse suspicion of empire in the rest of the world and their subsequent lies have done nothing to quell their fears. Do yourself a favor Philly-boy. Read some of the news the rest of the world is getting instead of plopping yourself on your couch and turning on FOX. Then maybe you'll see the damage this bunch of psychopaths have really done.
does phillyg ever get tired of being a tool? he just laps up whatever propaganda the white house dishes out.
"does phillyg ever get tired of being a tool? he just laps up whatever propaganda the white house dishes out."
I said before let's wait on it and see what happens. Apparently you don't read very well.
It's also sad that we're droning on about this nonsense on a day in which we had another disaster in Iraq.
WWIII was started on 9/11/01 when Islamic terrorists and nations that harbored them declared war on the Western world - the Bush administration is going to finish it.
That's the mindset, right there.
Be careful what you wish for.
"Do yourself a favor Philly-boy. Read some of the news the rest of the world is getting instead of plopping yourself on your couch and turning on FOX. Then maybe you'll see the damage this bunch of psychopaths have really done."
Yes, that same distinguished media that has convinced all of Europe that Israel represents the greatest threat to world peace in the world today.
Uhh...no thanks.
And sorry, but I don't watch Fox News.
Philly G:
"Yes, THOSE WMD's. The same ones you, I, everyone here, the UN, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, etc believed to have existed prior to the war."
Philly G,
You're incorrect. The UN never said the weapons existed. France and Russia are on record a year ago as saying they'd seen no proof there were any weapons. Obviously Scott Ritter said it was very unlikely Iraq had anything. Rolf Ekeus, the former head of UNSCOM, said it was possible Iraq had no weapons.
And I didn't believe they had anything. That's why I made a $1000 bet with someone that no significant amounts of weapons will be found by a year from the invasion.
The fact is that there never was any good evidence Iraq retained banned weapons. If you'd like to understand why, email me and I'll be happy to send you an explanation. (It's too long to post here.)
It's kinda sad how guys like Philly G need something - anything - to grab on to in order to justify their support of this administration. And when challenged, he makes incredibly wild (and ignorant) comments about what "all" of us believed.
Like others on this blog, I never thought Saddam had WMD after the mid 1990's. Never. Of course, Philly "knows" I did think they were there. More of the freeper delusions, I guess.
But as others have quite eloquently noted, the issue isn't whether Saddam ever had WMDs. It's the lies that were told by this administration to the world, to our allies, and most importantly to us about why we had to unilaterally invade another country, without provocation, and without a true coalition of allied nations.
How any one can believe that the administration knew about all of the so-called contacts detailed in this memo more than a year ago, and yet chose not to reveal those details to our allies or to the public in order to support this war is beyond me.
Philly, I sympathize. It must be very difficult to inhabit that dream world that the neocons have created for you.
"That's the mindset, right there.
Be careful what you wish for."
It's sad, it's like 9/11 never happened. I wish for the destruction of all those who would fly planes into buildings intentionally killing as many civilians as possible, and the despotic regimes who sponsor these actions.
I make no bones about it.
Yes, that same distinguished media that has convinced all of Europe that Israel represents the greatest threat to world peace in the world today.
Philly G., have you seen this article?
Four former directors of Israel's Shin Bet security service have given unprecedented warnings that the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is leading the country to catastrophe by failing to pursue peace with the Palestinians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
israel...1085624,00.html
Philly G,
You and I don't agree on the credibility of this Feith memo. I don't think it is credible, for many reasons that have been stated.
YOu disagree with that opinion. YOu are entitled to that opinion. Also, you have given the reasons you support this opinion many times on this thread and site again for which you are entitled.
Can we please just leave it at that. I will try to be fair and say, yes if a more credible source comes out and says that there is some truth to this connection and memo I will believe it. But the issue is trust and credibility here. I am extremely skeptical for many reasons. You will not be changing my mind until someone with more credibility tells me it is true.
Now, even if this information is credible, how is that going to help the situation on the ground in Iraq? Will the troops be any safer? Will this stop the insurgents? Will this help create "democracy" any quicker in Iraq? Will this change the perceptions of the Iraqi's on the ground have toward the Americans? Will they cooperate more? Will this get other countries to help us NOW? I personally doubt it. The only thing I see coming out of this if this memo is true is some sense of vindication for the pro-war side. If that makes you feel better great. But it certainly won't change the awful reality on the ground in Messopatamia in the present, which is really the most important issue right now.
