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Post by gailkate on Mar 8, 2007 14:28:28 GMT -5
Gailkate is assuming only what she posited in earlier posts. Carefully reading what each person has written is a perquisite on serious threads.
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Post by Jane on Mar 8, 2007 14:28:54 GMT -5
Perhaps they thought it was justified, but the justification was not what they reported to everyone outside the administration. It was a matter of "by any means necessary." So the ends (getting rid of Sadam) justified the means (lying about the reasons for going to war). That's the only interpretation I can make of Joe's statement.
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Post by joew on Mar 8, 2007 15:28:28 GMT -5
… But, I really can't understand that Joe would still say that knowing that the whole sorry episode has been proved conclusively that there was no legitimate reason for going to war. … To me it's a question of hindsight versus what was believed at the time.
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Post by joew on Mar 8, 2007 15:37:58 GMT -5
Perhaps they thought it was justified, but the justification was not what they reported to everyone outside the administration. It was a matter of "by any means necessary." So the ends (getting rid of Sadam) justified the means (lying about the reasons for going to war). That's the only interpretation I can make of Joe's statement. You didn't have to hear it from the Bush administration to know that Saddam had used WMD, was defying the UN on inspections and behaving like a man with something to hide. It was reasonable for people in and out of government to conclude that he had WMD; and if intelligence was ambiguous, it was prudent to follow that which pointed to the presence of WMD.
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Post by scotbrit on Mar 8, 2007 15:41:47 GMT -5
Joe continues: Should that not read what YOU believed at the time?
The reason I say this is because in the weeks prior to the war, my political party in the UK was the only one that did NOT accept the spin being offered by either the Blair or Bush adminstration.
It may not have been aired on American TV, but a week before the war was started, I was one of a million people who brought London to a standstill at a very peaceful rally.
We did NOT believe the propaganda at the time and, in hindsight, you and your colleagues should have been able to see what we saw quite clearly. The truth was that it was illegal and therefore there was no legitimate authority or need to go to war.
Whilst I rejoice in the overthrow of Saddam H, I did not rejoice in his being hanged.
And I know there are many who contribute to this site who shared my beliefs then and now. No more excuses now please, about what you thought at the time. Just accept you were wrong. People really admire people who admit they were wrong.
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Post by joew on Mar 8, 2007 15:54:22 GMT -5
Joe continues: Should that not read what YOU believed at the time? The reason I say this is because in the weeks prior to the war, my political party in the UK was the only one that did NOT accept the spin being offered by either the Blair or Bush adminstration. … We did NOT believe the propaganda at the time and, in hindsight, you and your colleagues should have been able to see what we saw quite clearly. The truth was that it was illegal and therefore there was no legitimate authority or need to go to war. … Just accept you were wrong. People really admire people who admit they were wrong. Considering that the Tories believed what the Labour government were saying and most Democrats in the U.S. Senate believed it as well, I do not think it is as clear as you would have it that the justifications for the war were patently false. It is certainly not a matter of what merely I believed at the time.
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Post by gailkate on Mar 8, 2007 17:08:00 GMT -5
He's not saying that, Joe. I think he's saying that many people were wrong, including you, and the right thing is simply to say so.
The issue here is that, as more and more irrefutable facts came to light making it clear that the justification for invasion was wrong, the Bush administration devoted itself to deception and obfuscation. In particular it chose to discredit Joe Wilson by outing his wife and then stonewalling for years.
Those of us who objected to the invasion asked for more facts - as the inspectors insisted they could deliver with a few more months- and more diplomatic pressure, perhaps using our Arab allies to pressure Saddam. Most important, we wanted to see a reason for diverting our attention to Saddam from Bin Laden.
Four years after our unprecedented illegal invasion of Iraq, Bin Laden and untold newly minted killers who support his goals are still free.
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Post by gailkate on Mar 8, 2007 19:52:26 GMT -5
Excerpts from an article in the LA Times, which some here will reject as a liberal rag. But I've only copied the quotations from Republicans, so I hope it will be read. Not all Republicans are in denial about the implications of the Libby trial and conviction. Libby's conviction on four counts of lying to federal investigators about the Valerie Plame leak case hits the administration on several levels: In addition to eroding its already weak credibility on Iraq, it sullies the integrity of an administration that came into office with pledges of moral rectitude.
