posted on August 19, 2003 07:51:26 AM new
At least the British public have the guts to find out the truth.....IMPEACH THIS PRESIDENT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE !!!
There is no more evil a war than a war for profit, and no blacker lie than a lie to start a war for profit.
No 10 knew: Iraq no threat
Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicholas Watt
Tuesday August 19, 2003
The Guardian
One of the prime minister's closest advisers issued a private warning that it would be wrong for Tony Blair to claim Iraq's banned weapons programme showed Saddam Hussein presented an "imminent threat" to the west or even his Arab neighbours.
In a message that goes to the heart of the government's case for war, the Downing Street chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, raised serious doubts about the nature of September's Downing Street dossier on Iraq's banned weapons.
"We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat," Mr Powell wrote on September 17, a week before the document was finally published.
His remarks urging caution contrasted with the chilling language used by Mr Blair in a passionate speech in the Commons as he launched the dossier a week later.
He described Iraq's prog-ramme for weapons of mass destruction as "active, detailed, and growing ... It is up and running now".
Mr Powell's private concerns came in the form of an email which was copied to Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's director of communications, and Sir David Manning, Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser.
The fact the three closest men to the prime minister knew of this information strongly suggests Mr Blair would have been aware.
Downing Street also faced severe embarrassment yesterday when the Hutton inquiry was told the prime minister's official spokesman in an email had described the government's battles with the BBC as a "game of chicken".
The email revealed how senior Downing Street officials - and on occasion Mr Blair himself - became intimately involved in the events which led to the death of the government scientist David Kelly.
Within minutes of taking the stand, Mr Powell was asked about his email to John Scarlett, chairman of the joint intelligence committee, in which he said he believed the arms dossier "does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam" and added: "In other words, it shows he has the means but it does not demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the west."
The Hutton inquiry heard last week that the final version contained claims that a senior defence intelligence official agreed were "noticeably" hardened up.
They included a claim in the dossier's foreword, signed by Mr Blair, that Iraqi chemical and biological weapons would be "ready" within 45 minutes of an order to deploy them. Mr Blair also described Iraq as posing a "serious and current threat".
Documents disclosed by the inquiry yesterday reveal the close interest Mr Blair and Mr Campbell showed in the dossier as it was being prepared.
On September 5, Mr Campbell's office emailed Mr Powell: "Re dossier, substantial rewrite. Structure as per TB [Tony Blair] discussion." The email refers to the need for "real intelligence material". Mr Powell responds by asking, "will 'TB' have something he can read" on the plane on his way to meet George Bush.
The Hutton inquiry yesterday revealed that top officials in the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street - and Mr Blair himself - made it clear they wanted Dr Kelly to give evidence both in private to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC) and in public to the Commons foreign affairs committee (FAC) despite the intense personal pressure he was under.
The government was worried about what Dr Kelly would tell MPs. In an email to one of the prime minister's private secretaries, Mr Powell wrote: "We tried the prime minister out on Kelly before FAC and ISC next Tuesday. He thought he probably had to do both but need to be properly prepared beforehand."
Three days earlier, on July 7, Mr Blair asked his closest advisers what they "knew of Dr Kelly's views on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, what would he say if he appeared before the ISC or the FAC".
Sir Kevin Tebbit, the top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, warned that Dr Kelly might say some "uncomfortable" things.
The inquiry heard that the Downing Street press office was kept closely in touch with the MoD's strategy which led to Dr Kelly's name being made public. On the day he was named, July 10, one of those officials, Tom Kelly, wrote his devastating email to Mr Powell.
"This is now a game of chicken with the Beeb - the only way they will shift is they see the screw tightening," he wrote.
He was referring to plans to make the scientist appear before the committees in the hope of forcing the BBC to confirm that Dr Kelly was its source.
Sir David, now the British ambassador to the United States, acknowledged that feelings had been running high in Downing Street.
