New WMD Information
 

Another dem lie about the administration and Iraq eposed. I wonder why this is not reported on the mainstream media?

Wilson contradictions leave Democrat senators speechless

July 15, 2004

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Chicago Sun Times

Like Sherlock Holmes' dog that did not bark, the most remarkable aspect of last week's Senate Intelligence Committee report is what its Democratic members did not say. They did not dissent from the committee's findings that Iraq apparently asked about buying yellowcake uranium from Niger. They neither agreed to a conclusion that former diplomat Joseph Wilson was suggested for a mission to Niger by his CIA employee wife nor defended his statements to the contrary.



Wilson's activities constituted the only aspects of the yearlong investigation for which the committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, was unable to win unanimous agreement. According to committee sources, Roberts felt Wilson had been such a ''cause celebre'' for Democrats that they could not face the facts about him.

For a year, Democrats have been belaboring President Bush about 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union address in which he reported Saddam Hussein's attempt to buy uranium from Africa, based on British information. Wilson has been lionized in liberal circles for allegedly contradicting this information on a CIA mission and then being punished as a truth-teller. Now, for committee Democrats, it is as though the Niger question and Joe Wilson have vanished from the Earth.

Because a Justice Department special prosecutor is investigating whether any crime was committed when my column first identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA employee, on advice of counsel I have not written on the subject since October. However, I feel compelled to describe how the committee report treats the Niger-Wilson affair because it has received scant coverage except in a few media outlets. The unanimously approved report said, ''interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD (CIA counterproliferation division) employee, suggested his name for the trip.'' That's what I reported, and what Wilson flatly denied and still does.

Plame sent out an internal CIA memo saying ''my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.'' A State Department analyst told the committee about an inter-agency meeting in 2002 that was ''apparently convened by [Wilson's] wife, who had the idea to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue.''

The committee found that the CIA report, based on Wilson's mission, differed considerably from the former ambassador's description to the committee of his findings. That report ''did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium.'' As far as his statement to the Washington Post about ''forged documents'' involved in the alleged Iraqi attempt to buy uranium, Wilson told the committee he may have ''misspoken.'' In fact, the intelligence community agreed that ''Iraq was attempting to procure uranium from Africa.''

''While there was no dispute with the underlying facts,'' Chairman Roberts wrote separately, ''my Democrat colleagues refused to allow'' two conclusions in the report. The first conclusion merely said that Wilson was sent to Niger at his wife's suggestion. The second conclusion is devastating: ''Rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided.''

The normally mild Roberts is harsh in his condemnation: ''Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the president had lied to the American people, that the vice president had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. . . . [N]ot only did he NOT 'debunk' the claim, he actually gave some intelligence analysts even more reason to believe that it may be true.'' Roberts called it ''important'' for the committee to declare much of what Wilson said ''had no basis in fact.'' In response, Democrats were silent.

I brought this up the other day Flint, got little farfare:( I agree that this is pretty big and Wilson is a disgrace.

Thanks lendaddy! I must have missed it. So many democratic scandals these days that I cannot keep up. So many liberal trolls and multiple identities on here now that I can't get to all of them. Someone must have posted this BBS link on "move-on.org" or some other liberal fantasy site. Seems that liberal strategy is to post using several names to make us think that there are a lot of folks out there that think as they do. LOL.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this (hey it's possible) but does this not paint a picture of sabotage on the part of Wilson and his wife? What do they call that again?

Sure looks pretty darn damaging to me. Tantamount to treason.

It's like I said in the other thread. I have "studied" the left and their mental state/theories for over a year now. I visit countless left leaning sites and message boards (I get similar stuff here, but usually more restrained). Anyway, the left is absolutely convinced of many conspiracy theories and in general believe that republicans in office will do whatever it takes to make money for their friends and themselves(they honestly believe that's our driving force) even if it means underhanded operations. This is, in my opinion, why you are seeing stuff like this from the left more often now, they have convinced themselves that the right has been doing it for years and they are only fighting fire with fire. This is my theory anyway.

at least you guys are saving money going back and forth here and not over the telephone.

anyway, this belongs in the Ultimate BUll$hit thread:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/172479-ultimate-bull-hit-thread.html

I guess one reason this didn't excite anyone is that it was pretty thoroughly covered in another thread.

Wilson's wife's memo proposes that CIA folks might like to interview him because of his familiarity with Nigerian officials.

A week later, the CIA (apparetntly without Plame) decided somebody needed to actually go to Niger and Wilson was chosen. If 1 + 1 needs to = 3 for you guys to get excited, go for it.

Wilson's report included what he read about UN analysis of the forged documents. Somethow this has the committee excited because he didn't see them himself. But the errors in the documents were so egregious, I don't think he had to. And guess what? He was right.