***** "This administration was very scandal-free in its early years," said David Gergen, a Republican political strategist and expert in damage control. "Now for the first time they have a criminal taint at the highest reaches of the president's circle. That's something they are not going to be able to erase."
The verdict came amid a seeming torrent of bad news for the White House.
"Another red-letter day for the administration," said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was President Reagan's final White House chief of staff, noting other news on Tuesday — the deaths from a bomb attack in Iraq, congressional hearings on neglect of veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and a "happy-talk speech" on Iraq by Bush to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
"This cascade of bad news doesn't stop, and it's catching up to them," Duberstein said, referring to Bush and Cheney.
The rough road ahead for the White House was signaled by the aggressive reactions of Democrats to news of the verdict — and by the effort of many prominent Republicans to sidestep the development, rather than rush to the administration's defense.
Democrats have long complained that Bush's political aides have manipulated information and policy decisions — both at home and overseas — to a degree unprecedented in the recent past. They have blamed Cheney and his aides, as well as political strategist Karl Rove, for their highly political approach to the decision to depose Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq, as well as such issues as the abortive campaign to overhaul Social Security.
******** Tom Griscom, who as White House communications director during the final two years of the Reagan administration was at the center of efforts to rebuild the president's image and political standing after the Iran-Contra scandal, said that Bush, Cheney and their neoconservative advisors may not pay a huge price for Libby's conviction.
That's because their credibility was already damaged, he said.
The administration's integrity had been successfully challenged some time ago, he said, as the reasons it cited for going to war in Iraq began to crumble. "It's almost like this is just one more piece on … that pile of lost credibility," he said.
Griscom said that because Libby worked directly for Cheney, his conviction "taints the administration, but it doesn't go directly into the Oval Office."www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-libbypol7mar07,1,730470.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true
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Post by doctork on Mar 8, 2007 20:38:46 GMT -5
What about these 7 US Attorneys that were abruptly fired all in the same day, when they had recent excellent performance reviews? It looks like they were eliminated to keep them from investigating any Republicans. At least that is what the Seattle case looks like, from what I read in the "liberal rag" Seattle Times (which is supposed to be the more conservative of the two dailies.
Isn't it more of the same Executive Branch effort to stifle dissent?
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Post by gailkate on Mar 9, 2007 8:37:32 GMT -5
Unfortunately, US Attorneys are appointed, so I guess they have the "right" to terminate them. But remember all the to-do about the Clintons replacing the travel staff? I don't hear anywhere near the outcry about this patently political purge.
More on the Libby verdict. The excerpts below were taken from an article in AlterNet by Rory O'Conner who specializes in media analysis:
''It was said a number of times, what are we doing with this guy here?" Denis Collins recalled his fellow jurors asking, as he spoke to the press immediately following the pronouncement that Scooter Libby was guilty on four of five felony counts. "Where's Rove? Where are these other guys?
"I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of," Collins added. "It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells put it, he was the fall guy.''
Collins is correct: It WAS Libby's own lead defense attorney Ted Wells who had claimed weeks ago in his opening statement that his client was being made a scapegoat to protect key White House political operative Karl Rove, so as not to endanger President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. It was good that the jury reminded us -- and also good that they paid such attention to detail, undertook such painstaking analysis of the evidence and ultimately came to the correct conclusion. But most of all it was good that they were still asking those many unanswered questions.
But before the rest of us join in the jurors' "tremendous amount of sympathy for Mr. Libby," let's remember that the sword Libby has fallen on to protect his higher-ups will likely yet prove to be a blunt one. ************* [The chance of the President not pardoning] Libby for his criminal conduct is so low as to be laughable. Ted Wells says he will submit a motion for a new trial, and that if that motion is denied, he will appeal. But Libby's presidential pardon is due to arrive sometime in January -- long before his guilty verdict will ever be overturned on appeal. Libby, of course, is the only person ever indicted after a multiyear investigation that ultimately reached deep inside the White House. The central issue in that investigation revolved around allegations that someone within the White House illegally disclosed classified information during the late spring and early summer of 2003, when it was revealed that Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had criticized the Iraq policy, was married to an undercover CIA operative, Valerie Plame.
