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Who’s lying to who

G

gdalton

1st argument
There is no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
In a Boston Globe report writer Scott Lehigh argues “More than a year ago, the 9/11 Commission reported that there was no ''collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda.” So I found the 9/11 commission report to see what it had to say. This is taken directly from www.gpoaccess.gov/911, in the report they describe a terrorist cell in Iraq that was taking a beating from the Kurds, the report says “In 2001, with Bin Laden’s help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.” And it goes on to describe a longer history of connections saying that in 1997 Saddam was staying clear of Bin Laden because Saddam was trying to re-build relationships with some of his Middle Eastern neighbors but by 1998 Saddam had changed his mind and “it was Iraq that reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Laden’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Laden. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings were apparently arranged through Bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis.” The report goes on to say that in 1999 Al Qaeda’s relationship with the Taliban in Afghanistan was beginning to become strained so more meetings were set up and “Iraqi officials offered Bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq” which Bin Laden declined because he felt his position in Afghanistan was more favorable. Then to top it all off after the 9/11 attacks Bush received “A Defense Department paper for the Camp David briefing book on the strategic concept for the war on terrorism specified three priority targets for initial action:al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq.” So even though the 9/11 Commission report clearly shows a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda Mr. Lehigh still cites it as his source for denying the relationship existed.
This is only one example of this, there are quite a few more but I will not bore you with them.

2nd argument
Bush lied about WMD’s in order to push us into war.

There are many who believe the arguments posed by President Bush leading up to the invasion of Iraq were lies, especially his assertion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and in order to keep America safe and continue the war on terror we would have to disarm him by any means necessary. Now in my previous argument I showed that the US government did know about connections between Saddam and terrorist organizations but did we have evidence of WMD’s. If not then Bush did in fact lie to the public, but if the information given to him showed that WMD’s were plausibly in Saddam’s arsenal then Bush only acted on the information he was given.

People convinced that Bush only wanted an excuse to rally the American people behind his insatiable appetite for war constantly tell us the WMD’s were all a lie and Bush knew it, as an article on onlinejournal.com illustrates
“Repeatedly, we were told that Saddam supported the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks and that he was going to supply them with the weapons of mass destruction he had hidden from the UN inspectors. The propaganda was successful; an overwhelming majority of us came to believe his lies”.
But it would seem that it was a lot of people, not just the Bush administration, who were doing all this lying. CNN posted an article on their web site back in 2002 which had this to say, "”Iraq continues to possess several tons of chemical weapons agents, enough to kill thousands and thousands of civilians or soldiers," said Jon Wolfsthal, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
U.N. weapons experts have said Iraq may have stockpiled more than 600 metric tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, VX and saran. Some 25,000 rockets and 15,000 artillery shells with chemical agents are also unaccounted for, the experts said.”

So from what I could gather it seems to me that the evidence the Bush administration was presented by US intelligence, the UN, and other experts showed the possibility that Saddam did in fact have WMD’s. To top it off there have been several reports, often over looked, of small amounts of WMD materials found all around Iraq but I believe the biggest find was reported in a 2004 article written in the New York Times which said that 500 tons of uranium was found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Now if that isn’t massively destructive I guess my definition of WMD’s is misconstrued.

Now I know there are many more arguments against Bush and what a lot of people seem to want to label “his war” but I only hit on these two because they are the most prominent. And by the way incase you haven’t heard the U.S. Congress does indeed have a say in what actions our military will take, and no I am not a Bush fan.
 
gdalton said:
1st argument
There is no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
there were lots of connections. there was a whole deacde of failed negotiations between aQ and Hussein.
There just weren't any meaningful and significant connections.

gdalton said:
2nd argument
Bush lied about WMD’s in order to push us into war.
... but if the information given to him showed that WMD’s were plausibly in Saddam’s arsenal then Bush only acted on the information he was given.
The big difference is that there were possiblities of such and such, yet Team Bush said that these things were certain.
Yet the final ISG report repates much of what the UN inspectors told us.

Also, the likelihood of Iraq initiating an attack was "mis-stated." See this thread for a more detailed discussion of the probability of Hussein initiating an attack with WMD (directly or by proxy) if had had them:
Team Bush and "Best Info Available @ the Time"

gdalton said:
To top it off there have been several reports, often over looked, of small amounts of WMD materials found all around Iraq but I believe the biggest find was reported in a 2004 article written in the New York Times which said that 500 tons of uranium was found in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Now if that isn’t massively destructive I guess my definition of WMD’s is misconstrued.
Your definition is indeed screwed. It was not weapons grade, it was ore. The whole world knew it was there. And, until the invasion it was secured.

gdalton said:
Now I know there are many more arguments against Bush and what a lot of people seem to want to label “his war” but I only hit on these two because they are the most prominent. And by the way incase you haven’t heard the U.S. Congress does indeed have a say in what actions our military will take, and no I am not a Bush fan.
Granted. The War Party had many members back when it was popular.
 
