It seems to me that with the mounting evidence that the Administration embellished, or may have even out-right lied, about the reasons for war in Iraq. This coupled with the deep ties to Enron, makes me wonder if the republicans are showing a bit of a double standard toward presidential conduct. If there was a dem in the office with all the mounting evidence they would be drafting an army of special prosecutors to tear em down.

Here is some of the latest info to come to light:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html

And I posted a similar CNN-article on this subject earlier today in this topic, in case there's anyone here who's allergic to the NY Times and wouldn't even want to touch any of their articles with a ten foot pole. ;)

The July 7th issue of Time contains on p.32 the article:
"Who Lost the WMD?: As the weapons hunt intensifies, so does the finger pointing. A preview of the coming battle."

Opps, sorry Grojlach, I overlooked your post. But even without the missings WMD's the Enron debacle would have prompted a full-scale impeachment drive if it had been a Democratic administration. Lucky for Bush the dems are spine-less and 9/11 kept people from pressing too hard on the issue.

Rokenn, the " deep ties" with enron seem to go deep with the pevious administration as well. Old Kenny Lay gave alot of money to the Dems, and he was a buyer of the Lincoln Bedroom also. And ex-treasury secretary Rubin has alot to explain about allowing Enron, Worldcom, and others to trade stock they knew was not worth the asking price.

<font color=deepskyblue>That's all very true, <font color=red>khazadman</font>. The Enron debacle was the result of years of fiscal shenanigans by the corporate execs. It all came crashing down shortly after George Bush became President. If you look at the timeline, ALL of the falsified accounting practices, shadow corporations, and everything else took place during Clinton's administration.

And - as you pointed out - Ken Ley was a frequent visitor to the White House during Clinton's two terms. He stayed in Lincoln's Bedroom at least 11 times during the 8 years that Clinton was President.

Now to be perfectly fair, I don't doubt that Bush would have been just as "courteous" to Ken Ley as Clinton was. I'm sure Ken would still be sleeping in Lincoln's room even now if Enron had not self-destructed.</font>

Speaking of Enron, can somebody tell me what happened for the many people who lost their retirement pensions investments in Eron's sinking ? Will they get a pension or will they have to go on working until the end of their life ?

<font color=deepskyblue>To the best of my knowledge, <font color=yellow>Moiraine</font>, they are just completely out of luck. Enron went bankrupt and I don't know if the courts have made any provisions for available funds to be set aside for their retirement.

The part that infuriated me the most about the this whole deal was when Ken Ley's wife did a TV interview and claimed that she and Ken were now broke... well, except for the chateau in Aspen, Colorado, and 5 other houses they owned across the country. Meanwhile, some of Enron's former employees were wondering how they would find enough money to buy groceries each week.

Personally, I feel they should have frozen every personal bank account Ken Ley and his top exec's had - then used those funds to supplement the lost retirement packages of the former employees.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Ley and the others should be left destitute {wellll, not completely anyway}...but if his spoiled rich wife is going to go on TV and claim they are broke, then she needs to learn what it is like to really be broke. Plenty of former Enron employees are facing that reality every day.</font>

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Wonder why no one is following the investigations that are going on in the Intelligence committee or why the main stream press cannot get over the fact that the issues of WoMD were just one of several issues put forth for going into Iraq. Colin Powell had an 18,000 word report to the UN, only 3500 words or so were devoted to WoMD. I also note the press' seeming amnesia over the issue of WoMD in Iraq being why the previous administration bombed terror camps in the country...oh wait...that would be something like investigative reporting and journalistic integrity...we all know how full of those qualities the Times is.

Ya know, this question has been asked over and over and it has been refuted over and over. How about coming up with something new? Just a request, not a demand.
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Ya know Magik if you had actually read the piece you would have seen that it was NOT a piece of Times reporting, but an op-ed piece written by the man that actually conducted the investigation about the alleged uranium sale. Also Ari Fleisher has come forward to say that yes they had the report nearly a full year before the president used the discredited report of the uranium sales as part of his campaign of mis-information.