No one was ever charged with the leak -- which turned out to have emanated originally not from the White House but from the State Department in the person of Richard Armitage -- but the results of the investigation nonetheless involved both the administration and the lapdog Washington press corps, and told us much about the top-level nexus of Big Politics and Big Media, "casting a harsh light on the way power and information flows in Washington," as the Washington Post put it, "the uneasy symbiosis between an elite tier of Washington journalists and their confidential sources inside the government." In particular, the trial demonstrated conclusively that Scooter Libby's boss -- Vice President Cheney -- was far more involved in the campaign against Joseph Wilson than had previously been apparent. The prosecution showed that the vice president dictated specific talking points he wanted Libby and others to use to against Wilson, helped select journalists to talk to, and even had the president declassify secret intelligence reports to undercut Wilson's criticism.
"There is a cloud over what the vice president did," Fitzgerald told jurors in his closing argument. "That's not something we put there. That cloud is not something you can pretend is not there."
The fact is that this is the first trial of the criminal Bush-Cheney Iraq war -- and unless Scooter is taken care of, it won't be the last. That's why the pardon is a certainty. If the sword Libby falls on doesn't prove to be blunt, it could well reveal a double-edge -- and there's no telling who might then be cut or how deep those cuts would be.
And before anyone starts hollering about Clinton's pardons, I think those were wrong, too - as were Bush 1's pardons in '92. There must be a limit on how presidents exercise this power.
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Post by edsfam on Mar 9, 2007 8:53:19 GMT -5
Libbey and Wilson, both, should be pardoned for lying to advance an agenda.
Cheney should be convicted of trying to defend the administration's policies against attacks by hacks .... if you can show that defending a policy is a crime.
_E_
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Post by juliastar on Mar 9, 2007 10:01:12 GMT -5
Have another plantain.
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Post by gailkate on Mar 9, 2007 11:36:06 GMT -5
Fried.
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Post by joew on Mar 9, 2007 12:44:59 GMT -5
A review of the story:
Novak discloses Valerie Plame's employment by the CIA. This is said to be damaging to the country, and the leak, a crime. The FBI investigates. A special prosecutor is appointed. The evidence from the FBI shows that Armitage is the one who first told Novak about Plame. The special prosecutor declines to prosecute either of them, but does prosecute Libby, who had nothing to do with Armitage or Novak.
Cheney and Rove had been trying to use Libby to get other people to write about Plame. Apparently there was nothing illegal about it, or the special prosecutor could use the evidence about their doings that he used against Libby to prosecute Rove and Cheney.
A comment: Instead of trying to discredit Wilson by letting people know about his wife, the bozos should have just refuted what he said. What the LA Times article called a "highly political approach" may not have been a crime, but it was certainly a blunder. Of course, the political approach corresponded to the parallel politicization by the opponents (where refutations of the administration's statements have as their ultimate conclusion that Cheney and Rove are evil men).
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Post by Jane on Mar 9, 2007 12:51:27 GMT -5
It seems so endlessly complicated what with all the "I don't remember"s and the half-truths and the multilayered agendas. Harks back to Iran-Contra which I never understood except that Oliver North was found guilty and now appears on TV with great regularity as some sort of expert on something or other (I must admit, I'm quick to change the channel when his ernest little face appears). When the Scootster gets out of prison or off-tether or whatever, will we see his boyish visage pontificating as well?
I would just as soon tune out the next two years and all the posturing and false indignation and self-righteous braying that will surely be non-stop.
And then we have Newt's news, "Yes, I admit I was having an affair when I was running after Clinton waving a blue dressl...."
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Post by edsfam on Mar 9, 2007 12:53:15 GMT -5
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Post by edsfam on Mar 9, 2007 13:04:01 GMT -5
A review of the story: A comment: Instead of trying to discredit Wilson by letting people know about his wife, the bozos should have just refuted what he said. As part of the refutaion, why not ask the questions "Who assigned Wilson to the task?" and "Why was Wilson selected?" Are these questions to unreasonable to seek the answer to? There certainly has been more than enough digging into the "Plame Affair", why could there not have the same intensity of purpose in the "Wilson Affair"? _E_
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Post by joew on Mar 9, 2007 14:14:28 GMT -5
…A comment: Instead of trying to discredit Wilson by letting people know about his wife, the bozos should have just refuted what he said. As part of the refutaion, why not ask the questions "Who assigned Wilson to the task?" and "Why was Wilson selected?" Are these questions to unreasonable to seek the answer to? … _E_ The questions are not entirely unreasonable — just the sort of thing a special prosecutor on a fishing expedition might use to avoid the true purpose of his appointment — but they are ultimately beside the point. Regardless of how it came about that Wilson went to Niger, what matters is how accurate his piece in the NYT was.
