Who Lied?

[cnredd]

Yeah, 10-15 years before the date in question.
The question re WMD is whether or not he had them in 2002-2003 not in 1988.

No....

The question is "Where are the unaccounted for WMDs?"

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally Posted by Diogenes:
Saddam's payments
$10,000 per family
$25,000 for family of a suicide bomber
$35m paid since September 2000
PALF figures

hope that helps

The link you posted does not mention Abu Nidal at all. And giving money to the family of a suicide bomber does not constitute a direct link to the support of terrorism. Prove to me that one of those dollars has actually led to a bombing.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

No....
The question is "Where are the unaccounted for WMDs?"

The best assessment I've seen is from the US's 1000+ member team of experts who had unfetterrred access to Iraq. They think the WMD were previously destroyed. If you know of a better, more informed estmiate, please share.

 

[ProudAmerican]

Yeah, 10-15 years before the date in question.

so what is the shelf life of chemical and biological weapons anyway?

The question re WMD is whether or not he had them in 2002-2003 not in 1988.

and if he had them in 1998.....unless he hired David Copperfield as an advisor.....one must conclude he had them in 2002.

 

[cnredd]

The best assessment I've seen is from the US's 1000+ member team of experts who had unfetterrred access to Iraq. They think the WMD were previously destroyed. If you know of a better, more informed estmiate, please share.

A) I don't have one
B) Anything I say would still be an "estimate"

"more informed" or not is irrelevant...

A "more informed estimate" was that the Soviet Union would wipe the ice clean with the US hockey team in Lake Placid...

 

[MSgt]

"Who Lied?"

President Clinton. Oh.....I thought it was a question of Presidential historical impeachment. My bad.

 

[oldreliable67]

The best assessment I've seen is from the US's 1000+ member team of experts who had unfetterrred access to Iraq. They think the WMD were previously destroyed. If you know of a better, more informed estmiate, please share.

Here is one member of the inspections team who doesn't think the WMD were destroyed. FrontPageMagazine.com has an interview with Bill Tierney today...

"Bill Tierney, a former military intelligence officer and Arabic speaker who worked at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and as a counter-infiltration operator in Baghdad in 2004. He was also an inspector (1996-1998) for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) for overseeing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in Iraq. He worked on the most intrusive inspections during this period and either participated in or planned inspections that led to four of the seventeen resolutions against Iraq."

Tierney said:


"It was probably on my second inspection that I realized the Iraqis had no intention of ever cooperating. They had very successfully turned The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections during the eighties into tea parties, and had expected UNSCOM to turn out the same way. However, there was one fundamental difference between IAEA and UNSCOM that the Iraqis did not account for. There was a disincentive in IAEA inspections to be aggressive and intrusive, since the same standards could then be applied to the members states of the inspectors. IAEA had to consider the continued cooperation of all the member states. UNSCOM, however, was focused on enforcing and verifying one specific Security Council Resolution, 687, and the level of intrusiveness would depend on the cooperation from Iraq."

...

"Another smoking gun was the inspection of the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Special Republican Guards. After verifying source information related to biological weapons formerly stored at the National War College, we learned at another site that the unit responsible for guarding the biological weapons was stationed near the airport. We immediately dashed over there before the Iraqis could react, and forced them to lock us out. One of our vehicles took an elevated position where they could look inside the installation and see the Iraqis loading specialized containers on to trucks that matched the source description for the biological weapons containers. The Iraqis claimed that we had inspected the facilities a year earlier, so we didn’t need to inspect it again.



Another smoking gun was the inspection of Jabal Makhul Presidential Site. In June/July 1997 we inspected the 4th Special Republican Guards Battalion in Bayji, north of Tikrit. This unit had been photographed taking equipment for the Electro-magnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS) method of uranium enrichment away from inspectors. The Iraqis were extremely nervous as this site, and hid any information on personnel who may have been involved with moving the equipment. This was also the site where the Iraqi official on the UNSCOM helicopter tried to grab the control and almost made the aircraft crash."

Tierney has lots of other things to say about how the Iraqi's avoided the inspectors and where the unaccounted for WMDs might have disappeared to.

Link to source.

To get an idea of Bill Tierney's credibility, go here.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

so what is the shelf life of chemical and biological weapons anyway?

It varies. somethings last only weeks others a few years.

and if he had them in 1998.....unless he hired David Copperfield as an advisor.....one must conclude he had them in 2002.