Now can you honestly tell me that if it had been a Democratic president who had done this that you would not be calling for his head on a plate? This is a little more serious then lying about wither or not your boinking the interns. If they lied about this, then what else have they been lying about?

<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
Ya know, had you actually provided a link that didnt require me to sign my soul over to the times I would have read it and commented on it, instead of commenting on what you said [img]smile.gif[/img] You get what ya pay for dude. </font>

Here ya go


What I Didn't Find in Africa
By JOSEPH C. WILSON 4th


WASHINGTON

Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the 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.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the 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. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. 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. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.

I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.


Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

Ya know, out of all the spam email I get, I receive NONE of it due to signing up for free news at NY Times. You really don't have to sign your life over, you CoC. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Ya know, out of all the spam email I get, I receive NONE of it due to signing up for free news at NY Times. You really don't have to sign your life over, you CoC. [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]Well maybe he is afraid the TIA/Homeland Security will see he is reading the Times and put him on a watch list as a possible liberal [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<font color=deepskyblue>Interesting article, <font color=coral>Rokenn</font>. It certainly raises some troubling questions, but it also raised some questions in my mind about the reporter and his mission itself.

I'm certainly no expert on C.I.A. policies nor the intricacies of how they conduct their business, but I found it very odd that Joseph Wilson did not submit a written report of his findings to the Agency for presentation to Dick Cheney. This seem like it would be Standard Operating Procedures to me, especially if the contents of the report could verify (or debunk) the allegations of Iraq attempting to buy uranium. Either way, it just doesn't make sense to me why Mr. Wilson didn't file an official written summary of his findings.

Look at it this way...if Joseph Wilson had submitted a written summary of his findings, then he could state unequivocally that the VP Cheney had written documentation that Iraq had not attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. Instead, he submitted an oral summation which in turn was possibly communicated to VP Cheney orally also. As for any official documentation of his trip, he cannot conclusively state that any exists, although he suggests that at least 4 separated documents should be available to verify his trip to Niger. And if he had submitted a written report, he would then have some very strong ammunition to use against Bush's reasons for going to war, especially if that document had mysteriously disappeared. Instead, he presented an oral summation which was then possibly summarized further in oral communication only to VP Cheney. That just seems like a strange way to treat a report that could justify (or refute) America's reasons for entering a war.

The one line that bothered me the most was at the end, where Mr. Wilson trumpets the slogan of the anti-war crowd that we "need to make sure American soldiers died for the right reason". The right reason??? Excuse me? The "right reason" is because they chose to join the military and to go serve wherever they may be sent, whether they agreed or disagreed with the mission. As for the "real reason" of the war...it was to remove Saddam Hussein...and nothing short of a military invasion was going to accomplish that. Hussein would never have stepped down - and his regime of terror and torture would have continued as long as he was allowed to remain in charge.

I'll agree that this raises some questions that should be investigated further and answered by President Bush. But as far as your comment about "if he lied about this, what else did he lie about?", that applies to every President and their Cabinets, regardless of political affiliation. There is no irrefutable proof (yet ;) ) that President Bush lied, but there is irrefutable proof that his predecessor did. If Clinton lied about Lewinsky (and he finally, reluctantly admitted that he did), then what else did he lie about?

The "Accusation Avenue" runs both ways and neither side is spotless or blameless.</font>

<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
Too late [img]smile.gif[/img] I already readit elsewhere, and seeing as how I don't see Fleischer saying the administration knowingly mislead anyone and in fact says that the President did not know the info was bogus untill later...there is a non-issue here. Of course I know no one ever gets bad intelligence information in their own organizations....what do you want? really? perfection? For 11 years the intelligence agencies and previous presidents worried about and believed that Iraq posed a credible WoMD threat. Again, it was only ONE reason why Iraq was invaded. Read Powell's address to the UN...its quite lengthy and had only a small portion devoted to WoMD.
</font>

<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
Cerek, the whole story is a non-issue trumped up by people who don't have a clue about how the agency works or how intel gets handled.</font>

Thanks for talking to the point I've been trying to make. The endless investagations of Clinton were started over much less reliable information then this. Also the allegations Ambassador Wilson was investagating had already been reported and debunked by Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick. So as he stated his findings were nothing new or earth-shattering.

