"This is old news"..."Republicans are always living in the past"..."This is all a part of a vast right-wing conspiracy"..."Let's just moveon"..."This is just politics of personal destruction"..."We never landed on the moon"..."Bush knew the hijackers were going to fly planes into the buildings, and so did the Jews"..."Bush stole the election"..."Bush dragged James Byrd to death"..."Can't we all just get along?"

Re: Re: Re: Peeling the onion on the Wilson/Niger/yellowcake affair
 

I didn't say that and you are well aware I didn't so don't try to imply that I did to discredit me. That is downright dishonest and a typical liberal tactic...If you cannot discredit their argument..attack them personally or change the subject.

In fact, I work with nuclear weapons every day for a living as a senior engineer/scientist .... and sit on panels that determine everything from their design features to their testing, movement and storage, so I suspect my graduate education from the Air Force Institute of Technology in that area is as good as yours from that bastion of nuclear technology, ITT.

Keep your bridge, you might need it after November.

I think this NY Post article sizes it up well:

CHENEY WAS RIGHT
By JOHN PODHORETZ

July 15, 2004 -- TODAY'S big story: Dick Cheney was right!
You'll have to read on a bit to find out how and why.

Five days after the Senate Intelligence Committee stated flatly that Bush administration officials didn't pressure CIA analysts to spin intelligence reports on Iraq, an official inquiry chaired by the former chief of Britain's civil service has said the same about British intelligence and Prime Minister Tony Blair's government.

To sum up: Bush didn't lie. Blair didn't lie.

Oh, and both reports agree that Iraq was trying to figure out ways to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa — which Saddam Hussein could only have sought for the purpose of building a nuclear weapon.

As is true of the Senate Intelligence Committee report, the British inquiry (called the Butler report after Lord Butler, who led it) only bolsters the rhetorical posture of those who believed the only reason to go to war with Iraq in 2003 was because Saddam possessed stockpiles of illegal weaponry.

Many of us argued at the time and argue now that Saddam Hussein had to be taken out because he posed a "grave and gathering threat."



The two most important people in the world who made such an argument were Tony Blair and George W. Bush. The words I've just quoted are the president's, who never said Saddam posed an "imminent threat."

Look. If Saddam Hussein had presented an immediate and instantaneous threat to the United States, Bush wouldn't have worked carefully to articulate the premises of the "preemption" doctrine. No nation needs a "preemption doctrine" to protect itself against an imminent threat.

The president and Tony Blair instead argued for a "preemptive" action against Saddam Hussein to take him out before he could do incalculable damage to his neighborhood and to the West. The British inquiry's findings are highly critical of the country's intelligence apparatus, but they support the premises of the preemptive war. Saddam Hussein may not have had stockpiles of outlawed weapons — or at the very least, as Blair said yesterday, he didn't have WMDs "ready to deploy" in case of war, as we had thought.

But whether or not Saddam had destroyed the substantial stockpiles we know for certain he once did have, it seems beyond question that he was hungry to produce more.

Echoing the findings of former chief weapons inspector David Kay, the British report says that Saddam "had the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programs, including if possible its nuclear weapons program, when United Nations inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted. [And] in support of that goal, [Iraq] was carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement activities, to seek to sustain its indigenous capabilities."

He wanted a nuclear weapon. He had tens of billions of dollars at his disposal, courtesy of the corrupt Oil-for-Food program, to make his wishes come true — with more and more to come as the U.N. sanctions against him continued to erode.

Now let's flash back, shall we, to a speech many now consider notorious. That was Vice President Dick Cheney's address on the Iraqi threat on Aug. 26, 2002, which was the opening salvo in the Bush administration's relentless case for removing Saddam from power.

"We know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," Cheney said — words that caused bloggers on the left and others to demand Cheney's resignation last year.

Well, Cheney's argument has now been validated by the findings of both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the British report. The Butler inquiry forthrightly defends the intelligence on Saddam's pursuit of uranium in Africa — just as Blair did last summer after the Bush White House's utterly incomprehensible decision to disavow the 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union address on the matter.

