posted on July 1, 2003 05:46:22 PM new
CLICK HERE TO SEE WHO IN OUR GOVERMENT ARE PROFITTING FROM THE WAR IN IRAQ
http://www.warprofiteers.com/index.html
[ edited by bigcitycollectables on Jul 1, 2003 05:46 PM ]
In the paragraphs that follow I first will describe the technique of deceit. Then I will illustrate it with one or more quotations or propaganda themes, placing within brackets that portion of the quote that illustrates the technique. Then I will explain how the president applied the technique. Unless otherwise noted, the president’s words are from the State of the Union address. continued...
posted on July 2, 2003 02:09:45 PM new
Microbes posted these links which illustrate a failure to support our troops. No tax cuts should benefit the wealthy at the expense of veterans.
Democrats on the Senate and House Select Intelligence Committees say their panels do not have enough resources to investigate allegations that the Bush administration manipulated evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify an invasion.
These lawmakers say the committees’ regular staff is too small and saddled with too many additional responsibilities to evaluate accurately whether the administration properly reported evidence of these weapons — or the lack thereof — to Congress.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -— An Army truck hit an explosive west of Baghdad on Thursday, injuring six U.S. soldiers, and attackers ambushed patrols in the capital, wounding three other Americans. The violence also left two Iraqis dead and several wounded, including a 6-year-old.
In Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad, an explosion went off during a demonstration by Iraqis angry over the U.S. military’s detention of the town’s top Shiite cleric. One person was killed and several wounded.
The violence comes a day after President Bush vowed that anti-American attacks would not keep the United States from fulfilling its mission in Iraq. American troops have been targeted daily in the past weeks by ambushes and hit-and-run attacks, blamed on Saddam Hussein loyalists and others.
posted on July 7, 2003 07:17:48 AM new
MORE LIES FROM BUSH AND HIS MINNIONS
US "twisted" intelligence on Iraq: investigator for CIA Sunday, 06-Jul-2003 4:40PM Story from AFP
Copyright 2003 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
WASHINGTON, July 6 (AFP) - A former US ambassador who investigated reports that Niger sold uranium to Iraq said Sunday that the US government exaggerated the threat to justify the war in Iraq.
"Based on my experience with the (Bush) administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," Joseph Wilson wrote in a New York Times opinion piece on Sunday.
US government officials repeatedly claimed that Iraq possessed banned chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as they sought UN approval to invade Iraq on the grounds that the Gulf nation posed an immediate threat to the United States.
US President George W. Bush said during his State of the Union address that Iraq had purchased processed uranium in Africa. Britain repeated the claim. Wilson doubted both.
"My judgment on this is that if they were referring to Niger when they were referring to uranium sales from Africa to Iraq, that information was erroneous and that they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British white paper and the president's State of the Union address," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The Central Intelligence Agency sent Wilson to Niger to check the charge on behalf of Vice President Dick Cheney. He was a diplomat 1976-1998 with a broad knowledge of Africa.
The CIA asked Wilson to answer questions from Cheney about an intelligence report citing a memorandum of agreement between the two countries documenting the possible sale.
Although Wilson had not seen the document himself, he said news reports showed that it was an obvious forgery, having the signatures of government officials who were not in office on the date that appears on the document.
Wilson said he spent eight days talking to dozens of people in Niger, and wrote in the Times that it was "highly doubtful" that any such transaction took place.
Niger's two uranium mines are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the Nigerian government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, "it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency," he wrote.
"In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired," he added.
Wilson was surprised when, in December, the State Department published a fact sheet mentioning the Niger sale, and in January, Bush repeated the charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa.
"If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses," Wilson wrote.
Several questions remain, Wilson told NBC.
"Had we decided upon going to war and were we using the grave-and-gathering-danger argument -- the imminent threat to our national security posed by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs -- as justification for a war that we had already decided to go to?"
"That is a trivialization of the weapons of mass destruction problem," he said.
For Wilson, there is "no greater threat" that the United States faces "than the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of nonstate actors or international terrorists."
