FinnMacCool
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2005
- Messages
- 2,272
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- Location
- South Shore of Long Island.
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- Political Leaning
- Very Liberal
Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. I'm only stating my opinion about this meeting, but my reasoning has to do with these off-topic details.FinnMacCool said:BTW do you think this is really gonna be the main topic of discussion? I don't remember the article mentioned that specifically.
British Intel. also says that Iraq and Aq. never had any relationship. Are they wrong or right?Binary_Digit said:History may prove British intelligence wrong, but it seems reasonable to say that Bush did not lie. If more information comes out of this meeting, it could easily change everything. But unless that happens, I don't think this meeting will lead to anything significant.
I realize I'm not an authority to say which intelligence agency is right or wrong about anything. If there is a consensus among several intel agencies, I assume that consensus is probably right. If several intel agencies disagree with each other, I assume the truth is not known. But to the best of my knowledge, British intel is correct on this, there was hardly any "relationship" between Iraq and al'Qaeda. Of all the reasons to invade Iraq, don't ya think Bush and his team would be the first ones to point at any legitimate ties between Iraq and al'Qaeda? Even the 9/11 Commission Report says any known ties between Iraq and al'Qaeda were insignificant.scottyz said:British Intel. also says that Iraq and Aq. never had any relationship. Are they wrong or right?
Take a look at the actual article he wrote. Perhaps it doesn't prove that Bush "lied" but it was certainly misleading.
scottyz said:It's good to see the Dems are growing some balls. Depending on where fitzgeralds investigation goes now it might lead to something. I know that while the current crop of repubs. control congress they wont dare start a real investigation. Party over country I suppose.
Bush repeatedly mentions Iraq, 9/11 and terrorism in the same breath in almost all of this speeches on the subjects. He obviously wants the American people to think there is a connection. When he is pressed on the subject he admits the connection isn't there though. He has certainly never scolded anyone for saying there is a connection. I remember that Cheney once stated he wasn't surprised that the American people thought there was a connection between the 3...FinnMacCool said:I'd have to agree with Binary on this. Bush even admitted that he could see no ties to Al Qaeda. It was just that jerk Cheney who kept repeating it so that people who were easily influenced would support the war.
Hell, my sister still thinks were there because of 9/11. and shes 7 years older then I am.
The fact that someone had to forge papers to convince people that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger makes me thing there probably was no attempt.Binary_Digit said:Ah yes, was it misleading? I don't know. One thing to consider is, it's very unlikely that Iraq could ever actually get uranium from Niger. So with that in mind, the claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa seems insignificant. What's the big deal, he didn't actually get any uranium, nor could he ever? It's really no different than if Hussein tried to get uranium from the U.S. He certainly wouldn't get any from us, so what's the big deal that he even tried?
But for me, the fact Hussein attempted to get uranium, no matter from whom, says a lot about his character and ambitions. I think this fact is significant, and I guess Bush thought so too. But I don't think his words are misleading, unless we read more into them than what's actually there.
That's fair enough. If trying to buy uranium is not a good excuse to go to war, then I can see how the President's speech would be considered misleading.FinnMacCool said:I'm not defending Hussein but when it comes to using that as an excuse for war, especially when this particular war is going to end up supporting those who just so happened to have been his political opposite, isn't cool with me.
So Bush should be hounded for saying these things. But he shouldn't be hounded for his speech in 2003.scottyz said:Bush repeatedly mentions Iraq, 9/11 and terrorism in the same breath in almost all of this speeches on the subjects. He obviously wants the American people to think there is a connection. When he is pressed on the subject he admits the connection isn't there though. He has certainly never scolded anyone for saying there is a connection. I remember that Cheney once stated he wasn't surprised that the American people thought there was a connection between the 3...
Those papers were only part of the reason that was believed. Wilson and a lot of other Bush critics think it was the only factor, but it wasn't. To date, British intelligence, U.S. intelligence, and Italian intelligence hold to the notion that Hussein did in fact attempt to buy uranium. They may be lying, but I'm inclined to believe them.scottyz said:The fact that someone had to forge papers to convince people that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger makes me thing there probably was no attempt.
scottyz said:Bush repeatedly mentions Iraq, 9/11 and terrorism in the same breath in almost all of this speeches on the subjects. He obviously wants the American people to think there is a connection. When he is pressed on the subject he admits the connection isn't there though. He has certainly never scolded anyone for saying there is a connection. I remember that Cheney once stated he wasn't surprised that the American people thought there was a connection between the 3...
Binary_Digit said:Those papers were only part of the reason that was believed. Wilson and a lot of other Bush critics think it was the only factor, but it wasn't. To date, British intelligence, U.S. intelligence, and Italian intelligence hold to the notion that Hussein did in fact attempt to buy uranium. They may be lying, but I'm inclined to believe them.
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6207503&cKey=1130878217000WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Tuesday disputed accusations that Italian intelligence in a 2002 meeting passed off fake documents, showing Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, that formed part of U.S. President George W. Bush's case for war against Saddam Hussein.
U.S. officials who attended a September 9, 2002, meeting with Italy's spy chief do not recall the issue coming up, said a spokesman for the White House National Security Council. The meeting is central to the accusations.
"No one who was present at the meeting remembers yellow cake (uranium) being discussed nor any documents being passed," spokesman Frederick Jones said.
Bush, in making a case for war in his 2003 State of the Union address, said there was evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa to further apparent nuclear-weapons ambitions.
Bush cited British intelligence as the source of the information. But U.S. officials have said in the past that the information was partly traced back to Italian sources.
The White House acknowledged after the war that the intelligence was faulty.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” He commented, “Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”
Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said.
One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.”
The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office.
It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake. The agency had been given about a half-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq, many of them written on letterheads of the Niger government. The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that “they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.”
The large quantity of uranium involved should have been another warning sign. Niger’s “yellow cake” comes from two uranium mines controlled by a French company, with its entire output presold to nuclear power companies in France, Japan, and Spain. “Five hundred tons can’t be siphoned off without anyone noticing,” another I.A.E.A. official told me.
This official told me that the I.A.E.A. has not been able to determine who actually prepared the documents. “It could be someone who intercepted faxes in Israel, or someone at the headquarters of the Niger Foreign Ministry, in Niamey. We just don’t know,” the official said. “Somebody got old letterheads and signatures, and cut and pasted.” Some I.A.E.A. investigators suspected that the inspiration for the documents was a trip that the Iraqi Ambassador to Italy took to several African countries, including Niger, in February, 1999. They also speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy, after the Ambassador’s return to Rome.
Baute, according to the I.A.E.A. official, “confronted the United States with the forgery: ‘What do you have to say?’ They had nothing to say.”
FinnMacCool said:Oh come on. . .he didn't really say that. Did he? Could I see a source?
LOL Even I was surprised by this one. It appears he did say it while talking about S.S. reform.FinnMacCool said:Oh come on. . .he didn't really say that. Did he? Could I see a source?
Because libby obstructed justice and commited perjury. Do you not understand what it is Fitzgerald said at his press conference? What is hard to understand about this?Navy Pride said:You know the Special Prosecutor has said that the indicting of Libby has nothing to do with the Iraq war.......
What part of that statement do the dems not understand?
scottyz said:LOL Even I was surprised by this one. It appears he did say it while talking about S.S. reform.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/05/20050524-3.html
http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/bushism_keep_repeating_catapult_propaganda.htm
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