The Washington Post examined the origins and debunkings of the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq sought to obtain uranium from Niger. Its conclusion:
"Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable.
"In February 2002, the CIA received the verbatim text of one of the documents, filled with errors easily identifiable through a simple Internet search, the interviews show. Many low- and mid-level intelligence officials were already skeptical that Iraq was in pursuit of nuclear weapons.
"The interviews also showed that France, berated by the Bush administration for opposing the Iraq war, honored a U.S. intelligence request to investigate the uranium claim. It determined that its former colony had not sold uranium to Iraq."
Yet not only did the claim end up in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, it led to the payback campaign that resulted in "Scooter" Libby’s conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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48 Comments
I believe this would be the “lie” that Nathan refuses to acknowledge.
http://republikan.typepad.com/republikansan/2007/04/democratic_part.html
The denial that Democrats tend to perpetuate.
I guess the Eagle wants to call a Greenpeace Inspector a Liar as well:
“The continuing exclusion of the IAEA from Iraq by the USA represents a major breach of international law and exacerbates a dangerous situation. A Greenpeace mission to Baghdad in June revealed the US had been criminally lax in securing nuclear materials from looting. Near the Tuwaitha nuclear installation, we found 4-5 kilograms of uranium oxide (yellow cake)– incapable of being used in nuclear weapons but a radioactive hazard — alongside a roadway, radiation sources 3000 times above normal “background” levels near schools, and individual homes with radiation “sources” up to 10,000 times over normal.
Impoverished local residents had taken 55-gallon drums from the facility to use as stoves and for water storage, in some cases dumping out nuclear materials unaware that dangerous radioactivity remained.”
Republican,
Are you unable to understand that the material at Tuwaitha was from Iraq’s EARLIER, DISMANTLED weapons program? There’s NO connection to Niger.
The IAEA had placed it under seal in the 1990’s, and routinely inspected it.
Greenpeace accurately reported the U.S’s failure to secure Tuwaitha.http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/wmd-report-buried“US efforts to secure oil wells were far more intensive than those to protect the IAEA-monitored nuclear facility, which went unguarded in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.”
The U.S. also failed to secure a site with high explosives, also under IAEA seals.http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-explosives.htm
Khan, do you even read your own crap? This is from YOUR post.
“we found 4-5 kilograms of uranium oxide (yellow cake)– incapable of being used in nuclear weapons”
Yep. Big bad nuclear weapons stuff.
Big eye roll here.
Here you go ksfarmgrrl, educate your self on yellowcake.
http://www.chemcases.com/nuclear/nc-06.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake
After reading that, especially the Wikipedia version, you will understand why people are concerned with Iran buying a huge amount of Gas Centrifuges.
Cosmos,
I agree with the statements about the failure, Just whose side are you on though?
Not getting to these sites was a failure in communications, but it doesn’t indicate that there weren’t separate programs in Iraq to utilize the materials. Saddam was well known for “spreading out” his weapons and hiding them. I can see where he did this for his weapons class nuclear weapons program as well.
Use WHAT?
YOU OWN POST says that what was found was not suitable for nucular weapons.
And arent you the one who bitches about wiki? How conveeenient.
The FACT remains. There was no yellow cake danger for nuclear weapons in Iraq. Deal with it.
Republican,
“Not getting to these sites was a failure in communications”
Are you claiming that the U.S. did NOT know what the IAEA had under seals at those sites? Are we that incompetent?
The “failure” seems to be both strategic, and invading without enough troops to guard the sites.
The CIA only considered the high explosives at Al Qaqaa a “medium” priority. No one thought about IED’s, etc?
Republican: “but it doesn’t indicate that there weren’t separate programs in Iraq to utilize the materials.”
1) It does not indicate that there WERE other programs.2) Inspections, before and after the invasion, did NOT find other programs.3) The materials were sealed prior to the invasion, and could NOT be utilized without detection.
Interesting, easy to be a democrat. If you are in power, just say any little ol’ thing you want to damage the administration and if you aren’t one of the annointed ones all you have to do is take what ever little morsel of propaganda they feed you and run with it.