However if the Bush administration used the issue of WMDs as cover to go to war for other reasons, "then I think we've done a grave disservice to the weapons of mass destruction threat," he said.
posted on July 7, 2003 01:34:55 PM new
Let's see over a decade Saddam is killing, Raping And Plundering. Then Lot's of words BS from every side. those selling a Book or some Kooky Idea Under the Banner the public has the rite to know. Now the Villain is gone or not Killing as many Raping as much or Plundering. Of those who don't like Bush blame him, after all in our country we can do that and not be killed, raped or plundered.
Thank You: Frank & Mary Spencer
Check our web sites at http://www.ebaystores.com/favoritthings
posted on July 7, 2003 02:09:17 PM new
in response to ' furface4 " who said " Now the Villain is gone or not Killing as many Raping as much or Plundering. Of those who don't like Bush blame him, after all in our country we can do that and not be killed, raped or plundered. "
that's right the gangster Saddam is not killing it's the gangsters from the U.S.and U.K. that are doing the killing now,and in a country of the U.S, you have no more rights, because of the Patriot Act so if they want, they can kick your door down in the middle of the night, drag you and your family away, and you will never be heard of again, that is the reality now in the U.S......and if you think what i just said is wrong check you Patriot act, or talk to your lawyer, and see what they say,
it's people like you that are asleep,and narrow and sheepish that do not THINK OR READ between the lines, but follow blindly, brainwashed by government owned media, but hey, time will be proving you wrong, watch
The Bush administration acknowledged for the first time yesterday that President Bush should not have alleged in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.
The statement was prompted by publication of a British parliamentary commission report, which raised serious questions about the reliability of British intelligence that was cited by Bush as part of his effort to convince Congress and the American people that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program were a threat to U.S. security.
posted on July 8, 2003 08:44:51 AM new
Hopefully, this is the first flake of a very large snowball.
To the wall with these cowardly, lying usurpers and all who give them succor. Return the government of the United States to the people, to whom it belongs, and return our sons and daughters to these shores, where they yearn to be.
posted on July 8, 2003 06:37:25 PM new
here is more proof of the LIES that this US administration gave the world...IMPEACH THEM NOW
Bush 'warned over uranium claim'
The CIA warned the US Government that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not true months before President Bush used them to make his case for war, the BBC has learned.
Doubts about a claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African state of Niger were aired 10 months before Mr Bush included the allegation in his key State of the Union address this year, the CIA has told the BBC.
On Tuesday, the White House for the first time officially acknowledged that the Niger claim was wrong and should not have been used in the president's State of the Union speech in January.
But the CIA has said that a former US diplomat had already established the claim was false in March 2002 - and that the information had been passed on to government departments, including the White House, well before Mr Bush mentioned it in the speech.
Ambassador's fact-finding
Both President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair mentioned the claim, based on British intelligence, that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger as part of its attempt to build a nuclear weapons programme.
Mr Blair is under fire from British MPs about the credibility of a dossier of evidence, which set out his case for war.
And in the US, increasing doubts are being raised about the American use of intelligence.
In his keynote speech to Congress in January, the President said: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
But the documents alleging a transaction were found to have been forged.
White House spokesman Ari Feischer said on Tuesday: "The president's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake [uranium] from Niger".
"So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the president's broader statement."
But a former diplomat, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, went on the record at the weekend to say that he had travelled to Africa to investigate the uranium claims and found no evidence to support them.
Now the CIA has told the BBC that Mr Wilson's findings had been passed onto the White House as early as March 2002.
That means that the administration would have known before the State of the Union address that the information was likely false - not just subsequently.
In response, a US government official told the BBC that the White House received hundreds of intelligence reports every day.
The official said there was no evidence that this specific cable about uranium had been passed on to the president.
But in Congress, Democrats are demanding a full investigation into the intelligence that underpinned the case for war.
They have demanded to know if President Bush used evidence that he knew to be weak or wrong.
British undeterred
The British Government has stood by its assertion, saying the forged documents were not the only evidence used to reach its conclusion that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Africa.
The Foreign Office said as recently as 29 June that British information was not based on the forgeries but on other sources.
And UK Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the assessment, telling a committee of MPs that it was not a "fantasy" and that the intelligence services themselves stood by the allegation.
Conservatives' lack of interest in the WMD question takes an even more ominous turn when combined with general support for presidential warmaking. Republicans - think President Eisenhower, for instance - once took seriously the requirement that Congress declare war. These days, however, Republican presidents and legislators, backed by conservative intellectuals, routinely argue that the chief executive can unilaterally take America into war.