"There were certainly moments of personal anger. I think it was the case that it was seen as a pretty direct attack on the integrity of the prime minister and officials at No 10," he told the inquiry.
posted on August 19, 2003 07:54:54 AM new
The e-mails, the rewritten dossier and how No 10 made its case for war
By Kim Sengupta and Nigel Morris
19 August 2003
The extent to which Downing Street sought to convince a doubting British public of the need to go to war in Iraq was exposed before the Hutton inquiry yesterday.
Hitherto unpublished official papers disclosed at the inquiry showed grave doubts at the highest level of government about its own case for supporting the invasion of Iraq.
Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's chief of staff, admitted a week before the publication of the Iraq weapons dossier that it did "nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam", the inquiry was told yesterday.
The Prime Minister had already authorised a "substantial rewrite" of the document, before the complaint by Mr Powell.
The latest in a series of highly damaging revelations came as the inquiry focused on the role of Downing Street, not only in the circumstances of David Kelly's death but in the wider issues surrounding the countdown to war.
With the credibility of Mr Blair's government increasingly at stake, Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's director of communications and strategy, will take the witness stand today to answer questions on his role.
Mr Campbell has vehemently denied the allegation that he "sexed up" last September's dossier, while the Prime Minister has declared that this was the most serious charge that could be levelled against a government.
Yesterday the inquiry was shown an e-mail from Mr Campbell to Jonathan Powell, dated 5 September, 19 days before the dossier was published, disclosing that the document was being substantially rewritten.
It said: "Re dossier, substantial rewrite with JS and Julian M in charge, which JS will take to US next Friday, and be in shape Monday thereafter. Structure as per TB's discussion. Agreement that there has to be real intelligence material in their presentation." JS apparently referred to John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, while Julian Miller was the chief of the assessment staff at the Cabinet Office.
But despite the "substantial rewrite" 12 days earlier, with the date of publication approaching, Mr Powell reflected the alarm within No 10 that the intelligence services had failed to produce the smoking gun that would swing public opinion behind war.
The e-mail to Mr Scarlett, in charge of compiling the dossier, stated: "The dossier is good and convincing for those who are prepared to be convinced. The document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam ... We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat. In other words it shows he has the means, but it does not demonstrate that he has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the West."
The e-mail also sought further information on the Iraqi regime's alleged links with al-Qa'ida. Efforts had been made to blank out a section that said: "The document says nothing about these, and TB will need ..."
The inquiry had been told that a draft dossier produced on 5 September did not contain the now notorious claim that Iraq would be able to launch a chemical and biological attack within 45 minutes. However, in the final version published on 24 September, Tony Blair declared in the foreword that Saddam Hussein would be "ready" to carry out the 45-minute threat.
Yesterday there was further discomfort for Downing Street with the disclosure of tension and acrimony over its festering feud with the BBC over the reporter Andrew Gilligan's claim that the Government had inserted the "45-minute" threat into the dossier despite scepticism from the intelligence services.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman Tom Kelly had written in an e-mail to Mr Powell: "This is now a game of chicken with the Beeb. The only way they will shift is if they see the screw tightening."
Mr Blair's spokesman, who referred to Dr Kelly, described by international experts as one of Britain's foremost authorities on biological weapons, as a "Walter Mitty"-type fantasist, will give his evidence tomorrow.
The inquiry was told that a letter sent to Gavyn Davies, the chairman of the BBC's board of governors, from the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, was a virtual copy of the wording used in a memorandum by Mr Campbell.
Contradicting Downing Street claims that the Kelly affair was left as an internal matter for the Ministry of Defence, it was disclosed yesterday that Mr Blair himself chaired crisis meetings in No 10 on successive days after it was revealed that the scientist could be the source of Mr Gilligan's "sexing-up" claims on Radio 4's Today programme. Documents produced at the hearing revealed that Downing Street played a central role in drafting a press statement by the MoD announcing that an unnamed official had admitted meeting Mr Gilligan in a hotel in central London.
