Double-standard?

[Grojlach]

Dun dun dun...

White House 'warned over Iraq 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, 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.

Source: BBC

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

[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.

White House admits Bush lied about Iraqi nukes

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.
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."
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)

Source: Japan Today

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

[Timber Loftis]

[img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]

IMPEACH, IMPEACH, IMPEACH!!!

[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.

[Rokenn]

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]

[Grojlach]

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 ]

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Rokenn: 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]

The answer is FALSE!

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]




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

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Grojlach: 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 ).

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.

[Rokenn]

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

[Rokenn]

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".
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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]

[Chewbacca]

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

The Bush White House is run on a business model. The president is the CEO. He delegates to others, including the vice president, who was once a CEO himself. It therefore should come as no surprise that George W. Bush, a Harvard MBA after all, is doing what other CEOs do when they get into trouble. In his case, he's "restated" his reasons for going to war. Corporations do this all the time. If a profit of, say, $2.8 billion turns out to be a loss of a similar amount on account of unanticipated developments (corruption, greed, the demands of mistresses), the figure merely gets "restated." Usually no one is held responsible for this, because a billion here or a billion there can, as we know, fall through the cracks. In fact, the CEO -- having been given a bonus for such a banner year -- is then given another one for managing his company through difficult times. In the same way, the president recently restated some of the reasons for invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program, which Bush told the world was being "reconstituted," may in fact not exist. The White House the other day restated its earlier insistence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the West African nation of Niger. It turned out that the supporting documents had been forged. The White House admitted that in a press release left behind after Bush had departed for Africa. Similarly, the accusation that Iraq was buying high-strength aluminum tubes, which Bush said were "used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons," has to be restated. The tubes appear to have been bought for another purpose entirely and may not be high-strength after all. As for the charge that Iraq was bristling with other weapons of mass destruction, none have yet been found, raising the distinct possibility that -- in an upcoming quarter -- this too will be restated and the Bush administration will take a one-time charge against future credibility. In fact, should we -- the stockholders of this operation -- look back at the original business plan for the proposed Bush administration, we will find that almost everything has been restated. During the campaign, Bush said he would not go in for peacekeeping operations abroad. He appears ready to do so in Liberia. He also said he would not get engaged, as did the previous CEO, Bill Clinton, in the nitty-gritty of Middle East peace negotiation. The administration is now choosing intersections in Gaza for traffic lights. Restatement follows restatement until we poor stockholders have no choice but to conclude that either the Bush administration did not know what it was talking about when it came into office or does not know what it is talking about now. Not even in corporate America can you hold two contradictory positions simultaneously. One of them, as any CEO can tell you, has to be restated. The Bush administration's interim business plan called for the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. On account of a botched operation in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan, this now has to be restated. Similarly, the proclaimed determination to rid the world of Saddam Hussein also has not succeeded. As with bin Laden, this failure will be restated as not being all that important. You learn this sort of thing in business school. In fact, the entire business plan for Iraq has to be restated. It turns out that the country simply will not govern itself, that some elements resent the U.S. occupation and that it will take more troops to administer the country than originally thought. In some way, this abject failure to plan for an occupation -- despite repeated warnings -- will have to be creatively restated. To paraphrase the president, bring on the restatement. The dangers of an immense budget deficit have been restated. Rising unemployment has been restated to blame the Clinton administration. The critical importance of relations with Mexico has been restated. The evils of affirmative action were -- after the Supreme Court ruled -- restated and so, of course, were the reasons for going to war in Iraq. Now it is to rid that country of Saddam Hussein and establish the predicates for a Middle East peace. I like them both. Still, all these restatements suggest a business plan that was both flawed from the start and implemented with an appalling level of incompetence. Despite that, the CEO of this mismanaged operation is not held accountable and remains popular with the shareholders. It used to be that the buck stopped with the president. To state the obvious, that's been restated.