If you'll note, you changed the date from 1988 to 1998. But even so, that's not logical unlesss there was absolutely no way for anything to change in the intervening years. But, as we all know the world is never pristine nor in stasis.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Here is one member of the inspections team who doesn't think the WMD were destroyed. FrontPageMagazine.com has an interview with Bill Tierney today...
Link to source.
To get an idea of Bill Tierney's credibility, go here.

I'll add this data point to my figuring. Thank you.

I notice that Mr. Tierney claimed Iraq had nuclear weapons as well.
And that he had "first hand knowledge" of an Iraqi uranium enrichment factory.

What reasons should someone decide that Mr. Tierney's judgment re Iraq's WMD is more authoritative or even equal to that of the ISG as a whole?

 

[TheBigC]

The link you posted does not mention Abu Nidal at all. And giving money to the family of a suicide bomber does not constitute a direct link to the support of terrorism. Prove to me that one of those dollars has actually led to a bombing.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/08/19/mideast.nidal/

Don't ask for a link unless it will actually change your mind, which I doubt it will. So was there support of terrorists by Hussein, or not? Say it.

 

[TheBigC]

Oh, one more thing. If the people who were against the war were saying "Bush was wrong, 2000 died" they would be correct. Asserting that there was a lie means that Bush knew there was nothing threatening in Iraq, and claimed otherwise. Supporters of the invasion can point to a plethora of evidence that the entire world thought Saddam was a threat.

So advice to Bush-bashers: stick to what you can prove and nobody can argue with you. Say he was wrong, say he was too aggressive, say he had no exit strategy... but to say there was a lie just can't be proved.

Bill_O: regarding your "prove one dollar went to a bombing" line of reasoning, prove one dollar *didn't* go to it. It's an unprovable request. Requiring it as some sort of burden of proof is disingenuous if you're claiming to be an open-minded person; or maybe you're not claiming that.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Oh, one more thing. ... a lie just can't be proved.

It depends on what level of proof one is looking for. Certainly no one can speak as to the mental state of the folks in question. That alone can be the deal breaker when it comes to lying. If someone says something they believe is true, even though they have every reason in the world to know that it's false, then, technically, it's not a lie. However, if you're willing to grant that saying something one has reason to know is false is a lie, then Team Bush did lie.

The US Intel Community was saying from the gitgo and still maintains than Hussein was unlikely to attack the US directly or by proxy in the foreseeable future. Team Bush certainly presented a picture of the threat from Iraq that was at odds w/ that assessment.
Was that a lie?

The US Intel Community was saying from the gitgo and still maintains than Hussein and al-Qa'ida were not in cahoots. Team Bush certainly presented a picture of that was at odds w/ that assessment.
Was that a lie?

 

[cnredd]

The US Intel Community was saying from the gitgo and still maintains than Hussein was unlikely to attack the US directly or by proxy in the foreseeable future. Team Bush certainly presented a picture of the threat from Iraq that was at odds w/ that assessment.
Was that a lie?

But the US Intel Community is not elected, nor have the proper authority to make decisions based upon the intelligence..."highly unlikely", whether credible or not, is only an opinion from an organization that does NOT create policies.

If they came up to GWB and said "There's only a 10% chance, so it's highly unlikely", it is the PRESIDENT'S DECISION to answer the question "Is this country willing to take that chance?"...His answer was "No", and we elected him to make those decisions...

There's an old question I throw on people...

You walk into a room with 10 guns sitting on the table...you cannot inspect them...One is full...the others are empty...

Point to one of those guns...For 1 million dollars...tax free, someone will pick up the gun, point it at your head, and pull the trigger...

Would you do it?...90% chance to live and be a millionaire...10% you won't even know if you've won or not...Whould you do it?...

There are a GREAT many people who say "No"...especially the ones with families...

Why?...Because even though it is highly unlikely something bad will happen, the risk is still far too great to be wrong...

Muliply that decision a gazillion times and you'll understand how the President felt...

 

[oldreliable67]

What reasons should someone decide that Mr. Tierney's judgment re Iraq's WMD is more authoritative or even equal to that of the ISG as a whole?

Good question. It looks as though you scanned several of the articles in which Tierny opined on wmds. I did that also and as I did, I kept getting the impression that he was really just begging somebody, anybody, to go to the places where he thought they would find wmds, particularly evidence of nukes. But by the time that anybody got there, it was too late, everything was gone and the place had been 'wiped clean', so to speak.

Particularly with the IAEA and the various UN inspection teams, I looked then and it looks now as if the Iraqis gamed them all. Successfuly. What was found was essentially what they were willing to let be found. By the time the ISG got there, there were no 'fingerprints' left.