Come on Phillip! Yellow cake again! An article in the Washington Post! Peter Eisner?
Peter Eisner didn’t ‘investigate’ anything. There is absolutely nothing new in his little article on the infamous ‘16 words’.
I am still amazed how the liberals in the press still attempt to rewrite history! They have to completely ignore the fact that Saddam had over 500 tons of yellow cake in cuntry. But… the great IAEA supposedly had that supply under lock and key. What better motive could Saddam have to try and get a new supply? Then you have to ignore all of the evidence that points to an attempt to buy yellow cake in 1999. Most of which is in the Senate Intelligence COmmittee’s report.
Focusing on the ‘16 words’ (which are still true by the way) as Bush’s justification for going to war is like blaming a 27 car pile up on the 6th car from the rear because its driver didn’ have a licence to drive.
All smoke and mirrors so the libs don’t have to face reality.
Hank
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MYTH!!!
The president misled Americans to convince them to go to war.
“There is no question [the Bush administration] misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq,” according to Ted Kennedy. Jimmy Carter charged that on Iraq, “President Bush has not been honest with the American people.” And Al Gore has said that an “abuse of the truth” characterized the administration’s “march to war.” These charges are themselves misleading, which explains why no independent body has found them credible. Most of the world was operating from essentially the same set of assumptions regarding Iraq’s WMD capabilities. Important assumptions turned out wrong; but mistakenly relying on faulty intelligence is a world apart from lying about it.
Let’s review what we know. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is the intelligence community’s authoritative written judgment on specific national-security issues. The 2002 NIE provided a key judgment: “Iraq has continued its [WMD] programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade.”
Thanks to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb Commission, which investigated the causes of intelligence failures in the run-up to the war, we now know that the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief “were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE” (my emphasis). We also know that the intelligence in the PDB was not “markedly different” from that given to Congress. This helps explains why John Kerry, in voting to give the president the authority to use force, said, “I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.” It’s why Sen. Kennedy said, “We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.” And it’s why Hillary Clinton said in 2002, “In the four years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program.”
Beyond that, intelligence agencies from around the globe believed Saddam had WMD. Even foreign governments that opposed his removal from power believed Iraq had WMD: Just a few weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the U.S., said, “I think all of our governments believe that Iraq has produced weapons of mass destruction and that we have to assume that they continue to have weapons of mass destruction.”
In addition, no serious person would justify a war based on information he knows to be false and which would be shown to be false within months after the war concluded. It is not as if the WMD stockpile question was one that wasn’t going to be answered for a century to come.
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MYTH!!!
The Bush administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments.
Earlier this year, Mr. Gore charged that “CIA analysts who strongly disagreed with the White House . . . found themselves under pressure at work and became fearful of losing promotions and salary increases.” Sen. Kennedy charged that the administration “put pressure on intelligence officers to produce the desired intelligence and analysis.”
This myth is shattered by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq. Among the findings: “The committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so.” Silberman-Robb concluded the same, finding “no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community’s prewar assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.” What the report did find is that intelligence assessments on Iraq were “riddled with errors”; “most of the fundamental errors were made and communicated to policy makers well before the now-infamous NIE of October 2002, and were not corrected in the months between the NIE and the start of the war.”
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MYTH!!!!!
Because weapons of mass destruction stockpiles weren’t found, Saddam posed no threat.
Howard Dean declared Iraq “was not a danger to the United States.” John Murtha asserted, “There was no threat to our national security.” Max Cleland put it this way: “Iraq was no threat. We now know that. There are no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons programs.” Yet while we did not find stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, what we did find was enough to alarm any sober-minded individual.