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Post by edsfam on Mar 9, 2007 14:50:06 GMT -5
Regardless of how it came about that Wilson went to Niger, what matters is how accurate his piece in the NYT was. Which, as it turns out, was NOT very accurate at all. Given that, why not find out the who and why? I am purdy sure that if someone delivered a semi-biased piece on Fox News or in some other mostly conservative venue, the first attack from the Lefties would be on the character of the author, not the validity of the article. Oddly enough, the article by Wilson was discredited and Wilson was shown to be a not altogether impartial, honest agent, and yet the report is still held in high regard by those that want to undermine the effort in Iraq and Wilson is an esteemed guest on NPR. Go figure. _E_
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Post by gailkate on Mar 9, 2007 15:03:12 GMT -5
Right, Joe. And yes, the administration reaction should certainly have been to refute not to discredit while outing a CIA agent.
Where and how was the substance of Wilson's article proven inaccurate?
As for the attack on KOS, here's a column from a serious conservative think tank based in Minneapolis. Last update: March 08, 2007 – 6:57 PM
Mitch Pearlstein: Coulter's voice provokes the shame it's due Other conservatives are showing a bit of open-mindedness, but not Ann.
Mitch Pearlstein
At the risk of a surge of double and triple negatives, it's not for no reason that Ann Coulter has never spoken at a Center of the American Experiment event. And it's no accident that the head of a major conservative organization in Washington reportedly said a while back that he doesn't even want her setting heel in his building. Folks on the right often criticize folks on the left for not criticizing one of their own when they say something thoroughly offensive and stupid. To avoid countercharges, let it be known that I wasn't a fan of Coulter and her style before last weekend and I'm even less so now, as her reference to presidential candidate John Edwards by the full two-syllable, homosexual-slur "F" word was galaxies beyond the pale. It was ugly and she ought to be ashamed, and frankly, I'm not too thrilled that her audience of conservative activists in Washington didn't make their displeasure immediately clear.
Why was her jab at a joke so unacceptable? Because decent people just don't talk like that, or at least they shouldn't. And no, this is not because of overly sensitive, politically correct touchiness.
But Coulter also was wrong because she was counterproductive. Conservatives are more inclined than liberals to challenge emotionally saturated initiatives, such as the drive for same-sex marriage. There's not the smallest doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of us who oppose same-sex marriage do so honorably, as we simply (or not so simply) fear that such a radical change in our most important institution would not be in the best interests of society generally and children especially. But making such a case is increasingly hard if high-profile conservatives talk dirty.
Actually, I had planned on writing a piece this week about tolerance and conservatism, but not this one. Rather, I've been intrigued by how well Rudy Giuliani is doing with Republicans across the country, social and religious conservatives evidently among 'em. You know the latter guys I'm talking about. All those Christians thumping without time, mercy or American place for anyone outside their parochial fold. Alliteratively speaking, all those "Religious Right" types. Most odious and bloodiest of all, all those bearers of another very bad and scarlet "F" word (think Mussolini).
Sure, it's 20 months to Election Day, and by no means are all religious conservatives enamored with America's Mayor. Not by several stretches. But for now, isn't it more than a little elucidating that so many of them appear open to supporting a presidential candidate who doesn't line up with them precisely on abortion, gun control and gay rights; who has been married three times; and who, for picturesque measure, has been famously photographed (I'm on real fragile ground here) wearing a dress?
Save for Coulter, what in the world is close-mindedness on the right coming to these days?
Oh, by the way, a well-known political/religious activist in Minneapolis of the larboard persuasion (that means left) recently declared at a community meeting on the North Side that American Experiment is anti-black and ultra-right-wing, not to mention "Klan-like." My biracial daughter already has written him a respectfully nasty letter. Maybe some of my liberal friends will follow up, too.
Mitch Pearlstein is founder and president of Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis.
©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
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Post by juliastar on Mar 9, 2007 16:47:17 GMT -5
It seems, Ed, you and I have covered this ground previously. Perhaps one of our more talented members could insert emoticon of dog chasing its own tail. Now that we know Libby is a confirmed liar and convicted felon and Rove would be in the same boat except he recanted his previous false testimony and 'fessed up to being Novak's second source, which of Wilson's claims in the infamous (and now tame) editorial would you like to prove false first?