If you look into it, this entire episode is pretty much made up out of scraps of unrelated information piled together to 'excuse' a treasonous action on the part of the white house. Yes, treasonous, since not only Plame, but here operatives' lives were put in danger.

Pray, tell us more, Doktor, of your groundbreaking Study results that precisely describe one half of the populaution!

Tech,

I Think you are glossing over several items here. The report says she "actively campaigned" for wilson to be given the job. Not interviewed, not consulted, given the assignment.

He said, and still says she had nothing to do with it. ???

Putting a newspaper articles info into an official field report (though not saying so) is beyond stupid, and at worst shows his true intentions. His report was to be on what he found, instead he turned it into an editorial on the administrations policies. Stupid and derelict of his duty.

As far as his wife being outted, we get it, again........ It was wrong, but it changes none of his actions.

"Pray, tell us more, Doktor, of your groundbreaking Study results that precisely describe one half of the populaution!"

lol, perhaps I missed an adjective in there. How about extreme left. Fair is fair.

I think this thread would be better titled as 'Old WMD Bull$hit'.

:rolleyes:

Once a agian, a dem calls the president a liar and we find out that the liar was, in-fact the dem. Of course, in his words, he may have "mispoken" so it is ok by the liberals.
As always, they feel the end justifies the means.

I wonder now if they did not actually "out her identity" themselves to try to give the administration a black eye.

I haven't seen the details of the report. What I read was exactly what I wrote: she suggested he consult, (somebody) about a week later decided he should become an "investigator."

This really doesn't add up to very much, if you don't know anything beyond what the right wing media is saying about all this. I'll follow up with a post that attempts to break it all down.

Peeling the onion on the Wilson/Niger/yellowcake affair
 

I heard Rush all hysterical Friday about yellowcake and Iraq's attemps to buy it. Here are some details he didn't discuss.

1. Yellowcake isn't a weapon material. It's unprocessed material with 70-90% uranium oxide. It's so unthreatening that we left stockpiles of even more (550 tons, by some reports) of uranium ore behind in Iraq after Desert Storm.

2. Niger has fairly strict export controls on yellowcake. There is international oversight on its purchase and transport.

3. Niger responded negatively to a '99 trade delegation from Iraq, seeking to upen up more trade between the countries. (Wilson)

4. It's unclear whether there are 400 tons of yellowcake in Niger.

5. It's known that there is a large amount of uranium ore naturally occurring in Iraq that simply has to be mined (over and above the 550 metric tons already mined).

6. There are some allegations that Iran was seeking 400 tons of yellowcake (they have the means to weaponize it) and that they created the 'Iraq' cover story to throw off suspicion. Others have suggdested intelligence sources merely misred "Iraq" for Iran" in reports

7. Enriching uranium requires one of two methods: centrifugal or gas. there is no evidence that a resource for either process exists in -- or is available to -- Iraq.

8. Less than 100 lbs of enriched uranium is derived from each ton of ore.

9. Creating an atomic weapon once they actually obtained enriched uranium may or may not have been within the scientific abilities of Saddam's Iraq.

10. Wilson's report stated that there was no evidence of Saddam attempting to buy uranium from Niger. No one had produced evidence that this was not correct.

11. Wilson, not a CIA operative or trained investigator, apparently included in his report reference to documents that others (IAEA) had publicly pronounced as 'clearly forgeries.'

12. Wilson was suggested as 'somebody to talk to' in a memo from his wife. It is not clear that the CIA intended to send anyone to Niger at that time.

13. When Wilson came in to the CIA offices to talk about what he knew -- in response to the memo -- his wife was briefly in the meeting, but left (indicating to the dispassionate observer that she was not that involved in the whole thing). He said: “She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.” In fact, it's not clear a 'trip' was even planned at that time.

14. About a week later, Wilson was asked to go to Niger.

15. When he came back to make his report, again, his wife was not present at the meeting.

This does not sound like a career politician and a career CIA operative out to sabotage George Bush to me.

I think the administration looks bad for tryiing to create fear over unsuccessful attempts to obtain materials that could not directly be used in weapons, and certainly not in WMDs.

YMMV. Feel free to challenge any of this... I'll be interested in any documents that disagree with the ones I used for this post.

I think the first article does. What is your source and why is it any better than NovaK?

Which of the 15 points is in question?

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

Most of your "points" have no point. Just a bunch of unrelated facts. For example, whether or not there are 400 tons of yellowcake in Niger does not mean that Iraq did not attempt to purchase 400 tons or whatever amount was available. As far as specific numbered points refuted by the initial article, the following is a good example:


From the initial article:

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

So you think yellowcake is a WMD?!

Wow.

I have a bridge to sell you.

"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?