Thus, in their view, once someone is elected president, he or she faces no legal or political constraint. The president doesn't need congressional authority; Washington doesn't need UN authority. Allied support is irrelevant. The president needn't offer the public a justification for going to war that holds up after the conflict ends. The president may not even be questioned about the legitimacy of his professed justification. Accept his word and let him do whatever he wants, irrespective of circumstances.
This is not the government created by the Founders. This is not the government that any believer in liberty should favor.
It is foolish to turn the Iraq war, a prudential political question, into a philosophical test for conservatism. It is even worse to demand unthinking support for Bush. He should be pressed on the issue of WMD - by conservatives. Fidelity to the Constitution and republican government demands no less.
Doubts about a claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the African state of
Niger were aired 10 months before Mr Bush included the allegation in his key State
of the Union address this year, a CIA official has told the BBC.
The CIA warned the US Government that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not true months before President Bush used them to make his case for war, the BBC has learned.
On Tuesday, the White House for the first time officially acknowledged that the
Niger claim was wrong and suggested it should not have been used in the president's
State of the Union speech in January.
But the CIA official has said that a former US diplomat had already established the claim was false in March 2002 - and that the information had been passed on to government departments, including the White House, well before Mr Bush mentioned it in the speech.
Both President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair mentioned the claim,
based on British intelligence, that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger
as part of its attempt to build a nuclear weapons programme.
Mr Blair is under fire from British MPs about the credibility of a dossier of evidence,
which set out his case for war.
All Spin All The Time
New York-based Russ Baker is an award-winning journalist who covers politics and media.
Viva Nihilism! It must be great working in the Bush White House. Zero accountability. It's All Spin, All the Time. Nothing matters but politics, hence no unfounded claim requires correction or apology. Unless, of course, they are pushed to the end of the plank, as they were recently with the tale about Niger and nuclear materials.
Take those elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction. Despite the failure of the concentrated might of the U.S. military-intelligence complex to find anything that might qualify in the remotest possible way, the administration labels critics "revisionist historians" and imperturbedly moves on. The initial assertions and touted "discoveries" usually get more attention than does the sound of a balloon deflating. That's why polls find a sizable chunk of the American public still under the impression that WMD have been found.
Whatever Saddam's interest in WMD, the administration didn't know what he had and didn't have solid evidence to make the claims it did -- much less to launch a war over them. For those amateur "revisionist historians" out there, here is a partial, unscientific reconstruction of the claims that fizzled.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases... [which] could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." - President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002.
THE FACTS:
The alleged Al Qaeda training camp, which Colin Powell described to the United Nations in February, is later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied warplanes. By late June, Michael Chandler, the head of the U.N. team monitoring global efforts to counter Al Qaeda tells Agence France Press: "We have never had information presented to us -- even though we've asked questions -- which would indicate that there is a direct link."
THE SPIN:
State Dept. spokesman Richard Boucher responds: "Secretary Powell provided clear and convincing evidence of the links between Iraq and Al Qaeda."
***
THE CLAIM:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush declares in the State of the Union address.
THE FACTS:
In March, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tells the U.N. Security Council that the documents substantiating the claim of alleged Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Niger were fakes (and bad ones at that) and that "these specific allegations are unfounded." The unnamed ex-ambassador whom the CIA sent to check out the story tells The New Republic: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie."
THE SPIN:
Pass the buck, finally 'fessing up in a White House statement delivered on July 7 that Bush should not have used the uranium allegations in his address.
***
THE CLAIM:
U.S. officials present evidence suggesting that Iraq tried to buy aluminum tubes for use in centrifuges for the uranium enrichment process.
THE FACTS:
IAEA's ElBaradei later reports that extensive investigation "failed to uncover any evidence" that Iraq intended to use the tubes for any project other than the reverse engineering of rockets.
THE SPIN:
Powell releases a contradictory interpretation of the tubes, then the matter disappears.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, the Pentagon "confirms" discovery of a biological and chemical weapons storage site near the town of Hindiyah, complete with suspected sarin and tabun nerve agents.