Those are just my impressions. No proof, nothing specific to point to.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

But the US Intel Community is not elected, nor have the proper authority to make decisions based upon the intelligence..."highly unlikely", whether credible or not, is only an opinion from an organization that does NOT create policies.

If they came up to GWB and said "There's only a 10% chance, so it's highly unlikely", it is the PRESIDENT'S DECISION to answer the question "Is this country willing to take that chance?"...His answer was "No", and we elected him to make those decisions...

I'm all for policy-makers making decisions based on their best judgment. I've no problem with that. Now that we have that element of non-disagreement out of the way ...

The issue is that Team Bush didn't present the case to the electorate as it was. They presented it as something other than it was. They presented certainty where there was none. They presented urgency where there was none.

You can make analogies until the cows turn blue in the face if you like. But the issue is that the case made for war was not accurate nor was it honest. That eliminates the electorate's ability to either consent or deny consent. W/o the electorate's consent, government has no just powers.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Good question. It looks as though you scanned several of the articles in which Tierny opined on wmds. I did that also and as I did, I kept getting the impression that he was really just begging somebody, anybody, to go to the places where he thought they would find wmds, particularly evidence of nukes. But by the time that anybody got there, it was too late, everything was gone and the place had been 'wiped clean', so to speak.

Makes one wonder why securing the suspected WMD sites was not a higher priority, don't it? Why is that after the fall of Baghdad that some were looted literally down to their concrete foundations?

Why didn't we secure these sites?

 

[MSgt]

Makes one wonder why securing the suspected WMD sites was not a higher priority, don't it? Why is that after the fall of Baghdad that some were looted literally down to their concrete foundations?

Why didn't we secure these sites?

More important things to do. The sites were secured to a point and for as long as it mattered. After that point, manpower was needed else where. The entire country was being looted. After each village, town, and city we passed, the looters went to work. Also, the war didn't end at Baghdad. We went on to Tikrit. We had soldiers to rescue in Saddam's home town where Iraqi forces were making a stand.

In Baghdad, especially, we were guarding everything from the Ministry of Oil building to the Department of Motorized Vehicles Licensing building. We were guarding as much of the inner workings of the country as possible from the looters. Many of the looters weren't out to practice what our people was doing in New Orleans. They were merely wanting to destroy anything that had to do with Saddam. Even their Olympic building fell victim, because he used to punish his athletes there for losing anything years and years ago. His people never forgot.

The key word, despite the continual use of 'WMD', is "change." "Change" in the Middle East is what is going to win the "War on Terror." Not arresting a few terrorist and not just seeking out WMD in Iraq.

 

[TheBigC]

It depends on what level of proof one is looking for. Certainly no one can speak as to the mental state of the folks in question. That alone can be the deal breaker when it comes to lying. If someone says something they believe is true, even though they have every reason in the world to know that it's false, then, technically, it's not a lie. However, if you're willing to grant that saying something one has reason to know is false is a lie, then Team Bush did lie.

Has reason to *know* is false, or reason to *suspect* is false? Big difference. The weatherman has to make a prediction every day, and there's always a chance, even with Doppler radar and predictive modeling, that he will be wrong. Did he lie then?

The US Intel Community was saying from the gitgo and still maintains than Hussein was unlikely to attack the US directly or by proxy in the foreseeable future. Team Bush certainly presented a picture of the threat from Iraq that was at odds w/ that assessment.

They believed in the 50% chance of rain. Turns out it was sunny. That just means they were wrong, not that they lied.

The US Intel Community was saying from the gitgo and still maintains than Hussein and al-Qa'ida were not in cahoots. Team Bush certainly presented a picture of that was at odds w/ that assessment.
Was that a lie?

That line of thinking is irrelevant. Would you feel better if the next Big Terrorist Attack was committed by some guys working for an organization called "Ur-Haqua" that was based in Iraq? No. People would still be dead, and then would it really matter if there were a Hussein-al Qaeda link?

 

[Billo_Really]

Originally Posted by TheBigC
Don't ask for a link unless it will actually change your mind, which I doubt it will. So was there support of terrorists by Hussein, or not? Say it.

Your link said he "...supported terrorists..." but it didn't elaborate on how, when or what method of support did he provide. It also said he "...died in Iraq." I can't really consider that proof. Can you provide something with a little more substance?

 

[TheBigC]

Your link said he "...supported terrorists..." but it didn't elaborate on how, when or what method of support did he provide. It also said he "...died in Iraq." I can't really consider that proof. Can you provide something with a little more substance?