Rob - that is so very true. We have a disaster daily, anymore. I can't say how sad and sick it makes me. If this administration had just seized the moment after 9/11, formed alliances with other countries to hunt down the international criminals who perpetrated the terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden might be in custody now; 417 Americans would still be alive, or have died differently, less violently, less unreasonably. We might be on the way to a world in which the kinds of attacks that occurred on 9/11 would begin to be a thing of the past, a terrible time in history. Instead it's all violence all the time now.
Folks, folks, folks: focus on debunking the memo. There are plenty of laughers in there. The improbability of the Gilmore-Potter documents, which I pointed out. But there are more. I think that several of the people accused of wrongdoing have been in custody-- and released, as was Shakir.
IOW, this could blow up in the face of the Admin, FOX and The Weekly Standard, if people will do the journalism that The Standard did not.
"You and I don't agree on the credibility of this Feith memo. I don't think it is credible, for many reasons that have been stated.
YOu disagree with that opinion. YOu are entitled to that opinion. Also, you have given the reasons you support this opinion many times on this thread and site again for which you are entitled.
Can we please just leave it at that. I will try to be fair and say, yes if a more credible source comes out and says that there is some truth to this connection and memo I will believe it. But the issue is trust and credibility here. I am extremely skeptical for many reasons. You will not be changing my mind until someone with more credibility tells me it is true."
YES. I said it twice before. Let's wait to see what happens. I wasn't being snarky before. I just said that if these allegations prove true, then the case for war is completely justified under all means and is closed.
Pie, the Guardian is one of the major reasons why the world thinks Israel is the biggest threat to world peace. Its bias is unreal. Ditto the BBC. And I speak from personal experience after spending a semester in London. I literally stopped watching the BBC and reading the Guardian altogether. Their anti-Israel bias was absurd, bordering on anti-Semetic.
It's sad, it's like 9/11 never happened.
We're trying to get past 9/11, figure out what to do to prevent this from happening again. We don't agree with Bush's solution. At all.
The presence or otherwise of WMD stockpiles isn't really important. What is important is
a) "could Saddam have made WMD's available for use against the US" and
b) "would he do so".
The answer to a) is inarguably "yes". it's just a question of lead times.
The answer to b) is increasingly becoming "yes". We're learning more about that today.
Fact is, the US administration hyped up stockpiles for legalistic reasons because they wanted UN support - to present the war as enforcing UN resolutions. But from the point of view of protecting US citizens, capability and intent are all that matter.
Pie, the Guardian is one of the major reasons why the world thinks Israel is the biggest threat to world peace.
I think Sharon is one of the biggest threats to world peace!!! The guys criticizing him are Israelis, for crying out loud. And Philly G., my husband is jewish and he thinks Sharon is an impediment to peace in the Middle East.
But from the point of view of protecting US citizens, capability and intent are all that matter.
There was no capability or intent.
pie: was too! was too! nyer, nyer!
See, I can do it too.
Piss of.
- the Bush administration is going to finish it.
damn!
I think that pretty much says it all. Anyone who thinks that all aggression and no policy is going to solve the problems in the Middle East (or anywhere for that matter) has truely left the path of wisdom. You are now using faith-based propaganda to complete your thoughts.
>Philly G - why not release this information before the war, then? Why not go to the UN with this instead of all the bullshit?
Exactly.
If this is true, why wasn't it used before now?
Why did the PNAC Platoon have to rely on bogosities like "aluminum tube nuke parts" (that the IAEA repeatedly said could not be used for nukes) and the Niger yellowcake fraud?
The Bushistas jumped on every scrap of information, true or not, that they thought they could use to pimp their invading Iraq. If this memo is for real, then they would have used this right away, and it would have been all they needed.
>No way; this stinks as much as a two week old fish left out in the sun.
It sure does, Tena.
I take back my statement that we want to figure out what to do to prevent this from happening again.
We can't prevent it. Make it less likely, maybe. But after all this, I'm not even sure how we can make that happen. Different leadership, definitely.