THE FACTS:
Fourteen barrels of liquids are reassessed to be pesticide.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, a white powder found at a site near Najaf is described as possible chemical agents, and presented as a likely "smoking gun."
THE FACTS:
The powder is an explosive.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Biological laboratories described by our Secretary of State to the whole world that were not supposed to be there, that are a direct violation of the U.N. resolutions, have been discovered," Bush tells reporters, on May 29, referring to trailers the administration says are mobile labs.
THE FACTS:
For weeks, numerous independent experts express serious doubts about the trailers' purposes; a classified State Department intelligence memo cited by The New York Times also cautions about premature conclusions.
THE SPIN:
"The experts have spoken and the judgment of the experts is very clear on this matter," says Fleischer. Colin Powell splits hairs in backing the White House: State experts "weren't saying it was not a mobile lab, they just were not quite up in that curve of confidence that the rest of the intelligence community was at..."
***
THE CLAIM:
"We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Vice President Cheney, March 16, 2003 on Meet the Press.
THE FACTS:
After the fighting, an Iraqi nuclear scientist cuts a deal for refuge with the United States. Buried in his garden are documents and parts of a gas centrifuge, which could be used to enrich uranium for bombmaking. But the process of enriching uranium would require hundreds or thousands of precisely machined centrifuges, working together perfectly.
THE SPIN:
The administration declares this evidence that Bush and Cheney were correct in saying that Saddam had never given up hope [italics added] of building nuclear weapons. From "possession" to "hope" in one easy spin.
***
THE CLAIM:
In his State of the Union address, Bush claimed Iraq had the capacity to produce 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent. He said Iraq also had 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons, plus several mobile biological weapons laboratories and an active nuclear weapons development program.
THE FACTS:
Despite coalition troops combing the country, and vast reward monies offered, none of this arsenal has been uncovered.
THE SPIN:
The administration "remains confident" that something substantial will be found.
[url=
All Spin All The Time
New York-based Russ Baker is an award-winning journalist who covers politics and media.
Viva Nihilism! It must be great working in the Bush White House. Zero accountability. It's All Spin, All the Time. Nothing matters but politics, hence no unfounded claim requires correction or apology. Unless, of course, they are pushed to the end of the plank, as they were recently with the tale about Niger and nuclear materials.
Take those elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction. Despite the failure of the concentrated might of the U.S. military-intelligence complex to find anything that might qualify in the remotest possible way, the administration labels critics "revisionist historians" and imperturbedly moves on. The initial assertions and touted "discoveries" usually get more attention than does the sound of a balloon deflating. That's why polls find a sizable chunk of the American public still under the impression that WMD have been found.
Whatever Saddam's interest in WMD, the administration didn't know what he had and didn't have solid evidence to make the claims it did -- much less to launch a war over them. For those amateur "revisionist historians" out there, here is a partial, unscientific reconstruction of the claims that fizzled.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases... [which] could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." - President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002.
THE FACTS:
The alleged Al Qaeda training camp, which Colin Powell described to the United Nations in February, is later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied warplanes. By late June, Michael Chandler, the head of the U.N. team monitoring global efforts to counter Al Qaeda tells Agence France Press: "We have never had information presented to us -- even though we've asked questions -- which would indicate that there is a direct link."
THE SPIN:
State Dept. spokesman Richard Boucher responds: "Secretary Powell provided clear and convincing evidence of the links between Iraq and Al Qaeda."
***
THE CLAIM:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush declares in the State of the Union address.
THE FACTS:
In March, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tells the U.N. Security Council that the documents substantiating the claim of alleged Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Niger were fakes (and bad ones at that) and that "these specific allegations are unfounded." The unnamed ex-ambassador whom the CIA sent to check out the story tells The New Republic: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie."
THE SPIN:
Pass the buck, finally 'fessing up in a White House statement delivered on July 7 that Bush should not have used the uranium allegations in his address.
***
THE CLAIM:
U.S. officials present evidence suggesting that Iraq tried to buy aluminum tubes for use in centrifuges for the uranium enrichment process.
THE FACTS:
IAEA's ElBaradei later reports that extensive investigation "failed to uncover any evidence" that Iraq intended to use the tubes for any project other than the reverse engineering of rockets.