Two questions, before I waste a lot of time getting primary source material, I need to know two things:

1) Is this going to make any difference in your position? I've been asked to provide "evidence" to people before, done it, then a week later I see them posting the same tired junk they did before I gave them the proof they asked for.

2) Are you asking for evidence of Saddam supporting terrorists, or Abu Nidal supporting terrorists? If it's the former, I'm not sure how giving the Black September leader asylum in your country isn't support... remember the Munich Olympics?

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Has reason to *know* is false, or reason to *suspect* is false? Big difference. The weatherman has to make a prediction every day, and there's always a chance, even with Doppler radar and predictive modeling, that he will be wrong. Did he lie then?

Argument by analogy is necessarily flawed. However ...
If the Doppler radar etc said that going to be sunny and the weatherman said it was going to rain and it turns out that it was indeed sunny, is that a lie?

They believed in the 50% chance of rain. Turns out it was sunny. That just means they were wrong, not that they lied.

Yet the 50% chance of rain, as you put it, was not what their "Doppler radar and predictive modeling" told them was the case. Furthermore, they did not indicate that there was room for uncertainty. They said there was 100% chance of rain when their equipment said otherwise. So not only were they wrong, their statements actively disagreed w/ what their "predictive modeling" told them would be the case.

That line of thinking is irrelevant. Would you feel better if the next Big Terrorist Attack was committed by some guys working for an organization called "Ur-Haqua" that was based in Iraq? No. People would still be dead, and then would it really matter if there were a Hussein-al Qaeda link?

What's under discussion is not whether or not there was some hypothetical terrorist group in Iraq and whether or not the folks'd be dead. What's at issue is that the Admin said things that were not supported by the best info available.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

More important things to do. ... not just seeking out WMD in Iraq.

You're saying that preventing WMD from falling into the hands of terrorists was a secondary or tertiary mission in OIF?
Or are you saying that there were not enough resources devoted to OIF to prevent the WMD from falling into the hands of terrorists?
Or both?

 

[MSgt]

You're saying that preventing WMD from falling into the hands of terrorists was a secondary or tertiary mission in OIF?
Or are you saying that there were not enough resources devoted to OIF to prevent the WMD from falling into the hands of terrorists?
Or both?

Seems to me, after I read what I said, that I was saying that there was more things to do in Iraq than just deal with guarding WMD sites and that, besides Iraq, there is much more to do within the Middle East to safe guard our future generations from terrorism.

True obtuseness will keep you from seeing the decay underneath terrorism. "WMD" is not the present threat. It is the future threat. Shall we wait until the threat is realized or do something now?

 

[TheBigC]

Argument by analogy is necessarily flawed. However ...

Then let's drop it. Sorry I brought it up.

What's under discussion is not whether or not there was some hypothetical terrorist group in Iraq and whether or not the folks'd be dead. What's at issue is that the Admin said things that were not supported by the best info available.

That assertion "best info available" is subjective. That information that you're referring to was one of many, many sources of information that apparently were saying conflicting things. That lack of informational clarity does not allow the Administration to abdicate its responsibility of making a decision. The Administration did not *know* there were no WMD, at best they had some reports saying that there weren't, and many more saying that there were, and years of intelligence from within and outside the country also confirming it. We now have the luxury of hindsight to say that the naysayers were right, but only because we cracked open the country and saw there was nothing there. We would still be being held at warhead-point doing nonsense like Oil-for-Food or being blackmailed like North Korea is doing to us now.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Seems to me, after I read what I said, that I was saying that there was more things to do in Iraq than just deal with guarding WMD sites and that, besides Iraq, there is much more to do within the Middle East to safe guard our future generations from terrorism.

And we didn't have the resources allocated to do them all at once. So we allocated our resources based on a set of priorities. (I assume we didn't just alocate them randomly.) And the set of priorities dictated that we not secure the sites in favor of pursuing other goals, like the ones you mentioned.

True obtuseness will keep you from seeing the decay underneath terrorism.

I'm unclear as to why think this is missed. Especially after we've had a conversation where it was explicitly stated otherwise. I'm not asking for an explanation as to why you persist in this error, just pointing out that your comment seems a non sequitur.

I'm also unclear as to why you think "the decay underneath terrorism" is somehow related to whether or not the invasion was sold via untruths. Again, I'm not asking for an explanation, just pointing out a non sequitur.

Shall we wait until the threat is realized or do something now?

And, again, it's not about whether or not we act, but about what actions we take.