As a further indication of Mr Blair's difficulties in rebuilding public confidence, a poll by ICM published in today's Guardian revealed that only six per cent of people believe that the Government is more trustworthy than the BBC. Half of those polled also believed the Government had deliberately embellished the dossier to strengthen its case for the war.
5 SEPT E-MAIL
This memo to Jonathan Powell from Alastair Campbell makes clear that the very first draft of the Iraq dossier was not strong enough. The phrase "substantial rewrite" shows that Mr Campbell had agreed that John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, and Julian Miller, head of the JIC assessment staff, should come up with a new version. The e-mail also suggests No 10 wanted "real intelligence". This would explain why the 45-minute claim was seized on so eagerly.
17 SEPT E-MAIL
Mr Powell's description of the dossier as "convincing for those who are prepared to be convinced" is extraordinary, and betrays the level of doubt within the Government. He states that the Government should make clear it has no evidence that Iraq is an "imminent threat".
THE DOSSIER
Published on 24 September, Mr Blair's own phrase, "current and serious threat", led MPs and the public to believe that Saddam should be dealt with urgently. But this contradicts Mr Powell's e-mail advice of only a week earlier. Presenting the 45-minute claim in his foreword as a fact suggests the dossier was hardened up, despite the qualms of some defence intelligence staff officers.
posted on August 19, 2003 07:57:50 AM new
Bumping off Sadam was the right thing to do. He and his sons were a bunch of no good thugs. Why don't you people just get off of it? The American public is behind the President and so am I. Your just all paranoid. Its obvious by your conspiracy posts and never ending polarized attitude. Bush is going to be re elected and North Korea is next on the hit list. Wake up and face the facts.
posted on August 19, 2003 09:07:56 AM new
A huge explosion by a truck bomb just hit U.N. headquarters in Baghdad...many dead and injured with some still trapped inside the severely damaged building.
The force of the blast, which knocked out windows up to a mile away from the scene, destroyed several cars, including one that was on fire.
posted on August 19, 2003 09:16:00 AM new
first of all the people who went to Iraq had a choice in going. They wanted to serve in the arm forces and believed that this war was necessary.
I don't see any lies. Chemical weapons were used against the people of Iraq. Sort of a trial run you might say. He attacked Kuwait and was a brutal dicatator sitting on a ocean of gold to finance whatever he desired. His record proves he had to go.
Your attitude of lie and steal is very cynical and totally unobjective. Sadam stole the wealth and the freedom from his people while he lived in total wealth and excess. So who is a theif? who is a mass murderer? who killed and tortured his own people? who raped school children on a whim? Obviously these are not govermental lies since they come straight from the mouths of the Iraqi people.
Regeime change is not unjust? what about Charles in liberia? Brutal and without mercy. In a world that is becoming smaller by the minute with internet news blasting across our montiors at the speed of light, we learn of the autrocities of the world. Do we has a powerful nation turn our back on these people? Let them fight their own battles? When fighting back is not a possiblity for them? when they are crushed and starved and beaten down?
Should the Jews have liberated themselves from the concentration camps? Should we have interfered with Mussolini, Hitler? etc etc. The only problem with these guys is we didnt act sooner which is my opinion in Iraq. Where were the eyes of the world when these innocent people were being blasted with gas and tortured? who cared?
Do you want to live in some kind of hole? and never rise to arms in any situtation at all? War is never a completely fair endeavor but if the good outweighs the bad the so be it. I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and pretend the rest of the world is not out there.
posted on August 19, 2003 09:43:55 AM new
There are none so blind as those who will not see....
orleans....you are sheeple, you are the worst America could have produced. Be happy in your itty bitty little world, it is crashing about you and won't be long.
posted on August 19, 2003 10:37:38 AM new
Blind? sheeple? more politico speak. So boring, so judgemental so without any intellectual common ground. If thats the best you can do I feel sorry for you.