THE SPIN:
Powell releases a contradictory interpretation of the tubes, then the matter disappears.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, the Pentagon "confirms" discovery of a biological and chemical weapons storage site near the town of Hindiyah, complete with suspected sarin and tabun nerve agents.
THE FACTS:
Fourteen barrels of liquids are reassessed to be pesticide.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, a white powder found at a site near Najaf is described as possible chemical agents, and presented as a likely "smoking gun."
THE FACTS:
The powder is an explosive.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Biological laboratories described by our Secretary of State to the whole world that were not supposed to be there, that are a direct violation of the U.N. resolutions, have been discovered," Bush tells reporters, on May 29, referring to trailers the administration says are mobile labs.
THE FACTS:
For weeks, numerous independent experts express serious doubts about the trailers' purposes; a classified State Department intelligence memo cited by The New York Times also cautions about premature conclusions.
THE SPIN:
"The experts have spoken and the judgment of the experts is very clear on this matter," says Fleischer. Colin Powell splits hairs in backing the White House: State experts "weren't saying it was not a mobile lab, they just were not quite up in that curve of confidence that the rest of the intelligence community was at..."
***
THE CLAIM:
"We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Vice President Cheney, March 16, 2003 on Meet the Press.
THE FACTS:
After the fighting, an Iraqi nuclear scientist cuts a deal for refuge with the United States. Buried in his garden are documents and parts of a gas centrifuge, which could be used to enrich uranium for bombmaking. But the process of enriching uranium would require hundreds or thousands of precisely machined centrifuges, working together perfectly.
THE SPIN:
The administration declares this evidence that Bush and Cheney were correct in saying that Saddam had never given up hope [italics added] of building nuclear weapons. From "possession" to "hope" in one easy spin.
***
THE CLAIM:
In his State of the Union address, Bush claimed Iraq had the capacity to produce 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent. He said Iraq also had 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons, plus several mobile biological weapons laboratories and an active nuclear weapons development program.
THE FACTS:
Despite coalition troops combing the country, and vast reward monies offered, none of this arsenal has been uncovered.
THE SPIN:
The administration "remains confident" that something substantial will be found.
All Spin All The Time
New York-based Russ Baker is an award-winning journalist who covers politics and media.
Viva Nihilism! It must be great working in the Bush White House. Zero accountability. It's All Spin, All the Time. Nothing matters but politics, hence no unfounded claim requires correction or apology. Unless, of course, they are pushed to the end of the plank, as they were recently with the tale about Niger and nuclear materials.
Take those elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction. Despite the failure of the concentrated might of the U.S. military-intelligence complex to find anything that might qualify in the remotest possible way, the administration labels critics "revisionist historians" and imperturbedly moves on. The initial assertions and touted "discoveries" usually get more attention than does the sound of a balloon deflating. That's why polls find a sizable chunk of the American public still under the impression that WMD have been found.
Whatever Saddam's interest in WMD, the administration didn't know what he had and didn't have solid evidence to make the claims it did -- much less to launch a war over them. For those amateur "revisionist historians" out there, here is a partial, unscientific reconstruction of the claims that fizzled.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases... [which] could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." - President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002.
THE FACTS:
The alleged Al Qaeda training camp, which Colin Powell described to the United Nations in February, is later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied warplanes. By late June, Michael Chandler, the head of the U.N. team monitoring global efforts to counter Al Qaeda tells Agence France Press: "We have never had information presented to us -- even though we've asked questions -- which would indicate that there is a direct link."
THE SPIN:
State Dept. spokesman Richard Boucher responds: "Secretary Powell provided clear and convincing evidence of the links between Iraq and Al Qaeda."
***
THE CLAIM:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," Bush declares in the State of the Union address.
THE FACTS:
In March, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tells the U.N. Security Council that the documents substantiating the claim of alleged Iraqi efforts to buy uranium in Niger were fakes (and bad ones at that) and that "these specific allegations are unfounded." The unnamed ex-ambassador whom the CIA sent to check out the story tells The New Republic: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie."
THE SPIN:
Pass the buck, finally 'fessing up in a White House statement delivered on July 7 that Bush should not have used the uranium allegations in his address.