-----------------
Published on Sunday, July 6, 2003 by the New York Times What I Didn't Find in Africa by Joseph C. Wilson 4th 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.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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Post by gailkate on Mar 9, 2007 19:39:55 GMT -5
There's a clear and documented timeline of the yellow cake story here: uspolitics.about.com/od/wariniraq/a/niger_2.htmObviously, hundreds of articles exist, and I don't have time to argue this again. There will always be people who swear that evidence is fabricated.
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Post by joew on Mar 9, 2007 19:52:22 GMT -5
…----------------- Published on Sunday, July 6, 2003 by the New York Times What I Didn't Find in Africa by Joseph C. Wilson 4th Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? …¶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. ¶… It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. ¶… In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired. … 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 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. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company — emphasis added The strange thing about this is that Wilson says he concluded to his own satisfaction that no sale by Niger to Iraq actually took place, but he does not say that he investigated whether Iraq attempted to make a purchase. Nevertheless, he illogically seems to think that his conclusions have something to do with the assertion that Iraq tried to get the uranium. Also interesting is that, although he preferred a diplomatic solution, he believed [along with Kerry, H. R. Clinton et al.] that the threat of WMD was real and needed to be dealt with. He then asks, "But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about?" I can assure Mr. Wilson that the dangers he mentioned are the ones I heard about, along with Iraq's shooting at American planes enforcing the no-fly zone and their defiance of the U.N. All the administration had to do was point out how his story did not support his questions. Instead they went off into the effort to discredit him over an irrelevancy. Sad.
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Post by joew on Mar 12, 2007 0:08:42 GMT -5
There's a clear and documented timeline of the yellow cake story here: uspolitics.about.com/od/wariniraq/a/niger_2.htmObviously, hundreds of articles exist, and I don't have time to argue this again. There will always be people who swear that evidence is fabricated. Thanks, gk. Your linked story concludes with the following: Amazing, isn't it, how people get hung up on side issues while ignoring what is really significant. Gallons of ink are spilled over whether Iraq actually bought yellowcake fom Niger, when the assertion by the administration merely asserted that they tried to, and even more importantly than either issue, the CIA was telling the administration in 2002 that Iraq "already [had] a large stock of uranium oxide…."So, as your link shows, the administration had good reason to mention nuclear weapons development as an area of the Iraqi threat, regardless of Niger's involvement or noninvolvement.
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Post by SeattleDan on Mar 12, 2007 0:46:03 GMT -5
And so what? This is one of the adminstration's talking points. The fact is that the man lied. He lied to people he shouldn't have lied to. I'm willing to believe Sadaam was guilty of many crimes. Worth a war? Worth this war? Worth making our country weaker than it was after 9/11? Worth over 3000 American lives and probably over 20,000 American injured and Lord knows how many will suffer from PTD in the years to come? And how many Iraqis? Well they're the 'raghead", brown people and they don't really count. They're Muslim and hate us anyway. Oh, this is has gone so well and we can think of many excuses. And our care for our injured, our deeply injured soldiers has gone so well. Our compassion runneth over. We outsource our veteran care, and we know how compassionate Corporations are when it comes to caring. Who in hell cares whether or not Sadaam was looking for yellow cake? He DIDN'T get it. He wasn't a threat to anything other than himself.And now he's dead. I'm tired of the spin of trying, weakly, to try any attempt to justify this mess. Bush, I know, is already talking of history making him into some sort of visionary. History will have that judgment, but I truly doubt it will treat him well. Or his cronies. Cheney and Rove are cynical pols, who only care about power and its exercise. They are not good human beings. God help them.
I just re-read 1984 this week. I suggest the same for you all. It's probably been years since you have. Language is everything. Sunday pundit shows show how relevant Orwell is.
End of rant.