Thanks, george.
"I think that pretty much says it all. Anyone who thinks that all aggression and no policy is going to solve the problems in the Middle East (or anywhere for that matter) has truely left the path of wisdom. You are now using faith-based propaganda to complete your thoughts."
No, you're twisting the intent of the words. Would you rather the Allied powers not finish the war in WWII?
Likewise, if we don't finish "WWIII", then you better be ready to pray to your Koran and be a good little kuffir.
Here's the heart of JS' statement:
>The only named source denies that contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq lasted into 2000.
With the Bushistas, if it's not a named source, you can safely assume they made it up.
I knew the anti-semetic line was coming out soon. *sigh*
Philly G: Would you agree that it's ok to disagree with Sharon policy without it being anti-semetic?
Yes, THOSE WMD's. Being incorrect about something does not make it a lie.
Wait a minute Philly G., the administration said they "knew" Sadam had WMD's. That they had evidence that was "bulletproof". Those are all direct quotes and yet they station the invading forces within a ten square kilometer area of Kuwait before the invasion. Hmmm, if you "know" an enemy has WMD with "bulletproof" evidence then why would you risk your troops by stationing them in a small area where a few dozen chemical rockets could cause tens of thousands of casualties? That is, unless you knew said enemy didn't have any WMD!
There in a nutshell is proof this administration lied about it's reasons for going to war.
Phoenix Woman: "With the Bushistas, if it's not a named source you can safely assume they made it up." No shit, Sherlock.
*sigh* - We have been down this same road so many times now I just have to wonder -
How many times do we have to keep going down it?
Philly G:
"No, you're twisting the intent of the words. Would you rather the Allied powers not finish the war in WWII?
Likewise, if we don't finish "WWIII", then you better be ready to pray to your Koran and be a good little kuffir."
Um, Philly, you can't actually 'finish' a war on terror through the kind of brute force that DID work in WWII. In fact, brute force in this situation only ferments discontent that fuels the formation of new terrorist cells.
Terrorism is born quite cost effectively from an idea, and as long as the idea exists it doesn't matter how many terrorists you kill, there will always be more to take their place.
Likewise, if we don't finish "WWIII", then you better be ready to pray to your Koran and be a good little kuffir.:
Is your belief in your own culture that weak, Philly G?
And, BTW, this is exactly the argument that fascist groups in Europe use to incite hatred against muslims.
And what makes you think the US can finish WWWIII?
No one read Bush "The Boy who Cried Wolf" when he was little. As a result of the WMD lies—Philly G isn't mentioning how we not only claimed Saddam had WMD but that we knew exactly where they were—I can't believe their memo until I see a video of Saddam, Osama, and Paris Hilton on the Internet.
Here's the problem I have with the Right's arguments about WMD's:
If Saddam had these weapons--and if there was a relation between Saddam and Osama--
--then why were no WMD's used in the 9/11 attacks?
Because they figured they'd save it for the next time?
Because, while they could hijack four jetliners at once, sneaking a suiitcase full of anthrax or two was too risky?
IMHO, the only reason WMD's weren't involved was because they didn't have them. And there's only two reasons, given the premises stated , why Saddam didn't supply Osama:
a) he didn't have them either, or
b)he wouldn't give weapons like that to a man like Bin Laden.
That's why I didn't believe it then.
And as for other justifications, I had at the time two words: North Korea.
We had a country that was MORE brutal to its people, a MORE absolute dictatorship, which DID have a nuclear weapons program AND a missile delivery system and was extremely cash strapped and had the potential of selling Osama a bomb for some of that nice Saudi oil money--
--but let's let THEM alone.
Hanh?
Any of the justifications for going after Saddam could be made in spades for Kim Jong Il--but BUSH has done nothing.
So not only do we have--not a quagmire, but a flaming tar-pit in Iraq, but North Korea has the bomb now, and may be stockpiling them at the rate of one a month--and may have already sold an atom bomb to Al-Qaeda.
Mission accomplished.
Philly G,
When this Feith thing is found to be total bullshit,
will you promise to go away? (Or at least come back and admit that you were wrong?)
I believe you are bright, but unfortunately, completely misguided.