Also as I posted already someone lying about there sex life is not something we should really care about. Someone lying about national security is.

<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
Pergury is pergury, there is no distinction to be made. You swear under oath in a court of law you become liable for your prevarications...not to mention the misappropriations of government property, nor the abuses of staff that would get you fired from any civilian job.
</font>

So it is reasonable to assume that it takes intel a year to reach the top people? Or is it just intel that disagrees with current policy that is ignored or shuttled to the slow lane. Please enlighten us poor stupid pleebs about how a debunked piece of intel can be used to set/help justify US foriegn policy.

Dun dun dun...

<h3>White House 'warned over Iraq claim'</h3>
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, a CIA official 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 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.
And in the US, increasing doubts are being raised about the American use of intelligence.

Forged documents
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 Fleischer appeared to concede on Tuesday that the uranium claim in the State of the Union address was based on inaccurate information.
"The president's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake [uranium] from Niger," Mr Fleischer said.
"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 US 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 official 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 nearly a year before the State of the Union address that the information was likely false.
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.
On Tuesday Mr 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.
"The evidence that we had that the Iraqi Government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from these so-called 'forged' documents, they came from separate intelligence," Mr Blair said.
However, Mr Blair did not specify what that separate intelligence was.
<h6>Source: BBC</h6>

[ 07-09-2003, 04:32 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

And this Japanese article is a lot more straightforward in its report. Also, mind the yellow part. Apparently Bush knew the report was false or at least of a very questionable nature, and yet he still cited it in his State of the Union address.

<h3>White House admits Bush lied about Iraqi nukes</h3>
WASHINGTON — After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President George Bush lied in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.
The acknowledgment came as a British parliamentary commission questioned the reliability of British intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Bush said in his State of the Union address that the British government had learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.
The president's statement was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer acknowledged.
<font color=yellow>An intelligence consultant who was present at two White House briefings where the uranium report was discussed confirmed that the President was told the intelligence was questionable and that his national security advisors urged him not to include the claim in his State of the Union address.
"The report had already been discredited," said Terrance J Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the president was in the room during at least two of the briefings."
Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said.
"He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."</font>
To date, American troops have found no proof of the existence of nuclear weapons in Iraq.
Wilkinson retired two months later but says he wrote "numerous memos" questioning the wisdom of using "intelligence information that we knew to be from dubious sources."
A British parliamentary committee has also concluded that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government mishandled intelligence material on Iraqi weapons.
John Stanley, a Conservative member of the committee, said so far no evidence has been found in Iraq to substantiate four key claims, including that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa as part of an effort to restart a nuclear weapons program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency told the United Nations in March that the information about uranium was based on forged documents. (truthout.org)
<h6>Source: Japan Today</h6>

[ 07-09-2003, 05:01 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img] <h2>IMPEACH, IMPEACH, IMPEACH!!! </h2> [img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]

Thanks for the articles Growjhlatch. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
Of course, if Clinton were still in office, Joseph Wilson would have conveniently committed suicide before making it to the press. ;)

Class! Class! Pop quiz time!


Monica Lewinsky is to Bill Clinton
as
Terrance J Wilkinson is to George Bush

True or False?


Please besure to put your name in the upper right hand corner of your paper and leave them on my desk. [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

By the way, have there been any mentions of Terrance J Wilkinson so far in the US mainstream media? While it's safe to assume that the BBC-article is valid, I'm not entirely sure about the Japan Today-article; haven't used that news source before, but I assumed that the US media would report about it later today anyways (as you guys are 6+ hours behind and all, timezone-wise ;) ).

[ 07-09-2003, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

<font color=deepskyblue>The answer is <font color=lime>FALSE</font>!

Bill Clinton suddenly decided to use military force against Osama Bin Laden because of Monica Lewinsky.