Upon his return from Iraq, weapons inspector David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told the Senate: “I actually think this may be one of those cases where [Iraq under Saddam Hussein] was even more dangerous than we thought.” His statement when issuing the ISG progress report said: “We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities” that were part of “deliberate concealment efforts” that should have been declared to the U.N. And, he concluded, “Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”
Among the key findings of the September 2004 report by Charles Duelfer, who succeeded Mr. Kay as ISG head, are that Saddam was pursuing an aggressive strategy to subvert the Oil for Food Program and to bring down U.N. sanctions through illicit finance and procurement schemes; and that Saddam intended to resume WMD efforts once U.N. sanctions were eliminated. According to Mr. Duelfer, “the guiding theme for WMD was to sustain the intellectual capacity achieved over so many years at such a great cost and to be in a position to produce again with as short a lead time as possible. . . . Virtually no senior Iraqi believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever. Evidence suggests that, as resources became available and the constraints of sanctions decayed, there was a direct expansion of activity that would have the effect of supporting future WMD reconstitution.”
Beyond this, Saddam’s regime was one of the most sadistic and aggressive in modern history. It started a war against Iran and used mustard gas and nerve gas. A decade later Iraq invaded Kuwait. Iraq was a massively destabilizing force in the Middle East; so long as Saddam was in power, rivers of blood were sure to follow.
FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MYTH!!!!!
Promoting democracy in the Middle East is a postwar rationalization.
“The president now says that the war is really about the spread of democracy in the Middle East. This effort at after-the-fact justification was only made necessary because the primary rationale was so sadly lacking in fact,” according to Nancy Pelosi.
In fact, President Bush argued for democracy taking root in Iraq before the war began. To take just one example, he said in a speech on Feb. 26, 2003: “A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. . . . The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. . . . A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.”
The following day the New York Times editorialized: “President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. . . . The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time.”
“The continuing exclusion of the IAEA from Iraq by the USA represents a major breach of international law and exacerbates a dangerous situation. A Greenpeace mission to Baghdad in June revealed the US had been criminally lax in securing nuclear materials from looting. Near the Tuwaitha nuclear installation, we found 4-5 kilograms of uranium oxide (yellow cake)– incapable of being used in nuclear weapons but a radioactive hazard — alongside a roadway, radiation sources 3000 times above normal “background” levels near schools, and individual homes with radiation “sources” up to 10,000 times over normal.
Impoverished local residents had taken 55-gallon drums from the facility to use as stoves and for water storage, in some cases dumping out nuclear materials unaware that dangerous radioactivity remained.”
Posted by: Republican | April 03, 2007 at 12:52 PM
Okay, let’s try a little logic then. If we were sooo concerned with nuclear materials in Iraq, then why did we concentrate on securing the oil wells rather than the nuclear facility? Honestly, I thought this was a post from someone other than you Republican, since it seems to make the argument that Bush really did start a war for oil.
“The continuing exclusion of the IAEA from Iraq by the USA represents a major breach of international law and exacerbates a dangerous situation. A Greenpeace mission to Baghdad in June revealed the US had been criminally lax in securing nuclear materials from looting. Near the Tuwaitha nuclear installation, we found 4-5 kilograms of uranium oxide (yellow cake)– incapable of being used in nuclear weapons but a radioactive hazard — alongside a roadway, radiation sources 3000 times above normal “background” levels near schools, and individual homes with radiation “sources” up to 10,000 times over normal.
Impoverished local residents had taken 55-gallon drums from the facility to use as stoves and for water storage, in some cases dumping out nuclear materials unaware that dangerous radioactivity remained.”
Posted by: Republican | April 03, 2007 at 12:52 PM
Okay, let’s try a little logic then. If we were sooo concerned with nuclear materials in Iraq, then why did we concentrate on securing the oil wells rather than the nuclear facility? Honestly, I thought this was a post from someone other than you Republican, since it seems to make the argument that Bush really did start a war for oil.
Dear TDT,
We did not concentrate on securing oil wells rather than the nuclear facility.
First of all, Saddam had hundreds of ‘nuclear’ facilities. Many of them were clandistine in nature and difficult to ‘concentrate’ on. We did the best we could to find them and secure them.
The oil supplies in Iraq are vital to Iraq’a econonmy. For any post war government in Iraq to have the remotest chance of being sucessful the integrity of the oil fields had to be protected.
That fact doesn’t mean that we went to war for oil! However, our economy is so dependent on the free flow of oil any attempt to cut it off should be considered an act of war against us.