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Post by joew on Mar 12, 2007 9:02:54 GMT -5
… Who in hell cares whether or not Sadaam was looking for yellow cake? He DIDN'T get it. … Who cares? All the people who have for several years been making this one of the points they use to denounce GWB. And it turns out our intelligence believed in 2002 that he was not merely trying to get it: he actually had it. Dan, maybe you never cared whether Saddam had or tried to get yellowcake uranium, but a lot of people did. To your broader points, which I have deleted from the quote above: You keep saying that Bush lied (which implies that Blair lied, too, since he was making the same agruments for war), but on the uranium issue, the article gaikate linked shows that he didn't lie about Iraq trying to get the uranium from Niger, when it says that the Iraqi envoy tried to make such a request, but the President of Niger steered the discussion away from the topic. More generally he used forceful rhetoric to make the points which he believed supported his view of the matter. A one-sided presentation, which is what you make when you think a particular decision is the correct one and are seeking to persuade others, is not lying. Was the war a mistake? Clearly, if we had known then what we know now, we should not have gone to war at that point. Knowing what we knew then and believing what we believed then (much of which was what Saddam foolishly led us to believe), we had good reason to go to war. Once we did so, we made mistakes after the initial victory. Better decision-making in the aftermath of the victory over Saddam might well have produced a much better situation today. So what, you may ask. So the present mess is not the necessary result of the initial decision to go to war against Saddam. Basically, Rumsfeld & Co. botched the post-war. The costs of war, above all the costs in human lives and mental and physical health, are reasons to use war only as a last resort when diplomacy fails and the purpose is necessary. If Cheney were running for President, I would not want him to become the Republican nominee. What is more, I don't think he'd have much of a chance of getting the nomination.
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Post by rogesgallery on Mar 12, 2007 15:18:11 GMT -5
Simple question here: Why is it a prosecutable offense for a citizen or official to lie to the FBI yet not a prosecutable offense for the President to lie to the entire non-collusive public?
Short answer: Libby is taking the heat. For more than one item. Arf Arf pant pant wag wag. Fetch Scooter fetch boy.
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Post by joew on Mar 12, 2007 15:42:09 GMT -5
If every false statement by every every officeholder were a felony, it would exercise a considerable chilling effect on discussion of issues of the day. The FBI does not get to vote on the status of those it interviews, but the public gets to vote on the President (indirectly).
BTW, you seem to suppose that Bush has lied. Do you suppose that Helen Thomas was wrong when she said that every president she covered, except Ford, lied? If you accept that she was right, are you as bothered by the other presidents' lies? If not, how do you justify your selective indignation? It's all politics, isn't it?
We all try to elect people who are basically honest, but unless, like Clinton, they lie to prosecutors, we leave it to the public to sort out.
—modified to correct typographical error
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Post by gailkate on Mar 12, 2007 18:33:35 GMT -5
First, I think the yellow cake question is vital to the argument because it was presented as a reason for urgency. Everyone agrees Saddam was an enemy who would have liked to do great harm to us, to Israel, and to Iran. But he didn't have the wherewithal. Taking the time inspectors requested would have proven that. But the Bush administration didn't want to allow any time. That's why the SOTU in 2003 is so important.
Second, and this will change no minds, I think it's important to weigh the significance and damage caused by lies. Clinton was a fool for not saying MYOB and go suck a lemon. He let himself get trapped and tried to avoid public humiliation to his wife and teenage daughter. When I was a kid learning my catechism, that would have been a venial lie. The question should never have been asked.
Clinton's lie cannot be compared to the mortal sin of lying to justify the invasion of a country which not only hadn't attacked us (and the contention that it was linked to Al Quaida was a LIE) or anybody else in years.
I'd have to look this up, but I think Thomas referred to some lies that were withholding of information rather than manufacturing it. Certainly all presidents do that, sometimes wisely and sometimes not. But to intentionally mislead the country in order to start a war - that's a first and it's unconscionable.
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Post by rogesgallery on Mar 12, 2007 20:33:15 GMT -5
I have my doubts that its a first Gail; ie the Civil war. It seems if we are to get into the business of hanging foriegn leaders for their actions then there should be some repercussion in our system for such acts, lest we allow it to become common practice.
The public has not in the past had access to the information that we have at this time and if we are complacent or choose the road of selective ignorance in order to maintain our comunal self esteem; are we not complicit?
Joe? The number of incidence may be debatable but the fact that the administration lied is a widely accepted and informally proven fact. It merely needs to be clarified in a court of law.
Saadam ordered people killed under decree of law. He ordered a wide sweep and execution in the hope of getting the people responsible. I think (correct me if you can) that is exactly what gwb has done only under false pretense. The fact that he would have the audacity to add the phrase "OOPs" in the aftermath seems like poor precident for absolution.
Joe do you consider yourself a Jeffersonian conservative in the respect that you believe that a limited aristocracy is necessary to maintain the decision making process?
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