George Bush decided to use military action despite the findings of Terrance J. Wilkinson. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] ;) </font>


http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/cerek/cerek2sig.gif

[ 07-09-2003, 12:47 PM: Message edited by: Cerek the Barbaric ]

Alright, my suspicions were justified after all - there's been an official retraction, even though Japan Today simply replaced their article with one closer to the BBC-one, without posting *any* apologies or remarks of any kind. But apparently there *is* no Terrance J Wilkinson.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artma...cle_2529.shtml
My apologies for posting that particular article... The contents of the BBC-article still stand, though.

Yeah I just read this on another site as well. Oh well I guess no impeachment this week [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Well even though Wilkinson was bogus it seems a real person is now saying pretty much the same thing:
White House 'lied about Saddam threat'

Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday July 10, 2003
The Guardian

A former US intelligence official who served under the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
The claims came as the Bush administration was fighting to shore up its credibility among a series of anonymous government leaks over its distortion of US intelligence to manufacture a case against Saddam.

This was the first time an administration official has put his name to specific claims. The whistleblower, Gregory Thielmann, served as a director in the state department's bureau of intelligence until his retirement in September, and had access to the classified reports which formed the basis for the US case against Saddam, spelled out by President Bush and his aides.

Mr Thielmannn said yesterday: "I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq."

He conceded that part of the problem lay with US intelligence, but added: "Most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided."

As Democrats demanded a congressional enquiry, the administration sharply changed tack. The defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, told the Senate the US had not gone to war against Iraq because of fresh evidence of weapons of mass destruction but because Washington saw what evidence there was prior to 2001 "in a dramatic new light" after September 11.

At a press conference yesterday, Mr Thielmann said that, as of March 2003, when the US began military operations, "Iraq posed no imminent threat to either its neighbours or to the United States".

In one example, Mr Thielmann said a fierce debate inside the White House about the purpose of aluminium tubes bought by Baghdad had been "cloaked in ambiguity".

While some CIA analysts thought they could be used for gas centrifuges to enrich uranium, the best experts at the energy department disagreed. But the national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said publicly that they could only be used for centrifuges.

Mr Thielmann also said there was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida. He added: "This administration has had a faith-based intelligence attitude ... 'We know the answers - give us the intelligence to support those answers'."

Responding to claims of deliberate distortions, Mr Bush accused his critics of "trying to rewrite history" and insisted "there is no doubt in my mind" that Saddam "was a threat to world peace".
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doing a google search on Mr Thielmann shows he atleast exists [img]tongue.gif[/img]

So maybe the impeachment is back on [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

I think this article spells out a pattern of double standard with a good measure of wit to boot.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?nav=hptoc_eo

<font face="COMIC Sans MS" size="3" color="#7c9bc4">
A thought about this supposed "Intelligence" expert.

If he really was one. he won't be one ever again. Whats more, he would never be able to work for another government contractor or agency. Violating your clearence like this guy is doing in the press and not through proper channels would mean he is gonna starve and possibly face jail time. I think what is more likely is that he is not now and never has been an actual cleared intelligence person and has probably never seen the inside of NSA.

Edit: Even when you leave the service the non-disclosure statements you sign are pretty severe.
</font>

[ 07-10-2003, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

So MagiK, we should starve and jail whistleblowers for telling the cold hard truth?

God forbid the president lie to the nation and send it's citizens off to die based on mistruth and no-one stands up to say so.


I dont know if this is the guy you are refering too, Gregory Thielmann, but he has some pretty rock-solid credentials as stated.

MagiK, you just gave the whistle-blower loads more credibility in my book. Facing strict penalties means it is more likely true. ;)

BTW, can whatever monetary penalties the hush agreement imposes compare to a chance to be on Larry King live or Face the Nation??

Nice article Chewbacca - or to restate it, we are now in the era of "Remotely Plausible Deniability". RPD isn't much of an acronym though - I prefer "Gee Whatta Balls-up" [img]smile.gif[/img]

Today's NY Times (I think it's true [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] ) [img]tongue.gif[/img]
__________________________________________________ __

Bush and Rice Say C.I.A. Approved Uranium Comment
By KIRK SEMPLE

President Bush said today that intelligence agencies had approved the assertion he made in his State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material from Africa.