It has been "contended" that Team Bush "acted according to the best information available" at the time.
This contention must be made w/o regard to the organizations created to gather supporting evidence that varied widely in quality to tie a threat of terrorism against the US to, "sweep it all up, things related and not," as Rumsfeld put it. These organizations, (specifically the OSP, Office of Special Plans, and the PCTEG, Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group), are sure to have lent credence in the eyes of some, to the view of Mohammed Atta, and undoubtedly other members of al Qaida, that "Saddam Hussein was an American stooge set up to give Washington an excuse to intervene in the Middle East"[alt link]
So we have the creation of these extra groups that function outside of the normal operations of the US intelligence system to find the raw materials necessary for Team Bush to cruft a sales pitch for the idea of a threat from Iraq to the US to the American electorate.

Despite the litany of reasons cited for going to war with Iraq, according to one senior official, the threat to the US was recognized within Team Bush as the only one that could justify putting "American kids' lives at risk...on the scale we did..." So this idea of an Iraqi threat was absolutely necessary for the war effort to prevail.

Team Bush's threat spiel was dependent on three main elements: Hussein's non-conventional weapons; Hussein's "operational relationship" with terrorists who would attack the US, (al Qaida being the most well branded candidate); and the idea that Hussein was undeterrable and thus a madman. Without any of these three, the case for a threat to the US from Iraq would be weakened significantly. And thuis the case for invading Iraq would likewise be crippled.

The second most important of these three items were the strong, meaningful and significant ties to a terrorist group likely to attack the US, specifically al Qaida. To further this end, iffy and/or previously debunked reports were stripped of contexts, professional analysis and descriptions of their relative accuracy and presented to the electorate as reliable information. Even classified national security intel was leaked to Bush friendly press outlets to further this idea. Team Bush purposefully used information that was not "the best available" to sell this idea.
As merely a single example, Cheney took up the Atta/Iraq connection as a cause celebre (occasionally to darkly comedic effect):
CHENEY: CLEAR LINKS BETWEEN SADDAM, AL-QAEDA; CALLS NY TIMES ARTICLE 'OUTRAGEOUS'
Thu Jun 17 2004 19:00:33 ET

"...responding to a report from the 9-11 Commission saying it had found no evidence of 'collaboration' between Iraq and Al Qaeda" "Vice President **** Cheney... called the New York Times coverage of the story 'outrageous'."
Vice Pres. CHENEY: I disagree with the way their findings have been portrayed.
<snip>
There's clearly been a relationship.
There's a separate question. The separate question is: Was Iraq involved with al-Qaida in the attack on 9/11?
<snip>
What The New York Times did today was outrageous. ... The press wants to run out and say there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said. Jim Thompson is a member of the commission who's since been on the air. I saw him with my own eyes. And there's no conflict. What they were addressing was whether or not they were involved in 9/11. And there they found no evidence to support that proposition. They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida in other areas, in other ways.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: But that is a separate question from what the press has gotten all in a dither about, The New York Times especially, on this other question [of whether or not there was a general relationship between UbL and Hussein]. What they've done is, I think, distorted what the commission actually reported, certainly according to Governor Thompson, who's a member of the commission.
BORGER: But you say you disagree with the commission...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: On this question of whether or not there was a general relationship.
BORGER: Yes.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Yeah.
BORGER: And they say that there was not one forged and you were saying yes, that there was. Do you know things that the commission does not know?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Probably.
BORGER: And do you think the commission needs to know them?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: I don't have any--I don't know what they know. I do know they didn't talk with any original sources on this subject that say that in their report.
BORGER: They did talk with people who had interrogated sources.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Right.
BORGER: So they do have good sources.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Gloria, the notion that there is no relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida just simply is not true.
[Since there actually is a disagreement between "what the president said and what the commission said," and if it is outrageous that the NYT would say that 'there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said,' this means that the VPotUSA is just outraged that the NYT would say it?]​
BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohammad Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No, I never said that.
BORGER: OK.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down.


The Vice President Appears on NBC's Meet the Press
December 9, 2001
RUSSERT: Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?
CHENEY: Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that's been pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.
Cheney continued to cite the supposed meeting without regard to the dearth of reliable evidence that it had occurred and despite the US intel community analysis that the story was most likely hokum. Obviously, this is an instance where Team Bush was insufficiently concerned with what was the best information available.
 