When I was 21, I thought I had all the answers too.
What about this comment against Iraq having/using WMD against the US: The Iraqi's would be showered with nukes from Israel, Europe and the US before they could even press the button. Even if Saddam did not care about his own people, nobody is committing suicide just because they can.
Afterthought: Maybe Saddam was really evil and hoping that Russia would retaliate in its place... Hmm?
Plenty of people realized he had no WMDs, but Even those of us who *did* assume that Iraq had WMDs had begun to doubt our assumptions do to the jaw-dropping pile of bullshit that the administration called evidence.
Of course, certainty always plays better:
"We know Iraq has 50,000 liters of Sarin and is enriching Uranium."
"Yeah, maybe so, but do we have any evid--"
"Shut up Shut up you traitorous wimp, who are you going to trust, Bush or Sadaam?"
BTW, everything in the memo is either a rehash of things we already heard before, or comes from the same "reliable source"s that gave us the WMD intel.
Although it's not in his job description, Feith for along time has worked as though it was his duty to fit the intelligence to the policy.
in "his" place
Late breaking news!!!
That fine piece of jounalistic integrity, "The World Weekly News" has managed another journalistic bombshell. On the front page of this week's edition we have photographic evidence of Osama bin Laden cavorting with the clone of Adolph Hitler!!! Take that you filthy cheese eating surrender monkeys!
man that filly g is one desperate little guy! but his posts do provide a lot of laughs. keep on trucking filly guy! BUSH NEEDS YOU!
Please don't feed the Silly Me... we have BEEN HERE and DONE THIS already...
What about this comment against Iraq having/using WMD against the US: The Iraqi's would be showered with nukes from Israel, Europe and the US before they could even press the button. Even if Saddam did not care about his own people, nobody is committing suicide just because they can.
Afterthought: Maybe Saddam was really evil and hoping that Russia would retaliate in its place... Hmm?
Monkeybutt
If that was Sadam's thinking then why was he ever a threat? If he ever used his WMD then he'd been nuked to kingdom come. And if he ever gave any terrorists WMD he'd still be nuked to kingdom come
So I'll repeat for the slow kids. Why was Sadam EVER considered a threat if he was intimidated by the military force of the US and/or the rest of the world?
I call your bullshit Tena. If you're telling the truth, then you were the only person in the world who didn't think Saddam had any WMD's. The whole argument of the anti-war crowd was to give the inspectors more time, not that Saddam didn't have WMD's.
Philly G | 11.15.03 - 6:34 pm | #
No, Philly G... I didn't believe that they had WMDs either. In fact before bush had Iraq invaded, I marched in peace marches and very few believed the WMD story. Remember how the country had been sanctioned and how we kept bombing in the "NO FLY" zone? I always thought if they had those WMDs they would have done something when we kept bombing them....
Goofy Media Conspiracy #472
Limbaugh is coming back on Monday from his stay at the Happy Hippy Hilton. Before the war he touted his knowledge of most of the things that this memo claims to "leak". (He even posted them to his site.) He needs something to talk about and has had a lot of time to think about how to get Junior relected for one more round of Tax Cuts to lessen the burden of his $250 MM contract.
Do you think that Kristol and Co might be in cohoots? I'll put money that Rush focuses on this memo and claims that it is "proof that he was right".
$10 bucks to anyone who bets otherwise.
No. 851-03
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov 15, 2003
(703)697-5131(media)
(703)428-0711(public/industry)
DoD Statement on News Reports of al-Qaida and Iraq Connections
News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence
Committee are inaccurate.
A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on October 27, 2003 from Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, in response to follow-up
questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the Department to provide the reports from the Intelligence Community to which he referred in his testimony before the Committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida.
The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the Committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the Intelligence Community.
The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA, or, in one case, the DIA. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the
permission of the Intelligence Community. The selection of the documents was made by DOD to respond to the Committee's question. The classified annex was not an
analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.
Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.
-END-_
[Web Version: http://www.dod.mil/releases/2003...31115-
0642.html]
I usually just read the posting and comments here, but I have a couple of questions/suspicions regarding this memo.
This is the first I've heard of it. When was it released? This administration has a habit of releasing bad news on Friday, so there isn't much discussion of it in the media. Was this released for the weekend so it could percolate through the country before there was any real hard news research on its veracity?