The president made his comments during a four-hour visit to Uganda, the fourth country in his five-nation tour of Africa. He spoke shortly after his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the C.I.A had authorized the specific wording of the statement..

``I gave a speech that was cleared by the intelligence services,'' the president said. ``It was a speech that detailed to the American people the dangers posed by the Saddam Hussein regime. And my government took the appropriate response to those dangers.''

The comments by Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice appeared intended to rebut news reports that said the C.I.A. was raising objections to the claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa. The Washington Post reported today that the C.I.A. tried to persuade the British governmnent to drop a reference to the purported deal from an official intelligence paper. And a report broadcast by CBS News late Thursday said that the White House had ignored a request by the C.I.A. to remove the statement from the State of the Union address.

The White House acknowledged this week that it had erred in including the statement in the State of the Union address because it was based on faulty intelligence. The claim was in part based on forged documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger.

Ms. Rice told reporters en route from South Africa to Uganda that the C.I.A. had approved the contents of the State of the Union address before Mr. Bush delivered it in January.

``The C.I.A. cleared the speech in its entirety,'' Ms. Rice said in a nearly hour-long interview aboard the president's plane. ``If the C.I.A. - the director of Central Intelligence - had said, `Take this out of the speech,' it would have been gone.''

Critics, including some Democrats on Capitol Hill, have accused the Bush administration of misleading the public by overstating the weapons threat posed by Iraq in order to garner more support for a war against Saddam Hussein.

The White House has faced questions about the uranium purchase for months. On Sunday, The New York Times published an article on its Op-Ed page by Joseph C. Wilson 4th, a former ambassador who was sent last year to Niger, West Africa, to investigate reports of the attempted purchase. Mr. Wilson, who said he was dispatched after Vice President Dick Cheney's office took an interest in the matter, reported back that the intelligence was likely fraudulent.

Ms. Rice said the specific reference to African uranium had been scrutinized by the C.I.A.

``There was even some discussion on that specific sentence, so that it reflected better what the C.I.A. thought and the speech was cleared,'' she told reporters this morning.

In particular, she said, the agency raised an objection to a reference to Iraq's trying to obtain ``yellow-cake'' uranium. ``Some specifics about amount and place were taken out,'' she said, but that once those changes were made, ``the speech was cleared.''

Ms. Rice said that the State Department's intelligence agency had expressed reservations about the information on the African uranium but that the general consensus among the intelligence agencies was that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

In his State of the Union speech in January, Mr. Bush said: ``The International Arms Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990's that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five differnt methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''

Since coalition troops invaded Iraq, they have found no biological or chemical weapons.

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BREAKING NEWS

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AFP
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French link to UK's Iraq intelligence
From correspondents in London

TWO foreign intelligence services, thought to be those of France and Italy, supplied Britain with the information for its controversial claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, the Financial Times newspaper reported Monday.

Britain made the uranium claim in a dossier last September despite being told the US Central Intelligence Agency had "reservations" about its inclusion.

The paper said its information came from senior Whitehall sources.

US administration officials have criticised the inclusion of a reference to the nuclear claim and the nation in President George W. Bush's January 28 State of the Union Address, and pointed out that it had not been corroborated by Washington's intelligence network.

CIA chief George Tenet, who took the blame for Bush's discredited prewar claim, came under fire again Sunday with a leading Republican senator suggesting he resign.

The Financial Times said it had learnt the original information on the nuclear claim came from two west European countries, and not from now discredited documents that proved to be forgeries.

The financial daily reported an official saying the information from foreign intelligence services was not shared with the US because it "was not ours to share".

The Italian government on Sunday denied reports that its intelligence services handed the United States and Britain documents indicating that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons programme.

The denial followed a report by Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper that Rome's SISMI intelligence services had given Washington and London documents in late 2001, showing the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from the African state.

There is considerable doubt in London and Washington over the strength of the US and British case for ending UN arms inspections and launching the March 20 invasion to topple the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Hans Blix, who was the UN weapons chief inspector in Iraq in the run-up to war, added to the criticism, telling The Independent on Sunday that Britain had "over-interpreted the intelligence they had."