The most essential element that was necessary was the suspension of disbelief in the undeterrability of Hussein, that he was a 'madman'. Despite the analysis of Dr. Rice ("national obliteration") and the historical incidences (James Baker- "resounding silence" in the Iraqi desert) in which Hussein had been shown to be well deterred from attacking the US w/ non-conventional weapons, and despite the best information available at the time from the US intelligence community, ( the probability of Hussein initiating an attack in the foreseeable future is low ), Team Bush repeatedly sold the idea that an attack from Hussein was something that would happen sooner than later. They said that we could not wait lest there be a mushroom cloud over major metropolitan area (despite the fact that the best information available said that Hussein did not have this capacity ). According to Team Bush Hussein was mongongo monkey nuts with hatred for the US and was willing to sacrifice his own life, livelihood and nation to initiate an attack in the immediate future.
None of this was supported by the best information available at the time.

Without even having to address the issues of Hussein's biological and chemical weapons, it can be seen the idea that Hussein represented a threat to the US were not supported by the best information available at the time.
Without a threat to the US, there was not reason enough to risk American lives on the scale that we have. According to one senior official, Hussein's "criminal treatment of the Iraqi people" was not enough to warrant the major invasion of Iraq.

These are just few examples of how the case for the invasion of Iraq depended on malinfo as opposed to the "best information available at the time."


Then there's the whole issue of how could so many people in the world who had only Google to go by come up with more accurate answers than Team Bush?
 
Originally posted by gdalton:
There are many who believe the arguments posed by President Bush leading up to the invasion of Iraq were lies, especially his assertion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and in order to keep America safe and continue the war on terror we would have to disarm him by any means necessary. Now in my previous argument I showed that the US government did know about connections between Saddam and terrorist organizations but did we have evidence of WMD’s. If not then Bush did in fact lie to the public, but if the information given to him showed that WMD’s were plausibly in Saddam’s arsenal then Bush only acted on the information he was given.
Thanks to Downing Street, this is all a moot point. DSM proved he was going to attack all along.
 
I like it when people do research and find good sources for their arguments and I can see you guys have done a good job. As for the Uranium ore, yes indeed it was not considered weapons grade however 1.8 tons of it was refined to bring it closer to weapons grade so I see that as work being done in order achieve WMD's. As for the DSM, when that is proven to be authentic then I will pay closer attention to it. Please keep feeding me info that disputes my position because I do actually enjoy having my way of thinking challenged and I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong especially under overwhelming evidence, I just haven't seen that evidence yet. I will say this however, as I see it we have many enemies in this war and Iraq was indeed one of them. What we have done over there is not nice but we freed millions of people from one crazy whacked out guy, and while I know that many Iraqi's are not happy with our actions there are still many over there who actually appreciate what we have done. But this does nothing to support my argument on this subject so I will leave it be.
 
Originally posted by gdalton:
I like it when people do research and find good sources for their arguments and I can see you guys have done a good job. As for the Uranium ore, yes indeed it was not considered weapons grade however 1.8 tons of it was refined to bring it closer to weapons grade so I see that as work being done in order achieve WMD's. As for the DSM, when that is proven to be authentic then I will pay closer attention to it. Please keep feeding me info that disputes my position because I do actually enjoy having my way of thinking challenged and I am not afraid to admit when I am wrong especially under overwhelming evidence, I just haven't seen that evidence yet. I will say this however, as I see it we have many enemies in this war and Iraq was indeed one of them. What we have done over there is not nice but we freed millions of people from one crazy whacked out guy, and while I know that many Iraqi's are not happy with our actions there are still many over there who actually appreciate what we have done. But this does nothing to support my argument on this subject so I will leave it be.
It's always refreshing to hear from people that have the balls to be open minded and not feel threatened by others opinions. As for DSM, the following makes it pretty cut and dry for me. This is the guy who actually commanded the air wing that flew the sorties. So I think he knows what he is talking about. This is un-refutable evidence that Bush committed an impeachable act by starting the air war nine months before Congress officially declared war.

General Admits to Secret Air War
By Michael Smith The Sunday Times UK Sunday 26 June 2005

The American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

Addressing a briefing on lessons learnt from the Iraq war Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley said that in 2002 and early 2003 allied aircraft flew 21,736 sorties, dropping more than 600 bombs on 391 "carefully selected targets" before the war officially started.

The nine months of allied raids "laid the foundations" for the allied victory, Moseley said. They ensured that allied forces did not have to start the war with a protracted bombardment of Iraqi positions.