TXPROUD- some people just can't deal with facts! a lack of empathy for the suffering of their worldly brethren simply because they are not Americans. This sort thinks their personal comfort and safety comes before the common good of mankind.
But mostly they have juvenile parental issues and act out against any kind of authority. It's an ego driven mindset rather than an adult objective viewpoint; that in this world there are no absolutes but also shades of gray as well in life.
War is a proactive measure. We cannot afford to wait until it is banging on our door or worst, blowing up our buildings and destroying our countrymen. This is a new kind of war and these little theifdoms who breed warlords and terrorist are going to have to be chopped down and reconstructed. Power in itself is not evil and the use of power for the good of all is noble.
I read more paranoid long winded never ending manifestos on this board about things that are so ridiculous and overblown they are laughable. But I am relieved to see there are posters on this board who have come out of lurk mode and stand up to this paranoid political mindset. It makes me happy that this roundtalble is no longer a safe haven for leftist extremist patting each other on the back. I will say one thing for the people on the right who post here, they seem to have a bit of a sense of humor. But in my opinion that is proof of signs of intelligent life.
I have no more use for an extreme lefty than I do for an extreme righty. Both sides have merit and both sides have pitfalls. Its up to the people of America to make their choices. I cannot say that I swear an unwavering alligance to either side. I tend to chose the political party that seems to have the most benefit at the moment. Both the democrats and the republicans have shown themselves to lack valour and dignity but survival dictates life in the world as we know it. After 911 I was changed. "To the victor go the spoils."
[ edited by orleansgallery on Aug 19, 2003 10:42 AM ]
posted on August 19, 2003 11:25:09 AM new
That is one thing I can't get, the extreme liberals, get very upset, you can see it in their posts. There doesn't seem to be room for 'discussion' but more for copy and paste and finger pointing 'YOU FACIST NAZI NEOCON!' is all I see in them.
But the one 'email INTERCEPTED' off a public congress.org site was um, well.... PLEASE!!
Art Bell Retired! George Noory is on late night coasttocoastam.com
posted on August 19, 2003 12:06:00 PM new
Of course we spent our money to help the afganis defend themselves against the communist trying to take over there country! and what thanks do we get? 911!
I think we should have been more involved in nation building after the fact with the afganis but hey you liberals believe in hands off, don't touch anything, let people go their way.
The United States is not a world unto itself. We are part of a GLOBAL SOCIETY - Should we be blamed too that we offered visas to the terrorist of 911 to come to our country and have a chance to be educated?
Does a facist country encourage the rest of the world to come into our borders, take full use of our schools and universitys to better themselves and their countrymen? And how is our hospitality and faith in them as fellow humans repaid? we are bombed over and over and over again until it is catastrophic!
NEAR THE SEA - You know I was wondering the same thing! the brits are going to impeach our president! ROFLMAO!
Who has time to read these incredibly long winded never ending news alerts they post. I mean didn't they ever hear of the MAIN IDEA in school? but hey the liberal were too busy smoking pot to fool with the details. LETS PARTY!
posted on August 19, 2003 12:21:21 PM new
LIBERALS HERE IS YOUR GOD!
http://www.drudgereport.com/bushgq.htm
hope it works not sure of html pasting on this forum
I think he is much cuter with the long hair and beard!
[ edited by orleansgallery on Aug 19, 2003 12:25 PM ]
[ edited by orleansgallery on Aug 19, 2003 12:29 PM ]
posted on August 19, 2003 02:14:03 PM new
So lets stroll down what if lane for a moment--- what if AL GoRE had won the election? I don't feel comfortable with AL. I don't feel secure with AL? what choice did we have?
The last two times I have gone to the postoffice to mail my ebay stuff, I have stood next to a man who works for David Duke. He is really big and bulbus and wears a cheap polyester suit. He had so many boxes when I first met him I thought he was an ebay seller. I asked him if he was an ebay seller and he said "no, I send out David Dukes new book about the Jews."