If it's a Top Secret memo, how did it become public? If there are problems with it, how do the Democrats refute it since they've recently been shut out of the intelligence committee for "playing politics," and how do they counter the memo without being accused of violating their security clearance and thereby further charged with putting "politics above the good of the country"?
Like most here, I don't trust this administration, and something about this memo just stinks.
Mark Lewis, can we post bombshell press release from DOD on the Standard's webpage?
Two words for Philly "I spent 6 months at most in the UK, and was too ignorant to open my mind for even that short time" G, two words to consider before he opens his mouth about the anti-semitism (snort) of The Guardian;
"David Aaronovitch."
You could also, until this week at least, have gone for "Julie Burchill" as well. I'll bet your brand of ugly American ignorance went down a treat at your UK campus, didn't it?
And... You know what amazes me the most about the anti-semitism cannard? Many of the early heroes of the left were raised Jewish themselves; there has even been a strong left wing tradition in Israel itself... Communes (Kibbutzim) anyone? The left doesn't hate Jews; The left often ARE Jews. But it does have a problem with the policies of the state of Israel. Is that so hard to understand? Apparently it is!
And of course, there's the idiotic "Giving weapons inspectors more time" argument... ahh yes, those infamous hawkish weapons inspectors, who told the UN again and again about Saddam's chemical, biological and... wait a moment; They DIDN'T actually say that? The weapons inspectors discredited claims of WMD possesion? Well, why would the left say to listen to them then, if they weren't claiming Saddam had illegal weapons?
You maroon.
aw, everyone is picking on filly g now!
"News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate."
Read upthread, Phuckin' Philly G.
Hate to tell you so, but,
I TOLD YOU SO!
We await your apology.
Again, the Sudanese government allegedly sold the wings to the cows that some claim are flying around as we sleep. Fox News will have in-depth reports on the Sunday AM shows on the confidential but in no way speculative nature of this story. Philly G, as in Gipper Lipper, will provide color commentary.
The truth is out there.
looks as flimsy as the shit colon bowell traipsed out at the UN.
Paul Wolfowitz on the justification for the Iraq War (from the DOD's transcript of Wolfowitz's interview with Sam Tannenhausen of Vanity Fair, available at http://www.dod.gov/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-
depsecdef0223.html. Portions relevent the idea that we invaded Iraq to free the people from a brutal and criminal regime are bolded:
Wolfowitz: [...] The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second --
(Pause)
Kellems: Sam there may be some value in clarity on the point that it may take years to get post-Saddam Iraq right. It can be easily misconstrued, especially when it comes to --
Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again.
Kellems: By the way, it's probably the longest uninterrupted phone conversation I've witnessed, so --
Q: This is extraordinary.
Kellems: You had good timing.
Q: I'm really grateful.
Wolfowitz: To wrap it up.
The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it. That second issue about links to terrorism is the one about which there's the most disagreement within the bureaucracy, even though I think everyone agrees that we killed 100 or so of an al Qaeda group in northern Iraq in this recent go-around, that we've arrested that al Qaeda guy in Baghdad who was connected to this guy Zarqawi whom Powell spoke about in his UN presentation.
BTW: Philly G - I didn't believe Saddam had WMD before the war, either.
See, our guys kept saying we KNEW he had them and we KNEW where he was keeping them - but according to the weapons inspectors who were over there doing the investigations, every piece of information we gave them about where to find the WMD turned out to be useless. That, along with things like Powell's 2001 statement that Iraq had been contained and wasn't even a threat to his neighbors, much less the US, the knowledge that we'd bombed most of the places where he was supposedly keeping WMDs back in 1998 (with no new evidence of his having obtained or built any WMD subsequent to the 98 bombings), the way all the big stories kept getting debunked shortly after being announced (aluminum tubes - not usable for the nuclear purposes the administration claimed they were for; the drone planes turning out to be taped-together wooden planes that were little more than model airplanes and which could NEVER have flown anywhere to deliver chemical or biological payloads; the claims that Saddam was looking for uranium that were made based on forged documents), the way Powell's report to the UN was practially shredded within a matter of days of his having presented it - all of that did nothing but convince me more and more each day that there weren't any WMD, and that we knew it, but were trying to make the case any way we could just long enough to get the war going.