If those raids exceeded the need to maintain security in the no-fly zones of southern and northern Iraq, they would leave President George W Bush and Tony Blair vulnerable to allegations that they had acted illegally.

Moseley's remarks have emerged after reports in The Sunday Times that showed an increase in allied bombing in southern Iraq was described in leaked minutes of a meeting of the war cabinet as "spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime".

Moseley told the briefing at Nellis airbase in Nebraska on July 17, 2003, that the raids took place under cover of patrols of the southern no-fly zone; their purpose was ostensibly to protect the ethnic minorities.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/062805C.shtml

The biggest thing that blows my mind is that you don't hear any of this on the allegedly liberal news. All the mainstream news outlets are basically pro-Bush.
 
gdalton said:
As for the Uranium ore, yes indeed it was not considered weapons grade however 1.8 tons of it was refined to bring it closer to weapons grade so I see that as work being done in order achieve WMD's.
At some point in time before Gulf War I.

Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD
As a result of Desert Storm and IAEA inspection efforts, Iraq’s indigenous yellowcake production capability appears to have been eliminated. ISG has uncovered no indicator Iraq had reconstituted production processes to refine uranium or produce yellowcake on a scale needed for a weapons program.

ISG also investigated the Ibn-Sina’ Facility—which in 1991 was part of Iraq’s EMIS uranium enrichment program—but found no indicators that the chemical processes being developed there had produced more than a few kilograms of uranium-bearing wastes as a byproduct of phosphoric acid purification. ISG believes that the Ibn-Sina’—which concentrated much of the chemical engineering staff from the former PC-3 nuclear weapons program—would most likely have been involved in an effort to reestablish a uranium recovery capability, had such an effort been under way.

Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.

Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.
gdalton said:
As for the DSM, when that is proven to be authentic then I will pay closer attention to it.
I've asked this before, but have not ever received an answer: Has anyone officially said that the memo is not authentic? I heard people say that what was said was mischracterized; however, that's markedly different from saying that the memos didn't exist.
 
Simon W. Moon said:
At some point in time before Gulf War I.

Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.

Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.

You can read all of this for yourself @
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/Comp_Report_Key_Findings.pdf

ISG report on Saddam’s Nuclear program

Nevertheless, after 1991, Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program.
Senior Iraqis—several of them from the Regime’s inner circle—told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended.
Baghdad undertook a variety of measures to conceal key elements of its nuclear program from successive UN inspectors, including specific direction by Saddam Husayn to hide and preserve documentation associated with Iraq’s nuclear program.

ISG, for example, uncovered two specific instances in which scientists involved in uranium enrichment kept documents and technology. Although apparently acting on their own, they did so with the belief and anticipation of resuming uranium enrichment efforts in the future.


ISG report concerning Chemical Weapons

Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable:

ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.
The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts, but we have no indications this was
planned. (See Annex A.)
The existence, function, and purpose of the laboratories were never declared to the UN.

ISG report concerning Biological weapons

ISG judges that Iraq’s actions between 1991 and 1996 demonstrate that the state intended to reserve its BW capability and return to a steady, methodical progress toward a mature BW program when and if the opportunity arose.
• ISG assesses that in 1991, Iraq clung to the objective of gaining war-winning weapons with the strategic intention of achieving the ability to project its power over much of the Middle East and beyond. Biological weapons were part of that plan. With an eye to the future and aiming to preserve some measure of its BW capability, Baghdad in the years immediately after Desert Storm sought to save what it could of its BW infrastructure and covertly continue BW research, hide evidence of that and earlier efforts, and dispose of its existing weapons stocks.• From 1992 to 1994, Iraq greatly expanded the capability of its Al Hakam facility. Indigenously produced 5 cubic meter fermentors were installed, electrical and water utilities were expanded, and massive new construction to house its desired 50 cubic meter fermentors were completed.


You see we bothe read the same report but see different things :doh

[/INDENT] I've asked this before, but have not ever received an answer: Has anyone officially said that the memo is not authentic? I heard people say that what was said was mischracterized; however, that's markedly different from saying that the memos didn't exist.[/QUOTE]

Well I believe that the original document that was used for the story was destroyed and the only thing we have left is the re typed version the reporter used for his story. With that in mind I can not be certain it is 100% authentic.
 
ISG said:
ISG report on Saddam’s Nuclear program
...Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program.
So, Saddam had an intent to hold on to intellectual capital.

ISG said:
Senior Iraqis—several of them from the Regime’s inner circle—told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended.
Several Iraqis had assumptions about what Saddam would do at some indefinite point in the future.