The Daily Telegraph reported that "US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of the MI6 intelligence was the French secret service, the DGSE. Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are run by a french company that comes under the control of the French atomic energy commission."
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The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" information showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, the Telegraph reported.

A third British newspaper, The Guardian, cited government officials saying the nuclear claim came from a "close ally" but one which didn't want Britain to give it to the US as a further pretext for war. </font>

"It has become an enormously overblown issue," White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN.

"The president of the United States did not go to war because of the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein sought the uranium in Africa," she said.

Earlier, on Fox News Sunday, she dismissed the notion as "ludicrous."
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"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible."
<font color=yellow> -Iraqi torture witness' sworn statement to INDICT </font>

“In 1991 Saddam killed 500,000 people when they rose against him. Nobody demonstrated against him then. But now the United States wants to get rid of the dictator, people are demonstrating against it.”
<font color=yellow> -one of the Iraqi liberation soldiers the U.S. is training at "Camp Freedom" in Hungary </font>


"The Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security. This danger has been explicitly recognized by the U.N."
<font color=yellow> -Letter by Eight European leaders in support of the United States</font>



"At the end of all of the academic arguments is whether we are willing to pay the price to bring freedom to the people of Iraq. If we are, we will not regret it."
<font color=yellow> -Vietnam veteran and former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey </font>

"The last thing we want to see is a smoking gun. A gun smokes after it's been fired…. If someone waits for a smoking gun, it's certain we will have waited too long."
<font color=yellow> -Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld</font>

"We are praying you will stick to your resolve to liberate our country from a dictatorial tyranny over 30 years which has caused the deaths of nearly 2 million men and women, sons and daughters."
<font color=yellow> -Letter to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair from Iraqi Exiles</font>

"Of course they have no credibility. If they had any, they certainly lost it in 1991. I don't see that they have acquired any credibility."
<font color=yellow> -Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, on the Saddam regime </font>

"If Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of sanctions and ignore the commitments he's made? Well, he will conclude that the international community's lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on doing more to build an arsenal of devastating destruction. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow. The stakes could not be higher. Some way, someday, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
<font color=yellow> -President Bill Clinton in 1998 </font>

"If this were 'all about oil,' we could just declare victory in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia and go home. Who's going to stop us? Our troops are already there!"
<font color=yellow> -Rush Hudson Limbaugh III </font>

“I am surprised to hear of all the anti-war demonstrations in the West. I wish that the demonstrators could spend just 24 hours in the place I have come from and see the reality of Iraq. Fourteen lost years of my life. Nothing but bread for food — darkness, filth, beatings, torture, killings, bitterness and humiliation.”
<font color=yellow> -Rafat Abdulmajeed Muhammad, jailed for selling a roll of film to an British journalist </font>

"Iraq under Saddam’s regime has become a land of hopelessness, sadness, and fear. A country where people are ethnically cleansed; prisoners are tortured in more than 300 prisons in Iraq. Rape is systematic . . . congenital malformation, birth defects, infertility, cancer, and various disorders are the results of Saddam’s gassing of his own people. . . the killing and torturing of husbands in front of their wives and children . . . Iraq under Saddam has become a hell and a museum of crimes."
<font color=yellow> –Iraqi Safia Al Souhail, Advocacy Director of the International Alliance for Justice
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Interesting post Magik, but totally off-topic. BTW George Bush has the blood of those 500,000 people that died in the 91 on his hands as well as Saddam's. Since he did encourge them to rise up then did nothing to help them.

There are many other countries that have as horrific internal policies as Iraq, but we are not invading them. The human rights abuses was not the reason we went to war, no matter how much the spin doctors want us to 'remember that'. The reason we went to war as as 'self-protection' from the 'clear and intement danger' Saddam posed to the western world. That and the oil of course. The liberating of the Iraqi people, as noble and right that it is, is merely window dressing.

Speaking of double standards...I have always wonder why liberals are always being degraded for being "bleeding hearts" by conservatives, but it is ok to be a "compassionate conservative".