Hank
The Wall Street Journal? Boy, there’s an unbiased source.
What part of weapons inspector David Kay’s “we were all wrong” about WMD’s did you not understand, Hank.
If these “clandestine” sites were really clandestine, it would have constituted a WMD threat, which Kay concluded Saddam DID NOT HAVE.
Look up the term “labored hypothesis.” This is when someone has to come up with a fantastical rationalization to explain an otherwise simple fact.
That’s what you are doing, Hank. You’re making a case that the Bush administration has already abandoned.
But I can’t blame you for it really. They change their positions and their “reasons” for the war so much, it’s hard to stay current with White House spin.
It used to be eliminating the WMD threat.
Then it was deposing Saddam. (Unfortunately for Bush however, he let slip in a press conference after the Azores summit that we would invade even if Saddam fled the country. So that turned out to be a lie, heigh ho.)
Then it was to create an Arab democracy in the Middle East.
Now it seems to be “fighting terrorists over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” which was never one of the original reasons, but then I don’t listen to Rush, so I don’t know what the latest rationalization is these days . . .
How about “Halliburton needs the money! Blackwater needs the money!”
Hey farmgrrl,
Want to know the real truth about Halliburton? Compare their stock to the S&P or the industry as a whole.
Halliburton is the only company that has the ability to provide the logistics support for the war and they are taking a bath on it.
But just keep beleiving what ever profane fool on the DU has to say, and you’ll be fine!
Hank
PS, How big of tractor do you need? My buddy owns a John Deere Implement store, I have sources!
Well, since a lot of Halliburton’s contracts are “classified” as are the processes by which Halliburton got those contracts, it looks like Hank is stating as fact what is totally unknowable again . . .
OMG, The Rude Pundit has a really funny take on the preznit’s presser today. Rude language, but it is the funniest thing I read today.
http://www.rudepundit.blogspot.com/
Dear Capn,
Again I say:
Want to know the real truth about Halliburton? Compare their stock to the S&P or the industry as a whole.
Public knowledge. You can work classified contracts, but you can’t hide your bottom line.
Hank
InfernalProve something wrong, dont just diss the Wall Street Journal because it doesnt march to your goose-stepping drummers!When has a WSJ editorial ever contained a factual error?
Hank–
Halliburton’s stock was at about 22 in March 2005. Now it’s at over 32.
That’s a 45 percent increase in two years.
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.asp?symb=HAL&sid=2303&dist=TQP_chart_date&freq=1&time=9
S&P iShare was at 115 last March and it’s at 144 now.
http://quote.morningstar.com/ETFQuote.html?Ticker=IVV&TimeFrame=Y5
That’s 25 percent for the same time period.
Garbage in, garbage out farmgrrl. You need to get better sources.
Hank
rude pundit, democrat underground, slate, moveon, olberman.You people are the ones who can’t think for yourselves. Goose steppers is about right.
Hank Price,
“First of all, Saddam had hundreds of ‘nuclear’ facilities. Many of them were clandistine in nature and difficult to ‘concentrate’ on. We did the best we could to find them and secure them.”
Do you REALLY think Tuwaitha was “clandistine”? WTH? The IAEA had monitored that site for many years!
You think the U.S. did the “best we could… to secure” that site? Looters stole plastic barrels, after dumping out the yellowcake.
Troops passed thru Al Qaqaa on the way to Baghdad. The commanders did NOT know the dangerous explosives were there. And they did NOT have enough troops to leave behind to secure the site.
since it seems to make the argument that Bush really did start a war for oil.
Posted by: TDT | April 03, 2007 at 04:07 PM
YOu mean the Marine and Seal operation that secured the coastal oil refinery and pumping station?
Boy are you reaching.
That was secured from lessons learned in the first war. We didn’t want blackened skies filled with soot, contaminated water and raging fires.
next.
My first problem with Phillips blurb is that he starts with a blurred line as Hank has pointed out and ends with a lie.
“Yet not only did the claim end up in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, it led to the payback campaign that resulted in “Scooter” Libby’s conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice.”