Cheney's August 2002 speech features a serious engagement with and refutation of the arguments against the war.

"I am familiar with the arguments against taking action in the case of Saddam Hussein," Cheney said. "Some concede that Saddam is evil, power hungry and a menace, but that until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons, we should rule out any preemptive action. That logic seems to me to be deeply flawed . . . What he wants is time and more time to husband his resources to invest in ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs and to gain possession of nuclear weapons."

Post-war findings about Saddam's weapons programs and pursuit of uranium offer some validation for Cheney's words.

What these post-war findings do not do — what they can't do — is make an unambiguous case for the preemption doctrine.

An unambiguous case for preemption can never be made once the doctrine is invoked and a preemptive war is fought.

Everybody probably agrees that, theoretically, we should have gone to war against al Qaeda before 9/11 to prevent it from happening.

But if we had done so, we never would have known we had succeeded in saving the lives of 3,000 people. The World Trade Center towers would still be standing, their destruction as unimaginable as it was in the minutes before that destruction occurred.

Instead, there would doubtless be arguments about the "mess" we had made of Afghanistan, and about how there was little or no evidence except for cellphone chatter that al Qaeda really had the capacity to inflict major wounds on the American mainland.

We can never know what the world was spared by the ouster of Saddam Hussein. This fact will always allow skeptics to stand in opposition.

But the findings of both committees really do require skeptics to examine some of their premises. They can say the war was unnecessary, and wrong. They can even say, because of the intelligence failures, that it was fought under false pretenses. I do not think they would be right to say or argue such things, but I can understand how they would do so.

It is now, however, officially and unmistakably beyond the pale to argue that Tony Blair and George W. Bush deceitfully led their countries to war.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Peeling the onion on the Wilson/Niger/yellowcake affair
 

When you say that points you apparently agree on 'have no point' in the context of a thread that strongly implies yellowcake is a WMD, you're difficult to understand.

Points 1-6 and 7 really negate the whole argument about the importance or timeliness of what 'Iraq was trying to do' so how does this not provide context for the whole issure of the reports; how they were used, and that Bush represented something that clearly did not happen, but only was discussed/attempted, concerning non-threatening materials as a threat?

And setting that aside, the initial article came from that sterling, patriotic source that put American lives in jeopardy -- the very guy who 'outed' V. Plame. Novak would say anything at this point to deflect responsibility from his treasonous act. So I reject Novak as a source.

the point of original article was to expose Wilson's lies that were spread by liberals..some on this BBS. but I will address your "yellowcake question. Please explain why you feel that Saddam would attempt to buy yellowcake (at the risk of international censure)if not to make WMD. Did he mistake it for some sort of snack food...ie Twinkies?

I'd hoped you could come up with a real news story, not more propaganda from a guy who admists his prejudice in is op-ed piece.

This 'journalist' also glosses over the fact that Iraq already had yellowcake; has its own uranium ore and has no means of weaponizing it.

The entire tenor of this propaganda piece once again is built on the premise that yellowcake - WMD.

The author offers no evidence whatsoever that Iraq had made overtures to purchasing something it already had, anyway. He offers no support of the Cheney quote he is trying to defend. I don't see how anyone can take this propaganda seriously.

Fint

I do not think tech was in any way trying to discredit you.

I too found your logic difficult to follow on the WMD, and although I do not profess to have any knowledge on the construction of nuclear weaponry, it is only a logical step (in my simple mind) to say that a component that has the potential to be used in a weapon is of limited value if the means of constructing the weapon is not available. So, if raw ore is purchased, and highly refined material is required to construct the weapon, and the ability to refine does not exist, then how can the ore be considered dangerous?

I would have been more concerned about back door sales of nuclear weapons from members of the former USSR.

Would a pile of 150 pound rocks outside a castle without a catapult be considered WMD?

Just thinking out loud.

First, you haven't shown me any "Wilson lies."

You seem to think there's evidence Saddam was seeking yellowcake. Please share that evidence with us -- despite the fact you know it would be near impossible for him to get it -- and that it wouldn't give him "nuclear capability."