***
THE CLAIM:
U.S. officials present evidence suggesting that Iraq tried to buy aluminum tubes for use in centrifuges for the uranium enrichment process.
THE FACTS:
IAEA's ElBaradei later reports that extensive investigation "failed to uncover any evidence" that Iraq intended to use the tubes for any project other than the reverse engineering of rockets.
THE SPIN:
Powell releases a contradictory interpretation of the tubes, then the matter disappears.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, the Pentagon "confirms" discovery of a biological and chemical weapons storage site near the town of Hindiyah, complete with suspected sarin and tabun nerve agents.
THE FACTS:
Fourteen barrels of liquids are reassessed to be pesticide.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
In early April, a white powder found at a site near Najaf is described as possible chemical agents, and presented as a likely "smoking gun."
THE FACTS:
The powder is an explosive.
THE SPIN:
Silence.
***
THE CLAIM:
"Biological laboratories described by our Secretary of State to the whole world that were not supposed to be there, that are a direct violation of the U.N. resolutions, have been discovered," Bush tells reporters, on May 29, referring to trailers the administration says are mobile labs.
THE FACTS:
For weeks, numerous independent experts express serious doubts about the trailers' purposes; a classified State Department intelligence memo cited by The New York Times also cautions about premature conclusions.
THE SPIN:
"The experts have spoken and the judgment of the experts is very clear on this matter," says Fleischer. Colin Powell splits hairs in backing the White House: State experts "weren't saying it was not a mobile lab, they just were not quite up in that curve of confidence that the rest of the intelligence community was at..."
***
THE CLAIM:
"We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Vice President Cheney, March 16, 2003 on Meet the Press.
THE FACTS:
After the fighting, an Iraqi nuclear scientist cuts a deal for refuge with the United States. Buried in his garden are documents and parts of a gas centrifuge, which could be used to enrich uranium for bombmaking. But the process of enriching uranium would require hundreds or thousands of precisely machined centrifuges, working together perfectly.
THE SPIN:
The administration declares this evidence that Bush and Cheney were correct in saying that Saddam had never given up hope [italics added] of building nuclear weapons. From "possession" to "hope" in one easy spin.
***
THE CLAIM:
In his State of the Union address, Bush claimed Iraq had the capacity to produce 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent. He said Iraq also had 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons, plus several mobile biological weapons laboratories and an active nuclear weapons development program.
THE FACTS:
Despite coalition troops combing the country, and vast reward monies offered, none of this arsenal has been uncovered.
THE SPIN:
The administration "remains confident" that something substantial will be found.
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posted on July 10, 2003 02:11:00 PM newDEAN SAYS THOSE IN ADMINISTRATION WHO MISLED NATION SHOULD RESIGN
Manchester, NH -- Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean issued the following statement today:
"Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's statement yesterday - that he only found out that the Niger documents were forgeries -- "within recent days" was stunning.
"What is now clear is that there are those in this administration that misled the President, misled the nation, and misled the world in making the case for the war in Iraq.
"They know who they are. And they should resign today.
"There will be investigations, and the truth will come out - the American people must know the truth - and those in this administration
must be held accountable for their failure to give us the truth before we went to war.
"But we do not need to wait for the investigations to rid these people from our government - they can resign on their own today.
"I am now convinced more than ever that it was a mistake to have given this administration a blank check to engage in this war - as too many in Congress did when they supported the Iraqi war resolution."
posted on July 11, 2003 11:41:57 AM newEven McCain says "... have an investigation, find out who was responsible for it, and fire him!".
Republican Sen. John McCain also called for an investigation into the intelligence used for Iraq but he stressed the war was justified.
"We need to have an investigation, find out who was responsible for it and fire them," the Arizona senator, himself a presidential hopeful in the 2000 campaign, told CNN.
The administration has used the terrorist threat -- which is real -- as previous administrations used the threat of communism: to keep the American people on alert and willing to make sacrifices in the name of security. How high that price may be in the post-9/11 world is not clear. But if an administration is seen to have bent the truth to justify one course of action, how confident can Americans -- and the world -- be that it won't do the same to justify other actions?
The question resonates loudly at a time when the United States has locked up hundreds of foreigners on the basis of evidence that is being kept secret, and may be forever.
This topic is 6 pages long: 1new2new3new4new5new6new
and 