Even though this was a very open kangaroo court and the most they could get Scooter Libby for was having a bad memory and not agreeing with Tim Russert, only a biasednewspaper editor would say this was a ‘payback’. The leak (which wasn’t a leak)didn’t start at the White House. Richard Armitage has claimed credit for outting a non-covert agent?? because he was gossiping at a cocktail party and thought it was common knowledge.
This is the way democrats try to win arguments. The weapons inspectators had been kicked out and only allowed back in Iraq for a few short months before the invasion. Even then they were allowed to go in very few buildings. All inspections were made under the leadership of Saddams sons. Is anyone surprised that they didn’t find the good stuff. UN resolutions were violated over and over and that is the only reason the inspectors were allowed back in – to delay the invasion.
I respectfully submitt that demos needs better sources and just because Phillip said it doesn’t make it so.
Wow, I see we are back to those lazy arm chair generals again.
Lets first agree that it would have been tactically impossible to “secure” every weapons site, oil field, nuclear faciltiy… etc in the invasion.
So then we can conclude that any lazy boy arm chair general can sit here and point out site X,Y,and Z did not get secured.
It is not rocket science.
Is this the best you can do? Cry about not securing every site known to man in Iraq and then some?
My goodness, we stormed through that country like a hot knofe through butter with minimal losses (contrary to the 10,000 estimate) and all you liberals can do is sit here and nit pick that we didn’t secure everything?
Give me a break.
That last post was mine
farm girlDo you realize that Democrat Senator Diane Fienstein of California actual had to RESIGN a committee due to her insider dealing for her husband?
PAUL F. ROSELL,
“When has a WSJ editorial ever contained a factual error?”
When haven’t they?
‘WSJ Editorial Board: Head Still Buried in the Sand’http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/wsj-editorial-board-head-still-buried-in-the-sand/
Econ I fully expect to see Diane Finestein resigning her senate position much as Duke Cunningham was asked to resign by the republicans. She after all CHAIRED the committee that made recomendations for military spending and then awarded no bid contracts to two of her husbands companies. These contracts were worth BILLIONs. Makes some of the repubs dishonesty look like childplay doesn’t it. Pelosi and Reed promised us the most ethical house and senate ever so Finesteins time will be short I am sure. Maybe there is still an empty cell where Cunningham is spending his time now.
Nathan,
“Cry about not securing every site known to man in Iraq and then some?”
Who said that “every site” needed to be secured?
You (or your dad?) claimed that Tuwaitha was “clandistine” — i.e we could not secure it because it was “secret”.
And please try to defend NOT securing this site.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-explosives.htm“Aside from the specific nuclear risk posed by HMX, all of the explosives could be used to produce bombs strong enough to collapse buildings or shatter airplanes. Further, if these materials are available to the Iraqi insurgency, they consitute an enormous stock for the road-side bombs and other attacks that have hindred reconstruction and stabilzation efforts, in addition to posing significant danger to coalition troops and Iraqi security forces.”
Hint, Feinsteins husband does NOT work for Haliburton!
CosmosFacts can only be countered with facts.Opinions derived from facts are more persuasive.That your left wing global warming rag doesnt like the WSJ is actually a credit to the WSJ.
By the way libs and Phillip:
Joe Wilson, in his ORAL report to the CIA, said that Saddam WAS trying to increase commercial ties with Niger.Niger’s ONLY export is YELLOW CAKE!
By the way libs and Phillip:
Joe Wilson, in his ORAL report to the CIA, said that Saddam WAS trying to increase commercial ties with Niger.Niger’s ONLY export is YELLOW CAKE!
PAUL F. ROSELL,
WSJ’s op-eds are contradicted and debunked by the facts they print on other pages of the WSJ.
‘Fiddling While the Planet BurnsWill the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers accept a challenge to learn the truth about the science of global climate change? ‘http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000D5C47-C124-1509-805C83414B7FFDB0
Niger has other exports besides yellowcake.
Yeah, other exports from Niger…
According to the CIA World Factbook:
uranium ore, livestock, cowpeas, onions
“In addition, no serious person would justify a war based on information he knows to be false and which would be shown to be false within months after the war concluded.”