So, no, Philly G, not EVERYONE believed there were WMD there - that's why so many of us opposed the war. We wanted to give the inspectors more time so that they could prove what we knew - and if they HAD found something, if we HAD been wrong, then there would have been solid justification for the war, and I'll bet quite a few who had been opposed to the war would have changed their opinion if the inspectors had found anything. But the fact that Bush kept refusing to give them any more time was something else that led me to believe that there wasn't anything to be found - and he knew that the longer the inspectors kept working and found nothing, the weaker his case would be, so giving them that time was out of the question.
My references to anti-Semetism are based on things such as the following:
(although in this example I refer to the Reuters news service)
They compiled a list of the "worst terror attacks since 9/11" and for some reason, attacks against Israeli civilians were not included.
And to remove any canard that perhaps attacks in disputed territories weren't included, attacks in the Kashmir territories WERE included in the story.
So please explain why the non-inclusion of attacks against Israeli citizens is somehow not, at the very least, "bordering on anti-Semetism" as I suggested?
Sloppy reporting is a bad excuse because EVERY reporter is aware of the situation in Israel. What would you attribute this non-inclusion to?
Anyone can answer, but I pose this specifically to David Aaronovitch I guess.
"aw, everyone is picking on filly g now!"
Don't worry, I can take the heat as long as there is actually arguments and not lame ad hominems in which case you'll most likely be ignored.
Your comments on Havel; he changed his opinion on the matter.
His original statement was that indeed the meeting did occur.
It wasn't until the CIA disputed the BIS report that Havel changed his opinion.
Since the CIA and Tenet have been so great at intelligence gathering, I would put more reliability in the BIS.
It is amazing to see the use of the CIA in ones argument, given that they have been wrong just about every turn.
To include WMD's.
Well, sorry, Loudmouths, but that's not the history as I understand it. It's the Czech intel chiefs who changed their minds and they did so because they checked their facts:
"The original report that Atta met with a high-ranking Iraqi intelligence office gained widespread attention, and rightly so. But the sighting turned out to be sketchy and uncorroborated. Later, Czech President Vaclav Havel, a supporter of our war against Iraq, told the White House that subsequent investigations led the Czechs to believe that the story was not true. And U.S. law enforcement and intelligence investigations unearthed many pieces of documentary evidence that Atta was in the United States at the time of the alleged meeting"
Now we even have numerous members of Iraqi intelligence in custody, including Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the intelligence agent Atta allegedly met. If the story were true someone should have spilled the beans by now. But no one has. As al Qaeda expert Peter Bergen asked, when I interviewed him recently, “Don’t you think [al-Ani] knows his get-out-of-jail-free card to some degree is saying, ‘Hey, I did meet with Mohammed Atta’? He’s obviously not saying that, otherwise we’d know about it.”
http://www.hillnews.com/marshall...all/
091703.aspx
One doesn't go to war on a maybe.
So, you are saying, he didn't have weapons?
Well, sure, Tourabi was a major promoter of islamism in early 90s, when he was a powerful guy in Sudan. Probably helped Bin Laden to come there, and wanted to get some kind of international network to support and promote islamist parties where they could exist, and more underground and subversive organisations as the main opposition to more dictatorial regimes.
For some reason, he apparently thought at some point that the civil war between Mulsim north and Christian/Animist rebels in Southern Sudan stopped. That didn't go well with Sudan's general-tyrant, who jailed him. I read a few weeks ago Tourabi just got released. So apparently he was out of favor and basically jailed for the last handful of years - and in fact I'd liked to know what he's up to now, peace agreement with the South, or dreams of fundamentalist islamism revival. Basically, most links between Sudan's regime and Sudan's islamist organisations were considerably thinned down when he had to leave for Afghanistan, and remained so since then.
Just one meaningless nitpick to show that these guys can twist basically anything to support their view.
In my opinion, that entire stuff is basically a pile of shit or useless information. Anyone that wants to do serious intelligence work on Al-Qaeda, notably with the goal of reducing attack risks, wouldn't waste his time on such ludicrous claims.
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