ISG said:
Baghdad undertook a variety of measures to conceal key elements of its nuclear program from successive UN inspectors, including specific direction by Saddam Husayn to hide and preserve documentation associated with Iraq’s nuclear program.
Documents were concealed.

ISG said:
ISG, for example, uncovered two specific instances in which scientists involved in uranium enrichment kept documents and technology. Although apparently acting on their own, they did so with the belief and anticipation of resuming uranium enrichment efforts in the future.
Two more guys with only beliefs and assumptions. Apparently rogue actors at that.

So, the "reconstitution" of Iraq's nuclear program that Team Bush warned us about* really consisted of some documents, some intention, some belief, and some assumptions.

Yet despite these things, "the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed."
As dangerous as assumptions, beliefs, etc can be, they did not constitute "evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program."
So basically all that was there was a "defunct nuclear weapon program" whose left-over "intellectual capital" had "progressively decayed" for more than a decade.
ISG said:
ISG report concerning Chemical Weapons

Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a CW effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favorable:
More of them pesky intentions. Saddam seemed to have quie a supply of these. I wonder if we let him take any intentions with him into captivity.

ISG said:
ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.
Am I the only one who reads "primarily for intelligence operations" as "primarily for assassinations"?

ISG said:
The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts, but we have no indications this was
planned
.
So, here, not only do we not have plans we don't even have assumptions and beliefs.
Like the saying goes, "If we had some eggs, we could have ham and eggs if we had ham."

Some more items from this section that bear note
ISG said:
ISG has no evidence that IIS Directorate of Criminology (M16) scientists were producing CW or BW agents in these laboratories. However, sources indicate that M16 was planning to produce several CW agents including sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, and Sarin
Here we have no evidence but we do have indications of plans.

So here we have intentions (again) and some research into assasinations via poison, a possibility that needed only some plans and actions to go with it, and some indications of plans for an unspecified time in the future.

At least this more scary than the "reconstituted" nuke program. (Or is the operative statement now "nuke program related activities"?) At least here there were indications of plans.

ISG said:
ISG report concerning Biological weapons

ISG judges that Iraq’s actions between 1991 and 1996 demonstrate that the state intended to preserve its BW capability and return to a steady, methodical progress toward a mature BW program when and if the opportunity arose.
Some more of them intentions. They had intentions to preserve the ability to work at having a program.

ISG said:
• ISG assesses that in 1991, Iraq clung to the objective of gaining war-winning weapons with the strategic intention of achieving the ability to project its power over much of the Middle East and beyond.
This sounds suspiciously like another way of saying intentions.

ISG said:
• From 1992 to 1994, Iraq greatly expanded the capability of its Al Hakam facility. Indigenously produced 5 cubic meter fermentors were installed, electrical and water utilities were expanded, and massive new construction to house its desired 50 cubic meter fermentors were completed.
Alas, for all this work at al Hakam was for naught...
ISG said:
In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.
So, although he still had some of them intention thingies, he had no interest in them.

So, Iraq had the intention to have the ability to one day work at having BW program. Yet despite this rather ambitious intention there was "no direct evidence ...[of]... plans for a new BW program or ... BW-specific work for military purposes." Here again, there weren't even plans.

At least the CW segment had indications of plans.

gdalton said:
You see we bothe read the same report but see different things
Perhaps we just differ on how well intentions, assumptions and indications of plans justify a full scale invasion with 20k+ dead and hundreds of billions of US taxpayers money.

gdalton said:
Well I believe that the original document that was used for the story was destroyed and the only thing we have left is the re typed version the reporter used for his story. With that in mind I can not be certain it is 100% authentic.
So, you don't know of anyone connected to the memo saying that the memo didn't exist? You're just ignoring it due to a lack of 100% certainty?




*An interesting sidenote, in addition to the multiple instances of the claims of "reconstitution," GWB said he'd read a IAEA report that said six months to Iraqi nukes. The IAEA said, "WTF?" Then, Mr. Fleischer said, "The Prez was 'imprecise.'"
 
Simon W. Moon said:
Perhaps we just differ on how well intentions, assumptions and indications of plans justify a full scale invasion with 20k+ dead and hundreds of billions of US taxpayers money.

I believe this is where our argument lyes, you would argue those points in the way you did where as I would say the evidence showed planning, intent, ability, and means.

Simon W. Moon said:
So, you don't know of anyone connected to the memo saying that the memo didn't exist? You're just ignoring it due to a lack of 100% certainty?

Not ignoring, just not giving it 100% belief. I make it a point not to believe everything I read untill I have done the research myself and find better supporting evidence then a re-typed memo.
 
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