The Nigerian officials he spoke to told Wilson they hadn't been approached on yellowcake. The only supporting documents were inept forgeries.

This is such an obvious set-up and attempt to cover up a treasonous act on the part of Novak and someone in the administration, you should be embarrassed by it.

The death toll of coalition forces has passed 1,000 based on this stinking lie about an 'immediate' and 'grave' threat that was made up.

Yet, somehow those 1,000+ lives, hundreds of billions and devastation is all overshadowed by what this guy Wilson said about a memo his wife wrote?

Wow.

you're right, bush the criminal cherry-picked flawed pre-war intelligence to make his case. A weak Congress, made of Democrats , are also partially to blame but bush the criminal is ultimately responsible. His reasons for Iraq has set a very dangerous precedent.
the pre-emptive intentions of ONE MAN, has led this nation to war and killed over 1,000 of our young men/women. how would you feel if you have a son/daughter who has died over an illegal war based on lies/deception and unfound truths?

"imminent threat" , "Saddam has WMD Without a doubt" , "WITHOUT A DOUBT", "Saddam must disarm"

words commonly repeated leading up to the invasion.

I found it easy to follow: fint posts a thread claiming "new WMD evidence" focused on Iraqi attempts to buy yellowcake. Then fint says he knows yellowcake is not a WMD.

His 'evidence source' is a right-wing columnist who is mainly famous for destroying the cover of a CIA operative [and by extension, all agents she was running].

So: no real 'evidence;' no 'WMD.' Simple. Just a mis-named thread.

----------edit-----------

My bad. Fint only said 'information' not 'evidence.'

The Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committe made it very clear that the committe had discovered that Wilson had not only lied, but he had misrepresented information that he had fabricated or read in press accounts as actual information he had uncovered on his "mission". Lying and then misrepresenting officially obtained information to discredit his country and the President seem quite dastardly to me. Particularly at wartime. I think it borders on treason. I fail to see why you support him. I guess, as always....the end justifies the means.

The original point really had less to do with WMD than the fact that Bush had been called a liar because he had stated that Iraq had attemped to buy radioactive material from Africa. All the "building a weapon" info was just an attempt to divert attention away from the simple fact that the very one accusing the President of lying was the one misrepresenting the facts. Now the liberals are circling the wagons again....just like every other time the "lies" that Bush supposedly told were proven to be true and the person who made the charges turned out to be the liar.

If someone piled 150 lbs of rock outside my castle with the intent to build a catpult and launch them at me and my family...I would be pretty darn annoyed with them...even if their efforts to build that catapult failed. In fact, I don't suspect I would wait till the catapult was completed to do something about it. If he were indeed successful, it could be too late.

I haven't seen an alleged Wilson 'lie.'

I have seen that he alleged his wife suggested him as in information source. Others have suggested she did more -- proposing him for a mission.

I haven't seen allegations of a 'lie' in his report.

I don't see the big issue with him discrediting false docments examined by other experts, since the 'falseness' of the documents are obvious.

If you will recall, his report was turned in far in advance (2 years?) of the SotU speech. so I don't see how it was 'to discredit the President.'

Could you clarify these issues?

On Ramp? I notice you like to call Bush a war criminal. Do you serioulsy think he could be convicted of war crimes or do you just like to use inflamitory terms?

although yellowcake by itself may not be considered a WMD, it is still a building block in material that could be used as a WMD

So are steel and aluminum, for that matter.

"So are steel and aluminum, for that matter."

Nice logic...what are the other legitimate uses for yellowcake?

I would like to see some more of this Senate Intell Comm report......Wilson was in Iraq the day before the 91 war. He says in his book he had no axe to grind with the current Bush other than his "lies" in a speech.
Geoff

"He says in his book he had no axe to grind with the current Bush other than his "lies" in a speech."

That might even make sense if they were indeed "lies", but alas we now know they were not. What a pisser for Wilson huh.

Generating electricity?
Ceramic glazes?
Medicine?
Irradiating food?
Pollution detection?