All I can say is, “WOW!” Because that is EXACTLY what bush did in Iraq. The only problem is the war has NOT ended, and still bush has been decidedly shown as a liar by giving false information to both congress and the American people.
Yellow cake? You bet there’s yellow cake; but Iraq isn’t the one with it on their hands.
Yeah J M, some of ended up on scrap barges headed to Holland. The Dutch tested scrap metal for radioactivity and it lit up their meters.
This was while Saddam was still in power.
They have batter on their faces, egg mixed with yellow cake. Time to turn the heat up.
As I have said the current book I am reading is Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial”.
From the book and I am not using exact quote as the book is at work:As to the sixteen words: George Tenet had the words struck from a speech given in Dayton Oh. because the subject that Saddam had try to buy Yellow cake from Niger was quite questionable and the source of the report was known to be highly unreliable.
But since the speech in the state of the Union was suppose to be the same, it was left to a lower level member of the CIA to review. Someone had added the sixteen words and Tenet admitted that there was a failure between the higher level and the lower levels of the CIA to share information and decisions. As such the words were not stuck for the State of the Union. Tenet sat in disbelieve as he watched and called the White house. It was agreed that the CIA and State would release a statement the following day taking a shared blame. Only to have Rice may a statement placing the blame solely on the CIA.After some heated discussion, Tenet agree to take solely blame for the blunder.
Now a bit of an explanation as to the whole subject of the WMDs and what went wrong:A couple of days after David Kay who was the chief weapons investigator for the U.S. and had been called in by the CIA to head the search for WMDs after the Invasion. When General Marks who was given the assignment of locating and dealing with the WMDs in Iraq after the invasion. Had stated his lack of finding anything and his suspensions that there may not be any WMDs. The job was reassigned to the CIA, having 80 % of his work done Kay had concluded that there were no WMDs in Iraq nor a WMD program. Kay did say it was possible that Saddam was using a tactic used by the Russians. He may have set up a system if he did decide to have a WMD program. All the needed components would be available and would then just have to formed into a program.
Kay Was asked to lunch at the White House. The President asked Kay how they had gotten it so wrong about the WMDs?
Kay said, that in part it was because the intelligence was so old and the Intelligence agency were too depended on intercepts and remote surveillance. With no human sources in Iraq, to verify that the assumptions were correct.And that too was a problem, the agency were noticing certain actions but assumed they were WMD related.Such as with the aluminum tubes, they were different specs from the normal specs for artillery shells or Scuds both of which he was allowed to have. The tubes were acquired through covert means and other means such as through the black market. Intelligence noted the facts but did nothing to find out why the change in specs and because it was done through the Black market and covert means they assumed that they were acquired for a WMD program. Where if they had taken the time to investigate they would have found that the reason for the change. Was that because the charges used in the shell were weak and were produced by a friend of U-Day Hussein. There was fear of angering Saddam’s son, so they were making the shell casings liter.As to the use of the black market and covert means, if the intelligence agencies had understood the social dynamics of the way the Iraq Government was operating. They would have realized that most of everything was being acquired through such means. Corruption was rampant and kick backs were the rule of operation.Many of Saddam’s sons friends were running the Black market and at every stage of the procedure they were skimming from the top.
As to why Saddam did not just come clean to prevent the invasion? First, Saddam truly did not believe the United States would invade! Second was he feared the Kurds and the Shiites more then an the U.S.He ruled through fear and if the Kurds and Shiites had known he no longer had WMDs he thought he could no longer control them. He had dismantled his weapons and programs long before thinking that would be too easily found. But continued acting and letting other countries assume he still might have them to keep both internal and external forces from attacking him.But in Bush’s defense, he did truly believe that Saddam still had continued his programs and still had WMDs. But there was no intelligence to counter his assumptions and only the appearance and illusions that Saddam did have both. In part as a intentional deception on Saddam’s part.
You mean Bush LIED? That is news!
Hank–
Any comment on your claim that Halliburton is losing money based on its stock price?
In light of the fact that it has almost doubled the return of the S&P index over since March of 2005?