IT felt weird to stand next to him. It felt weirder to stand next to him twice. I think maybe if there is reincarnation that I was killed in a concentration camp by the Nazis. It is freaky to stand next to this guy as he very quietly goes about sending out this booksto people all over the world.
I took a peek into his box and the envelopes were addressed to people who only gave first names and PO boxes...shapeshifters. I realized at that moment that evil just never gives up. It works best in silence and the normalcy of daily life. I saw moms with packages, children playing on the floor, postal clerks smiling and chatting and all the while no one was aware of the invisible snake crawling through the midst of them, so quietly and so full of intent and so freely because he has the right of freedom of the press. The ACLU would give him clearance no doubt if this were challenged.
posted on August 20, 2003 08:11:03 AM new
Bush will be next to be investigated, if the US congress has the guts to investigate him
Tony Blair aide warned against saying Iraq was imminent threat
11:04 AM EDT Aug 20
THOMAS WAGNER
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications director, a key figure in a controversy over the government's case for war in Iraq, said Tuesday that it was Blair who decided to publish a contentious dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Alastair Campbell told an inquiry into the death of a government weapons inspector that Blair wanted to make the information public last September as a way of informing people about the threat posed by Iraq while calming fears that a military attack was imminent.
He said Blair "was seeing all this intelligence material coming in which made him more and more concerned about Iraq as a threat and he wanted to put some of that into the public domain."
A May 29 British Broadcasting Corp. report, which is at the heart of the inquiry, quoted an unidentified source as claiming that the September dossier was "transformed" in the weeks before publication to strengthen the allegations of an Iraqi threat.
Campbell has acknowledged that he chaired meetings in which officials revised the dossier. But he has vehemently denied that he insisted on including a disputed claim that Iraq could deploy some weapons of mass destruction on 45 minutes' notice.
He told the inquiry that the September dossier replaced an earlier document that contained information on weapons programs in four countries, including Iraq.
That was dropped, in part, because "the fear of doing it at the time it was being suggested was going to ramp up the issue at a time when, in fact, the prime minister and the government were trying to calm it.
"By September the prime minister took the view that this exclusively Iraq document should be put into the public domain," Campbell said.
He said intelligence officials were responsible for preparing the report.
"I emphasized that the credibility of this document depended fundamentally on it being the work of the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee)," he said.
Campbell is the highest-profile witness to testify before senior appeals judge Lord Hutton's inquiry into the suicide of weapons adviser David Kelly. Kelly was identified as the source of news reports which accused Campbell of "sexing up" the dossier to strengthen the case for war.
Members of the public queued around the grand neo-Gothic courthouse to get seats in the public gallery for the appearance by Campbell, who is almost as much a household name as his boss.
The inquiry saw evidence Monday that a senior aide to Blair warned against claiming that Iraq posed an imminent threat to Britain and the West.
"The dossier is good and convincing for those who are prepared to be convinced," Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, wrote in an e-mail on Sept. 17, a week before the dossier was published.
But he added that "the document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam. In other words, it shows he has the means but it does not demonstrate he has the motive to attack his neighbours let alone the West.
"We will need to make it clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat," Powell wrote.
The inquiry also saw an e-mail from Campbell to Powell, dated Sept. 5, saying that the dossier was being substantially rewritten, with "structure as per TB's discussion" - an apparent reference to Tony Blair.
In the May 29 report, BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan quoted his source - subsequently identified as scientist David Kelly - as identifying Campbell as the official who insisted on including the 45-minute claim.
In testimony Monday, David Manning, who was then Blair's foreign policy adviser, called the BBC report a "grave and unjustified attack on the integrity of the government."
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, in a report published in July, concluded that the 45-minute claim was given undue prominence in the September dossier because it was based on a single source.
The committee concluded that Campbell was not responsible for inserting the claim, but said "it was wrong for Alastair Campbell or any special adviser to have chaired a meeting on an intelligence matter, and we recommend that this practice cease."
